Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
JENSEN
We’re sparring in the back yard. It’s a hot day, and all the work is done until we run a shipment this evening.
Brothers is in his casual clothes, fists up, wavering before my vision.
I’ve been working for him for only two weeks, but in that time, a lot has changed.
He’s taken over, doing all the things nobody ever did for me.
Today, we got into a discussion about who would win if we fought.
I admitted I’d never fought outside the schoolyard.
He says he’s going to teach me how to stand, how to hold my fists.
We’re sparring under the oak tree behind the house. He says I’m way better than he expected. That feels good to hear, but it doesn’t stop him from flipping me onto my back, all the air from my lungs leaving me as I hit the cracked dirt.
He’s crouching, asking me if I’m okay. He says, sorry, should have gone a little easier on you there, Jen.
I say, no, let’s go again.
“Jen.”
My eyes snap open. Overhead is a sickeningly familiar ceiling. I’ve laid in this bed and looked up at it a hundred times before. My body seizes, and I bolt upright, scrambling back against the headboard.
My things are piled beside the bed. My belt, my gun. Otherwise, I’m still dressed.
“You’re alright.”
My eyes focus, sticky. He’s standing in the window, in his pants and undershirt, suspenders hanging loose. It must be early for him not to be properly dressed yet.
“Della,” I whisper. “Where is she?”
He turns, mouth thin. “She went to Leland.”
The bottom falls from my stomach. “No, no. When did she go?”
“As soon as you were out.”
I push back the covers, swaying. “You drugged me.”
“We drugged you.”
“Why?” My chest hurts so fucking bad.
He gives me a soft stare. “Because she wants her son back. The only way I can do that is to put her on the inside. Then, we draw Leland out and give her a chance to steal him away.”
“She’s not safe,” I breathe.
“He won’t hurt her.”
“How do you know that?” My voice rises.
“Because he loves her,” Brothers says, voice going hard, the way it does when he’s tired of explaining himself.
“That won’t protect her,” I snap back.
The air crackles. I’m so angry at him, I don’t trust myself not to put a bullet in his head. He’s gone and done it again—playing with my life to suit himself.
“Della’s a big girl,” he says. “She knows what she’s doing. You need to respect that.”
“Della is a fucking victim.”
I’m on my feet, steady, circling the bed. He takes a step closer, and everything snaps. Maybe it’s the memory of him teaching me to fight, or the fact that last night, it almost felt like old times again. But God, I am so sick of him.
Quick as a flash, I reach over the bed and grab my gun, training it on him.
“Jen—”
“No, you shut your fucking mouth,” I whisper.
His palms go up. Sweat etches down the side of his lean face. I’m so tempted to pull the trigger, my hand is shaking. But I can’t, not while Della is behind enemy lines. That doesn’t stop me from playing with the idea, fantasizing about what it would feel like to erase him from my life.
“Jen—”
“No,” I spit. “You don’t get to talk right now. You listen.”
He nods, swallowing.
“You might not have meant to, but you ruined my life,” I say. “You fucked me up, fucked me over. And now you dragged me back here, and for what? For what?”
He flicks the inside of his cheek. “I wanted a chance.”
“For what?”
His shoulders heave, sinking. The room is unbearably hot. We’re both sweating hard.
“It was supposed to be us, Jen,” he says finally. “You’re my blood.”
My jaw grits so hard it hurts.
“You are not my father,” I say. “Not my brother. Not my friend. You brought me back here to use me to take out your enemies. I am a useful idiot to you.”
His eyes glitter. “I didn’t bring you home to use you,” he says. “I want you back, Jen. Come home, take this city with me.”
There’s a clock ticking somewhere. The sound drags me back, to my mother’s trailer, to the motel in Harlan. It’s making it hard to think.
“You were meant for this,” he says.
I wasn’t, though. It was the path I was spit out onto, a boy with nothing but the need to fill his stomach, to feel love. That path led me west. It made me into a calloused man, and that man doesn’t have it in him to forgive anymore.
In my head, we’re standing in the summer heat, beneath the oak tree. I toss the gun back onto the bed. He takes a step closer. I surge, and this time, when I swing my fists, I’m better than him.
He takes it, head whipping to the side. Blood spreads over his cheekbone. Then, instinct kicks in, and he’s hitting back. My lower spine collides with the edge of the bed. My already-bruised body sears. I vault to my feet just as he comes at me, catching me in the chest. Fuck, he’s still strong.
I turn on him, vision red.
His hands rise in surrender, palms out.
“Stop, Jen. Stop it.” He clears his throat, jaw twitching as blood leaks from it. “She went of her own accord. I just facilitated it.”
“Of course, she went,” I breathe. “He’s got her son.”
“What was your plan? Tell me how you were going to get her son back from Leland. Because you can admit it—you have no cards.”
“I was going to go in there and take the kid,” I say. “And run.”
It sounds pretty stupid now that I’m saying it out loud, but I’ve done this kind of thing out west before, and it worked.
But that was with the Sovereign Mountain boys, with Deacon Ryder, sometimes Jack Russell.
Here, I’m at a disadvantage. But I can shoot a quarter in the dark, and I can fight like hell in the pit.
I could have done it. It just would have taken some figuring out.
The anger drains out of me. Being fucked over by him is a broken record at this point. That’s all he’s ever done.
“Look at me,” he says.
I drag my eyes up. He’s shining with sweat, scuffed up.
“You killed Pat Pretty,” he says. “Not me. I didn’t drive you west. I would have kept you safe.”
“I would never have been in that trailer if it weren’t for you.”
“And you’d never have been here if it weren’t for a couple thousand other things,” he drawls. “Time to face up, Jen. You can’t keep blaming me for what happened to Cherry.”
My chest is tight and cold. “So who’s fault is it?” I whisper.
“Matthew and Leland Caudill. They killed your family. They killed my brother.”
“So, what? So I help you take them out, you get all the Lexington territory unopposed,” I snap, taking a step closer. “You get everything you wanted, and I just have to help you, or I lose Della?”
His eyes glint. “Not everything I wanted.”
The air is heavy with the last twenty years of my life. I’m hollow, like the empty place left by the man who fathered me and scarred by the man who stepped into that space but failed to fill it.
“What do you want from me?” I manage.
He lifts his hand. “Just for you to know…I never meant to hurt you. Everything I told you in the diner was the truth.”
My eyes sting. Maybe it’s sweat getting in my eyes.
“So you want me back because Jem’s gone?” I spit. “Swap out one warm body for another, huh?”
His face stays the same, but his tongue flicks the inside of his cheek. The light goes out in his eyes, and he’s behind walls again. Finally, he clears his throat.
“I promised Della I’d get her son back,” he says. “I will, with or without your help.”
“You know I’ll help you,” I spit before I can bite it back. “I don’t have a choice, not when it comes...”
I falter. He doesn’t have to ask what the next words were—we both know.
I have no choice when it comes to Della.
For the second time, he made me fall for a woman without my consent.
It was so easy this time, sweet and natural.
He must have known the moment he laid eyes on her what she would do to me.
Nobody knows my weaknesses better than the man who was supposed to heal me and hurt me instead.
He’s always known me better than I know myself.
“I want a promise,” I say.
He jerks his head.
“I help you take down the Caudills, get Della back,” I say, “and you never speak to me again. I never want to see your face after this is done. I’m not your victim…and I’m not your fucking son.”