Chapter 29 #3
But there’s the tiniest of cracks there too. A tear in her facade. Fear poking at the surface. She’s scared. I am too. I almost forgot what this feels like. Panic. Terror. How the bile clawing its way up my throat seems to be burning me from the inside out.
This day was always gonna happen. Me on my knees, gun locked and loaded and pointed at my head, Donovan’s finger on the trigger.
I always knew the last thing I’d see would be his face.
But when I pictured my death, I was facing it alone.
Alone like I’ve been for the last decade.
My only company the men who stand before me, whose souls are as dark and damaged as mine.
“Ten seconds,” Axe says.
It’s how my story was always gonna end. But Grace? She wasn’t supposed to be here.
It’s not my own life I fear for, it’s hers.
This isn’t how it ends for her. It can’t be.
Axe sighs. “I think you need a little motivation. Shoot Grace in the leg for me, will you, Tex?”
My stomach plummets. “Wait.”
“I did that already. Thirty seconds, and you’re still not talking.”
Grace is unmoving on my couch, holding her calm.
Tex regards his prez for a moment, attention slicing over to Grace, then me, then back to Axe, before he pushes off the wall and draws his gun. “Graves won’t like it.”
Axe shrugs. “She’ll be dead to her brother once I tell him what she’s done.”
“Don’t,” I say, voice cracking. I might be begging. Yeah, I think I am. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Too late for that,” he says as he tosses a pillow to Tex. “Two in the knee.”
I lunge, but before I can reach the asshole, Preacher’s got me by the collar and is forcing me back down. “Axe!” I yell. “She’s not a part of this. It was all me. I did this. Do not. Fucking. Touch her.”
Axe gives me a grim smile. “You know, Gracie had me believing you two were just fucking. But that was a lie too, wasn’t it?” He eyes her, then turns back to me. “You don’t love her, do you?”
I bite my tongue, glare firmly in place.
He chuckles. “God, you do. Little sick, isn’t it?
Given the two of you share a brother? This just got a lot more interesting.
Tell you what, Deck. I’m gonna have Tex blow out both her kneecaps.
Then you’re gonna give me your version of what the fuck’s been going on around here.
If your stories don’t match, I’m gonna string Grace up and use her as target practice until I’m sure you ain’t lying. You feel me?”
It’s all about pressure. Leverage. Threatening the one thing I’d lay down my fucking life for. Turns out, that thing I’d take a bullet for, that I’d put everything on the line for, is Gracie Donovan. The woman who shares a bloodline with the man threatening to end mine.
In a flash, I grab the barrel pressed into my neck and launch myself to my feet, using my weight to twist Preacher around as I grab for his face with my other hand. He’s on the floor in an instant, and then it’s me who’s got the gun in his face.
“Nobody fuckin’ move.” My heart is in my throat, but it near stops when Tex points his gun at Grace.
“What’s the plan?” Axe asks. “You shoot Preach, Tex shoots Grace. Maybe you take him out. And then what? You still holding out hope you’ll get the drop on me?
That if you do, I won’t make sure your fucking life is over?
” He huffs a laugh. “I own you. Never forget that. Even in death, I’ll own you.
Drop the gun and sit the fuck back down. ”
It’s my turn to smile. Pressure. Leverage. Threatening the one thing he’d lay down his life for.
“I’ll make sure she rots in there,” I say.
It takes him a moment or two to understand, but when he does, I see it. Just like in his sister. The little crack. The fear behind the mask.
“You know the system,” I go on. “How easy it could be for me to manipulate it, to make it so much worse for her. Gracie comes out of this with so much as a scratch, and I will make sure your old lady never sees the outside of a cell.”
Axe grits his teeth. “Don’t fucking threaten me.”
“I’m not. I’m threatening her. You hurt Grace, and I will do everything I can to make sure Kat is stuck in prison for the rest of her life. You understand? She will fucking rot .”
The room is dead silent, my promise hanging between us like a blade ready to cut, slice, draw blood. I can almost feel Axe’s anger. The way it makes the room shrink. His men are braced too, waiting for the moment he loses control.
He and I are the same in that respect. I’ve lost myself to my rage, to my grief, to my guilt.
Let the anger ignite, let the flames lick my skin until they’ve completely consumed me.
I’ve looked at myself in the mirror, at the eyes I don’t recognize, the hollowness behind them, and wondered who I’ve turned into.
All the resentment, the fire in my chest that flares every time I think about the shit I’ve done because of this man. Because of the choice I made.
And here I am again, trying to decide how to play this.
Another crossroads. Another choice.
But Grace in the middle of it all? It’s not a fucking choice. Axel Donovan has owned my soul for a decade, but he doesn’t get to take this. He doesn’t get to take her.
Axe takes a breath, his fists unclenching, his rage simmering. “What are your terms?”
I nod at Grace. “She comes out of this safe. Completely unharmed.”
“She betrayed us.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she says, voice quavering. “I swear, I never told them anything. They didn’t even know who I was. I was just looking for somewhere to settle down. A family, a?—”
“You don’t have a family. Not anymore,” Axe says.
She flinches, her throat bobbing. Another crack.
He turns to me. “I do this, and you get this shit with Kat sorted. Immediately.”
Yeah. Like it’s that fucking easy. Even so, I nod. As I lower my weapon, Preacher and Tex take a collective breath.
Axe smiles. “All right. You got a deal. Grace has been pardoned. So long as she leaves my territory and never comes back.”
Her eyes widen. “Axe. Please. I?—”
“My father won’t want you either. You’re dead to us. Go slither back to those fucks you call family. And give them a message. They come for us again, we will put them all in the fucking ground.”
The sob Grace let’s slip is like a stab to my chest. “Wait. Axe, please. I have nowhere to go. I?—”
“You have until sunset. I see you in town after dark, and you’ll be eating a fucking bullet.”
He shoulders past me, Preacher and Tex on his heels. It isn’t until the deep growl of their motorcycles fades into the distance that either of us moves. Then it’s all silent tears from Grace as I hold her to my chest.
This has to end.
Axe Donovan needs to fucking burn.