by Jamie Magee
When they assembled at the Boneyard to figure out who needed to be protected and why, they found nothing but more questions. As far as they could see, Reveca wasn’t even there. Talon and Thrash had ridden out to find her, thinking she was tending GranDee’s garden and ran into trouble.
Rage was the emotion Shade owned when he discovered, of all the times, Gwinn chose now to leave the Boneyard, and apparently she did so on the back of King’s bike. Before he completely lost his shit he understood Adair was driving the bike, which of course made Judge lose his cool.
It was Star who told them that Reveca had said to send a van in a few hours to Adair’s place to get the things they’d packed.
Rush, Shade, and Judge rode out, while Taurus followed behind in the van. They found the girls’ things at Adair’s all packed up. While the guys loaded up what was there so they could haul ass as soon as they found Adair and Gwinn, Judge made his way to the Cauldron—he didn’t get very far before panic hit him hard in the chest.
Out of the blue Judge had gotten a vision. He’d seen Talley attack, Adair run, Gwinn protect them—what the man said to Adair as he approached, calling her a whore—a destined mother to a God.
He knew exactly where the vision was.
Judge didn’t even bother to explain; he just mounted his bike and took off, weaving through the blocks. Shortly after, he found himself in Adair’s old courtyard. There was an older couple outside arguing that it was not a gunshot that went off but a car backfiring and before that it was distant thunder—exactly what Judge didn’t need to hear right then.
He took the stairs three at a time. Shade and Rush had taken off as soon as they saw Judge bail—as Judge climbed the stairs they’d roared into the courtyard and were right on his heels not caring who saw them move as fast as they were.
The second Judge opened the door hell descended on earth. He saw Adair leaning into Dagan’s hand, and her eyes closed in bliss. He didn’t even pay attention to the man on the floor, instead he charged forward.
Dagen let him get one good slug in before he grinned and put up a barrier of vim Judge couldn’t get through. The arguing and screaming started then, all coming from Judge. Dagen maintained his half smirk as he stared Judge down.
When Shade had stepped in the door the man on the ground sat up, and Shade decided that knocking him out first and asking questions second was the best way to go about things, which is precisely what he did.
Gwinn was yelling, telling the boys Talley had been there, that she and Adair made him vanish, and Dagen saved them from the man on the floor—all her explanation did was piss them off all the more.
It was when Rush charged in that Adair found some clarity. She hadn’t really seen the fight between Judge and Dagen or heard Gwinn—she was too zoned out in the vim rush Dagen’s touch had given her—but the second she saw Rush a sea of even more memories came to her. She had seen him here, remembered him coming in and out of the door a million times, bringing coffee, dinner, whatever. He was always hip-to-hip with Talley.
All at once Adair’s entire life felt like a lie to her, and Rush was the one poisoning her mind with those deceits, backing them up every chance he had—every single time Adair questioned the obvious.
Crazed anger soared through Adair as she charged forward and started to beat her fist into his chest, daring to raise her gun.
“You fucking bastard! What did you do to my head! What did you do?”
A million conspiracy theories were rushing through Adair’s mind. More than once she had caught Jade and Rush speaking quietly—for all she knew right then Jade had hexed her and her family. And Rush, of all people, backed her up. The idea of it was absurd to her, that he would hurt his own brother, but right then, anything wicked was possible as far as Adair was concerned.
Rush let her hit him a few times. It wasn’t anything new. When she let grief get the best of her she usually struck out with her fists, especially if she had found grief at the bottom of a bottle, which usually happened when Finley or Talley’s birthday would roll around, along with any major holiday.
Suddenly, Adair leaned down and pulled her other gun out of her boot then stepped back, aiming both of them at the loft full of men that any sane soul would be justifiably intimidated of.
“Adair,” Rush said, raising his hands.
“Don’t Adair me,” she said as pain flared in her eyes. The brief clarity Dagen’s touch had given her had done nothing but rip her open; just then she felt invincible and pissed off. “What did you do to me?” she demanded. When Rush went to speak she lifted a brow. “Don’t you fucking lie to me.”
Shade pulled Gwinn behind him, not trusting the situation and knowing he couldn’t handle seeing another wound on Gwinn.
Dagen and Judge were still at a tense stand off but the sound of Adair’s voice had stolen Judge’s attention. Dagen kept his daring stare on Judge, not to be a threat but so he would feel the pressure to speak up. Dagen was all for the male code, let your boy handle his business, but he wasn’t known to keep his mouth shut when he knew something was fucked.
Adair was beyond starved. Dagen had serious doubts that if he passed her on the streets he would have recognized she was born of King’s vim.
“Adair you need to calm down,” Rush said, moving forward. “You’re going end up with another migraine if you don’t chill the fuck out.”
Adair gripped her guns tighter. “My family. They were my only family. What did you do to me? What’s wrong with Talley?”
“Adair, nothing. Nothin’ that was not for your own good.”
“My own good!” she raged. “You fucked with my head—are you admitting it?” She lifted her chin. “What did Jade give you to cross your own blood?”
Her words might as well have slapped him. Rush hated Jade, hated that the Club had to basically pay her for her silence when it came to Adair.
Somehow she had spelled herself against any mind game Thames could put on her—leaving killing her the only other option when it came to silence, something Reveca would not do unless the scales of Karma gave the go ahead. It was dangerous to kill a witch without cause.
The woman didn’t pay a dime for the space the Cauldron used, which Reveca outright owned, yet she still paid Adair next to nothing—and she was not shy when asking for protection or help from the Club. She was a bold witch who knew her days were numbered, one way or another.
Adair aimed a gun at Judge as well. “You. You know my dog. How? How come I know I saw you playing in that courtyard with her when she was weeks old?”
How come I can hear your voice say Dove perfectly?
If this were any other situation Judge would have already looked in Adair’s mind, figured out her next play and this would be over.
“Someone better start talking,” Adair demanded.
Judge kept his silence, his mind moving back to before this hell, to that all too transitory time in his life when he understood all the shit he had lived through was worth it if he was meant to find her ages down the road.
Adair turned her glare back to Rush. “I saw her. I remembered Finley here. She was bleeding. What did you do?”
“Adair, it was accident,” Rush said as calmly as possible.
“Bull. Shit. Talley lost it days before he died. I know he did. He’s the reason this loft looks like shit. Finley was bleedin’. And I wake up in a hospital and was told I was in a wreck.” She took in a sharp breath. “Did you kill ‘em? Is that it?”
Rush swallowed, noticeably fighting his own emotions. It wasn’t easy to know that he did, in fact, help destroy his own brother.
“You did. You killed him and you did something to my head—you fucked my life.”
Rage, grief, and misery filled Rush’s hard gaze. “It’s not like it sounds. Adair, I swear to you. It had to happen.”
Adair charged forward but then remembered to hold her gun on Judge, too. “Not what it sounds like? He’s back, Rush. I don’t give a fuck if you believe me or not—th
at right there is not natural. Something jacked happened and you know what it is—you put me in a fucking cage. Told me I was insane all these years—that I had never lived anywhere else—that I had never been to the Boneyard. You lied to me. And now this nasty fuck is trying to rape my ass, sic Talley on me like some sacrifice,” Adair said, nodding to the man on the floor.
The calm look on Rush’s face turned lethal. “Do what now?”
Judge moved forward, too, aimed to kill the man the same way he had killed Talley. It was Dagen who stopped him. “Won’t figure much out that way,” he said under his breath.
“Fuck you,” Adair raged at Rush. “Don’t even act like you care. I handled it, like I handle everything. He’s going to keep coming back until he gets what he wants—and thanks to your almighty ‘asshole’ ways I don’t know what that is because I can’t remember shit.”
Rush went to speak but she wouldn’t let him. “She was my only family—do you understand that? Only. I had no one else. How cruel can you be? Why would you take any memory from me? Any moment I had with her—you have no right.”
Her words hurt Rush. He had tried, he really had, to be her family, to fill her gaps, but she wouldn’t let him. “You don’t need to remember what happened that night, you don’t want to,” Rush said, daring to step forward.
Adair stepped back but kept her aim. “Finley was going to fix him, she knew how. You and your entire arrogant-big-bad warrior attitude surely fucked that up. Now look.”
All the Sons glanced at one another, then back to Adair.
“You think I’m insane,” Adair accused.
“No, we don’t,” Rush said, but his tone was too soft for Adair’s comfort. He was an asshole by nature and didn’t know how to be tender. The fact he was at that moment assured Adair he thought she needed a one-way ticket to the nut house.
She was close to agreeing with him. More and more images were coming to her—all fragmented, all words she couldn’t comprehend under the duress she was enduring.
Little Dove…
“What do you mean she was going to fix him?” Rush asked.
“Like I would tell you,” Adair said with a sneer. She knew Talley wasn’t a fan of the witch side of Finley and neither was Rush. Finley never taught her magic around them, or encouraged her to use it. She’d always said each understands the power within their own way.
“It’s important,” Rush grated.
“Like fucking with someone’s head isn’t. Did you kill her, too?”
Anger came to Rush’s expression. He was done with being sweet. “How was she going to fucking fix him?”
“Fuck off. You’re a murderer.”
Rush didn’t deny it, and it crushed Adair.
“Out,” Judge said in a broken voice. He couldn’t bear it anymore, the pain in her eyes; it was worse than what he walked in on years ago. He couldn’t handle Rush stoically taking the blame for all of this. He was just as much a victim as Adair.
“Now,” Judge said, louder. He glanced at Dagen. “Take that bike back to your boy.”
Dagen smirked, walked over to the unconscious man on the floor, and picked him by the collar. “You can take that up with him, not me. Good luck.” And with those words Dagen vanished with the man.
Adair gasped in shock, and rocked back on her heels.
Rush left without another word, punching the wall as he did so.
Shade urged Gwinn to go. But she refused and when she did, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, which made Adair lose it. She went to rescue Gwinn, but Judge never gave her the chance. Within one breath he had crossed the room and had disarmed her.
Before Adair could process what happened, Shade had left with Gwinn who stopped her protest the second they were outside. One glance to the doorway told Adair she had a good reason to stop arguing. Shade’s lips were on hers and he had Gwinn’s body wrapped around his.
Adair’s skin was slick with sweat—the room was sweltering, her chest was rising and falling rapidly, she couldn’t breathe, and she was sure she had finally lost it. Nothing was as it appeared and no one was who they seemed to be.
Judge calmly put both her guns in the back of his waistband and stared down at her. He still couldn’t break into her mind, understand what she was thinking, and that was bullshit as far as he was concerned. Of all the souls on the planet, he needed to understand this one. If he had been able to years ago there was no telling where they would all be today.
An angry tear spilled out of Adair’s glistening emerald eyes. Judge couldn’t stop himself from reaching to wipe it away. When she flinched and closed her eyes, he was sure his soul ripped open.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, in a quiet whisper.
Looking at Judge was agony for Adair and she had no idea why. There was so much grief in her heart and for some reason she sensed it was his absences that had caused some of it. “And why should I trust you? How do I know you didn’t help Rush murder Talley, that you didn’t kill Finley—how do I know your MC is not straight up evil?”
“I didn’t kill Finley,” he said steadily, not prepared to lie to her.
Adair caught that he didn’t deny Talley, just like Rush didn’t and stepped back. She was trapped and unarmed—it was a living nightmare.
“He hurt you,” Judge said, in a husky, broken voice as his gaze dipped to her stomach, then rose to her jaw, to the thin line there, a mark Talley, or what possessed Talley, left on her.
Adair shook her head in denial, not understanding the grief she saw in his eyes, why she felt so pulled to him…why she wanted to fall into his arms and ask him to take all this hell away—and believed he could do so.
Judge clenched his jaw and swallowed his emotions. “He did worse to Finley.”
Tears welled. “No…get away.”
“You’re stuck with me, Dove.”
A shocked breath left Adair’s faintly parted lips. Dove…
Judge meant what he said. It had been years since Reveca had outright said lock down—it meant some bad shit was about to go down, or had already. Even without Talley climbing out of his grave, Adair would have been picked up this afternoon, taken to the Boneyard; that’s just how they rolled. Their enemies had figured out a long time ago the only way to really hurt them was to take out the ones they loved.
He ticked his head toward the door. “What you said to Rush? Bullshit. I don’t care how miserable you think your life has been. It would’ve been worse if you knew what happened to them. Nothing you say could make me believe otherwise.”
“What’s it to you?” Adair asked, finding it harder and harder to handle the pull his energy seemed to have; it was near hypnotic.
There was not a day that went by the he did not relive that night in his thoughts. “I did it,” Judge said in a broken tone. He had thought of how he would tell her this for years and no way was the right way. Manning up, blunt was as good as any. This was only the first revelation he’d have to answer for.
Adair went to kick him in the balls then shove her wrist up his nose, basic defense, but he caught her leg, and her arm was now pinned alongside the wall he had her against—a wall that was a good five feet behind Adair when she’d struck out.
Her chest was rising hard and fast—her mind wasn’t able to comprehend what she saw. “Are you a dark angel, too?” she breathed.
Judge furrowed his brow, not having the slightest clue where her question came from. The wording was odd.
His stare fluttered over her, a stare filled with pain. “Nothing about me is angelic,” Judge said, honestly having a hard time keeping his cool with her this close to him, with her chest crashing into his every other breath, with the feel of her warm flesh in his hands, and her leg hooked over his thigh. His body was reacting—no matter how much he told it not to.
“Evil,” Adair breathed, noticing how his stare kept floating down to the scar on her jaw. Most people would glance at it when they spoke to her, but the way he looked at it was rich
with guilt, which only made her all the more scared.
“No, but I doubt you’d see it that way.”
“How—how would know a thing about me?”
Judge met her stare once more, thought of the time they were together, her laugh, how free her spirit was, the dare to her. “Because you were mine.”
He should have let her go, gave her room to breathe, he knew that, but he also knew the second he let her go there was a chance he’d never touch her again. So he kept her against the wall.
His statement didn’t ring true to Adair. She told herself it was because she had no memory of him, but her gut told her it was the tense he used, a past one—there was something about this pull to him that she recognized, one she knew had always walked with her. Present. “What did you do to me?”
Judge bit his lip before he spoke, then adjusted his lean against her. And in a low silky voice said, “We helped you forget.”
“We?”
Judge’s eyes answered her question, the sorrow there. “It was the only way for me to fight your demons, Dove. To keep you safe from the nightmare I can never forget. I should’ve ridden faster. I should’ve had you at my side—something, anything. I am sorry, Dove...truly.”
As she remained captive in his arms she began to think of every innocent spell she knew, and all the ones that were not so innocent. She was going to open her mind up one-way or another and get back what was stolen from her. There was something deep here—right in front of her.
“You murdered the only father figure I have ever had and blinded me,” Adair accused, pushing her fear and confusion deep inside and finding justifiable anger.
“Talley was gone,” he said in a destroyed tone. “The man I respected, held as a brother, would’ve never done what he did.”
“Something was wrong with him,” Adair defended. “How can you call him a brother and murder him the first time he crosses you?”
Judge clenched his jaw as he stared at her. “We did what was just, what he would’ve asked us to do.”
