“Sid is telling the truth,” Bill said. His face was worn with heavy bags and wrinkles. “Sid almost lost his patch over it. But the table decided to move forward. As a sign of respect to you, Jace, we gave you a leather cut. Patched you in. You were on the table anyway for vote but we decided to speed it up. A sign of appreciation.”
“Once Glen finished with you, he went to the store and murdered Jake’s wife,” Sid said. “So the PD was heavily involved. We tried to get as much of the paperwork to go missing or get destroyed but there was only so much. That was another deciding factor. Plus, with the PD chasing him away. And that was right around the time we got pulled into a retaliation war with another club.”
I slammed my hands on the table. I stood up. “Son of a bitch. This prick tried to kill me. He killed Ava’s mother. Fuck. He killed Frank. Killing his number one guy - if that was who Frank was - means he’s scared. I know a way to do this.” I looked around the table. I had never stood like a leader before. Shit, I even had Sid staring at me.
“Go on,” Sid said. “What do you have?”
“What I have to say… it cannot be voted on… it has to just happen…”
chapter twenty-six
(ava)
NOW
“We’re leaving,” Jace said to me.
“Right now?”
“Right now,” he said. “I want to take you home. My house. You don’t need to be here anymore.”
I grabbed his arm. “Hey. What’s going on? We’ve been hiding here for days now…”
“It’s just time, sweetie,” Jace said. “If you trust me like you say you do, then you’ll keep quiet and come with me.”
What else was I supposed to do?
My life kept crumbling by the second and Jace was the only one there to sweep up the pieces and make the world seem right again. He held me when I cried and didn’t ask what was wrong. Which was exactly what I needed. I knew everything in my life had been messed up but I didn’t realize how bad. And while I wanted to be angry with my father, he was the one in a hospital bed, suffering. Maybe in some fucked up way the universe got its revenge on him for me.
All I could think about though was staying alive. That I had a secret brother who was hell bent on killing me. The guy that killed my mother. The guy that tried to hurt Jace. All my feelings for Jace were based off bad things happening to us.
So I followed Jace through the clubhouse and out the door.
I climbed onto the back of his motorcycle.
I slid my hands around his body and held tight as we sped away.
Jace rode back to his house and took my hand as we walked inside. All my days and weeks had gotten so jumbled together and I had this feeling as though me and Jace had been together for a long time.
He pulled me right to his bed.
We crashed to the bed, me almost on top of him. He kicked off his boots and ran his hands down my body to my lower back. I touched his face, digging at his scruff. He was chiseled and beautiful as a man. The killer I used to see in his eyes was now replaced with a protector. With a lover. With so much more.
I leaned in a kissed him.
Then again.
And again.
I ran my hand down his chest, knowing right where I wanted to go.
But Jace stopped me.
“Fuck, sweetie, we have to talk,” he said. “The reason why I wanted out of there.”
“I love talking to you, Jace, but the subject matter usually sucks.”
“Yeah, this is going to suck,” he said and grinned.
“How bad?”
“Glen.”
“No. I don’t want to hear that name.”
I started to slither away but Jace grabbed me. Kept me close to him.
“Listen to me. We have to finish this thing. We have to end it for good here. There’s no other choice.”
“Your version of end it doesn’t mean him going to jail, does it?”
“No.”
“You’re going to kill him.”
Jace gritted his teeth. “Sweetie, the right thing has to be done. He murdered your mother. I want that wound closed for good for you.”
“Closing a wound doesn’t stop the pain.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Jace said. “But you can heal. You can scar. You can have the memory. And I want to be the man that holds you when you’re in pain. But I want you to feel something knowing that he received the right kind of justice.”
The words were so honest and powerful. I believed everything Jace said. Call me crazy. Maybe I was falling in love with him. But when he said that to me, I believed him. Every. Single. Word.
I kissed his leather jacket, right at his heart.
“Okay. Go on.”
“We kept the clubhouse on somewhat of a lockdown,” Jace said. “That’s why you weren’t allowed to split. We needed you safe. We were out trying to track down Glen. We found him.”
My heart pounded. “What?”
“We’ve been breaking up gambling and drugs for years. Sometimes we hand it over to the PD to deal with. Sometimes we take it on ourselves. If the cash is big, we want it. The last thing we did fucked up everything for Frank. That’s why Frank was taken out. Sid called Glen and we’re settling this.”
“He agreed?”
“This is where you’re going to hate me, sweetie,” Jace said.
“Why?”
“Remember when you said you’d do anything?”
“Sure.”
Jace touched my face and moved hair behind my ear. “Sweetie, we offered Glen a truce. He’s going to take back half the money. The other half we’re keeping as a warning. But there’s one more factor.”