Here's the rephrased text with more details:
"Then how does it work?" My voice cracks as I speak, hot tears streaming down my cheeks and dripping from my jaw. "He has money—more money than we could ever dream of. Power in places we can't even reach. Connections that go all the way to the top. He can destroy you with a phone call."
"Let him try." The words are granite-hard, unyielding.
"God, why won't you listen to reason?—"
"Because I love you!"
The words explode out of him like a shout, rough and raw and torn from somewhere deep in his chest—a place he's kept locked and guarded for years. We both freeze, the air between us suddenly charged with electricity, staring at each other with wide eyes.
"I love you," he says again, quieter this time but no less intense, each word deliberate and weighted. "And I'm not letting you walk out that door. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever."
"Jett—" My throat closes around his name.
"I've spent seven years building walls so high nobody could touch me. And you just walked through them like they were nothing. You think I'm going to let you disappear now? You think I could survive that?" His hands frame my face, tilting my chin up to meet his eyes. "I would burn down the world to keep you safe. So don't you dare ask me to let you go."
I break.
All the fear, all the guilt, all the terror of the past two years comes pouring out of me in great, heaving sobs. He catches me when my legs give out, sinks to the floor with me, holds me while I fall apart.
"I'm scared," I whisper against the solid warmth of his chest, my voice muffled by his shirt. "I'm so scared he's going to hurt you. That he'll find some way to destroy you."
"He's going to try." His voice is calm now, certain, carrying the quiet confidence of someone who's stared down worse demons. "And he's going to fail. Because I'm not fighting alone anymore. The whole club is behind me. Behind us. Every single brother."
"What if it's not enough?" The question trembles on my lips, barely audible.
"It will be." He tilts my face up with gentle fingers, kisses me soft and sweet, his lips a promise against mine. "I've handled worse than Garrett Ashworth, baby. Men who were smarter, more connected, more ruthless. Trust me."
I want to argue. I want to pack my bag and run, the way I've been running for months, always one step ahead of the nightmare chasing me. But when I look into those storm-gray eyes, I see something I've never seen before in anyone who's looked at me.
Not just possession. Not just protection.
Love. Real love. The kind that doesn't flinch or falter when things get ugly.
"Okay," I whisper, the word both a surrender and a leap of faith.
"Okay?"
"Okay. I trust you." The admission feels like stepping off a cliff, terrifying and freeing all at once.
He pulls me close, and we stay there on the floor for a long time, holding each other in the gathering darkness while the world outside sharpens its knives and prepares for war.
Two days later, Jett comes home covered in blood that isn't his. And Garrett Ashworth is no longer a problem.
8
JETT
The warehouse is cold and dark.
I don't do the killing myself. I have people for that, men who owe me favors, men who know how to make problems disappear without leaving traces. My job is to watch. To witness. To make sure it's done right.
Garrett Ashworth dies thinking he's untouchable. He's wrong.
The setup is clean. His own people turn on him, bought off with money and threats. They lure him to a meeting he thinks is about finding Sparrow. Instead, he finds a room full of men who don't answer to his daddy's name.
I don't speak to him. I don't explain or gloat or give him the satisfaction of knowing why. I just stand in the shadows and watch as the man who hurt her realizes, finally, that money and power can't save him from everything.
