Riot lifts his hand, a gun held in his grip and pulls the trigger with little to no fanfare. I don’t even flinch. Turning my head to the side, I tip my chin and look down at my father. He’s really dead this time. The bullet went straight into his forehead. There is no surviving that.
“Burn him,” Riot calls out. Then his attention flicks over to me. His lips curl up into a menacing grin. “Take her with the other one. Lock them up together,” he orders.
A man wraps his hand around my bicep and tugs me behind him. I go, happy to leave the devil that I know for the one that I don’t. The only good thing about the one that I don’t know, is that Trista is here. At least if we stay together, we have a better chance at being found, or traded, or even escaping.
I’m thrown into a small room after practically running behind a man. I stumble, and Trista is there to catch me before I fall. I wrap my arms around her in a hug. She does the same.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper against her ear.
“Never be, Leighton,” she coos slowly, she takes us down to the floor and we sit across from one another. “The Donkey Punchers have had it in for me for a while. This isn’t only about you, this is about me, this is about control and the Beasts too. This involves so many different things, so there is nothing to apologize for,” she explains.
“What happens now?” I ask, my body trembling in fear.
“We need to get the fuck out of here, that’s what happens.”
“How?”
She flicks her gaze to the door, then the window, then back to meet mine. “Jaguar,” she whispers. “The guy that brought me in here. He’s a Beast, or at least he used to be. Some shit went down and he disappeared. I mean, the guys are probably going to kill him, but he’s our only way out at this point.”
I am definitely not comforted by her words, not at all. Not in the freaking slightest. I open my mouth to tell her just that when the door opens. A man walks in, that same man that we were discussing.
He looks down at Trista, then over to me. “You know one another,” he states.
“We do, this is Mountain’s woman,” Trista states.
He tilts his head to the side, his eyes roaming over me. “That his kid?”
“Yes,” I say, proud that this is his baby, so fucking proud.
He grunts, taking a step toward me before he crouches down. His eyes are a little terrifying, they don’t have that same dancing thing that Mountain has, they’re just kind of flat. He shifts his gaze to the door, then back to meet mine.
“Della?” he asks. “She have her baby?”
“Jag,” Trista rasps. “Don’t.”
He shakes his head once. “I need to know,” he snaps at her. “I have to know,” he says, shifting his gaze back to mine, his voice more of a pleading sound, instead of the edge he held when he talked to Trista.
“She has a little boy,” I whisper. “Mountain’s little boy.”
I watch as the pain slides throughout his entire body. I can almost feel it radiating from him. He thought the baby was his, this is the man who was obsessed with her, the reason Mountain almost claimed her as his own.
He nods his head a couple of times, his eyes closed as he gathers himself. “Okay,” he rasps.
“Okay?” Trista asks.
“I did a lot of fuckin’ shit I ain’t proud of,” he grunts. “A helluva lot. But feeding a pregnant woman and a girl I watched grow up to these animals will not be one of the marks on my soul.”
Trista crawls toward him, lifting her hand, she cups his cheek. “You’re good beneath it all, Jaguar. The other men are angry, but I know deep down, you are good. You were just lost.”
“I killed Charm,” he whispers. “I killed her when I found out she played me, that she was Ramos. She was Angel’s daughter. She was a spy, she fucking infiltrated us, and I ended her right there in Colombia.”
“Okay,” Trista rasps. “How do we get out?”
He looks from each of us to the door, then back to us. “Tonight is a party. They’re planning to pull a train on you, Tris. We can’t fuck around.”
I don’t know what he’s saying, but judging by the way Trista whimpers and shakes, I can guess what this means. And what it means is that she will never be the same if she is forced to endure this.
“What do you need from us?” I ask.
He clears his throat, his eyes finding mine. “I can’t help you, not like you’re thinking. You girls are on your own. There’s something I need to stay here for, so I can’t go with you.”
“You can be redeemed, Jaguar, if you help us, there is no way they will kill you.”
His eyes flick from mine to hers and he holds her gaze. “It’s not about that. I will pay for my betrayal like a man. I’ll walk back into that clubhouse, but there is something I need to do here. Something that I can’t turn my back on.”
“No,” Trista whispers. “It’s not something, it’s someone. You’re good deep down, Jag. You get us out of here and I’ll make sure you don’t walk into a blaze of gunfire when you come back. I will make sure you’re heard.”
His lips twitch into a grin. “’Preciate that, babe. I really fuckin’ do.” His lips press into a thin line and he jerks his chin toward the window. “It’s out that window, or not at all. It’s locked, but I can go around and unlock it. They’re getting ready for church. Discuss what they’re going to do with this pregnant one. I’ll unlock it before it’s in session.”
“Wait, did you become a member?” Trista asks in horror.
He smirks. “They think I’m here to help them start a fucking war. That I’m here to betray everything I know about the Beasts.”
Trista looks behind him, then to him again. “You think I’d do that? Even all the shit I did in my past, even shooting Eagle in my jealous rage, you think I’d betray my club like that?” he snaps.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore, Jaguar. I don’t want to believe any of this is happening, but here I am.”
He nods his head. “Guess that’s fair, but no, I haven’t told them an ounce of anything credible. They’re gathering weapons and supplies. Getting ready for war, but I’ll be long fucking gone before they strike and I’ll be back with my family, and even if they don’t want me back, I’ll warn them before these fucks can touch a hair on anyone’s fucking head.”
Trista’s lips curve up into a grin. “Okay, Jag. Now that’s a plan I can get behind.”
“Better fuckin’ believe it, babe.” He chuckles. “I’ll knock on the window once after I’ve unlocked it. Wait five minutes, slip out and head toward the back, not the front gates. Nobody watches the fucking back. It’s the woods, you’ve got a tough fuckin’ row to hoe, but you girls will get where you need to be. They’re all pissy from you going through their territory down south, ready to make an example or some shit. You’re going to have to get fucking gone, yeah?”
We look at one another, then look at him. “Yeah.” We nod.
“Good girls.”
Without another word, he stands and turns from us, slipping out of the room. I lick my lips as I turn back to Trista. “We can do this,” I whisper.