Chapter Seventeen
“He’s bound to know what’s happened, Jaxon. I know my father, and he’ll have men waiting at the state line.” Ginny tightened her arms around Jaxon’s lean waist and spoke into his ear.
Jaxon had reassured her that everything would be okay. But her gut told her otherwise. Things would not be okay. She’d set a chain of events into motion that would end them both. If she knew her father, he would kill her in front of the man she loved just to punish her.
He was sadistic like that.
Many nights she woke up, sick to her stomach with the knowledge that her father’s blood ran through her veins. She was terrified that she would turn into the same kind of monster that he was.
Every time John would force her to have sex, she was petrified of becoming pregnant. Her body had ceased to be her own. Then the day came when her worst nightmare came true. The day she found out she was pregnant.
She was ruined for Jaxon.
The rush of wind pushed silent tears out of her eyes and down her face. She was escaping one hell just to face the ultimate hell when Jaxon rejected her.
“Have some faith in me, Ginny,” he said over his shoulder.
Faith. That was one thing she’d lost a long time ago. She wasn’t sure she could ever find her faith again. Not in him, and certainly not in herself.
“Shit.” Jaxon slowed his speed.
She looked over his shoulder. Half a mile up the road, there was a line of vehicles stopped at a police checkpoint. She narrowed her eyes. Fear clawed her stomach.
“I recognize those men, Jaxon. They work for my father.”
“Your father has humans on his payroll?”
“My father has everyone on his payroll,” she answered.
“Not everyone.” He turned the bike around in the highway and headed in the opposite direction. He took the next exit without slowing down. She tightened her hold around his waist.
He didn’t go very far on the new road before turning off again. He made several more turns on backroads. She didn’t question him, but she hoped his direction was taking them closer and closer to the Arkansas state line.
He slowed his bike and turned onto a dirt road. He kept his speed steady as he drove. He stopped when they reached what looked like a long road heading into a thick patch of woods.
“What is it? Are we out of options?” Fear tickled her gut, and she clung to him. She had a feeling they were going to be found out very soon, and she wanted to memorize the feel of him against her.
“I have a plan.” He turned down the rural road.
She squeezed her eyes shut as tree limbs brushed across her face.
“Jaxon, I don’t think this leads anywhere. I think it’s an old deer trail.”
He glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “All trails lead somewhere, sweetheart. You just need to take the right one.”
She wasn’t so sure about that but decided to keep her mouth shut. She was clearly in a situation where she had no control.
She dug down deep in her gut where she’d buried her hopes and dreams and pulled out the little tiny thread of hope that everything would be okay.
* * *
Edward Boudier wasn’t a Were to fuck with. He thought everyone knew this.
So when his messenger came and told him that his wife and son-in-law had been murdered and that his only daughter was seen leaving town on the back of a Harley, he’d immediately seen red.
And he then turned and ripped the head off the messenger. All in front of his meeting with his Louisiana Guardians.
“Let me guess who that Were was that was with Ginny.” Boudier growled and licked the blood off his hands. He went hard and immediately wanted to fuck. Blood always had that effect on him.
He glanced around the room. All his Guardians avoided making eye contact. Except his Louisiana Assassins.
He narrowed his gaze and cocked his head. “Lorcan.”
The Were who was once adamant about keeping his dark hair dyed platinum blonde had since returned to his natural dark color. With his dark hair and blue eyes, Lorcan was startling to look at.
Boudier wasn’t gay. He looked at sex as an appetite to be appeased. Like torture and killing. He craved things other Pack Masters would blush at. It wasn’t enough to rape a woman. He wanted to hear her scream at the amount of pain he could inflict on her without having her pass out from the pain.
Some thought he was a monster. Others thought a devil.
He knew better.
He was power. Power was all consuming and way better than money, sex or blood.
Power was everything. Being in control made sure things continued to work the way he wanted them to.
“Lorcan, tell me something. Did you ever find out how the Guardian Lucien escaped?”
Lorcan’s gaze never wavered from his. His stare was intimidating to most. It would have been intimidating to him if he didn’t own the Were, body and soul.
“No.”
A smirk played at the corners of Boudier’s lips, and he motioned for the Assassin to walk toward him.
“I could have your head on a spike in only a matter of seconds,” Boudier said.
“Yes,” Lorcan said. “But then you would be down an Assassin and would have to replace me.”
He glared. “Everyone is replaceable.”
“I’ll remember that.” Lorcan’s words held a deeper meaning, yet his face stayed expressionless.
“Have you seen your brother lately?” He ran his hand down Lorcan’s black leather vest. The Were always wore black leather—all the Assassins did, but he was always attracted to Lorcan’s look over the other two, Brutus and Killian.
“No,” Lorcan answered. “Lucien is dead to me.”
“You know, Lorcan, I rather favor you over the other Assassins.” Boudier grinned and looked over Lorcan’s shoulder to Brutus and Killian.
The other two Assassins stared straight ahead, emotionless.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Lorcan said simply.
He cut his eyes at Lorcan. “Yeah? And why is that?”
“Because Brutus is bigger than me and he’ll kick my ass when we get out of here for being your favorite.”
“Jesus, Lorcan. Show some respect.” Brutus cursed under his breath.
“That’s why I favor you, Lorcan. That smart-ass mouth you got on you.” He stepped closer.
“If you like smart-asses, then Killian is your Were,” Lorcan snarked.
“Fuck.” Killian breathed out and studied the floor.
The room grew deathly silent.
Boudier fought a grin and then barked out a laugh. “Damn it, boy.” He slapped him hard across the shoulder and let out a belly laugh. “You’re the only Were I know that can make me laugh on the day I lose my wife and son-in-law.”
Lorcan said nothing.
Boudier leaned in closer. “It’s not the fact that my wife is dead. I hated that bitch as much as I hated her bitch of a mother. I’m just very disappointed that it wasn’t me that got to kill her.” He leaned back and addressed the rest of the Guardians and Assassins. “My son-in-law was a bit of an asshole.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But he did manage to keep that daughter of mine in line. And he had money. So it was a win-win for me.”
“But they both belonged to me.” He addressed his Guardians, meeting the steely-eyed gaze of each of them. He needed them to know this was not a joke. He was not fucking around with these assholes.
“And I don’t like it when my things are taken from me.” He looked at each Guardian, letting his gaze rest on them long enough to let them know he would take them out without hesitation if they even thought about crossing him.
“The penalty for murder is death. There is to be no Tribunal. This is a clear-cut case of murder. My daughter murdered her own mother. I demand justice. Caroline’s blood demands justice.”
“What about the Arkansas Guardian she was with?” Brutus spoke up.
He rounded on the Assassin’s and met his gaze. “I have plans for that one. I want him brought to me. I will personally peel the flesh from his skin and send it to his Pack Master as a gift.”
“You’re not ordering a kill on him?” Brutus cocked his head.
“No. I want him alive, and I want you three to bring him back to me in one piece.”
He grinned as a gruesome image took root and blossomed in his head. “I want to be the one to rip him apart. One little piece at a time.”