Softening her expression, she swallowed her pride and dropped her voice to a pleading tone. “Please, Jagger. Don’t hurt him.”
But he wouldn’t be moved. “I’m tired of playing these fucking games, Arianne. You know I won’t hurt you, but I have no problem hurting him. None whatsoever. I want the name of the guy who did those things to you, or I’ll start at his ankles and work my way up.
She cast one last, frantic glance at Sparky, but he just gave her a sympathetic shrug and looked away. Zane snorted, amused. Wheels’s face contorted in shared anguish and he looked away.
Damn him. Damn them all. Damn stupid biker culture. How had she misjudged him so badly? How had she fooled herself into thinking he wasn’t like the other bikers she knew? He was as bad as Viper. Maybe even worse.
She spun around and stormed out the door, searching for a weapon. She had her .38 strapped to her leg, but she wasn’t prepared to go that far. Not yet. She grabbed a pool cue from the rack and raced back into the room. Jagger was still in front of Banks, his back to her. She moved quickly, swinging the pool cue before anyone could bark a warning.
“No.” The pool cue whipped over Jagger’s back and split in two with a loud crack, leaving her holding a splintered piece of wood.
Jagger reacted so fast, she barely registered that he had moved. One moment his back was bowing under her strike; the next she was against the wall, the broken pool cue against her throat. His chest heaved, eyes glittered, unseeing.
“Goddamnit.” Banks struggled against his bonds. “Leave her alone. I’m over here if you want a punching bag.”
Arianne glared as the stick pressed against her throat. “That’s right,” she gritted out. “Hurt me. I’m the one who won’t tell you what you want to know. And I can take it. I’ve taken it all my life. There isn’t anything you can do to me that Viper hasn’t already done. Hit me, Jagger. Show me how wrong I was about you. Show me you’re all the same. Do it for the club.”
A curious mix of emotions flickered across Jagger’s face—shock, fear, self-loathing, torment—but no compassion, no love. He hadn’t meant the words he uttered last night. And even if he had, he clearly didn’t know what they meant.
“I will protect you, Arianne. Whether you want it or not.”
Without another glance, he walked over to Sparky and took the bar from his hand. Holding it like a golf club, he touched Banks’s ankle, then raised the bar over his shoulder.
If she had been in that chair, she would have let him hit her. Viper hadn’t just used his fists, and she’d survived, she knew she could survive whatever Jagger dished out. But it wasn’t her in the chair. And just as she couldn’t be the instrument of Jeff’s death, she couldn’t watch someone she cared about suffer on her behalf.
“Jeff.” She screamed the name and ran over to the chair, blocking the bar with her body. “Jeff chased me and hit me. Axle knocked me out. It was Jeff’s idea to go to Bunny. They both took me there. Jeff’s the one who tied me up and chained me to the floor.”
“Who shot you?” His voice held no emotion, no anger, no disappointment. Nothing.
“Jeff had my gun.” Her chin and lips trembled as she gave him away. “He didn’t know what he was doing. He’s an addict. He gets psychotic when he’s tweaking.”
But for the first time, she didn’t feel any conviction for that excuse. Had he been tweaking when he picked her up or decided to sell her for a kilo of meth, or when he caught her in the alley and punched her in the face? There were moments when he’d seemed like himself, when she thought he knew exactly what he was doing. But in the end, did it matter? He was responsible for his actions, and his actions had led to her being tied up in the basement of Bunny’s pool hall.
Jagger made a disgusted sound. “And yet after everything he did, you protected him right to the very last second.”
“I don’t want him dead. He’s my brother. I owe him my life.”
“And my clubhouse? Cole? He was my brother.”
“Jeff said he wasn’t the shooter.”
Jagger tapped the bar in his hand, and the skin on the back of her neck prickled. He wasn’t finished with this. What else did he want?
“Maybe it was you. You’re good on your bike, good with a gun. Hard to believe someone could knock you off. Easy to believe you could take someone out while riding.”
“You fucking bastard.” Banks snarled and struggled against the ropes. “Arianne, get me the hell outta this chair and I’ll teach this betraying piece of shit about honor and loyalty and how to tell a good person from a piece of fucking Sinner crap.”