Thirty-Three
Jenny
Precious seconds in which she should have reacted ticked by, her lungs frozen, her brain scrambled, as she stared at Riley.
“Shit,” Pup whispered behind her. He’d seen Riley in photos; Candy had been sure the kid was well-associated with his face.
Get it together.
Jenny scanned the situation. Riley had one gun in his hand, and another in his waistband. He’d been an aficionado and an excellent shot when they were young. Somewhere along the way, during the alcoholism and wife-raping, he’d become sloppy about everything else in his life, including sharp-shooting. Now? He looked beat up and older than she would have thought, but very sober.
Crockett sat impassively, hand relaxed where she could see it on the arm of the chair. Was he having one of his lucid days? Knowing her luck, she doubted it.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit, shitshitshitshit…
She still had her gun, and Riley had to have spotted it. No sense trying to hide it now. She had exactly one option. If she ran, she was getting tackled from behind. If she charged Riley, she was getting shot. So she prayed Pup would follow her lead and walked slowly, deliberately forward, reaching to lay her free hand on Crockett’s shoulder.
“Hey, old man. How’re you doing?”
He jerked and twisted around to look at her, broad face splitting with a smile at sight of her. “Jenny! It’s you. Look who it is, honey. Your man’s here.”
Riley made a dark, humored sound in his throat.
Jenny shot him a fast glare, shivering when she saw his smirk. She’d thought that expression was sexy when she was eighteen. Hard to imagine. “Come on now, Crockett,” she said. “Riley’s not my man. You met my new boyfriend. Remember? He came here with Derek.”
Riley’s smirk tugged hard. “So you are spreading your legs for somebody. Thought maybe that was just a rumor.”
Jenny fought hard and won the battle against the insult she wanted to sling at him. She was shaking all over, Crockett’s shoulder beneath her hand the single grounding point in the midst of what she was rapidly realizing was not fear, but nerve-shattering fury. “You know who he is. Don’t act like you don’t.”
His smile threatened to catapult her back to the old days. Threatened to turn her legs to water and sink her down to the rug.
Crockett turned a frown toward her. “New boyfriend?” He looked scandalized. “Jen, you’re married to Riley!”
Shit, why couldn’t it have been a lucid day?
“No, that was a long time ago. Riley and I divorced, remember?” She flicked a look to her ex, gauging the tension in him.
He’d seemed relaxed thus far, but at mention of the divorce, he grimaced and a small shudder of anger moved down his arms. “You almost make it sound like a joint decision.” His voice was cold now, hard-edged.
“It was.” She knew it was a risk, but she made eye contact and let him feel the weight of her gaze. She wasn’t his wife anymore, and she didn’t have to obey him. She wanted him to know it…even if he was about to beat her senseless.
“Ah, you two,” Crockett said, facing Riley again. “You didn’t have a fight, did you?”
“Lots of fights,” Jenny said. “Fights that put me in the hospital.”
“You always were good at making shit up, weren’t you?” Riley said.
“I never lied to you. Never. It wasn’t my fault you were paranoid.” And now, thanks to him, she was paranoid. Had suspected the worst of Colin and pushed him away so many times. God, how this man had hurt her, in ways that were still showing, bruises on her heart that refused to stop bleeding.
“Jenny,” Pup said from over by the door. “What do you want me to do?”
She spared the prospect a fast glance and saw his pale face between the two grocery sacks he still held, his eyes huge and wild.
Riley barked a laugh. “Look at this little sombitch. That’s who Candy’s taking on as a prospect? Look what he’s doing to your club,” he said to Crockett. “He’s watering it down with teenagers and pretty dicks for Jen to play with.”
A tremor moved through Crockett; Jenny felt it against her palm. Riley was getting him upset.
“Jen,” he said, voice strained, “what’s going on? What do you mean you and Riley got divorced?”
She patted him. “What do you want, Riley?”
He feigned offense. “To visit my old friend Crockett.”
“You don’t have any friends. And why aren’t you in lockup?”
“Oh, you didn’t know? I’ve got lots of friends, baby.” He grinned again. “Friends who can make Eli’s dirty pictures go away – that was a cute trick, by the way. I wanted to tell Candy so myself.”
A sensation like a cold hand wrapping around the back of her neck. Friends who could get Elijah out of hot water? Those were important friends in some very legal places.
“Crockett here was gonna give him a call. See if he’d come have lunch with us,” Riley continued. “But then you showed up.” Clear delight in his voice.
She–
Her phone rang.
Riley reacted, leveling his gun on her chest, tension whip-cracking through him.
Jenny caught her breath as the cell continued to chime. “If I don’t answer it, they’ll know something’s up. They know I came here,” she added. “They’ll know where to look.”
He considered it, then nodded. He didn’t have to tell her that revealing his presence would be very bad for her. Doubtless he knew she was keenly aware of that.
The clubhouse number flashed across the screen and she managed a semi-normal hello.
“Hey,” Talis greeted. “The guy’s back. Catcher spotted him on the monitor and I’m gonna go take a look.”
Translation: I’m gonna go fuck him up.
She closed her eyes. “Okay.” Of course the smoker was there; he was a decoy. He’d been lurking around, getting their backs up about something happening at home, when all along Riley had been planning to have this confrontation here.
“Everything alright with you?” Talis asked, and sounded like he knew it wasn’t.
“Yeah. Fine. We’ll head back soon.”
“But…” Pup protested, and Riley swung the barrel of his gun toward the prospect.
She wasn’t going to get a better opportunity than this.
Best not to waste it.
Jenny regretted that in all her target shooting, she’d never done a real-life drill. She could knock the hell out of a target if she had calm conditions and plenty of time to stare down the sights. But afforded none of that, she dropped her phone, jerked her gun up, and fired.
The .45 kicked like an old friend in her hand. “A lot of gun for a lot of woman,” her father had joked once, when she’d been a tall and stringy teenager. Her arm absorbed the recoil and she didn’t blink.
The shot went in Riley’s shoulder. A bright spot of crimson opened up in his white shirt.
He made a sound like a gasp, and took a step back.
And then his gun was coming to her.
All of this in the span of a heartbeat.
Then she had to move.
She ducked down behind Crockett’s chair and then rolled into the wall. It felt like a coward move, but if Riley was going to shoot Crockett, he already would have done so.
Sound of the grocery bags hitting the floor; paper crackling, fat red grapefruits bouncing across the boards like basketballs.
“Motherfucker,” Riley hissed.
A hand grabbed Jenny’s wrist and she scrambled after Pup as he pulled her around the corner and into the kitchen.
The prospect was out of breath, face white and sweat-filmed. “Shit,” he said. “Shit, you shot him.”
“Got any better ideas?”
“Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Yeah.”
She’d dropped her purse when she’d ducked, and she didn’t have her phone, but…
Riley’s footfalls echoed as he moved toward them.
The phone wasn’t important.
The back door was just off the kitchen and she shoved Pup toward it. “Go, go.”
He yanked it open, and the doorframe exploded with a shower of splinters and paint flecks. A gunshot. Three of Riley’s friends stood in the backyard, weapons trained on the door.
“Shit!”
“Back inside!”
Pup slammed the door just as another shot snapped off a section of molding.
They were trapped in here with Riley.
Trapped! her mind shouted. No, no, no, no, no!
She whirled, gun at the ready, and Riley stood right behind her, two arm lengths away, his gun centered on her chest.
Her heart contracted, already anticipating the bullet. Gooseflesh rippled down her arms, but she didn’t waver with the .45. It was her only defense against this – the man who’d ruined her life.
Her stomach heaved and she thought of the baby, that little precious thing growing inside her minute-by-minute. If Riley shot her, the baby would die with her; the thought brought tears to her eyes that she blinked away furiously. Her first chance at motherhood, that faded, distant dream from her past, and he was trying to take it away from her, like he’d taken her privacy, her dignity, her safety…her sanity.
“Get back,” she said through her teeth. “Or I swear to God, I’ll blow your head clean off your neck.”
His wound was right in the juncture of shoulder and arm, and the blood was running slowly down his chest, bleeding through his shirt. His eyes were glassy with pain. He held the arm rigid at his side, but unless the round had shattered bone, he’d still be able to use it. He could still overpower her. He’d always been a strong man, and still was.
He smiled, and it looked like a grimace. “Listen to you. Whoever you’re fucking, he doesn’t know how to keep you in line, does he?”
Colin! What would he do when he learned Riley had killed her? His baby?
She shoved him roughly from her mind. Go, go, like she’d told Pup. She couldn’t think about him now or she’d crumble.
“You’re stalling,” she said, fighting to keep her voice calm. “And God knows why, but let the prospect go and you can explain it to me while I patch your shoulder up.”
He snorted.
“You’re losing a lot of blood. You lose too much, and you’ll pass out.”
“That won’t matter if I shoot you first.”
“Riley!” she snapped. “What do you want?”
“I want my club back.”
Jenny wet her lips, but her tongue was too dry to do much good. “Turn him loose, and I can make that happen.”
“Yeah?” he scoffed. “What’re you gonna do, bitch?”
“I’m your bait. Candy’ll come for me. You think he cares about this kid?” She jerked her head toward Pup. “But he’ll come after me, and Crockett, and you know that. That’s the only reason you didn’t shoot me the second I came through the door.”
He stared at her.
She dropped her gun, so it dangled from her finger by its trigger guard. “I promise,” she said. “I’m yours. Now let him go.”
“No, but…” Pup said, head swiveling between the two of them.
“It’s okay, sweetie. This has been a long time coming.”
Riley eased forward a step, snarling as he was forced to take her gun with his bad arm. He shoved the .45 into his waistband and stepped around her to open the door. “Let him through,” he called to his men.
Jenny almost couldn’t bear the anguished look Pup sent her way.
Call Candy, she mouthed.
His eyes filled with tears.
Go.
And he went.