Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
JENSEN
After Brothers leaves, I go to the back of the pavilion to have a cigarette.
Once my nerves are calm, I circle around to find Brothers heading my way.
The doors to the cage are being pulled ajar.
The pit is deeper than I remembered, the bars overtop thicker, the spikes along the edge sharper.
Once they lock that gate, nobody’s getting out.
For the first time, I’m afraid of dying.
I can’t die. I have something to live for now. I look across the clearing and see her, standing at the top of the steps. She’s roughed up, hair falling over her shoulder, skirt torn. My stomach lurches with pure rage, fists clenching at my sides.
Brothers appears at my elbow. “He’ll fight you,” he breathes.
“What’s the price?” I say.
He looks me in the eyes, unflinching. “Fight for her life, Jen.”
Right away, I know he told Leland.
We’re at the crossroads where I first met the devil, in my front yard, offering to help fix my truck. The Good God Boyd has done it again, pulling at my strings until I have no choices left. I round on him, gripping his arm and pulling him to look at me.
He’s so tired, face hollowed, sweat dripping down his forehead.
I’m sick of this, sick of deception, sick of secrets.
“Tell me what you did,” I whisper. “The night I can’t remember. Tell me now, and I’ll fight.”
He blinks, slow. “Why does it matter, Jen?” he drawls.
“It matters to me,” I grit out.
He looks down, then back up. “I put a gun in your fist and told you to shoot Holly if you wanted to be my right hand. You couldn’t do it, we fought, and you left drunk and angry.”
One second, I’m in the here and now. The next, everything is flooding back with so much clarity, it could be a movie reel. A dam shatters, and an ocean pulls me under, deep into a part of my past my brain worked hard to keep from me.
BEFORE
“Jen, can you come in here, please?”
I’m moving down the hall, on a high. Everything in my life is going right.
Brothers and I are running this operation like Kentucky’s criminal dream team.
I finally told Holly we’re done, and I even sort of meant it.
Brothers says he’s going to give me another promotion as soon as I can prove myself.
I veer left and step into the dining room, closing the door. My steps falter. The room is empty, save for Brothers sitting at the head of the table and Holly in a chair by the fireplace. Something is off. Why is everyone so serious?
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Of course,” Brothers says, standing. “But it’s time we talk about that promotion.”
“Okay, but…why is Holly here?”
I glance at her, meeting her eyes. They’re huge, brimming with nerves like she wants to say something, but she can’t.
Brothers walks past her and stands toe to toe with me at my end of the table.
He reaches into his jacket and takes out a gun.
It’s an original Ruger, still in mint condition. He lays it on the table.
“I want you to be my right hand,” he says.
That catches me off guard. I thought his brother, Jem, had that spot on lockdown on account of being his blood.
“What?” I breathe.
“I want me and you to do this together, Jen,” he says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Brothers Boyd and Jensen Childress. We can own this city.”
“Do you mean that?” I ask.
He nods, lazy smile turning up his mouth. “I mean it.”
“Thank you.”
“There is a catch,” he drawls, turning to face Holly. She swallows, lips parting. “I do need you to prove yourself, prove you can take orders without questioning me.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “What do you need me to do?”
Brothers circles until he’s standing over my shoulder. “You fell in love with this woman, gave her everything. Now, I’m asking you for something more, and in return, I will give you everything, Jen.”
My gut churns. Brothers leaves me, crossing to Holly. She doesn’t move, frozen to her chair, and he rests his elbows on the back of it, hands on her shoulders.
“There’s one last test of loyalty,” he says. “Take that Ruger and put a bullet in her.”
The low whine in the back of my mind erupts into an explosion. The world shatters. He puts it in my hand, and the subtle shift in weight tells me there’s a single bullet in the chamber. I go from looking at him like the father I never had to recoiling in pure disgust.
“What?” I breathe.
His eyes glint. Holly is frozen, eyes huge. Brothers has her by the shoulders, keeping her pinned to the chair.
“Go on,” he says. “I require loyalty, Jen. Undying loyalty. You follow my orders, you trust me, or we can’t do this together.”
“Fuck no,” I snap.
He straightens, fire roaring in his face. “Then walk, Jen. Get out of my house.”
No, this isn’t right.
He’s supposed to be the man who stepped in, who stepped up.
He fixed my truck with me. He took me in when I had nothing.
He sat in that diner and promised me I could tell him anything.
In his place is a man I don’t recognize, one who’s holding the bond I valued so deeply above my head, telling me to jump for it. A master manipulator.
I’d hoped that love was free. Turns out, it costs my soul.
I’m done, really done this time.
“Fuck you,” I whisper, tossing the gun onto the table.
NOW
I snap back to the present. He’s standing inches from me, the same man, just a few more lines on his face.
The rest is falling into place. We fought, I remember throwing something at him.
He told me we’d discuss things in the morning.
I said I was going to finish a job and I left, but not before taking the bourbon off the table and walking out.
I can’t speak.
He flicks the inside of his cheek with his tongue.
“I take it you remember now,” he says finally.
All those years, and the truth is still worse than I imagined. The utter cruelty of it leaves me breathless. He takes a step closer. He’s struggling, eyes flickering back and forth, jaw tensing.
“There was no bullet, Jen,” he says, barely audible.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “There was no bullet.”
“I felt the weight of it.”
“Weighted gun,” he murmurs, not looking at me. “You had to believe it.”
That’s less horrifying for Holly, but somehow crueler to past Jensen.
A whistle splits through the crowd, and I reel back.
The referee from the Caudill side is in the pit.
At the edge looms Leland, standing while they tape his hands.
The crowd starts chanting, urging me to get in the ring. It’s time.
I turn back to Brothers.
When I look at him, I don’t want to hurt him.
No hate.
No anger.
Just deep sadness for the man I could have been.
“I’m doing this for Della,” I say. “Not for you.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but I already have my back to him.
Before me is the possibility of Della, of having her become my family.
We can go west. I’ll be a cowboy, and she’ll be my wife.
We’ll raise her son together, maybe have a few more babies.
Behind me is the past, full of death and grief and lost innocence.
I’m ready to leave it all behind in the cage tonight.
I’ll fight for that kid from Harlan who never stood a chance. I’ll fight for Cherry, for Kyle, who never deserved to be caught between me and the Caudills.
But more than anything, I’ll fight for my woman.