Chapter 8 Jett
JETT
The warehouse is cold and dark.
I don't do the killing myself. I have people for that, men who owe me favors, men who know how to make problems disappear without leaving traces. My job is to watch. To witness. To make sure it's done right.
Garrett Ashworth dies thinking he's untouchable. He's wrong.
The setup is clean. His own people turn on him, bought off with money and threats. They lure him to a meeting he thinks is about finding Sparrow. Instead, he finds a room full of men who don't answer to his daddy's name.
I don't speak to him. I don't explain or gloat or give him the satisfaction of knowing why. I just stand in the shadows and watch as the man who hurt her realizes, finally, that money and power can't save him from everything.
The cover story is already in place. A drug deal gone wrong. The senator's son, caught up in a lifestyle his family tried to hide. Tragic. Predictable. The kind of scandal that makes headlines for a week and then fades into nothing.
When the light leaves his eyes, I feel nothing but satisfaction.
This is what I am. What I've always been. A protector. A killer. A monster who serves a purpose. The blood on my hands will never wash off, and I made my peace with that a long time ago.
But as I walk out of the warehouse into the cold night air, a new fear grips me.
Sparrow.
She knows what I am. She's known since the beginning. But knowing and seeing are different things. Knowing and accepting the blood on my hands, the violence in my soul, the darkness I carry like a second skin...
What if this is the thing that finally breaks us?
The clubhouse is quiet when I get back.
It's after midnight. The bar is closed, the lot empty except for a few bikes. I walk through the front door without speaking, ignoring the looks from the prospects on night watch. They know where I've been. They know what was done. They also know better than to ask questions.
I push open the door to our room, and she's there.
Sitting on the edge of the bed in the lamplight. Still fully dressed in the jeans and sweater she wore earlier. Still awake, her eyes alert despite the late hour.
She takes one look at me—at the blood spattering my shirt, the split skin across my knuckles, the haunted look I can't quite hide—and I brace myself for what's coming.
The fear that will finally surface. The horror that will twist her features when the reality sinks in.
The dawning realization that she's been sharing a bed with a man who kills without hesitation, without remorse.
Instead, she stands up. Crosses the small distance between us with steady steps. Takes my bloodied, battered hand in both of hers, her touch warm and deliberate.
"Is it done?"
I nod, unable to form words.
"Is anyone coming for you? Any blowback?"
"No."
She exhales slowly, something in her shoulders loosening, tension draining from her frame. Then, her voice soft but certain: "Come on. Let's get you in the shower."
She leads me to the bathroom like I'm a child. Undresses me like I'm fragile, careful with the bruises on my knuckles, gentle with the tension locked in my muscles. She turns on the water and guides me under the spray.
The heat is almost unbearable. I stand there, numb, watching the red swirl down the drain. Blood. His blood. The blood of a man who will never hurt her again.
I should feel guilty. I don't.
"Sparrow—"
"Stop." She steps into the shower with me, still in her clothes, water plastering the fabric to her skin.
She doesn't care. Her hands find my chest, my arms, my face.
"I know what you are. I've known since the first day, when you looked at my bruises like they were a personal insult.
You think I haven't noticed the scars on your knuckles?
The way people go quiet when you walk into a room? "
"This is different. I killed a man."
"You killed the man who hurt me." Her voice is fierce, unwavering. "You killed the monster who made my life hell for two years. And I'm not going to stand here and pretend to be horrified when all I feel is grateful."
"You should be horrified."
"Why? Because society says so?" She grabs my face, forces me to look at her.
"You're not a good man by normal standards.
I know that. But you're a good man by the only standards that matter.
You protect the people you love. You fight for the people who can't fight for themselves.
And you loved me enough to make sure I'd never have to be afraid again. "
My chest cracks open. Something I've been holding back for weeks, maybe months, maybe my entire life, comes flooding out.
I sink to my knees on the shower floor, arms wrapped around her waist, face pressed against her stomach. The water pours over us, washing away the blood, and I let myself break.
She holds me. Her fingers comb through my hair. Her voice murmurs soft words I can't quite hear over the roar of the water.
"You're not alone anymore," she says finally. "Neither am I."
I look up at her. This woman who walked into my bar with nothing but a broken car and a broken heart. Who stayed when she should have run. Who sees me, all of me, the violence and the darkness and the desperate need to protect, and doesn't flinch.
"I love you." The words come out rough, scraped raw. "I love you so much it scares me."
She smiles through her tears. "I know."
"I love you," I say again, because now that I've started, I can't stop. "I love you. I love you."
She sinks down to meet me, kneeling on the wet tile, and kisses me. It's tender and desperate and tastes like salvation. "Show me," she whispers against my mouth.
Iturn off the water and carry her to the bed, both of us dripping wet, neither of us caring.
This time is different from all the others. It's not about passion or possession or proving anything. It's about connection. It's about two broken people finding something whole in each other.
I lay her down on the sheets and take my time. Learn her body all over again, not because I've forgotten but because she deserves to be worshipped. Every kiss is an apology for what I am. Every touch is a promise of what I'll be for her.
She arches into me when I settle between her thighs, her fingers tangled in my hair.
I taste her slow and thorough, drawing out every moan, every gasp, every trembling cry.
She comes on my tongue with a sound that's half my name and half a prayer, and I stay there until she's shaking, oversensitive, begging me for more.
Only then do I rise over her.
"I love you," I say as I slide inside her. "Every part of you."
"I love you too." Her legs wrap around my waist, pulling me deeper. "Every part of you. Even the scary parts."
I move, and she meets me thrust for thrust. There's no rush, no desperation, just the slow build of something inevitable. We're climbing together, holding on to each other, making vows with our bodies that words can't capture.
When she comes, I'm right there with her. The pleasure crashes through us both, binding us together in a way that feels permanent, unbreakable.
After, lying tangled in the damp sheets, I press my lips to her forehead.
"Marry me."
She goes still. "What?"
"Marry me." I prop myself up on one elbow, looking down at her.
"I know it's fast. I don't care. I want you to be mine in every way that matters.
I want to wake up next to you every morning.
I want to fall asleep holding you every night.
I want the whole world to know that you're mine and I'm yours. "
"Jett—"
"I've never wanted anything for myself. Not since Marcus died. The club was enough. The job was enough. But then you walked through my door, and suddenly nothing was enough without you in it." I cup her face in my hand. "Marry me, Sparrow."
Her eyes are bright with tears. "I'm already yours."
"Then this is just paperwork." I kiss her, soft and sweet. "Say yes."
She laughs, a sound of pure joy. "Yes. Yes, of course yes."
I kiss her again, deeper this time. The world outside can wait. The club can wait. Everything can wait. Right now, all that matters is her.
The next morning, the news hits.
Senator Ashworth's son found dead in apparent drug overdose. Authorities suspect no foul play. The family is requesting privacy during this difficult time.
The TV plays the story on repeat in the bar, but Sparrow isn't watching. She's too busy being kissed by the man who set her free.
Gears catches my eye across the room, raises his coffee cup in a silent toast. Preacher nods his approval. Even Whiskey manages to look serious for half a second before cracking a joke that makes Mama Rosa swat him with a towel.
This is my family, bound by choice rather than blood. These are my people, the ones who've stood beside me through every storm. And now Sparrow is woven into that tapestry, one of us in every way that counts.
I pull her closer, tucking her against my chest as I breathe her in—vanilla and something uniquely her. "No regrets?"
"Not one." She tilts her head back to look up at me with those bright blue eyes that saw past every wall I'd built. "You?"
"Only that I didn't find you sooner." The words come out rougher than I intend, weighted with all the years I spent alone.
She smiles, and I feel it settle deep in my chest, warming places I thought had gone cold and dark years ago, long before Marcus died.
"We found each other when we needed to," she says softly, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my arm. "That's what matters."
She's right. She usually is, though I'll never admit it out loud.
I kiss her one more time, slow and deliberate, not caring who's watching or what they think, and make a silent promise to myself and to her.
I'll spend the rest of my life making sure she never regrets choosing me over the gilded cage she left behind. I'll protect her, cherish her, love her with everything I have left to give.
She's my family now, tied to me in ways that go deeper than any blood relation. And anyone who touches her touches the whole club—every patched member, every friend, every ally.
That's not a threat or a warning.
That's just the unvarnished truth.