Page 102 of The Ashes of Summer

It's what a man decides to do with it.

"Boss." Carter, low beside me. "You good?"

Jackson laughs softly from across the room. He's leaning against the desk, blood dried down his jaw and over his shoulder—and I can see exactly where it came from. The ear. She took half of it off with her teeth.

That's my girl.

Then he sighs and shifts his weight, and for a second I think he's coming for me himself.

Instead Kurt steps forward. Of course he fucking does. The little rat always did like feeling important.

He crouches in front of me with that same smug look he used to wear around my station like he belonged in it.

"There's a certain little redhead around here missing her Benny." He grins. "Maybe if I sing her another song she'll let me between her legs."

I'm going to kill him. Not eventually. Tonight.

"She's not a redhead," Jackson says.

Something in his voice makes me look at him.

"Not anymore." He drags the barrel of his gun idly across the hem of his shirt. "Dark suits her better. It's closer."

Closer. The word snags. He put his hands in her hair. He changed her.

Kurt closes his eyes and breathes out slowly through his nose. Not amused. Tired. Like this conversation has worn a groove in him.

Under my sleeve, the first fiber gives.

"You're really still doing this, Jax?"

Something shifts low in my gut. Still doing what?

Jackson's eyes flick to me and he smiles, and it's almost pleasant.

"Oh," he says. "The sheriff doesn't know."

"Doesn't know what."

He pushes off the desk and crosses to me, unhurried, and crouches down until we're level. And he's smiling. Not the cold one. The one he's been saving.

"Your girl's a fighter." He says it like a compliment. "I gave her every chance to make this easy."

The bruising round his throat says exactly how she took it.

Good girl.

"She put a cord around my neck instead." He leans in. "So I let her be Summer Miller for a while."

I don't understand him. And then I do.

"She wanted to be Michael Miller's daughter." His voice doesn't change at all. "So I let my men treat her like Michael Miller's daughter."

I can't hear anything.

There's a sound in my skull like a road going under a car and everything else is behind it.

My men. He said my men.