My eyes landed on a silver-framed photo of him and Inès that stood on his desk. My throat tightened.
The photo had to be recent, judging from his appearance. She had aged well, but the drug use had worn out her edges, her face really thin, her cheekbones jutting out. She beamed a brittle smile under her dramatic makeup. Her skinny body, wrapped in a sparkly tight dress was pressed against his. Her dark hair was cut below the chin at some strange angle, diamonds on her ears, her arm thrown around Alejandro’s neck. All glamour, all glitz. The fucking red carpet.
There were several other photos of the two of them, some casual others formal, a number of portraits of her. Lots of portraits of her.
She had made her choice.
“Que en paz descanse,” I said under my breath. I hoped she was at peace now.
Had she been happy, really happy? Who the fuck knew?
I didn’t think she’d even known, but she’d certainly chosen a different ride from the one I’d offered. Calderone had loved her, and judging from the photos, she’d seemed to enjoy it while it lasted.
She’d made a life for herself.
Had I?
Or was I only pieces patched together by a leather vest?
My focus remained on the first photo, but her sultry dark eyes faded in my line of sight, and there were only Jill’s eyes.
Jill’s exuberance over simple things—finding the right brand at the supermarket, enjoying the flavor of a cheeseburger, singing along to a rock tune in my truck, laughing at a stupid television commercial, or tearing up when Becca would try a new food she had previously resisted and actually liked it. Yeah, exuberance when she watched me swinging off my bike, when she watched me going down on her—that was fucking real.
“I love you,” I’d told her.
Even though she hadn’t said it back, I knew she felt it, too, but hers was buried under a pile of should-dos, would-dos, hoped-tos, maybe one-days.
I didn’t have that jungle of vines blocking my way. Since I’d arrived in South Dakota and become a Jack, I’d always been about the now.
I had told her I loved her, and I was proud of that. If that were the one thing I’d left her with, wouldn’t that somehow ease the sting for her? It did for me. It did. No fucking regrets.
My Firefly.
“But some things, really beautiful things, you can’t hold on to forever, can you?”
No, you can’t.
It was time for me to open the lid on that jar.
Be free, baby. Fly.
I knew, by the end of this day, there was a bullet just for me. Would it be in the forehead? The neck? In my stomach so that I could suffer, just for old times’ sake? Or a clean one to the heart?
But my heart was full with something other than blood, something not even a bullet could drain.
Not even a fucking bullet.
Alejandro’s personal bodyguard handcuffed me, took me down to the underground parking lot, and threw me in the back of a van, my face smashed into a scuzzy rubber mat. Another smaller man bent over me and shot me up with something to knock me out. I caught sight of my bike in the parking garage, standing tall in the distance, as the van doors slammed shut on me.
The van doors unhinged, swinging open, and my eyes unglued. We weren’t in Denver anymore. Nothing but flat, dry earth. I’d been out for hours, judging from the sun.
“What did you bring him here for?” Notch, the president of the Broken Blades, studied me, his lips curled into a snarl.
Two Blades lifted me out of the van and threw me onto the ground.
Should I kiss Nebraska soil? Nah.
“Listen to me, eh?” Alejandro’s eyebrows hopped up and down, his eyes twitching.
Being the grande head-honcho must be stressful.
“We’re going to do this here. I can’t afford to get caught with a dead body and blood on my cuffs right now. Things are tight in Denver.”
“Oh, yeah?” Notch took a deep drag on his cigarette.
“Here, you and I can have some fun with him.”
Notch sucked on his teeth. “What kind of fun?”
“Set him free on this God awful prairie to run like a wild turkey, and shoot at him. I like that idea. I need to be entertained. It’s been a long drive.”
Two Blades pulled me up on my feet, and I staggered, still woozy from whatever shit they had given me in the van. I licked at my dry lips, but it didn’t help. The nuzzle of a gun poked at my back, and I flinched away from it, my body stiffening, my joints sore. The sun beat down on me. Pain prickled my eyes as I tried to focus on the open, flat stretch of land before me, but the ground only wobbled in the haze.
Notch snorted as he glanced at me and then back at Alejandro. “You really want to do this?”