“And,” James suddenly slams his fist on the table, causing the serving ware to rattle and Kira to quiet, “to add insult to injury, you’ve been parading around this whore, calling her your wife and paying for her medical bills. Do you know how fucking distasteful that is? As if she could ever carry the Landon name.”
“I wouldn’t want her to,” I explode and stand, unable to contain myself. “I would takehername before I ever damned her with ours.” I growl, my hand going behind my back. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know that no one calls Kira a whore, not even my father, not unless they want a bullet between their brows.
But I freeze when my hand doesn’t clutch the cold grip.
What the fuck?!I grope at my waistband in disbelief. I never forget my gun. I only ever take it off to shower, and I left it right next—
My gaze snaps to Nix, with her too-big jacket and smug lip. That little—
James slams both hands on the table again, this time hard enough to make the crystal glasses jump, bourbon splashing across the wood. “Enough!” he roars, his voice ricocheting off the walls, the mask falling off, the controlled attorney evaporating in a flash. The vein in his temple bulges. His face flushes dark red, his carefully combed hair disheveled from the force of his outburst.
“Everything you are, everything you have, is because of me!” he bellows, shoving his chair back. It topples, slamming against the floor with a crack that makes Kira flinch. Leaning over the table, he points a finger at my chest. “And now you think you’re better than our name?”
“What!?” I can’t fucking believe his audacity. “What do I have?” I shout. “What, besides blood on my hands?! Everything I have, I never asked for. You forced it on me. I never wanted to be a fucking henchman. I wanted to be a fucking lawyer, and you made damn sure that never happened. And now that I need a favor, I can’t even use our name? What the fuck is it good for? It’s not good for me. It’s got me nothing. It’s good foryou.”
“Shut your fucking mouth and listen. If you were ever worthy of my name, you’d have seen what’s right in front of you.” He jabs his finger toward Kira. “You think she wants you?” He looks her up and down derisively. “She only wants what you can do for her.”
“So what?!” I finally snap. “She could bleed me dry, and I’d let her. Unlike you, I would do anything for someone I love.”
“Love?” A small laugh slips from his lips. “You think you love this piece of,” he twirls his hands as if looking for the right word, “trailer trash?”
The words barely clear his mouth before I sweep both arms across the table. Plates, glasses, serving ware, all of it flies,shattering against the far wall in a storm of porcelain and crystal. I lunge and fist his collar, hauling him forward until his face is inches from mine. “Insult her again,” I snarl, “and it’ll be the last thing you do.”
I don’t even get to relish the look in his eyes when Caleb’s chair suddenly scratches against the marble floors.
“Stop, Jax,” Caleb pleads. “Dad, please, if we don’t do anything, she’s going to go to jail for the rest of her life. It’s not fair,” he says in a rush. “It was self-defense. Marshal was going to rape Nix. They’re not trash. They’re good people.”
James takes the opportunity to wrench himself out from my hold, spinning on Caleb with contempt. “How pathetic,” he seethes, straightening his shirt. “Do you hear yourself right now? Do you even have a spine, or did your mother nurse you for too long?”
James rounds the table, fist curling, and I know where it’s headed. Because he knows I won’t stand for that shit, and his anger has to go somewhere.
But not anymore.
I make a move to stop him, ready to end this, ready to put my father down in a way that sticks, ready to—
Holy. Fuck.
A bang tears through the room.
It’s so loud in the vaulted space that my ears instantly ring. For a heartbeat, no one moves, the sound a crack stilling us all. James is frozen mid-swing, eyes wide, and then he stumbles back, shock overtaking fury as blood blooms through the fabric of his shirt.
Nix is standing, both hands steady on the gun—mygun—with her chest heaving. Smoke curls from the barrel as she bares her teeth. “You don’t touch him,” she says, her voice low and trembling, “ever again.”
She fires again.
This one lands in the center of James’ chest, and the force causes him to fall. He hits the floor with a sound that will replay in my skull for the rest of my life—a titan falling, a monument toppled. Gurgling chokes the air as blood fights for space in his throat. For a second, I just stare, because my brain can’t catch up to what my eyes are feeding it.
What. The. Fuck.
This wasn’t the plan.
The smell of gunpowder, acrid and sharp, mixed with the metallic tang of blood is nothing new to me, but it’s burning my nose unlike ever before. Because I wasn’t the one to pull the trigger. Nix’s hands are still up, still gripping my gun, muscles locked in place, her breath shallow and fast. She looks scared… scared andangry.
Kira shoves away from the table, horror ripping through her. “What did you do?” she cries, voice thin and shrill. “Nicole, what the hell did you do?”
“What I had to,” Nix bites out, but her voice cracks at the end, betraying the thin thread she must be hanging from.
I flinch as James groans. It’s ugly and wet, and it slices through my stupor.Shit.I kneel beside him, bracing my palm on one knee and eyeing the two shots. One high, one dead center. There’s too much blood. He can’t come back from this. He’s bleeding out too fast, an ambulance won’t make it in time.
