She doesn’t deserve this.
I stop in the open space between Molly and Rabid. I meet the president’s eyes, unwavering.
“Why are you here, Evan?” Rabid says.
I keep my hands visible. Palms open. Throat raw.
“My name is Evan Wilder,” I say, voice steady enough to sound like I’m not shaking inside. “My road name’s Gator. And I’m the reason you’re in danger. Not her. She’s innocent. I used her.” Molly makes a small sound; it’s not a sob, not a gasp, more like a slight sound of her heart being hit. “I was sent here,” I continue. “Not by accident. Not because I ‘moved back home.’ I was planted. By the Sons of Sorrow.”
A low, dangerous murmur ripples through the Devils. Bishop shifts. Tank’s eyes go flat. Mayhem’s grin rakes over me with all the sharpness of a razor blade.
Molly doesn’t move. Her face is white. Her eyes are wildfire.
“Why?” Rabid asks, calm and lethal. “Start there.”
“Because they have my sister. June.” I swallow. “They grabbed her because her ex is one of theirs. Wraith. He’s a possessive piece of shit. When they decided they want to expand from their territory in Salem and found out about my connection to Molly, Wraith and the enforcer for the Sons, Midnight, took June as leverage.”
Molly flinches at the name like she’s already filed it away for later revenge.
“What was your mission?” Rabid says.
“They told me to get close to the Twisted Devils,” I say. “To get information. Access. Names. Routines. Information. Anything that would make it easier to hit you. And I got it. And I gave it to them.”
Silence, thick and loaded, settles over the room.
I look at Molly again, and she looks like she might shatter me with her eyes. Within those wide pools there is rage, betrayal, hurt, vengeance, all simmering, and yet, even now, I want to lose myself in them.
Because under it… under all that fury… I see something that makes my heart seize — love. Fighting. Refusing to die.
Love I don’t deserve, but am ready to die for.
“I love you,” I say, because I’m done lying. “You’re innocent in all this, Molly. Because all you did was love and trust me, and I used you. And I won’t let you pay the price for what I put you through.”
Molly’s eyelids flutter as if the words physically strike her. She raises a hand and covers her face. But she doesn’t turn away.
I turn back to Rabid, because that’s the man holding both our fates.
“I’m not asking to live,” I say. “I’m asking you to listen.”
Rabid pauses a moment, considering, and then he steps forward.
Slow. Measured. Like a predator that knows the prey can’t run.
He draws his gun. The barrel touches my forehead.
Cold.
Final.
His voice drops into a growl meant just for me. “Why should we believe a damn word you’re saying?”
I don’t flinch. I don’t close my eyes.
I lift my chin into the metal.
“Because if you want to survive what the Sons of Sorrow have planned,” I say, steady as a vow, “you’ll need to do exactly what I say.”
Chapter Forty
