Chapter 49 Jagg
JAGG
Icouldn’t move. I was rooted to the ground with invisible strings while my brain started spinning. My stomach plummeted to the ground.
The Black Bandit had a limp. A left hip limp.
Briana Morgan’s words echoed in my ear.
“The Black Bandit… Who picked that name, anyway? … Look closer, Jagg…”
I zeroed in on Sunny’s long, black curly hair.
The Black Bandit.
Sunny Harper was the Black Bandit.
Briana had named her partner in crime, her informant, after her pitch black hair.
And I had fucking missed it. The Bandit had been right there in front of me the entire time.
I’d missed it.
I can’t explain the emotions that pummeled through my body at that moment. Shock, anger, gut-wrenching embarrassment. All this quickly replaced with a racing heart and a rage like fire over my skin. I’d been lied to. Played like a fucking fiddle.
Sunny Harper was the Black Bandit and I hadn’t even seen it.
“Sunny.” The name spat out like fire.
She stopped instantly at the tone in my voice, and even through the growing darkness, I could see her entire body tense. She knew. At that moment, she knew she’d let it slip.
She didn’t turn.
A second went by with us standing ten feet apart on the trail that led through the woods to the bungalow.
Max whimpered.
And then—
She was gone.
Like a flash of lightning, Sunny took off into the woods.
The cooler and bags tumbled to the ground as I spun on my heel and sprinted after her, laser focused on the black hair zipping through the trees like a deer.
The woman was freakishly fast. Beams of moonlight shot through the canopy above, silver spotlights dappling the forest floor below.
It was like a dizzying light show, flashes and swaying shadows in the breeze.
Twigs slapped my face, a few slicing the skin on my bare chest. The pain like gasoline to the fire that was raging through me.
I’d been played.
Played.
A flash of black and brown emerged from the side, Max, chasing after her, sensing something in the air.
The trees enclosed around us, stealing most of the light. I had a feeling Sunny would fade away as soon as darkness fully engulfed us.
I wasn’t going to let that happen.
Gritting my teeth, I surged forward, pressing into a fast sprint, ignoring the pain shooting up my back, the branches slicing my skin, the rocks, the gangly roots threatening to trip me with every step.
I took a risk and switched paths, running around the boulders she was struggling to maneuver through.
Almost…
I could smell the coconut in her hair as I jumped onto a rock and leapt through the air like a cheetah.
My body slammed into hers. I wrapped my arms around her, flung her bodyweight and we hit the ground, tumbling three rotations before my back slammed against a rock.
I pinned her wrists above her head and straddled her torso before the woman could even blink.
Moonlight slashed her face as she gasped for breath and struggled against my hold. Her now-shoeless bare legs flailed at my back, her T-shirt somewhere around her waist.
How had this woman fooled me? How had I been stupid enough to be inside this woman only moments ago, handing her my fucking heart?
Idiot.
A chorus of snarls and barks screamed around me.
“Settle!” I yelled over the noise as I glared down at Sunny, my pulse roaring in my ears.
The barks faded into low whimpers as Max paced anxiously back and forth next to us, unsure what to do. My body trembled as I leaned into her face—her lying, deceiving, hypnotic face.
“Did you kill Seagrave?” The voice that came out of me was something I’d never heard before, so low, so deep, I was surprised she even heard it.
“No.” Her chest heaved as she sucked air. “No.”
My phone started buzzing—for the tenth time—but I didn’t dare release her wrists.
I ground my hips deeper against her ribcage.
She sucked in a ragged breath, gasping for air.
I realized then that I didn’t have handcuffs, a gun, not even a damn shirt to gag the woman.
A series of beeps followed the incessant calls.
Voicemails, texts messages, the pitched sounds setting me even more on edge.
“I’m going to ask you again, and God help me if you lie to me this time… Did you shoot Seagrave after you stole the Cedonia Scroll?”
“No!” She blurted.
I lost it. My emotions, my heart, my everything. Obliterated.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I screamed, the sound roaring through the woods. “Why didn’t you tell me you were the Black Bandit?”
She squeezed her eyes closed and turned her face away from the spittle coming out of my rage.
“Why?” I shook her wrists above her head like a rag doll.
“Stop it! Jagg, stop!”
I was blind with rage—with pain.
“Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You don’t understand, Jagg. Because I—”
“I don’t understand? Because you’re a lying, mother fucking bitch.”
Her entire body stilled instantly. The words lingered heavy in the air, and I instantly regretted them. The muscles in her jaw twitched as she slowly turned her face to mine, her eyes slitted with absolute fury.
“Tell me,” I snapped.
“Fuck. You.”
I spat inches from her face. She didn’t flinch. I pressed her wrists into the rocks as I scoffed and pushed off of her.
She laid still, unmoving on the dirty ground where she belonged, that gaze shooting into mine with a rage almost matching my own.
Almost.
“You’ve cost me my fucking job,” I loomed over her, spat again. “You cost me my fucking reputation. You made me a fucking fool—”
My phone rang again.
“Dammit!” I yanked the phone from my pocket. “What?”
A circus of background noise roared in my ears, then, “I need you down at Switchback Trailer Park immediately.” Colson’s voice crackled in and out, but there was no mistaking the sharpness of his tone.
“What’s going on?”
“Darby’s been shot three times in the chest.”