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I killed his brother, and now I’m going to pay for it.

38

HARLOE

A tear slips down my cheek. I’m so numb that I’m surprised I feel the cool path it leaves behind.

“Feeling guilty now?” Jackson grins, pure evil in his eyes. “Good. That’s what you get for killing Dex.”

“He killed my mom.” It’s nearly a whisper.

“She got what she had coming to her. She shouldn’t have talked back or fought it. Dex never responded well to women who tried to tell him what to do.”

My stomach twists, and I might bend over and vomit. My head is spinning. Bile rises in my throat.

“Why now?” I manage to say, tears burning behind my eyes. “This was a decade ago. I didn’t even know he died.”

His eyes gleam. “Because now you’re back. Do you think I didn’t ride through after everything happened to find the bitch who killed my brother? I did, but you were gone.”

Because I ran.

Because I couldn’t be here anymore.

Jackson squats in front of me again. “I would have tracked you down, but small towns protect their own, and I couldn’t get a hit on where you went. Then I had other things to do. My club needed me. I thought maybe I’d never get the chance to resolve this unfinished business until Steel put out the call for Ironside Ridge. It was fate giving me a second chance. Sending me here so I could wait for you to return. Except as soon as you did, you got engaged to him.”

Jackson points the gun at Zander again. Zander blinks his eyes open but doesn’t seem to be registering much of what’s going on.

“I thought maybe I could brush it under the rug—at least until my deal with Zander was settled. I didn’t need something like him grieving a dead fiancée changing our deal. Except we never really had a deal. He was fucking me over. And by the time I figured it out, I was on the side of the road, being medevaced out of here. But I wasn’t done. The second I got out of the hospital, I found my way back. Even if all my other plans went to shit, I was going to make sure you paid for what you did to Dex.”

“I didn’t even know he was dead.” I don’t know why I say that when Jackson clearly won’t listen.

He backhands me across the face again, and black spots dot in the corners of my vision. If only he knew that night destroyed me too. Not that he’d care.

“Doesn’t matter what you know; it’s what you did,” Jackson seethes. “And now you’re working your way into my club. Shane’s too infatuated with your pussy to see what you really are, but I see you.”

My throat burns as Jackson paces back and forth. There’s nothing to say. No explanation he’ll accept. It was self-defense, and after what Dex did, he deserved it. But I don’t dare say any of that.

Jackson is just like his brother. Sick. Twisted.

And he’s going to kill me.

Something creaks outside, and Jackson’s head snaps to the door. My attention sweeps to Zander, who is barely conscious. When another sound comes from outside, Jackson hurries over to me.

“Someone is always rushing me,” he mumbles, cutting the rope that binds me to the post and pulling me to my feet.

My hands are free, but my feet aren’t, so I almost fall. He presses the barrel of the gun to my head and hides behind me, making it clear what he’ll do if I try to get away.

“Come out, Shane. I know you’re there.” Jackson’s voice is a singsong of amusement.

Movement shifts in the darkness, and Shane slips out of the shadows with his gun aimed at Jackson.

“You won’t risk shooting her, will you?” Jackson presses the barrel to my head even harder. Shane’s jaw tics when I wince.

He came for me.

Even after everything I said, he came for me.

“Let her go.” Shane’s voice is deathly cold as he steps forward, but Jackson chuckles.