Chapter 6
6
JAYDEN
Present day
I follow Cole and Jo out to the hotel parking lot. Cole is damn near cheerful, telling Jo all the different steps to stealing and hotwiring a car. He demonstrates on the car he picked—a mid-size, black SUV that looks like every other car on the road.
I know Cole is putting on a show for me, trying to cheer me up, but I can’t be cheerful. When his name popped up on those texts, I felt the familiar numbness creep back in.
I’ve spent my whole life trying to make sure Cole stays out of my trouble. This time, I’ve been too careless, and now it’s going to ruin Cole’s and Jo’s lives.
Again.
Emotions overwhelm me, and I swallow roughly. Fucking hell. I haven’t felt things in so long. Now, for the past few months, I’ve been feeling everything I thought I locked away for so long. I can’t sleep. Can’t think. All of the feelings are rattling inside my brain so loudly that it’s all I can do to keep them silent.
Jo did that to me. She made me feel again, and I fucking hate it.
My throat hurts, and I look desperately for a distraction.
When she thinks Cole isn’t looking, Jo looks over her shoulder at the main road. She sees me watching, and her eyes dart quickly away.
She’s thinking about running.
I feel familiar anger wash over me. We just got her back, and she’s trying to run? After all she put us through to find her? Again?
The anger calms and grounds me. I know anger. It’s been the only thing to keep me safe all these years.
When Jo glances around again and locks eyes with me, I smirk.
Her gaze sours, and it makes a pulse of pleasure run down to my dick. I forgot how expressive she is. How easy it is to see every emotion on her face.
She ought to know better than to let the predators sense weakness.
But she’s reckless and wants to keep fighting me.
My skin feels hot. I want to dissect her brain. Figure out why she won’t stop fighting us when anyone else would have given up and shown me their belly. I want to break her slowly to find out. Lay out all her little pieces and sort them into piles. Will she cry? Scream? Withdraw?
Wishful thinking. She’ll never withdraw. The only time she ever came close was when I first brought her back to the cabin. And she wasn’t doing anything. She was studying me. Analyzing my weaknesses. Fighting.
I want to know why Jo won’t stop fucking fighting. And I’ll find out.
There’s no more running from me. No more hiding.
She can’t escape me, and I’m here to make her life a living fucking hell.