Then she nods once, tight, controlled — and with enough compassion in her eyes that seeing it makes me want to cry all over again knowing that once she finds out what I’ve done, I’llprobably never see a look like that from her again. “Okay. But I’m keeping an eye on you.”
“I don’t need you to keep an eye on me.”
“This is not a discussion, Molly,” she says. Then steps away as if she didn’t just see me crack.
I turn back to the bar.
The room has kept moving without me. It always does. Chatter. Laughter. The clinking of glasses. Riley ferrying orders. People shouting orders, shouting things obscene, things hilarious, things insane — Mayhem, mostly — while the bar’s stereo system fills the gaps with music.
I pour beers. I make whiskey sours. I smile at customers like my heart isn’t bleeding out behind my ribs.
But every time the front door opens, my pulse spikes.
And behind every order, every laugh, every stupid normal second, one thought keeps circling like a vulture: if Evan really is working for an enemy MC, then the Devils are in danger.
And soon enough, I’ll have to face that truth or watch everyone I love die.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Evan
I sit on the edge of my couch like it’s a witness stand. The prosecutor paces back and forth in front of me in my mind’s eye. She has red hair, a voice that can go from impossibly hard to heart-rending soft in a blink, and eyes that brim with fire and agony.
She’s fixed on me and saying one thing over and over:why?
And no reason that I offer is enough. The result is the same — I stare through those windows to her soul and watch her heart break as she realizes that the man she trusted and loved was using her.
It doesn’t matter that I loved her. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t want to hurt her.
What matters is I made a choice to treat her like an object, a pawn in someone else’s game.
I shake my head. I have to do something. I can’t just sit here watching Molly’s heartbreak play on repeat; there’s a reason I put myself through this hell, and now that I’m at the end of it, I can get June back and get the fuck out of Ironwood Falls.
My phone is in my hand. My thumb hovers over the contact I swore I’d never call unless I had no choice — Midnight.
I stare at the name until my vision blurs, then I hit call before I can talk myself out of it.
It rings once.
Twice.
Three times.
I know he’s there. He probably saw my name from the first ring and is just holding his phone, waiting, fucking with me.
I hate this son of a bitch.
Once I have June safe, I swear to god I’ll kill Midnight for what he’s done to me and the people I care about.
After another ring, he answers like he’s been waiting, voice smooth as a knife gliding through flesh. “Gator, what a pleasant surprise.”
“I did what you wanted.”
A soft chuckle. “Did you? How’d it feel? And don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it. I’ve seen that bartender. It can’t have been so bad fucking her. Even if she did just lay there like a dead fish.”
My grip tightens until the phone creaks. “I got you the information you asked for. Let June go.”
There’s a pause on the line, like he’s savoring the words on the tip of his tongue.
