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“My mother. January West.”
“You’re her little bastard son?” Grant says, taking a step backward toward the door. “Figures. A beautiful piece in this whole thing to hold it together. Once your friends are taken care of and the police get here?—”
“You think the cops are coming? Your call was intercepted, man. You touched Scarlett. I won’t let you fucking walk.”
“I can?—”
“Grant, shut up,” Dale says. “Uncuff me.”
The man’s gaze is on me, I can feel the fucking burn. “Uncuff him, Grant. I’m not killing someone who’s cuffed.”
“No!”
I close my eyes a moment, regret lancing through me. Fucking Scarlett.
“Get out, Scarlett.”
“No. What are you doing, Malone? Please. Please don’t.” Her voice breaks and something in me crumbles.
I have to do this. I have to.
“My mother suffered at his hands,” I say. “He raped her.”
Scarlett moves in, and Orion stands at the door, watching.
Smith must have taken Amelia because he’s not here. But Orion is. Backup, witness, whatever. Neither he nor Mercer would talk me down from this. They’ve lost like I have. I don’t know specifics; we don’t talk about that shit. But loss recognizes loss. Wounds attract another.
It’s why we ended up as Knights.
Not the money or the thrills or the reasons to right wrongs, take out low-life fuckers. We do it to try to assuage our wounds, our demons.
Payment is doing an illegal job under the cover of near-perfect immunity.
We can still go down. But it would take a lot. Beyond most.
I’m talking law, not by a knife or a bullet or some other kind of weapon. We bleed and suffer and die. We just happened to be skilled.
What I’m doing isn’t about skill.
It’s revenge.
Ice-cold, ready to be served.
And fuck… Scarlett. I want… I need… I want to protect her. I want to save her heart and soul and…
I don’t think I can do it.
Because I love her.
A useless, dangerous thing, love. And there’s no future for us.
My hand starts to shake, and so I bring the other one up and clap it over my shaky one, pointing my gun at the uncle. Because Christ, I want to fucking kill them both.
I waver back and forth, not sure if I can live with myself if I kill him, not sure if I can live with myself if I don’t. I do know Scarlett’s shattered heart will haunt me if I do. And?—
“Please, if you care for me at all, Malone, please don’t. My father isn’t… he isn’t a rapist. Dad? Dad?” Her voice rises, and I grit my teeth.
“Do not fucking move, asshole,” I say to Grant as he tries to slip away after unlocking the cuffs. “You touched her. Bruised her.”
