I shake my head to say it’s not his fault.
Ledger watches the interaction, and his expression darkens more. Has he realized that we have feelings for one another? We should have taken more care to school our reactions in front of him.
“What did you do to her? Huh?” Ledger asks of Rook. “You seem to be missing your clothes, so I’m guessing you did something. Think you can take my wife and use her pussy before I get my hands on her?”
“They gave me no choice,” Rook says. He glowers at Ledger. “You’re the one who isn’t in control of your men.”
Ledger turns the gun and shoots Lion, hitting him right in the chest. He goes down with a weak, rattling gurgle. His hands curl into claws and he reaches for his chest as if he can do something before they fall uselessly at his side.
Absolute despair sweeps over me. Ledger has totally lost it, and he’s going to kill us, but when he turns back to Rook, he’s surprisingly calm.
“So youdidtouch her? At least you have the balls to admit it. What did you do? Tell me how you touched my wife.”
“I’m not your wife,” I spit at him unable to hold back the retort.
“You soon will be.” He turns back to Rook. “Now talk.”
I don’t know what the correct response will be to keep Rook alive, if there even is one. Deny anything happened, and Ledger will know it’s a lie, and perhapsshoot him for it. Tell the truth, and he’ll still most likely end up dead. Rook saved me, so now I have to try to save him.
“Please, Ledger,” I beg as I grab his arm, but he shrugs me off with ease. “Don’t do this. Leave him alone. He has nothing to do with what happened. They made him. They put a gun…”
I trail away, unable to give voice to what they did.
He jams the muzzle against Rook’s temple. “Did you fuck her? Did you put your cock inside my wife?”
“Please, don’t.” I cling to Rook, wanting to put myself in between him and the gun, to climb onto him and use my body as a shield.
“I fucked her in the ass,” Rook stubbornly admits, jerking his chin up.
His patience has finally snapped. All this time, he’s been holding it together, trying to keep me safe, and now that’s all gone. I can see the darkness inside him that he doesn’t show often.
Rook is the one I think of as being friendly and chilled out, but he’s in an illegal biker gang, for God’s sake, and he served time for being the driver in an armed robbery. Rook is not some soft-hearted man.
“You took her ass?” Ledger’s jaw is so tight it looks like it will shatter.
“Yes, I did because you failed to protect what you claim is yours, and you know what? I made her come, too. Something I doubt you could ever achieve.”
Ledger’s face turns into a mask of fury and he lifts his weapon. “You son of a?—"
16
GHOST
Gunshots ring through the air.
Fuck, no.
We’ve just reached the old outbuilding we’ve been using when we have something we don’t want tied directly to the main compound—either because it’s illegal, sensitive, or strategically risky. It’s less about random storage and more about separation and deniability.
We never imagined the fucking Numbnuts would consider using it to store a person.
To keep our arrival lowkey, we parked the trucks a few minutes’ walk down the road and cut the lights, then ran the rest of the way to the building.
The door is standing open a couple of inches, but it’s too dark, both inside and out, to be able to see anything.
Our men surround the building, making sure no one can run and take Camile with them. Still, my mind keeps trying to take me back to the possibility that we’re too late. We went to the wrongplace, and now she’s dead.
How will we ever recover from that loss? We’ll all blame ourselves, but Jack worst of all. He’s spoken a little about what happened with his wife and how he blames himself for not saving her, and now it’s like history repeating itself all over again. Is that part of the reason he’s kept Camile at arm’s length? He says it’s because of his daughter, but perhaps she’s just a convenient excuse. He’s really protecting his heart.
