by Sophia Gray
But, what the fuck, what a sicko this guy was. Not only was he fooling around with the kids in his charge, but he was coercing his wife to be an accomplice too. What a fucking asshole. Women should be loved, not abused. Children should be untouched and protected.
Well, we would have to be the ones to protect them. Jail was too good for the likes of him. He needed to be put six feet under, and I would be the one to put him there.
"What else do we know about the guy?" My voice echoed in the room as I looked around at my boys. They would always have my back. They would do whatever I asked of them. My brothers. I'd always have them, at the very least.
"His name's Greene. Frank Greene." Eyebrow cleared his throat, his eyebrow wiggling like a worm. "Goes to church every Sunday with his wife, as if that makes him a good guy."
"Supposedly a quiet, unassuming guy," Sam the Slayer cut in. He crossed his arms. He never wore shirts with sleeves. Always wanted to show off his guns. Even I would admit his biceps were pretty sick.
My fists opened and closed, as I thought about this fucking asshole, wishing he was standing in front of me so I could pummel his face. I fought back the urge to spit and asked the question I didn't really want to know the answer to, "How many kids?"
"Child after child." Sam shrugged. "Quite a few have stepped up to report molestation, or at least their parents have on their behalf. And I'll bet there's a lot more who haven't talked yet. Hard to say how many."
Disgusting. Disturbing. This had to stop, now. How long had this been going on for? A long while, if I had to guess. As sad as it was, it sometimes took kids a long time before they would tell their parents what was happening. A daycare. Fuck, the kids could be really young. What the hell was wrong with the guy?
"Community's devastated. They never realized how much of this went on behind the scenes, but this story's public now." Ratched rubbed his bald head. He was a nurse for his other job, and his nickname came from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "And the police are after him too, not just us."
"The man's on the loose, but that won't be the case for long." I slammed my fists onto the table. "I will hunt down this guy, this sicko, this Frank Greene," I swore, my blood seething with every word. "And then he'll pay for his crimes."
Chapter Fourteen
Jasmine
I tried to be a good girl. I went straight to the kitchen with every intention of cleaning up, just like I had told Pax I was going to do. But, with the look on his face when he'd answered that phone call, and then he wouldn't provide me with details… I couldn't help myself. Too much of my past life was a mystery. I wasn't about to allow him, or anyone else, to dictate my knowledge of present and future events too.
So, yeah, I ducked out of the kitchen and trailed a guy to see where they were going. The door was shut by the time I reached it, but they were all talking very loudly. When I pressed my ear to the door, I could hear every word they were saying.
And every word made my heart sink lower and lower, my chest aching.
Couldn't Pax see that he wasn't going to make things better? The police were already looking for the guy. Why couldn't he let them handle things? Or if he really felt the need to be involved, why couldn't he help the police? Give them leads as an informant. Weren't informants paid? Come to think of it, I wasn't sure what exactly Pax and the other guys did for a living. How did they afford this place? Just through their profits from the bar? But there hadn't been that many people here the nights I'd been here, so I doubt they made a lot of money through that. In fact, the only people I'd seen drinking there had been the bikers and me and my sister.
My thoughts turned to Marie. My sister wanted me to leave here so badly. We'd fought over it. I'd stayed because I wanted to try and redeem Pax, to rescue him. There was so much about him I didn't know, so many questions unanswered. Maybe I should be more careful around him. Not that I thought he would ever do anything to hurt me. At least physically. Emotionally, with my heart, now that was a different story.
He was amazing in bed and made me feel alive in ways I hadn't thought I could. After the car accident and waking up in the hospital, I had been seriously depressed, almost to the point of asking the doctors for medicine for it. I hadn't been able to walk or talk, and it had been a long and trying road back to recovery. The depression had stayed with me throughout it all, my one constant companion, considering no one had realized where I was. Only Pax had been able to get me out of that funk. He'd been, well, not quite a ray of sunshine, but he'd made me laugh, made me feel, made me want to live again.
But not everything was perfect. It wasn't all rainbows, happiness, goodwill and peace and all that. He was seriously worrying me. More than that… he frightened me at times. He shot a man! Killed him right in front of me. Pax had his own demons, his own issues with the past, and now darkness was enfolding him again. I had to bring him to the light, if that was even possible.
Although I wanted to burst into the room, I refrained. It would be better to talk to him one on one, so I stood off to the side and waited until the door opened. His men trickled out. Pax was the last to leave. As he went to walk past, I stepped up then and put my hand on his chest. His jaw was set, his eyes hard, and he was back to having the expression on his face that he'd worn before he'd pulled the trigger in that guy's apartment.
Undeterred, I pushed him back into the room and closed the door behind us. We were alone now, and hopefully he would listen because we needed to talk, and talk right now, not after he tried to track down the daycare guy. Trust me, I wanted the guy nailed as badly as he did. I just thought the job of nailing should be in the police's hands and that the guy should be behind bars, not in a coffin.
I glowered at him, daring him to not take me seriously. "Pax—"
He shook his head. "Jasmine, I can't—"
"You will let me talk." I leaned against the closed door, my arms crossed. He would have to physically remove me if he wanted to leave the room. Of course, he was more than strong enough to lift me out of the way, but I hoped I meant enough to him that he would at least be willing to hear me out.
His nostrils flared slightly, but after a moment he nodded.
I released a sigh. So far so good, but maybe it would be better to try and talk about something else first, to try and calm him down some. "I know this is kind of random…" I paused. He was staring at me, but he didn't seem to object to my changing the subject. "What exactly do you do for a living? I know about your… ah… missions… but they don't pay the bills."
He didn't blink or react or seem willing to answer me.
"What's your job?" I asked, my heart starting to pound. Was this not a good topic of conversation either? What the hell! Was he hiding something else from me?
He rubbed the back of his neck. "Damn it, Jasmine," he growled.
When he used that low rumbling tone during sex, it aroused me. At the moment, it only angered me. "Damn it, Pax," I said mockingly, jabbing a finger at his chest. "Answer the question!"
"We steal," he muttered, not meeting my gaze.
"From the pedophiles?" I asked, confused. He hadn't stolen from the guy he'd killed in front of me, but maybe that was just because he had been in such a rush to abandon me there. Yeah, Pax could be an ass sometimes.
"Not those lowlifes." He snorted and rolled his eyes. "Most of them don't have two quarters to rub together. No, we steal from the rich."
"You steal from the rich," I repeated numbly. Was I hearing him correctly? "You steal to fund your vigilante lifestyle." A part of me wanted to slap him. Who the hell did he think he was? Robin Hood?
He shrugged and crossed his arms, his muscles bulging. Normally I would appreciate that, but I was practically seeing red.
Pax nodded his head back and forth. "It's not as if we steal more than we need," he said. "We live modestly."
"Steal. Modestly. Those two words don't exactly go together." I shook my head.
Maybe I shouldn't be surprised by his nerve, but seriously? He thou
ght it was fine because he didn't steal enough to be rich himself?
Okay, time to get back on target before I lost my freaking mind. I cleared my throat. "Pax, why do you feel the need to keep chasing your past?"
"I'm not," he growled. He ran a hand through his hair and tugged on the ends hard, as if he wanted to rip them out.
"Yes, you are," I countered. He had to realize that. "I understand that you were molested, but murdering pedophiles—"
"They're scum who deserve to die." He glowered at me, but there was something soft in his eyes. He wanted me to accept him, but I just couldn't.
"Murdering them won't change your past. It won't fix anything," I said desperately.
"You don't understand." He turned around and shoved a chair forward to be under the table. Then he did the same with the next chair, only he slammed it so hard it fell. Pax kicked it up and stood it upright.
His anxious energy made me all uptight. My shoulders felt like knobs of stress. "You need to get out of this sick cycle," I said calmly, trying to keep my emotions at bay, so he wouldn't feel as if I was attacking him. "You need to stop trying to fix a problem that will never go away. There will always be another pedophile—"
"Yes, there will be!" Pax curled his hands into fists so tight his veins bulged. He slammed them onto the table. "It takes just one. One pedophile can corrupt and ruin the lives of hundreds of kids. Each one can affect and destroy multiple children. Even if they only touch one, that one…" He was shouting so loud, his face so red, I feared he was going to have a heart attack.
I narrowed the distance between us even though the amount of fear I was feeling was growing rapidly. Of course I didn't believe Pax would do anything to hurt me, but right now, he seemed so volatile, so out of control…
He just stood there, his body trembling, staring straight ahead, eyes unfocused. My hand touched his fist. I don't know what I hoped to accomplish. That he would relax his fist and take my hand, that he would allow me to hold him, to comfort him… But he stood there rigid, hard, firm, and unyielding. Pax wasn't going to open up to me. He wasn't going to confide in me more than he already had. He was going to shut me out. I just knew it, and that killed me. How could I help him if I didn't know t exactly what I was up against?
"If you only knew…" He shook his head sadly. His voice was so deep and raw, I just wanted to cry. He sounded broken.
"I would if you would just tell me," I whispered, hoping against hope to draw him out. Maybe talking about it would help.
But he shook his head violently, shifting his fist so that my hand fell away onto the table. He was a ball of wild energy, a loose cannon. "If you had gone through what I went through, you would completely understand."
"Pax…" Didn't he realize how much neither of us were in control of the past? The past was gone to us.
"You can't understand." He sounded pissed.
"Try me," I pleaded. I grabbed onto his shirt, sliding my body between him and the table. Still, he refused to look at me. His eyes were glazed, and I didn’t think he was seeing much of anything. "Tell me. I'll listen."
"You can't, don't you fucking get it? You can't understand. No one fucking can. The depth of pain and betrayal I went through as a child… It was awful and terrible and so fucking wrong. So fucking wrong!" He was trembling with rage.
I tried to touch him, to hug him, but he jerked away as if my touch would burn him.
"Something like that… it changes a person. Changes the child. It scarred me, and I'll wear those scars forever. Whoever I might have grown up to be, if I hadn't been raised by that asshole, that person will never see the light of day."
My heart ached for him. "I know that—"
He sneered. "You don't know anything, Jasmine."
I couldn't help bristling at the way he said my name. That was a low blow. "Look, I'm just trying to help you—"
"You want to change me. You can't. This is who I am. I'm damaged beyond repair, all kinds of fucked up. I'm not ever going to be a ‘roses and chocolate’ kind of boyfriend. This is what you get. I don't know anything else. I don't know how to be anyone else."
"There are other ways for you to cope." I wasn't about to let him push me away. Not now. Not when he so clearly needed help, even if he couldn't see it. There had to be a way for me to help him.
"That's where you're wrong. The only way for me to cope is to make sure other bad men never again do what was once done to me. And the only way to ensure that is to kill them. What's jail to them? Nothing. They just wait, act rehabilitated, get out early on parole and bam! They're right back at it again. Pedophiles can't be fixed. They can't change. They're repeat offenders. That's why they need to be wiped out. And that's why I have to do this."
With that, Pax turned on his heel, threw open the door, and stormed out of the room, leaving me behind with my jaw hanging open, wishing I knew how to help because right now, I was afraid I was only going to do more harm than good. He wasn't beyond saving… was he?
Chapter Fifteen
Pax
I was burning inside. My body felt like it was on fire. I could not be angrier right now. I had never felt this sort of red-hot hatred before. How the fuck could Jasmine think she could tell me what to do? How the fucking hell could she think I would just stop my missions? Just because we were back together didn't mean I was going to let her try and fucking change me. I needed this. I had to do this. It might be wrong on some level, yeah, I did realize that, but it would be even more wrong to allow those fucking pedophiles to continue hurting innocent children. That was the bottom line. That was all that mattered.
But even worse than her trying to change me, was realizing that she didn't understand me. How could she be my salvation if she didn't get me? How could she be my salvation if she wasn't even on my fucking side? She might make me want to be a better man on some level, but not when it came to this.
There were only two ways for me to work out my pain. One was killing pedos, obviously, and how I typically handled things. The other way?
Sex. Fucking.
I had just left her behind in the meeting room, but I turned right back around. She was still standing there as if rooted in place, maybe shocked by me, my words, my behavior. I didn't know, and right now, I was too blinded by my pain to give a damn.
"You aren't the boss of me," I said gruffly, my voice raw.
She blinked but otherwise didn't move. "I wasn't—"
One long stride and I was directly in front of her, barely any space between us. She didn't step back. I grabbed her face, my lips touched hers, and that was it. I had to have her. I had to control her. I had to show her just who was boss.
I was.
This was about control and dominance, and I’ll be damned if I wasn't going to have my way.
She was pushing on my shoulders, her hands on my chest, trying to push me back. But, although her hands were telling me one thing, her lips and tongue were answering my kiss with equal passion and fervor. Angry sex could be so fucking hot. And since both of us were furious, this sex was going to be over the fucking top.
She broke off the kiss and continued to try to push me away. I wasn't going anywhere, though. "I—"
"Don't fight me," I growled, staring down at her, willing her to understand just what I was going through.
Jasmine put her hands on top of mine. "Pax—"
"Don't fight me," I repeated. Not begging. Demanding.
She narrowed her eyes. "You're the one—"
"Just shut up and fucking kiss me." I stared at her, smoldering, daring her to ignore me. My body still felt way too hot and with how ice cold she was being toward me, one of us was going to have to give in.
It sure as hell wasn't going to be me.
But then she actually took a fucking step away from me.
"Want to be in charge, huh?" I smirked and reached my hand up under her super short skirt. She might be trying to play hard to get or to resist me… Whichever the case may be, she wasn't fooling anyone.
She was dripping wet, ready for me, just like always.
Jasmine grabbed my wrist and jerked her body to the left so I wasn't touching her anymore. Her eyes were wide, and her breathing was heavy. Probably from both arousal and anger. I knew better than most, how well those two worked together.
"Why try and resist?" I whispered, my voice deep and low, almost a rumble. "Submit to me."
She shook her head, eyes half closing like they did when she was about to come. I knew that look well. It hadn't changed like her name had. "No. We need to talk—"
"Fuck talking." I grabbed her face and kissed her hard and frantic, needing her more than I needed air.
She didn't resist. She never could resist me, but shit, she had to stop teasing me. I couldn't handle that. Not right now. Not while being so angry with everyone. Someone had to be with me, and I was going to force her to be that person. If I didn't have her, I was nothing. Less than nothing. I'd never have a fucking chance without her.
