by Nicole Helm
“What do you mean?” Jamison asked, not having to feign confusion.
“I figured you two being here meant you’d figured out she was here.” Ace scratched his cheek, seeming to mull that over. Then he shrugged. “She was in the stables. Which means the explosion—which I assume you had something to do with—would have killed her. A real shame you’re responsible for the death of your beloved sister, and ten of her closest friends.”
Jamison could only stare at his father. He counted his heartbeats to keep from laughing or smiling or anything that might give away the truth.
Ace thought the girls had still been in the stables. Somewhere communication had broken down and he didn’t know.
He didn’t know.
Jamison wanted to laugh. He wanted to laugh and laugh and laugh.
Even if they didn’t escape, as long as Cody found Jamison and Liza, he’d be able to arrest Ace Wyatt for connections to a human trafficking ring.
Liza turned her head into Jamison’s shoulder. She didn’t make a noise, but she made some effort to move her shoulders as if trying to convince Ace she was crying. Jamison had a feeling she was laughing like he wanted to.
Jamison ducked his own head, pressing his face into her hair. The absolute worst thing they could do was tip Ace off that they’d gotten the girls out, but it gave Jamison such hope it was a hard thing to fight.
Instead he and Liza kept their heads bent together as the Jeep traveled over bumpy roads—if they were even roads they were traveling over. Jamison couldn’t see out of the tinted windows, so he didn’t bother trying.
When the vehicle stopped, Jamison didn’t have to work to hide his smile any longer. Dread crept over all that hope. Whatever happened before hope won, he was going to endure a heck of a lot of hurt before they succeeded.
Dad and his driver got out, then both sides of the back doors opened and two of Dad’s men grabbed each of them, jerking them out of the Jeep on opposite sides.
Jamison bit his tongue to keep from crying out as each tug of his limbs felt like fire, but he would do everything not to give them the satisfaction of hurting him.
Liza was still bound and gagged, but since he was pushed up a cement walkway first, Jamison couldn’t see if she was fighting the men who were bringing her forward. He had to concentrate on fighting the pain and dizziness so he could stay on his own two feet. His leg had gone numb, which was something of a relief. He limped through the numbness and squinted his eyes through the dizzying swirl of the world around him.
Jamison recognized where they were, sort of. It was Flynn, and a building he’d been in a hundred times as a child. But it wasn’t the rotting structure of an old church any longer. It had been fixed up, remodeled or restored. The outside looked like a modest church that was well tended. A pure white against a grove of old trees. It was like stepping into a picture, especially as the sun was rising in the east, pouring gold over the world around them. Like a promise.
There was no peace to be found here, but he wanted to believe that sunrise was the promise of peace he’d find if he held on.
The man holding him shoved him inside the quaint building, and again it was nothing like it had been when Jamison was with the Sons.
The interior was finished and looked like some kind of shrine. Instead of the ruins of an old church Jamison remembered, the pews nearly gleamed like the wood floor. The altar was sweeping and held a big chair in the middle of it, where a pulpit would normally be.
Ace took a seat on the chair.
There weren’t any Christian symbols anywhere, but signs of the Sons. Their patch—a skull amid the Badlands—on a flag hanging from one wall, their motto burned into the wood of the wall behind Ace.
The Srong Save Themselves.
Ace sat underneath it, giving the appearance of royalty, or maybe something larger than royalty. He fancied himself a god, and this would be his church. The Sons were his loyal worshippers.
And the disloyal were punished.
This was something fancier than Jamison had ever seen the Sons put together. It was like Tony’s cabin setup—incongruous to the transient, ready-to-move Sons Jamison had grown up a part of.
Had they gotten so bold, so sure they’d never be caught that they’d actually planted roots?
Jamison didn’t know whether to be cheered by that, by all it meant for their potential to be caught and brought to justice, or to be scared down to his bones that they were really unstoppable.
No, he’d never believe they were unstoppable. Maybe evil triumphed over good more than it should—but that didn’t mean it survived in the same form forever.
There were other sayings burned into the walls. “The strong wear a patch. The weak wear a badge.”
Underneath that one were pictures of badges, with specific officers’ DSNs either etched into the badge or written underneath. There were red Xs over some.
The police officers they’d killed.
Jamison ignored the white-hot surge of anger and focused on the fact it was evidence to bring them down. He’d seen it now, and if he lived, it could be evidence used to put Ace in jail.
Truly behind bars for the first time ever.
“This is a bit ridiculous, even for you,” Jamison said, earning him a jab from the gun the man behind him held.
“This?” Ace asked, gesturing around the church. “This is your chance to beg my forgiveness, son. Your chance to beg. I’d suggest getting on your knees.”
Jamison laughed, then spit at his father. He knew the blow would come, so he dodged it and turned to face the two men with guns behind him. They held the guns trained on him, but they couldn’t use them. Not without the nod from Ace.
There were some perks to being a madman’s son.
“You, get him on his knees,” Ace said tightly. “You, bring her here.”
The first goon came at Jamison, who elbowed him in the nose, sending a splatter of blood across the gleaming wood floor. It felt a little too good—the kind of good that reminded Jamison he was indeed the son of a madman.
He didn’t like that feeling, didn’t want violence to sing through him, potent and deadly, so nothing else mattered.
Because Liza mattered, and she was being led up to his father. The two men moving her forward didn’t force her to kneel—they positioned her on his father’s lap, like she was a small child.
Or worse.
Ace smiled at Jamison.
Jamison swallowed down the rage and the bile and lowered himself onto his knees. He would kneel. He’d even beg. But he wouldn’t give up. Not on saving Liza.
“Good boy,” Ace said. He curled an arm around Liza’s waist. She raised her chin and fixed her gaze forward but didn’t react in any other way.
“I was left to die by my own parents, but I didn’t die. I survived, and what I built—”
“In my survival is a loyal community ready to do my bidding. Because I was strong. Stronger than anyone,” Jamison intoned. He had knelt, but he refused to look at the floor in supplication. He held his father’s steely gaze. “Your speeches are still boring and predictable.”
“Every true leader must go through betrayals, Jamison. I have been through yours. I’ve waited for retribution, because a good leader bides his time. A good leader, a true leader waits until the time is right, no matter how long.”
“Well, since I don’t have any sons for you to steal, I guess you’ll have to wait a little longer.”
“Transgressions must be paid for, Jamison.” His grip on Liza tightened and it took every ounce of control Jamison had honed in thirty-seven years to stay where he was and not lunge at Ace. “One of you will pay with blood. The other will pay with failure.”
“You’re starting to sound more like a cult than a gang,” Jamison gritted out.
“Don’t worry,” Ace said easily. “We can be both. What
happens when a strong leader falls, Jamison? Chaos. What happens if you don’t return to your brothers? Would they fall apart, too? No. I don’t think so. You’d be their thing to avenge. Vengeance for a particular person can’t be your motivation. If I only wanted vengeance on my parents, what would I have built? Nothing. I wanted vengeance on the world and I built one of my own.”
“It’s a big world out there, outside the Sons. All you’ve built is a...village, maybe,” Jamison returned, because if he kept Ace talking, he bought them all time. Jamison had to believe time mattered.
“I don’t need the world, Jamison. I only need the loyal. It’s a shame that’s neither of you.” Dad produced a knife and held it far too close to Liza’s cheek. “I taught you that the only truth is power. Everything else is a weakness. You didn’t believe me. Now I have your weakness right here. What do you think I should do with it?”
* * *
LIZA DID EVERYTHING she could to hide her revulsion. Ace’s arm was wrapped around her waist like a python. The contact made her stomach roil in disgust.
She could see the barely leashed fury in Jamison’s eyes, and she knew it wouldn’t last forever. He’d snap if something didn’t change. And soon.
Ace had one thing right, she was Jamison’s weakness, because he’d likely do something stupid before he let Ace hurt her.
Ace pressed the knife to her cheek, and she moved her gaze to Jamison. She knew he wouldn’t see it if he didn’t want to see it, but she did everything she could with her eyes to beg him to stay put.
“You surprise me,” Ace said as the knife pricked the skin of her cheek. “Either you’ve learned some restraint or she doesn’t mean much to you at all. Both would make me proud.”
“That’s what I’ve always lived for,” Jamison returned caustically. “To make you proud.”
“I know you fancy yourself above my influence, but don’t think there isn’t something to you becoming a cop. You and all your brothers. As if that badge will save you from what you really are.”
The knife dug harder against her cheek, and Liza did everything she could not to react outwardly to the searing pain.
Then, out of nowhere, both the knife and gag dropped from her face.
“I wouldn’t want to muffle your screams of pain,” Ace said. This time when he pressed the knife to her skin, it was against her throat.
Fear was ice in her veins, but she focused on Jamison. She focused on the battle light in his eyes, in all the ways he’d tried to save her.
But she’d needed to do her own saving. She’d saved Gigi. She could save Jamison.
She wouldn’t shake. She wouldn’t beg. She would be strong, the way he’d always taught her to be.
“Don’t you want to order one of your morons to do the dirty work for you?” she asked, her voice steady, disdainful.
“Normally I would, since you’re less than nothing, but I want Jamison to have the vision of me slitting your throat in his head till the day he dies.”
Liza knew she couldn’t stop herself from being killed. She was in too deep and death seemed inevitable. But she wouldn’t give Ace the satisfaction of having it his way.
He had a knife to her throat and her hands were tied behind her back. Jamison was eyeing the men with guns on him, clearly calculating his own attempt to save her.
If they could act together, it would be more of a fight than a slaughter—but how?
She didn’t have time to think up an answer because something exploded behind her, sending her sprawling off Ace’s lap and onto the floor—face-first.
She was so dazed it took her a few seconds to realize she was on the floor, people were shouting, guns were going off. She was bleeding—from the cut Ace’s knife had made in her cheek, possibly her throat. She wasn’t sure. Everything was a blur.
Until someone grabbed her.
Ace flipped her onto her back and she immediately fought back. She didn’t have any strategy, just to kick as hard as she could—but she didn’t have her hands. She didn’t have anything.
He used his body to bracket her legs together. She twisted and fought to sit up, but he held her shoulders down. On the bright side, he couldn’t exactly stab her as long as he was holding her down.
“You think you’ve won,” Ace said, moving one hand from her shoulder to the center of her chest. He held her down with that one hand then, brandishing that awful knife. “But you’ll never win.”
“That’s the difference between you and me, Ace. I don’t need to win. Surviving this nightmare is enough for me. I don’t need more than that.”
“You think you’re going to survive?” He laughed. “I’m the survivor.”
“Not this time,” a man’s voice said from behind Ace.
Ace stilled and Liza looked up at the figure. Cody held a gun to Ace’s head.
Cody was here. But... “The girls...” Liza whispered.
“Are fine and safe,” Cody assured her.
Ace’s eyebrows drew together for a moment as he looked at the knife in his hand. As he seemed to put together what that could mean.
“Yeah, we saved them,” Liza had the pleasure of telling Ace. “Right under your nose. Want to lecture me some more about strong leaders? We’ve all been stronger than you, Ace. Now you’re going to find out how much.”
“Drop the knife,” Cody ordered.
“I could slit her throat before you put a bullet in my brain, son. I’d watch the tone you take with me.”
“Do it, then.”
Liza couldn’t hide the surprise or horror that stole over her face, especially as Ace looked like he was just about to do that.
But a gunshot went off, and somehow the knife flew out of Ace’s hand, clattering to the ground as the bullet crashed into the opposite wall. Someone had shot the knife out of Ace’s hand.
When Liza stared up at Cody, he shrugged. “Snipers come in handy now and again. As do explosive experts,” he said, giving a vague nod toward the blown-in back of the building. He then inclined his head toward someone. Liza felt herself be pulled out from under Ace, the binding on her wrists being cut as she was set on her feet.
She surveyed the very strange sight. Almost the entire back wall of the church, so to speak, was gone, but there wasn’t fire left like at the cabin and stables. Explosives expert, indeed.
She glanced at the interior. Two of Ace’s men were tied to each other, lying in a heap. Two others were clearly dead. And Jamison... Jamison was lying on the floor—one of Cody’s men patching him up.
Liza practically tripped over herself to run to his side.
“I’m all right,” he muttered as she reached out to touch his cheek.
“He’s got a head wound that needs stitches, at the very least,” the person working on him corrected. Liza was surprised the voice belonged to a woman. All of the people Cody had brought in were dressed in head-to-toe black, armed to the teeth and wore a variety of hats, helmets and scarves that obscured their identities down to gender.
She looked back at Cody, wondering what on earth he was involved in. Then back at Jamison.
“Is Ace still alive?” Jamison asked, his voice a raw scrape that had her wincing at the pain it must have caused him.
“I think so.”
“Help me up, then,” he said, struggling to push himself up as both Liza and the other woman kept him pressed to the floor.
“Jamison.”
“You shouldn’t get up,” the woman said, though she had wrapped a bandage around his head.
“Have to,” Jamison said to the woman.
Knowing he wouldn’t give up, Liza gave a nod to the woman and helped Jamison to his feet. He swayed as he stood, and Liza helped steady him, then led him over to Cody.
Cody, who still held a gun to Ace’s head, had a look on his face that had Liza grabbing onto Jamison’s arm—trying
to keep him away from this scene. Ace was lying on his back, smiling up at Cody, and nothing—nothing—good could come from this moment.
But Jamison calmly put his hand on Cody’s shoulder. “Don’t kill him.”
Chapter Nineteen
Cody didn’t look away from Ace’s grinning face, but Jamison knew Cody had heard him. His grip on the gun had changed, and there was a sense of hesitation to him now.
Jamison knew he had to press on that while he could. “I want him to rot in a cell,” Jamison continued calmly. His head ached, and his vision was gray and doubled, but he was alive. He’d survive.
Now he had to make sure his baby brother did, too. Really survive, not just walk out of this alive.
“If he’s dead, it’s over,” Cody said, his finger curled around the trigger. But Ace would already be dead if Cody didn’t have a certain level of uncertainty about killing their father.
Over. It was tempting. To know Ace wouldn’t be able to pop up in their lives in the future and wreak havoc. Wasn’t that what had held him back from really having a life all these years?
But Cody would have to live with it, and Jamison didn’t think it was worth it. That weight. Forever.
“Do you want to be like him?” Jamison asked quietly.
Cody didn’t answer that, so Jamison continued.
“His second-in-command is dead. He’ll be going to jail for a very long time.” Jamison turned to face his father. If Ace felt defeated, he didn’t look it. Jamison wanted him to look defeated. To feel it. To embody it. And a jail cell? Jamison was certain the lack of freedom would do just that. Far more than death ever could. “What did you say happens in the absence of a powerful leader, Dad?”
Ace smiled. “Chaos, son.”
Jamison nodded and turned back to Cody. “We got what we wanted. This is over. The Sons will be chaos. He’ll rot in jail, and you know it. It’s over. Don’t make it live on for yourself forever.”