Page 89 of The Ashes of Summer

Please. The word repeats and repeats, aimed at nobody, at everything. Please be smarter than this. Please see it. Please, for once in your life, be careful.

But I already know he won't. That's the worst part. Being careful would mean stopping, and he won't stop—not for a trap, not for a bullet, not for anything. He'll come straight through the middle of it because I'm on the other side.

My Jacob. The man who broke every rule he had for me. The man who looked at me like I was something precious even while he was pretending I wasn't. The man who came anyway, knowing exactly what it might cost him.

A sob tears loose from somewhere under my ribs.

Because Jackson Moore didn't walk out of this room to stop him.

He walked out of it smiling.

He walked out of it the way you walk toward the end of something you've been building for years.

He isn't going down there to fight Jacob.

He's going down there to collect.

Chapter 30

That’s My Girl

Jacob

Pain drags me back first.

It splits my skull from the inside, thick and heavy behind my eyes, and the nausea rolls in right behind it. For one disorientated second all I've got is darkness and the chemical burn still coating the back of my throat.

Gas.

Fuck.

My eyes force open. Concrete walls. Low light. Cold air thick with damp and bleach.

And restraints biting into my wrists.

I jerk on instinct and metal rattles under me.

A chair. I'm strapped to a fucking chair.

The rage comes up so fast it clears my head better than air would.

The room sharpens. Carter's tied beside me. Hayes is slumped forward a few feet away, blood drying under his nose. Groves is already awake and losing his mind.

"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" His chair screeches across the concrete as he throws himself against it hard enough to nearly go over sideways. "YOU HEAR ME? WHEN I GET OUT OF THESE I'LL RIP YOUR THROAT OUT!"

"Groves," Carter says. Calm. Too calm.

Groves doesn't hear him. "COME TAKE THESE FUCKING ROPES OFF ME AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN!"

Two armed men stand at the far wall watching us like we're the entertainment. Tactical gear. Faces covered. Not club muscle, not the usual half-trained idiots Jackson keeps around to look dangerous.

He prepared for this.

One of them laughs, quiet.

That's enough. I surge against the restraints hard enough to shift the chair. "Take these off me," I say, "and I'll kill both of you with one hand."

The second one smirks. "Big words from a tied-up sheriff."