by Ann, Jewel E
“If … uh … you’ll excuse me. I really have to go.” He tried to keep his fear in check. “Thank you for talking with me.”
Lilith nodded. “Luke?”
“Yes?” He zipped his jacket.
“I don’t know where you’ll find her, or what mindset she’ll have, but I know one thing with unwavering certainty—that girl loves you like no woman has ever loved a man in the history of the world. She called you her heart. And I believed her.”
The words to describe his love for Jessica didn’t exist. He smiled in spite of the pain.
*
Knight
Forever didn’t come in a text; it came with a knock at the door. It involved the woman he loved leaping into his arms and kissing him with fervor. Ryn, however, texted Jackson.
Can you come over?
He didn’t text her back, but within ten minutes he was at her front door.
Forever didn’t have red swollen eyes that refused to make contact with his. He stepped inside. Ryn stared at him, just short of meeting his gaze. She drew in a shaky breath and held it, but she didn’t say anything. It seemed as if her words were the only thing holding her together and if she spoke them, she would crumble to pieces at his feet.
“This is goodbye,” he said.
She bit her quivering lip and nodded. Pain robbed her beautiful face, and she threw herself into his arms, but not in a forever way. He hugged her back so hard he feared feeling her ribs crack against his. In a matter of days, forever turned into never.
“Maddie h-hates me. I-I can’t leave her. She won’t … come. I-I love you so much, it feels like … like I’m dying inside. But s-she’s my child. If I leave … it will be l-like she died.” A broken sob ripped from her chest. “If you leave … it’ll be like … you died.”
He didn’t know what to say. If he stayed he’d put her in danger. Luke’s trip to Omaha opened the door for their past to find them. There was no way to stay and guarantee anyone’s safety. He’d rather die than leave her, but he’d never be able to live with himself if something happened to her. She needed to come with him, soon, or he needed to get as far away from her as possible—completely dissociate himself from her life for her own safety.
Ryn fisted the back of his shirt, her tear-stained face buried in his neck. “Say something. Please.”
“I’ll come back.”
She shook her head. “Don’t say that unless you can promise me.” She cupped his neck and pressed her forehead to his. “Can you promise me you’ll come back?”
Her tears dripped between them. He fisted her hair.
“Say it.” She sniffled. “Promise me.”
“I can’t.”
Jude would have said that moment—the heart-breaking dream-shattering moment—was the reason to never get emotionally involved.
Not Jackson.
He loved Ryn Middleton with something bigger than his heart. She dug deep and found his soul, and she would forever have a piece of it.
He kissed her, wanting her to be the last thing he ever tasted. He slid his hands up the back of her shirt, wanting her skin to be the last thing his hands ever felt.
“Stop.” She turned her head to break their kiss. They stood as one, two bodies clutching each other, begging the world to not tear them apart.
“Let me be with you … one last time. Let me make love to you,” he whispered in her ear.
“I can’t.” Her body shook in his arms. “I can barely breathe. This hurts so fucking bad.”
Ryn looked up at him. Her fingers feathered over his lips. He closed his eyes.
“Making love … knowing it’s the last time, would literally Stop. My. Heart.”
Step One: Confess the mercy killing first.
Step Two: Wait for Ryn to acclimate to Jackson’s ability to take another’s life.
Step Three: Make her fall so deep in love with him that not even the assassin confession could drive her away.
Step Four: Be prepared to gently hold her in captivity until she snaps out of her inevitable conniption fit because realistically there is no way Step Three would ever fly.
Step Five: Let her go.
“Okay.” He swallowed every ounce of fucking reality and took a step back.
She hugged herself. He fisted his hands, hating that they would never touch her again. Then he opened the door.
“Jackson?”
He turned.
“Tell me to wait for you.”
Forty. The stunning woman before him was forty. She survived years of abuse. Her best friend was a dog. Her daughter hated her. If only one person in the world deserved true happiness, it was Ryn. Waiting for a maybe, a complete shot in the dark, would only lead to more misery. He loved her too much.
A long, slow sigh deflated his lungs like life itself tried to escape his body. Lowering his chin to his chest, he refused to look at her. “Don’t wait for me.” He said his final words in a thick voice and closed the door.
Chapter Thirty-One
Jackson needed to break something or someone. As if the universe heard his need, Luke’s rental car was parked in one of the spots between the townhouses. He pulled into the garage and hopped out just as Luke got out and walked into the garage.
“Jess—”
“Inside.” Jackson cut him off, leading him in the house. “Jillian has been gone too fucking long. I need to exercise. You know how to throw a punch, Jones? Or take one?” He inwardly smirked. That crawling-out-of-his-skin feeling wore on his last nerve. He needed to destroy something. Why not start with the reason for his leaving Ryn?
“I’m not going to fight you.”
Jackson shrugged off his shirt and walked into his bedroom. “That’s fine. All I really need is a body. I just need to feel the pain of my knuckles cracking against bone. You don’t mind, do you? After all, you showed up and ruined my whole fucking life.”
“Call Knox.”
Jackson grabbed a pair of shorts then pulled at the button to his jeans. “I did. Haven’t heard back. He’s a prick that does everything on his time.”
“She wasn’t at the funeral.”
Jackson froze then inched his head up. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“I talked to Lilith. Jessica wasn’t at the funeral.”
Jackson pulled his phone from his pocket and called Knox again. Again, it went to voicemail. “Where the fuck is she?”
Next he texted him.
I’m coming for you, asshole.
Jackson grabbed a small bag and shoved a few items into it, including his computer and a thick wad of cash from his dresser drawer.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m going to get my sister. You’re going home and I don’t want to see you again. Are we clear?”
“I’m going with you or you’re going to kill me. It’s one or the other.”
Jackson looked up from his bag. He didn’t hate Luke. He hated that life. Luke brought it back.
“I’m tired of living without her.”
Jackson nodded. With the fresh image of Ryn emotionally shattered in his arms, he knew how Luke felt, which meant it was best to put him out of his misery. “I can break your neck or I’m good with a knife too. Your choice.”
Luke’s temporary stay of execution came from a knock at the door. Jackson sighed, aggravation building to an all-time high as he came close to tearing the front door off its hinges. A lethal dose of adrenaline poisoned his bloodstream.
“Open up.” Preston Iverson called from the opposite side of the storm door.
Jackson gave him no other response than a slow blink. Preston was nothing more than a tiny dick in a suit sucking air into his lungs that he wasn’t worthy of breathing.
“Maddie visited me. She’s a little distressed and a lot confused. Seems my dear Ryn has been sharing some things that she should not be sharing. I have this feeling you put her up to it.”
Jackson gave him another slow blink.
Preston pressed a photo to the
glass storm door. Jackson squinted, leaning forward a fraction. It was a photo of a barely recognizable Ryn with a lacerated lip, one eye swollen shut, and her cheek mottled in hues of blue and purple.
He met Preston’s eyes. The little penis in a suit smirked then held open his suit coat to reveal the gun in his inside pocket.
“I’d let me in, jerk-off.”
Christmas came early that year for Jackson Knight. He was wrong—the universe’s answer to his desperate need was not Luke. It was Preston Iverson.
Jackson opened the storm door and stepped back as Preston came inside, pulling his gun from his inside pocket and pointing it at Jackson.
“You think you can fuck my wife’s body and my daughter’s mind and get away with it? You think you can just waltz into town with no fucking past and take what’s mine?”
“What’s going on?”
Preston looked at Luke, moving the gun back and forth between them. “I didn’t know you had company. Who’s this guy? Your lover?” He laughed. “Buttfuckers.”
Jackson raised a single brow. “What are you going to do with our bodies after you shoot us?”
“I’m going to weight your asses down and dump you in the river.”
Jackson nodded. “Is that a good spot? Is the river deep? Has it frozen over yet?”
Preston pointed the gun back at Jackson. “Why the fuck do you care?”
It happened in a blink, less than a blink. Jackson grabbed the gun out of Preston’s hand like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
Preston’s eyes widened as he held his hands up. “Take it easy. I wasn’t really going to shoot you.”
“You were.” Jackson emptied the clip and tossed it left, then discarded the gun to the right. It skidded to a stop at Luke’s feet.
Preston eyed both the gun and the clip as if he stood a chance of retrieving both.
“You’re not going to shoot me?” Preston asked.
Jackson shook his head. “Sorry. I’m a bit more hands-on.”
“What does that—fuck!”
Jackson started with Preston’s nose, his knuckles relishing the feel of crushing bone. “I have a pressing need to attend to…” he landed a fist in his right eye, followed by his left, then a quick upper cut to his jaw that sent him crashing to the floor “…but after seeing that picture of Ryn, I think I can spare an extra sixty seconds to make sure you feel everything you ever did to her.” Jackson bent down and grabbed his head, ramming it into his knee, busting out several teeth. Preston gasped and groaned. A click sounded behind Jackson.
“That’s enough.” Luke pieced the gun back together and held it at Jackson’s back. “Let’s just call the police before you kill him.”
“You won’t shoot me, Jones.” Jackson broke several of Preston’s ribs with his foot.
“Argh! Fuck!”
“Stop!” Luke demanded.
Jackson retrieved the photo of Ryn from Preston’s pocket and handed it to Luke. “This is Ryn and this is Ryn’s ex-husband.” He grabbed Preston’s arm and twisted it around his back until it snapped. The tortured animal’s cries continued.
“He did that to her. If you need to pretend it’s Jessica, then go ahead. Just keep looking at it and tell me when to stop and I’ll stop.”
Bone after bone broke. It really wasn’t Jackson’s MO to torture someone unless he needed information from them. Preston was an exception. Luke never said another word. Even after Jackson gave the final blow that ended Preston Iverson’s life, Luke didn’t move. He stared in silence at the photo.
Jackson turned, slightly winded, but also a bit more relaxed. He rested a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Good news, buddy. Thanks to our unexpected visitor, I do believe you’re going to live.”
He brushed past Luke, pulled on a shirt, and grabbed his bag. “Let it go, Jones. I can hear your thoughts. Look at the picture again. I didn’t kill a man, I saved a woman.”
On his way to the kitchen, Jackson snatched the picture from Luke’s hands. They didn’t move—he didn’t move.
“Tell me, what would you do to save the woman you love?” He grabbed a Red Bull from the refrigerator and popped the top.
Peeling his gaze from the limp body, Luke focused on Jackson. “Anything.”
Jackson nodded then took a swig, content with Luke’s commitment to his sister. “I don’t know where she is, but I know she would not have missed AJ’s funeral. Knox isn’t answering me.”
“You think he has her?”
“No.”
“Do you think he knows where she is?”
“Maybe.”
“Then why do you think he’s not answering you?”
“I don’t think he has his phone. But someone does.”
“So where are we going?”
Jackson grinned at Luke’s we comment. “Are you willing to die for her?”
“Yes.”
Jackson finished his Red Bull then tossed the can in the sink. “Last question and don’t fucking hesitate. Just answer it.”
Luke kept his unwavering gaze on Jackson.
“Are you willing to kill for her?”
“Yes.” The darkness in Luke’s eyes mirrored Jackson’s. It was the need for revenge obliterating all conscience—all reason.
“Then let’s go get her.”
Luke seemed to snap out of the moment as Jackson grabbed the neck of Preston’s shirt and coat then dragged him toward the back door, leaving a blood-smeared trail on the wood floor.
“What are you going to do with the body?”
“I got a tip that the bottom of the river is a good spot.” He wasn’t used to being the hitman and the cleanup crew, but Knox was MIA. “Don’t step in the blood. Just … don’t move at all.”
*
“We’re going to San Francisco?” Luke asked after Jackson requested two tickets at the airport ticket counter.
“Yup.”
“Is it safe for you to go home?”
“Nope.”
“You think she’s there?” Luke couldn’t imagine making the trip to Nebraska only to discover Jessica was in San Francisco.
Jackson handed Luke back his ID and ticket. “I think the answer is there.”
“Why not Portland?” Luke slung his bag over his shoulder and followed Jackson to security.
“Just a hunch.”
As they waited to board the plane, Luke stared out the window at the planes taxiing down the runway. He’d heard many first-hand accounts of murder, including Jessica killing Four, but watching Jackson take the life of a human being right in front of him was a life-changing experience. Jackson was right. He didn’t kill a man he hated, he saved the woman he loved.
Luke would do the same thing. He would die for Jessica. He would kill for her. He would end ten lives to save one, if that one was hers. It wasn’t sane. It was far from rational. But it was love, and true walk-through-the-fucking-flames-of-hell love was unconditional and completely insane.
“Here we go.” Jackson focused on the screen of his phone then he held it in front of Luke. “I’ve been expecting this.”
I have her. Don’t be late this time.
“I knew that fucker had her.”
Jackson shook his head. “It’s not Knox, just his phone.” He ran his hand through his hair then squeezed the back of his neck. “Fucking hell,” he said on a sigh.
Luke gripped the arms of the chair. “What does that mean? ‘Don’t be late this time?’”
He stared at the message. “I don’t know.”
“Well think, goddammit!”
Jackson flinched as everyone around them quieted. Curious eyes put them center stage.
“Calm the fuck down,” Jackson whispered. “The last thing we need is a scene.”
“What were you late for before? This message is a reference to something. It’s telling us exactly where she is.”
“I-I don’t know.” He typed in a response.
“What the hell?”
“Shut it. I know wha
t I’m doing.”
I’m busy. Can we set something up for next week?
“This could backfire.” Luke grimaced at the screen.
Jackson nodded. “It could.”
His phone vibrated with another message.
I’m afraid she won’t last that long.
“Jesus …” Luke closed his eyes as Jackson typed another response.
She’s stronger than you think. Next week. See you then.
“And now we wait.” Jackson stood, slipping his phone into his pocket as they made the first boarding call.
“Wait? Are you crazy? For what?”
“Her location. If they really want me there, they’ll give me more than ‘don’t be late this time.’ But I’m fairly certain I’ve just pissed them off and they’ll need to regroup before sending another message.”
“What if she’s here? Why are we getting on the plane? We should wait until they message you back.”
Jackson shook his head. “This isn’t about Jackson Knight. Jude Day was late for something, but he’s never been to Omaha, so she isn’t here.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The arctic splash brought Jillian and Knox back to life.
“Rise and shine. Aw, don’t look so agitated. Think of it as a bath. You both stink.”
Knox glared at Irene as she took a hit from her inhaler. It was his first time experiencing her favorite form of torture. The water wasn’t just cold. It felt like a bucket from a snow-fed river high in the Rockies—a heart-stopping jolt. Jillian still preferred it to the heat or even worse, the talk of bringing Luke and Jackson to her immediate depth of Hell.
“Breakfast, darling?” She set a dish of canned dog food next to Knox.
His glare didn’t falter.
“Suit yourself.” She shrugged then stacked the four empty five-gallon buckets together and carried them up the stairs.
It must have taken her an hour to bring them downstairs, stopping for inhaler breaks. What did it say about Jillian and Knox’s physical state that they didn’t wake until she heaved them at their face?
“Your shoulder looks infected.”
Jillian’s gaze shifted to Knox’s shoulder. “Yours probably is too, but I wouldn’t know. Apparently only I need to be naked. I think she’s a lesbian.”
