Chapter Six #2
“I didn’t come down here to be part of what they’re actually doing,” Jason said, pulling his T-shirt back on.
“But once I saw… really saw it? The girls kept in warehouses like animals, the deals. All the fucking lies? Well, I pushed back.” His voice dropped to a near whisper.
“They called it betrayal when I told them I didn’t want to be part of it.
Said I was soft. I wasn’t patched in to Oak Grove, just sent in to help…
so they used me to send a message to anyone else getting cold feet. ”
He sat down next to her again, but a little farther away this time.
Slowly, Jason lifted his chin. The motion was quiet but deliberate, a man exposing the most vulnerable part of himself.
And when the dim light hit it, Dylan saw all of it.
The jagged, raised line that circled the front of his throat, uneven in places, discolored in others, the kind of mark that didn’t come from an accident or a bar fight.
It looked like a cord or rope caused it.
Like some tried to choke him or hang him.
“Oh my God,” Dylan whispered, her voice cracking.
She felt her stomach turn, tears stinging her eyes.
It wasn’t pity, just realization of the raw horror of it.
Jason hadn’t just been betrayed. They’d tried to erase him entirely.
She didn’t realize she was moving until one hand reached out, hovering inches from his skin.
Her voice trembled. “They did that to you.”
“Yeah,” he said, holding her gaze, so much emotion in his dark eyes. “I’ll be honest, I’ve helped move guns. Drugs here and there, but I hate that shit, especially when dumb fucks try to sell it to kids. But human trafficking? I want no fucking part of that.”
“Human trafficking?” Dylan’s heart dropped. That’s what her uncle was into these days? Her evening was making a little more sense now. “My uncle? Did he have anything to do with the…” She pointed to the scar encircling his neck.
“Eli gave the order,” he said.
The tears came on. “And you came back here? Knowing what they would do to you?”
“I came back for revenge,” he said quietly. “I came back to shut them down… And then I met you.”
Dylan lowered her hand, blowing out a breath.
A darker thought crept in, like a splinter under her skin.
Jason had come back for the ones who wronged him.
But she was Eli’s niece. Her hand dropped to her lap, fingers curling tightly.
Had she been a pawn on the board all along?
Was every moment, every kind word, every look, every time he held her in the dark… just part of the long game?
Dylan studied him as if she was seeing him for the first time. The warmth in his eyes, the exhaustion and pain. The way he watched her, like she was the only thing anchoring him. Still, the question festered. She had to ask.
“Is that why you talked to me?” she said, barely above a whisper. “Because I’m his niece?” she asked, trying to sound sarcastic, but sounding hurt instead.
He shook his head, raking a hand through his hair. “I didn’t know at first. Not until the night you mentioned him,” he said quietly. “When I left that next morning, I saw your birthday picture with him in the background.”
“So, what was I then?” she asked, voice low but biting. “Just part of the job either way? I was useful as someone working at Ned’s, but then you figured out I was related to Eli and that was a bonus?”
Jason’s expression shifted, something between regret and restraint.
“Was it all just intel?” she pressed, letting the tears fall. “Me, the bar, what I knew about Eli? Is that why you talked to me? Slept with me?”
So many emotions played across Jason’s face. She saw guilt, yes, but it wasn’t the dominant emotion there. It took a little of the wind out of her sails.
“God, I thought you were the only person who actually gave a damn about me,” she whispered. “And the whole time, you were watching me like some undercover op. Like I was a way in.” Her throat tightened. “Did any of this mean anything to you?”
More silence, thick and loaded. He dropped his head, not moving next to her.
“No. You weren’t just part of the job.” His tone wasn’t defensive, but honest. “You never really were.”
Dylan crossed her arms. She’d been trying to get the emotions from a traumatic night under control, only to learn the man she fell for wasn’t who she thought he was. Her eyes stayed on him, waiting. Daring him to go on.
Jason took a slow breath, like it would hurt him to say the next part out loud.
“When I first saw you… it was at the bar. You were laughing with Peggy. I wasn’t even supposed to be looking at you.
I was watching Cottonmouths, watching movement, drop-ins, timing.
But then, there you were.” He shook his head, like it still didn’t make sense. “You were confident and gorgeous.”
Dylan’s arms loosened a fraction as he continued.
“I told myself not to get involved. That if I kept my distance, I could finish what I came to do and disappear. But I kept showing up. Finding excuses to be near you. To see if you were okay.” He glanced away for just a second.
“That’s when I stopped being careful. And that’s when it stopped being about the job. ”
The silence that followed was different this time, fragile.
“You weren’t part of the plan, Dylan. But you became the reason.”
Her heart clenched, her gaze dropped. Something in her wanted to believe him. Wanted it so badly it hurt. Staring down at the water glass still clutched in her hands, her grip had gone white-knuckled, her fingers aching. But she didn’t let go. “You should’ve told me,” she said softly.
“I know.”
“I don’t know what’s real.” Dylan looked up at him through frustrated tears. “You were the only person I thought I could trust. And now… I feel like I’m drowning in everything I didn’t see coming.”
He ran a hand through his hair, tension bleeding out of him like slow poison.
“You were a bright light in a place that was nothing but shadows. And yeah, at first, maybe I thought getting close to you would help. That you might know something about Eli that could help me take him down. But it stopped being about that the minute I realized you had no idea who your uncle really was, and how close you were to getting hurt. I didn’t tell you who I was because it would’ve put you in more danger.
If you knew the truth, you would’ve reacted differently.
They would have noticed. Eli would’ve noticed.
I wasn’t willing to risk that. Not with you. ”
“That’s why you showed up tonight?” she asked. “You saved me when no one else even knew I was gone.” She sat there for a moment, watching him like she didn’t know if she should be angry or grateful. Or both.
Her voice was softer this time. “How did you know where I was tonight? How did you find me?”
Jason exhaled slowly, his gaze never left hers. “Peggy,” he said. “She saw the car you climbed into. Took a picture of the plate before they drove off. She didn’t know what to do with that information, so she waited for me to come looking.”
Peggy and Jason saved her life tonight.
“I was already circling the block. Something didn’t sit right,” he continued. “You didn’t message me, and… I just knew. I knew I was already too late the second she walked up to my van. I narrowed it down to a couple of different possible locations. And then I got lucky.”
Dylan swallowed, her throat tight. “But you still found me.” Her heart dropped just thinking about what might have happened if Jason hadn’t shown up.
“I would have torn this town apart to find you,” Jason admitted, conviction in his voice.
“I didn’t plan to meet you. I didn’t plan to stay.
I was just supposed to gather intel, figure out where the bodies were buried, and strike with enough evidence of why I was doing what I planned to do, just in case I got caught. ”
“You’re not going through with it now?”
“I told you,” he said. “I plan to shut them and their entire fucking operation down. But I could have lost you tonight, Dylan. And I realized… I need to keep you safe more than I need to deal with all of that right now. After what happened tonight, you’re in danger from your uncle and the Cottonmouths.
Do you understand? And the minute they figure out who I really am… ”
“Who are you, really?” Dylan needed to know.
“My name is Josh Lawrence,” he admitted. “Before they killed me, my brothers called me Tank.”
Considering he was built like a brick wall, she could understand why he was called that.
A corner of his mouth curved up. “I was a Marine, a tank operator… But Tank died that night, under the tree they hung him from.”
They hung him? Your uncle gave the order.
“The minute they figure out who I am and you’re with me, you’re as dead as I am,” he added.
The sincerity of his words left Dylan scared. As much as she had reasons to doubt Jason… Josh’s intentions, she cared enough about him to hope he wouldn’t go by himself to face Eli and his Cottonmouths. What if they actually killed him this time?
“Did you plan on facing them alone?” Dylan shook her head, her eyes wide with disbelief. “That’s vigilantism, Josh. And you could die for real this time.”
Shifting next to her on the edge of the bed, he folded his arms across his chest. His body language told her that he’d made peace with that risk long before tonight.
“I’ve been living on borrowed time since the night they hung me,” he said, his voice low but even.
“Every day after that’s been a choice. And I’ve made mine.
” His gaze locked on her, unwavering. “I didn’t come back to Oak Grove just to survive.
I came to shut this shit down. What they’re doing, what Eli’s fucking enabling, it’s not just club business.
It’s slavery. It’s kids and women like you being traded like property.
It’s the dangerous drugs sold to ruin lives. If I don’t stop them, who will?”