Four Score

One

“Juliette. Juliette.”

Jase’s mouth on mine, drowning out my little sobs, forcing quiet my sighs. Kissing me like he wants to devour me.

The way he keeps repeating my name. My real name.

Part of me wants to surrender completely, to melt into his arms and stay there forever, but another part of me, screaming inside my head, needs to know how he found out? How the hell did he figure out who I am?

An image of Dornan flashes into my mind and I momentarily cringe. He’s in a coma, so I’m safe for the moment. But I need to know how Jase discovered my secret, and if anyone else in the club knows.

I have to know if I need to disappear, before someone else makes me vanish … permanently.

Jase’s rough fingers skate along my collarbone, as his lips continue to press against mine, greedy and sweet. I’m crying and he’s crying and it’s like all of my dreams and all of my nightmares have been realized in one messy, beautiful moment.

I’m elated. I’m devastated. But mostly, I am afraid.

With shaking hands I manage to push him back so that we are eye to eye. I’m still crying, and his eyes are shining, too. I’m sitting on the concrete, my legs out in front of me. Jase kneels and straddles me.

That’s when I see it, that first spark of anger light up on his face. I see it seep into his relief, probably even before he knows it’s there. His mouth twitches—his lips are still damp from mine—and his smile slowly fades as we continue to stare at each other.

I knew it would come. I was waiting for it, but seeing it there makes me so incredibly sad.

He stands, offering a hand out to me. I take it, my legs aching as he hauls me back to my feet. My ears are ringing from the bomb blast back at his grandfather’s house and I’m dizzy. I step back, letting go of his hand, and lean on the trunk of his car.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he growls through clenched teeth.

I tear my gaze away from him, looking out to the street beyond the crumbling walls of the hospital parking lot.

“Julz?” he snaps.

I turn my eyes back to him and shrug. “Because you would have made me stop. And I can’t stop until it’s finished.”

“You could die,” he says, his hands balled into fists. “We both could. I thought you were already dead, for Christ’s sake. And you’re here, tempting fate a second time?”

I set my jaw stubbornly. “It’s too late to think about things like that.”

He steps forward, his fingers wrapping around my wrist. “We have to go,” he says. “You need to get away from here before anyone in the club figures out what the hell you’ve done.”

He pulls at my arm but I don’t budge, and that’s when things get really fucking scary.

“No,” I say.

“What?”

“I want to see him,” I say, shrugging his hand away.

He roars in frustration, completely invading my personal space as he presses himself against me, pinning me to the car again. It shouldn’t scare me because this is what I expect. It’s what I deserve — his wrath, his fury — so it shouldn’t scare me, but for some inexplicable reason, it does.

“What is wrong with you?” he hisses. “You want to see him?”

I push at his chest angrily, but he doesn’t budge. If I had heels on, I’d stomp on his foot to get him to back up, but I’m barefoot and covered in a fine film of dust and debris, thanks to Elliot’s bombs in Dornan’s gas tank.

“Back up,” I say. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

He just smirks, continuing to hold me. “You haven’t changed a bit,” he bites out, his eyes ablaze. “You’re still as fucking stubborn as you were the day I met you.”

The day I met you. I can’t let my mind go there right now. I just can’t.

“Get off me or my knee gets real intimate with your dick,” I threaten, taking my fingers and squeezing them around his wrists, digging my fingernails in deep enough to draw blood.

He doesn’t even flinch.

“You don’t want to hurt me,” he says. “I can see it on your face, Juliette. You won’t hurt me to get to him.”

“I don’t want to,” I say, continuing to dig my nails into his flesh. “Doesn’t mean I won’t.”

“Juliette!” he barks. “Quit it! Just get in the goddamn car and give up your little vendetta for two seconds!”

I open my mouth to say no, but before I can, movement catches the corner of my eye. I turn my head to the left, where a sea of cars spread out beside the hospital building, and fight the urge to scream.

There’s a guy standing there, watching us.

A guy wearing a leather cut.

A goddamn Gypsy Brother.

Jase steps back quickly as he notices the guy, his fingers firmly around my forearm. I wince as he squeezes hard, and I sincerely hope that it’s a stronghold designed to protect me rather than to imprison me.

“Juliette?” the guy sneers, coming closer. “John Portland’s Juliette? Bullshit. That dead little whore was a blonde.”

I open my mouth before I can even think about denying it. “It’s called hair dye, motherfucker.”

His mouth curls up into an ugly grimace, and he raises his eyebrows in an amused expression. “Oh yeah. Now I recognize you. John’s little bitch. You look pretty fuckin’ good for a dead girl.”

My father’s name on his mouth is like blasphemy. Bile rises in my throat and my thoughts begin to race as it becomes very clear that I’m no longer in control of this situation.

He knows. He’s going to kill me.

I don’t have a weapon. I don’t even have fucking shoes. My ears are ringing from the blast, and I’m cold and tired and hungry, and this fucker knows.

“Jimmy,” I address my father’s traitorous friend with so much vitriol, I can practically see it floating in the air between us.

His steel-capped boots crunch on the leaf-littered concrete as he approaches us. Jase has eased away from me, and we stand side by side. I sneak a glance at Jase and am surprised to see him eyeing me smugly.

That worries me. Does he know something that I don’t?

Did he know Jimmy was going to be here?

Whose side is he on, anyway?

“Let me guess,” Jimmy says, his footsteps getting closer. “You’ve got something to do with this little disaster. Dirty bombs in fuel tanks, really? That’s a low blow, killing a man when he’s riding.”

I narrow my eyes, inching closer to Jase. “It’s a low blow killing a man for trying to leave.”

Jimmy laughs, a throaty noise that reverberates around the cavernous parking lot.

“That’s not why he was killed,” Jimmy replies, “and we all know it. You take something that doesn’t belong to you, and you pay the price.”

I roll my eyes. “If you’re talking about Mariana—”

“I’m talking about the fucking money,” he spits, only three steps separating us now. “I’m talking about him trying to take Dornan’s son.”

He flicks his gaze over to Jase, a look of distaste evident as he assesses him.

Which is when I act.

I don’t even think. I react to the small window of opportunity I’ve been given. Without tearing my gaze from Jimmy, I wrench my arm free from Jase’s grip and reach my hand into the back of his waistband. I pluck the gun from the space between his warm skin and denim jeans, and raise it to Jimmy’s smug face.

The smug look vanishes from his face, only to be replaced by bitter loathing. I smile cruelly, the gun heavy in my steady hand.

“You always were too slow, Jimmy. That’s why they made you low rank, remember?”

Jibing him about his low status in the club despite his years of service works an absolute charm. I can practically see the steam billowing from his ears.

I place my finger on the trigger of the gun. “Reckon you can close your eyes before I blow your head off?” I ask him, a shit-eating grin plastered on my face. Jimmy’s lip curls up, and he opens his mouth to say something when I’m violently slammed against the car by the one person I thought would back me up.

Fuck.

I haven’t been watching Jase, and that’s my foolish mistake. Before my finger can pull the trigger, he tackles me, one arm around my throat in a headlock, the other hand wrenching the gun from my grip. I hold on as long as I can, but my battle is futile. He’s got sixty pounds or more on me, and he’s much stronger than I am. He forces my wrist back painfully and I open my grip with a frustrated cry, my heart ripped into a million shreds as I realize Jase is not on my side.

He’s against me.

I love him. I fucking love him! And he’s got me pinned over the hood of his car, his hard chest locking me in place as I struggle against his grip.

Fuck.

“Stop struggling,” he commands, and I do. Not because I want to obey him. But because I may as well conserve my energy.

All the fight goes out of me and I let myself go limp. Seemingly satisfied, he lets go of me, steps back and shoves the gun back in his waistband, clicking his fingers at Jimmy. I slowly straighten, my back still resting on the car.

“Give me your gun, Jimbo,” he says. “I gotta take this bitch and get rid of her.”

Jimmy looks at Jase incredulously. “You have a gun.”

Jase gives him a withering look. “It’s registered. Yours isn’t.”

Jimmy looks at Jase for a moment, apparently undecided as he hovers his hand over his shoulder holster.

Jase looks impatient. “Jimmy! I’ll swap you, OK?” He pulls his gun out and shoves it into Jimmy’s hand, clicking his fingers again. “Come on. I’d let you have a go at her, but someone might see. Come with me and I’ll let you fuck her before I shoot her.”

Bitter tears bite at my eyes as those words come out of his mouth. I’ve never felt so betrayed in my entire existence. This isn’t him. This isn’t the boy who risked his own life fighting against his father’s grip as his brothers took turns destroying me.

In this moment, I’ve never felt so devastated. It was all for nothing.

Jimmy’s eyes light up at that as he withdraws his gun and slaps it in Jase’s open palm. “You got yourself a deal,” he says, taking the gun and approaching me. I consider trying to run, but I know from experience that bullets are faster than any feet.

He brings the gun up to my face and uses it to brush my stringy hair aside. Sadness is replaced by pure and utter hatred, and if looks could kill, he’d be on the ground dead right now.

“I know how to go slow,” he says, chuckling. “I’ll fuck you real slow before you get your bullet, little Julie.”

“You haven’t seen your dick in twenty years, Jimmy,” I spit, poking his round belly with the tip of my finger. “But good luck with that.”

Jimmy slaps me across the face with his free hand, hard enough that I taste blood on my tongue.

“Same smart mouth,” he says to both of us. “But she looks totally different. You sure this is John’s girl?”

Jase snorts. “Slut got a makeover.”

I shrink back as Jimmy presses me against the car, his foul breath warm and sour on my face. He snakes his free hand down between my legs and cups it there, squeezing firmly.

“You got real pretty, Julie,” he says, bringing that hand up to squeeze my breast. It’s the one Dornan bit, and I wince.

“And you got real—” I don’t get to finish my sentence, because there’s a deafening blast right in front of me, and suddenly Jimmy isn’t there. I mean, he is, but he’s got a bullet in the side of his head and bits of him have splattered onto my face and arms. As if in slow motion, he topples to the ground, his eyes wide open and a river of dark red blood gushing from his temples. Looks like the bullet went in one side of his head and clean out the other.

Bitter drops of liquid cling to my tongue and I retch painfully. His blood. His blood is in my mouth. I vomit violently beside his body, choking on acidic saliva.

Tastes like shit, but it’s better than his blood, at least.

I turn my head to see Jase talking at me, but I can’t hear him. It’s at that moment I realize I’ve been completely deafened by the blast of the gunshot. I watch his mouth move, as he shakes me and makes animated gestures with his hands.

You’re an excellent actress. His words, from before, come back to me in the night.

A wry smile spreads across my face as I begin to understand what he’s done. Killed a Gypsy Brother. For me. The words escape my mouth before I can stop myself.

“You’re an excellent actor,” I say, barely able to hear myself speak as I sway on my feet.

Jase blinks and stares at me with a look so scathing, it makes my stomach turn.

“Who says I was acting?” he growls, and I only know that’s what he’s saying because I’m watching his lips move.

The smile on my face is still spreading wider as everything goes black and I pass the fuck out.