Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Kira
The barrel of the gun is pointed right between my brows, only an inch away.
I want to move, but I’m frozen in the dirt.
I haven’t seen Jax Landon—I knew I remembered that name—since high school, and I don’t know what he’s capable of.
He was always a force to be fucked with.
He was too rich to be punished, and he got away with some crazy shit.
But a cold-blooded murderer? I have no idea, so I stay still.
The last I heard, he was off to law school, a small piece of information I gleaned from the gossip mill, but he looks nothing like a lawyer now.
There isn’t an ounce of professionalism in his simple black T-shirt, stretched around muscles that slope and curve under the moonlight.
A litany of tattoos snake around his biceps, down his forearms, and cut off at the wrists.
Something tells me they cover his chest, but none peek from the collar of his shirt.
That wouldn’t look appropriate for a lawyer if he is one.
He smirks when my gaze climbs up his stubbled jaw, his left cheek rising with a deceptively innocent dimple.
I let him have whatever cocky thought he’s having without scowling in return.
He can think I’m admiring him while I size him up and try to figure out if he’s really going to shoot me or is just putting on a show.
Guys like to do that—put on a show. If only they knew it makes them look weaker than when they started.
There’s nothing worse than a man who can’t follow through—with a threat, with a bet, with a child.
It draws all this attention to garner nothing but a letdown.
If you can’t back it up, sit down and shut up.
“It’s nothing personal, Kira,” he says with a sigh. “We just can’t have any loose ends. Though, it is a shame. You sure you don’t want to go a round before I have to kill you?”
I suppress the loudest scoff known to woman. Cocky fucker. Yes, he’s gorgeous. Yes, I noticed. I still bet he’s as disappointing in bed as the rest of them. He needs to be knocked down several pegs.
“How do you know my name?” I grit, pretending I don’t remember him while simultaneously shoving him off his pedestal.
His smirk flickers, jaw tightening. He tries to school his expression, but I saw it, and victory tastes delicious.
“Cute.” He rolls his eyes.
“Do you drink at Bell’s?” I keep it going. “Sometimes the faces blur together.”
He huffs, gaze whipping between me and his brother. “Are you serious right now? You have a gun pointed to your head, and you want to play games?”
“I… uh…” I give a fake gulp. “Calvin?” I squeak with a made-up guess.
He growls.
“Or Jeff!” I pretend to wince. “Is it Jeff?”
“What the fuck kind of name is Jeff?!” He looks offended, straightening his leather jacket with his free hand.
I resist the urge to beam in triumph. “Yours?” I ask with faux hope.
His eyes nearly bulge out. “That’s it! Offers off the table. I’m not going to risk you calling out Jeff when it’s my tongue between your legs.” He cocks the gun.
“Okay, okay!” Caleb yelps, scrambling forward. “Stop!”
“Woah there, little bro.” Jax coolly turns the gun on his own brother.
Right. So he’s cocky and unhinged. Fantastic. Regardless, I take the opportunity to breathe, casting a glance at Nix as I back up a step. She’s still standing by the body, and when she sees she has my attention, she gives me a helpless shrug.
“Jeez, are you really going to shoot me?” Caleb asks. “Put that away. These are my friends. I’m helping them.”
“You aren’t helping anyone. All you’ve managed to do is get two girls killed and your car scrapped.”
“You aren’t killing them. There’s nothing to clean up here. Just go home.”
Clean up? Jesus, what kind of family are the Landons?
I rub at the skin of my chest, sure now that I’ve been delusional to think we could hide a body.
This has gotten way out of control. I should have gone to the police at the very beginning.
I mean, prison can’t be any worse than the life I’ve been living.
And I can claim self-defense in place of Nix.
Sure, Marshal was a cop, and I’ll be nailed to the wall, but at least Nix’s life won’t be on the line like it is right now.
I inch farther away, tuning out Jax and Caleb’s bickering, and slip my phone from my back pocket. If Nix and I bolt into the woods, maybe—maybe—we can get far enough away for help to arrive. And if she so much as tries to tell the cops that it was her that killed Marshal, I’ll kill her myself.
I catch her eye and mouth the word run.
She shakes her head.
I freeze mid-step into running.
What in the fuck?!
“Wait,” she mouths back, and I can read that impatient look she reserves just for me.
Wait for what? For Jax to shoot us? She’s lost her fucking mind.
I swear to God, I’m going to die of another heart attack before they can even put me in an orange jumpsuit.
Does she not see how deep of shit we’re in?
Jax Landon has become a ‘clean up’ guy who carries a gun, and Caleb isn’t going to be able to stop him.
Jax wants to protect his little brother from being an accomplice, no matter the cost. I know the feeling.
And the frustration that comes along with it.
He’s not thinking clearly, just like I wasn’t thinking clearly when I let us cart a body into the woods.
“He. Wants. To. Kill. Us,” I hiss silently.
“Relax,” she mouths with an eye roll.
“You fucking relax!” I practically spit in my effort to not scream the words. “Run!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“No!”
“I’m going to fucking—”
“If you run,” Jax suddenly interjects with a lazy drawl, “I’ll chase you. And let’s be honest, you don’t look like you’ll make it very far.”
The audacity.
The absolute migraine-inducing audacity.
“Fuck you,” I snap at him and then spin. “Nix, run!”
I take off, planning on ripping her shoulder out of its socket when I near her if she’s not already moving.
But I make it all of three paces before an arm wraps around my waist, lifting me clean off the ground and hauling me back.
Anger surges through me, and I thrash, but black dots quickly swarm my vision.
I kick, and I scratch at his arm with everything I have, but infuriatingly, it’s not much.
My limbs are heavy, searing under the exertion too quickly, and all the rage and desperation bottlenecks inside of me.
Hot tears burn my eyes at the realization that I’m too weak to fight him off, too weak to expel what I’m feeling.
Gasping pants come ragged from my chest, and I can’t even scream.
With painful defeat, I sag in his hold, much quicker than I ever would’ve if my body hadn’t been sabotaged by a literal torn artery.
It’s actually comical, and I can’t tell if I’m crying or laughing as he lowers me to my knees.
With one hand gripping my chest, I let the other brace myself in the gravel as I choke around my breaths, unable to take in enough oxygen.
“Wow,” Jax says. “That was, uh, not as fun as I’d hoped.”
Footsteps stomp up, and I hear a smack of palm on hard chest. “She just had a heart attack, you asshole!” Nix yells.
There’s a crunching beside me, and I feel Nix put her hand on my back. “Just breathe,” she coos, kneeling.
“A heart attack? She’s barely thirty.”
“Yes, dick,” Caleb says, and then there’s more crunching, and he’s on my other side. “Put your arm around my shoulder. I’ll help you up,” Caleb says to me.
“You guys aren’t fucking with me?”
“No!” Nix and Caleb snap in unison.
They hook their arms under mine, but I don’t budge. I can’t. I can’t breathe, and I can’t let go of my chest. If I do, I’m sure my heart will explode right out of its cavity. I dig my nails into the gravel, trying to trade one pain for the other.
“Come on,” Nix urges.
I shake my head, too breathless to form words.
“You can do it,” Caleb says in my other ear.
I shake again.
I can’t. I can’t, and more tears pour down my cheeks. This is such bullshit. The anger is still inside of me, burning right through me. I can’t calm down. I can’t calm my heart. I can’t calm my breathing. I’m combusting from the inside.
“Move.” Jax’s voice booms above me.
There’s a scuffling, and the loss of Nix and Caleb’s warmth is replaced by an even hotter touch. One arm scoops behind my back. The other slides under my knees. I’m lifted, cradled against a broad chest that radiates heat like a furnace.
I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to see Jax’s smug face as he holds me like a child. My hand lands against his chest, instinctively steadying myself, and the gravel still embedded in my skin dirties his shirt.
“I’m… fine,” I wheeze.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, amused. “And I’m a saint.”