“I just think you bring any of those rats into the fold, we suffer,” Jason snapped back. “We don’t need their intelligence. Lane will break that club himself.”
“I would believe that if not for his brother’s intervention,” Lucius said. “And recent intel suggests that the Gray Reapers are beginning to stir with a little more activity.”
“Them?” Jason said with a laugh. “You mean the three who went over there?”
“You underestimate Cole’s capability for making change and Lane’s recent growth,” Lucius said. “That is why you will never be above VP, Jason, because you let your emotions and arrogance get the best of you.”
I heard what sounded like a loud roar, followed by guns being cocked.
“If you want to lead a group like this, you cannot let emotions get in the way of your decision-making. You need to be calculated, rational, and without emotion. You may yet make a great sergeant-in-arms, but to be a decision-maker requires more than what you have done.”
I didn’t hear anything else. The man in front of me grunted, perhaps realizing that I was not taking care of him as fast as before.
“In any case, I must go make sure Lilly is still at the house,” Lucius said. “Make sure you keep the girl alive. She is valuable bait for the rest of them.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Jason said. “I’ll take good care of her.”
“Yes, see to it that you do,” Lucius said. “You can do whatever you want, but she had better live. Your life and hers will be intertwined as far as my bullets are concerned.”
The girl?
So, is he only keeping one of us alive? Or did he just mean girls in general?
No, he meant one of us. Then who...?
I tried my best not to contemplate the question, but when death was apparently a mere order away from happening, it was much harder to ignore.
“You got it, boss,” Jason said.
Seconds later, Lucius walked out of the house. I took a deep breath, telling myself to just keep Jason off me as long as possible. I couldn’t hold out forever, but perhaps at some point, Michael would figure out we were at Devon’s and come.
Yeah, it was a bit of naïve hope. But naïve hope was really all I had left right now.
Seconds later, I heard Jason enter the room. His thick, calloused hands landed on my shoulders. I wrenched myself away, even though it yanked on one of the last stitches on the Fallen Saint.
“What the fuck!”
“Out,” Jason said coldly.
“I’m getting fucking treatment in here!”
Jason reached toward his hip, grabbed his gun, and pointed it at the Fallen Saint sitting before me.
“If you want to make sure your next bullet wound is to your fucking skull, then keep talking,” he said. “Otherwise, get the fuck out of here.”
The Fallen Saints were dangerous, but they weren’t suicidal. The patient scoffed, got off the table, and walked out. I dashed for him, but Jason grabbed my wrist and yanked me backward, knocking me over the table I’d just been treating the patient on. It felt like someone had swung a baseball bat at full force into my lower back, and I keeled over as Jason went over to close the door.
“This seems like an appropriate position for a Meade to be in, down on her knees,” he said. “It’s a familiar one to me, you know.”
“Go to hell,” I spat, but I was far too weak to do anything about it. I tried to stand up, but just the act of getting my feet from underneath me was a serious struggle. Jason, sensing this, laughed and shook his head condescendingly.
“You know, I know Kristina was your sister, and so you think she’s some divine angel who can do no wrong, but I’m here to assure you that could not be further from the truth,” Jason said, a wicked smile on his face. “I will admit I have my faults. No one’s perfect. But your sister would egg me on, you know. She wanted me to hit her. She wanted me to control her.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Jason chortled, put his hands on his hips, and shook his head, looking at me like a disapproving parent.
“Denying the truth doesn’t change the fact that it’s the truth, you know,” he said. “Your sister was a real freak. She liked it rough. So rough, in fact, that those bruises you saw? They weren’t me trying to hurt her. At least, not maliciously.”
