“I know. Gray sedan, two cars behind you. I’ve been tracking it since the highway on-ramp.”
“One of Malachi’s guys?”
“I’m not sure, but the plates are rentals. If it were Reznov, he’d be more discreet. This smells like your uncle, though I’ve got Zev working his magic.”
Ren turned in his seat. He couldn’t see anything through the tinted rear window, only blurry shapes, lights, the anonymous flow of the highway. But his heart was racing. He could feel it in his wrists, his neck, his temples.
“Is this for real?”
Brody didn’t look at him. He kept his eyes shifting between the road and the rearview mirror, his jaw so tight that the muscles on the sides of his face formed hard lines beneath the skin.
“Did you think I was lying to you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Every time I told you it was dangerous to go out. Every time I explained that Reznov was still looking for you. Every time I asked you to be patient while I organized this…”
“I thought you were exaggerating a little.”
The silence that followed was worse than a scream. Brody turned his head toward him. Just for a second. But that second was enough for Ren to see something in his gray eyes that wasn’t anger. It was something colder. Sharper.
“I was exaggerating.”
“A little.”
“I’m telling you there are dangerous people looking for you, that they’ve put a price on your head, that your father and your brother would rather see you dead than free, and you thought I was exaggerating a little.”
The words fell like stones on glass. Ren felt every one of them.
“I didn’t think you were lying, Brody. I thought you were overprotective. That maybe…”
“Maybe what? That I was making up threats to keep you with me?”
The question hit him where it hurt. Because yes. A small part of him—the part that had grown up distrusting every outstretched hand, every open door, every gesture that seemed generous—that part had considered the possibility that Brodywas exaggerating the danger to keep him inside the mansion. To keep him close. To control him.
“Ren.”
“Don’t talk to me as if I’m an idiot.”
“I’m not talking to you like you’re an idiot. I’m talking to you as someone who’s spent weeks planning every move to keep you safe and who’s just discovered that the person he’s protecting isn’t taking it seriously.”
“I take it seriously!”
“Not if you think I’m exaggerating!”
“Well, sorry for not understanding the exact magnitude of the shit I’m in, Brody, when no one gives me the full picture and I have to piece things together as best as I can!”
“I’ve told you everything I could tell you!”
“It’s not enough!”
The car sped up slightly. Brody corrected it immediately, easing off the gas pedal with a control that didn’t match the tension tightening his knuckles on the steering wheel.
“It’s never enough with you.”
“And what do you expect? That I trust you blindly? That I sit back and obey without asking questions? Because I’ve been there before, Brody, and it didn’t end well for me.”
Jax’s breathing came through the speakers. Slow. Patient. The breathing of someone who’s been waiting for a while.
