Chapter 27
Twenty-seven
DIMITRI
My whole body tenses as a gunshot echoes. I’ve already started scrubbing with his phone connected to my laptop to get into the server for the website. Anytime the asshole who’s nearly lost to shock goes quiet, I dig my fingers into a wound and he’s suddenly very willing to help.
Self-preservation really proves a lot about a person.
I look at how he’s tied up, how quiet he is.
I altered the code so anytime a video of Hope is posted, anytime one of those sick fucks try, it’s immediately deleted.
The phone itself has everything else. All of the traces.
All of the records. The financial transactions, a list of IP addresses that downloaded, and all of them route to a shared account with Coach Harbaugh as the listed name.
With my laptop linked, I open a back door in the server. “Do your thing, boys,” I whisper and watch as my guys help me set up the code. A virus that will lay dormant and slowly destroy everything. No more videos, no more funds for those benefiting off the website.
I let the program run, pocket the phone, and run outside.
Another shot is fired and I sink down before I realize Knox is tussling with someone. A flashlight moves, proving Knox isn’t being gentle. Not slightly. Hope throws something at him and he sighs.
“Thank you, baby,” he says, then pummels Gauge with his fist. Something glints around his fingers. The knuckle buster.
“Jax? Jax, please. Answer me. Please? I need you to be okay. Talk to me. Oh, god, not you too. Please, please,” Hope sobs.
Gauge laughs. “Looks like the whole family is dead.”
I sprint to Jax and Hope. My arms wrap around Hope and I lift her off Jax. “Fuck,” I whisper and try to wipe away the blood. I can’t see his eye under the gushing flow. His ear looks like it’s gone. But the blood is too much to be from his ear alone.
“What fucking caliber…” I trail off as Hope shakes Jax.
She leans in and kisses him, not caring about the blood. I try to pull her back, but she squeaks softly, then her whole body starts shaking. Jax wraps an arm around her slowly, then grips the back of her neck hard, squeezing like she’s the life he needs.
Then I see it, the stream of blood soaking into the earth. “Hope, keep pressure on his temple.”
She tilts back, follows my line of sight and does as I told her.
“We need an ambulance—”
“Dimitri, get over here!” Knox orders. He kicks the gun in our direction, and I see Gauge making a comeback despite the fact he’s wheezing, his nose is broken, his jaw hangs tilted, and one of his eyes is swollen shut.
I don’t think, I move. I crawl to Knox and dig my knee into Gauge’s stomach. He thrashes, but Knox has one of his legs pinned and his shoulder on the ground. I pin the other. When he tries to bite me, I punch him so hard he ends up with fewer teeth.
He laughs. “All of this for some whore who would eat up the attention. She’d get all the money once you proved he’s dead. Fucking idiots! She wanted it, loved it, ached for it.”
“D-did y-ou sa-ayy the same thing… ‘bout D-Daisy?” Jax asks.
Knox, Gauge, and I all look over. Hope is keeping pressure on the side of his head. His face is pale as fuck, one eye so swollen and covered in blood that it looks like it’s missing, part of his ear is gone, and there’s more blood. So much fucking blood.
Jaxon coughs. “I-it’s fine, sweetheart,” Jax says and blinks away the fuzz. “Gauge, he’s… is going to answer me.”
Gauge laughs. “Impossible to kill. You are something, aren’t you, brother?”
“You’re just a lou… lousy shot,” Jax bites back.
“Jax, please,” Hope whimpers.
Her face is smeared with blood too. He gently tips her chin and kisses her. “Grab the gun, for me.”
She swallows, then does exactly that. Jax can’t seem to find his feet, but Hope helps him to walk over. He gets paler, but his hand doesn’t shake as Hope helps him aim it at Gauge.
“Going to kill me with my own gun?” Gauge chuckles.
“What. W-what. Happened. To. Daisy?” He enunciates each word even though they come out wet and sticky.
“Baby, remember that other present Jax gave you?” Knox hints.
Hope gropes at her pocket and I know her hand closes around the knife as she nods.
“Why?” Gauge asks. “It’s not going to bring her back.”
Jaxon trembles. “Because you’re going to confess before I put this bullet through what’s left of your face.”
“Or you’ll pass out and your buddies will kill me. We’re not the only ones. Someone’s always watching. You might know him well—” Gauge starts to turn to me, but I punch him hard.
It’s one thing for me to know my father’s involved. It’s another for it to be said.
He sputters, maybe choking on a tooth, but I don’t care.
“Jax, hey. Hey…” Hope hums.
He’s shaking. “Adrenaline…”
“Now, baby,” Knox orders.
Hope pulls out the knife, but doesn’t even look at Gauge, even though he’s staring at her like she’s a ghost. Her arms are covered in blood, just like her face. Is he seeing Daisy too?
“You’re mine, and I’m yours,” Hope says to Jaxon. “Remember? I stay in sight. I stay close. I stay right…” she cuts through his shirt, from the neckline to where his heart is. “Right here.”
“Right there is yours alone,” Jax hums, his good eye blinking rapidly. “You know how I feel about you. Flirting or not. I’d die for you. I’d kill for you.”
“How b’out you live for me instead?” she asks, before carving her initials into his chest.
HOPE
The last thing he needs is more blood loss, and I know how messed up this is. But it’s us.
“I hope I don’t mess up your tattoos,” I whisper, knowing all too well he carried my initial with him.
“You saw,” he mutters.
I nod and swallow through my throat tightening. “I was always yours.”
As I finish, I slowly look up at him and see resolve settle in his good eye. I stand on my toes to kiss him and straighten his arm so it’s pointed at his brother.
He tastes like blood, smells like iron and gunpowder and dirt, but he’s mine.
He’s been mine for so long. They all have.
Even when they didn’t understand, their presence helped.
Even when I cursed them, they were there.
We’re all broken with pieces that can cut, which means we know how to put each other back together without flinching at every pain.
“I’m here,” I whisper. Without looking away from him, I raise my voice. “If you’re this scared to answer, then you’re more of a coward than Coach was, Gauge. He at least bragged about all the things he did to me.”
“Oh yeah? Before Knox failed to shoot him? After you beat him bloody? I know it all, princess,” Gauge says, but his voice is weak, almost a whimper.
Jax finally looks at his brother. There’s no conflict. There’s no questioning. There’s only unflinching, merciless violence in his eye. “What did you do to our sister? Why did you break her?”
“Because it was easy. She was weak. So fucking weak.” He laughs.
“It started as a game, to see what I could do. Mom and Dad were so trusting of me. I showed them handpicked articles and they thought therapy was pointless. You were worried and they said it was a phase. Do you think they pulled that out of their asses? You were all so fucking blind. It was easy and then, I made it fun.”
“Why! What did you do!” Jaxon and I advance together as his voice rises.
“After a very special meeting with Coach where he shared a certain website, I knew exactly what to do. Just like you did,” he snickers. “God, thinking you’re better than me.”
“He is,” I growl. “He became better. You became a fucking coward who can’t even take accountability.”
“She was so much like you, Hope. Was so sweet and trusting, so easy to break. And just like you, she was a whore who could swallow everything but her guilt,” Guage hisses.
Jaxon’s hand tightens under mine on the gun, his finger teasing the trigger.
Gauge laughs. Maybe he’s insane. Maybe he’s finally done keeping it inside. People like him always want to gloat. I rub my fingers over Jaxon’s and steady my palm against his back.
“I gave her what she wanted. A reason to live. I told her she could be a star. That Coach could make her so much money… she just couldn’t handle it.
” Gauge smirks and stares at Jaxon. “You were so busy with sports, so wrapped up in other things… I had plenty of time, but she called it dirty, blamed herself… she was a depressed, pathetic little girl who couldn’t handle it.
If I didn’t draw the lines on her arms, she would have done it in college!
There’s no saving someone who doesn’t want to be saved! ” Gauge yells.
“Not if they’re a fucking demon who thinks it’s easier to kill,” Jaxon snarls.
“Now,” I whisper.
“I bet you’re just mad that you—”
Jaxon doesn’t let him finish. He doesn’t tolerate another word. He shoots Gauge in the head. Jaxon might look like he’s had a bullet through his eye, but Gauge gets the real thing, his mouth hanging open, surprise on his face.
Please let it be done.
JAXON
I stare at my brother’s body as my best friends get off him. I should feel remorse. I should feel conflicted. I should feel plenty, but it doesn’t come.
At least now I know what my brother did. He killed her. He might not have held the blades or the pills. He might not have murdered her like I did him, but he killed her from the inside out.
I’m only sad he doesn’t get to feel the same rot.
The same agony.
The same constant guilt, paranoia, depression.
But that would give him more time to hurt Hope and he will never hurt another woman I love. The burn across my chest pulses. It sizzles, it makes me feel alive in a way only Hope ever has.
I drop the gun and she does the same, then she peeks up at me. She rips the rest of my shirt and tries to clean up my face while I just watch her.
Knox and Dimitri are working on something, muttering about finishing things, about whether it is done, but Hope is all that matters. Bloodstained, calm, only worried about me, not the fact that I’m a murderer.
“What if it’s inside you?” she asks weakly. “What if it’s lodged in your brain? I love your brain. You can’t just let it turn off. I want… I want you, Jax. Whole and here and mine. I need you.”
“And you have me. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere without you,” I promise. “It’s just a graze.”
She looks at my head. “I think I see bone, all the way to your hairline,” she murmurs.
“A nasty graze,” I revise. “I’m dizzy, have the world’s loudest headache, but that’s it. An angel helped me to finish the job.”
Her cheeks burn and she rolls her eyes as I pull her against me, kissing her again. She tastes like vengeance, like peace, like actual hope. I sigh against her mouth. “My Hope.”