He’d have preferred to keep him alive. Torture methods in the hands of Remy had always proven… effective. He could make a mute chimp sing long and hard with the right tools. Only this guy was massive and, in the moment, the attack had been so sudden with the clear motive to kill Sara, all he’d wanted was him dead.

After they’d stripped every piece of clothing off, Remy began inspecting every inch of the man’s body. He was looking for a mark. All he was seeing were tattoos of skulls and pin up girls.

“Check this out,” Logan said, kicking at the dead man’s leg.

Remy looked at the man’s shin. There was a black inked in square of a tattoo covering most of it. He gritted his teeth and angrily stormed to the other side of the room.

“Whatever he is, he’s not no more,” frowned Fritz.

Remy had hoped for a tattoo of an emblem – something to give away what gang he was affiliated with. The man had inked it over completely in an effort to hide his roots. It’d been an increasingly popular trend as of lately. Men that went up the ranks to become assigned killers were obligated to hide their markings so it wouldn’t get back to the gang they associated with if shit had gone sour.

“He’s obviously a Scorpion,” Fritz stated as he walked over to where Remy stood. “Who else would want to target that girl?”

“There’s no way Jaxon would send someone to kill her,” Remy refuted. “No way in hell. Besides, he wanted her for himself. It wasn’t the Scorpions.”

“Who else could it be?”

Remy had no fucking clue. They transported goods to ganglands in other cities and towns, and everyone operated peacefully as long as demand was met. With the Jackals doing all the cooking, they were essentially untouchable. They offered the best around, eliminated any competition and controlled every transport company this side of the country. Who would want to target the girl?

He hated himself for letting his guard down. He wasn’t even meant to be at the bunker that day. He’d had errands to run, business debts to settle…

Whoever it was had found out about its location, but, fuck, he was certain he hadn’t been followed during the trips he made there. How?! But most of all, why?

That was a question that continued to plague Remy’s mind. He held her to him long after she’d fallen asleep in his arms. How could one little lady frighten him so much? If something happened to her… No, no. Nothing was going to happen to her. He’d make sure of it.

Her tears had long dried, but her nose was stuffy. She breathed quietly through her mouth. He rested her on her side and nuzzled his face into hers, taking in her intoxicating scent. He wondered why she’d cried like that. What would have crossed her mind in that moment to ruin what would have been the best night of his life? In the far reaches of his mind he knew the answer to that already.

Jaxon.

“Hey Remy?” Sara’s groggy voice stirred him out of his reveries. She was still awake, though her eyes were closed.

“Yeah, Birdy?”

“Why do they call you Reaper?”

Remy pressed his lips hard against each other. Fuck, he hated that name. With a sigh he said, “It’s short for Grim Reaper.”

Silence.

“Why do they call you it?”

“Why do you think, Sara?”

She opened her eyes and roamed his face inquisitively. “Is it because you… kill people?”

“No,” he replied. “It’s because I’m good at killing people, and they never get away.”

He saw a blaze of horror in her eyes and quickly rested his hand over her cheek, soothingly rubbing his thumb over it. “You don’t ever have to be frightened by me. I would never hurt you. The men are scumbags anyway.”

“Do you…” she hesitated. “Do you like doing it?”

Remy’s inhaled sharply as he admitted, “No, Birdy. I don’t. I hate it. I hate it every single time I do it. I hate the way they look at me. I hate their screams. I hate the fucking blood on my hands afterwards. I fucking hate blood period.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“Remember the first night in the bunker I told you I wasn’t a monster?”

“Yeah.”

“I lied.” Yeah, fucking admit how shit of a man you are. “I’m the worst of them. Even though I’ve known them for as long as I can remember, I officially joined the Jackals when I was sixteen, did what I could from the ground up, was willing to take on more work than I got. Early on they’d noticed how effective my skills were. I do the dirty and no one gets away unpunished. It’s like fear mongering – it sends a message not to cross us. Nobody climbs the club’s ranks at my age without doing the things I did. The club’s all I’ve known.”

He watched her reflect on his words. Always that brain of hers was ticking. Any fucking second she’d turn away, and he’d let her. He was scum, after all, even if he’d only ever targeted scums, too. The things he’d done to them–

“You’re not a monster,” she whispered.

The words sent a chill down Remy’s body and kindled something inside of him. They were like a balm to his mental wounds, easing him into a momentary sense of peace. For a flash of a second, he believed her. She was an angel telling him he wasn’t a monster, and he wanted to believe it – God, he wanted to gulp that line up and let it run its healing course throughout his body, but–

“I am,” he replied harshly, remembering his past. “You don’t know me yet, Birdy. You know nothing.”

“I know you helped me all these years,” she quickly responded. “I know there’s good inside you. Otherwise I’d have been working at a shit job in the slums of Winthrop.”

He couldn’t believe she had been for some time. Though she was right about that, he knew he wouldn’t have done it for any other person, and that fact alone was enough to confirm that he certainly wasn’t good. She could convince herself of that bullshit lie if it made her feel better, though.

“Remy,” she started, her voice like silk in his ears. “I know monsters. Norman was one of them. They pick on the weak and innocent. They hurt for their own satisfaction. Is that you?”

Remy didn’t want to talk about this anymore. He just sighed in response and brought her closer to him.

“I know the answer is no,” she later mumbled before she fell fast asleep.

Jaxon

“Where’s the money?” Jaxon asked, holding the gun lamely at the man’s head. “Come on, man. Don’t make me shoot you.”

The quivering, coke addict quivered under the gaze of the gun, tucking his knees into his chest. Jaxon didn’t know if he was shaking because he was scared of dying or because he was desperate for another fix. This was fucking ridiculous.

Did he really have to fucking beat the guy? And why the fuck was he even here anyway? He should have been managing the books, taking care of the businesses, doing what he actually enjoyed instead of chasing a few grand out of skeletal drug-heads who couldn’t pay up.

Finley was doing this on purpose, that piece of shit prick. The guy loved to push buttons, and with Jaxon barely around for Scorpion functions, he was now the target. Just thinking about it pissed him off. He shouldn’t be here in some back alley in the middle of the fucking night! Fuck Finley and fuck this douche bag moron who traded his life away to shoot his arm up for temporary pleasure.

He was going to shoot him. That was the purpose of this, after all. His fingers lingered around the trigger…

He shoved it back into his jeans and pulled the man up roughly by the collar of his shirt. Then he slammed him hard against the building and shook him with unrestrained rage.

“You’re a pathetic piece of shit,” Jaxon growled, watching the man’s horror stricken face utter out whimpers. “Getting loans from a fucking mob boss to finance your drug habit and being unable to pay that shit back? You’re a fucking moron! If it was anyone else but me standing in this spot, they’d have shot your pathetic ass.”

“Please–”

“Shut the fuck up when I’m talking to you! You’re going to get the fuck out of town before sunrise and you’re never going to come back. You come back and you’re dead. Got it?”

Like a bobble-head, the kid nodded over and over again. Jaxon shoved him to the ground and gave him a swift kick up the ass. The rabid druggie ran down the alleyway and out of site in record time.

Jaxon sighed and rested his forehead against the side of the building. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t him. None of this was him.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

*****

Jaxon felt pity for the guy, but what the hell could he do about it?

He could do nothing but watch from afar at the way they knocked him around and then steeled him away into the toilets to rape the shit out of him. Yet another pretty face that had no chance the second he stepped foot here.

As long as it wasn’t him, that’s all that mattered at the time. If another fish had to get fucked to keep the attention off of him, then so be it.

Wow. Just the direction of those thoughts had stunned him. What the fuck have I become? The question plagued him as he went about his days.

He was lucky he was a damn good fighter, and now that he knew these men were a bunch of cowards hiding behind a façade of strength, he never had his back turned to anyone.

He watched the inmates closely, figuring out who was on top and who wasn’t. As he continued to subtly observe, he started putting the pieces together of what was going on around here. He knew where the power rested and he needed to get to it.

And now began the orchestrating. He was going to do this, he told himself. After it was done, he would climb up and finish his sentence unscathed. And if he finished his sentence unscathed and got out of here… He would find her. He would find her and demand answers. Then he would make her his again because he was a lovesick fool who’d do anything for her.

He later watched the same tall, pretty faced man stumble out of the toilets. The man could barely walk. Jaxon squashed his pity and moved on. The last thing he needed was to feel sorry for anyone other than himself.

Nine

Life went on. Days passed by. The world stayed the same. And I changed.

I never left the clubhouse that winter. Remy wouldn’t allow it. He wanted me safe. The danger, he said, was still high, and if someone wanted me dead, they’d be watching carefully. What normally would have terrified me didn’t. I was supposed to be freaked the fuck out. I wasn’t. I just didn’t care anymore.

I integrated within the club well. I got along with everyone. Rita wasn’t around often. I quickly learned from the old ladies that she was quite the promiscuous thing and had tried on several occasions to saddle up to an indifferent Logan, but Remy wanted none of that. He’d apparently said she wasn’t fit for the club life, and I wondered what made someone “fit” for the club life.

Her destination was usually Winthrop, and she’d be gone for days on end with her buddies. Remy hated her friends, hated her outings, hated that he knew she was bouncing from guy to guy, but he’d resigned himself. She wasn’t a little girl. Everyone reminded him of that time and time again when she never picked up her calls. If she wanted to club in Winthrop and take random men home, that was her own business, he decided.

On the occasions she was around, I’d cop some serious death glares. As if to test my patience, she’d mutter obscenities at me. It was easy to ignore her when I was preoccupied with clubhouse duties. I’d taken over caring for the small kids. Though children were strictly not allowed in the clubhouse, there was an exception to Prez’s niece, Darcy. She’d bring them around when she needed alone time with Barge, and Darcy’s boys, Jake and Mathew, were wild little things who loved ruckus and kept me on my feet chasing after them.

Despite Remy allowing me to free roam the clubhouse, I was still being watched carefully by any bikie I was around – and I was always around a bikie. I think he expected me to bolt at any second, but I really had no desire to. My life was in shambles. I couldn’t call Lexi in fear of dragging her into this mess. I wasn’t even sure I could trust her. After learning about Daniel, my life felt ridiculously orchestrated, like I was surrounded by props instead of friends. I know it’s stupid to think that way of your best friend of seven years, but Daniel had lied to me impeccably, and that kind of mistrust had left me paranoid and wary.

I did call her every now and then in the beginning. She was distraught every time. The fierce Lexi I’d grown to love would bawl on the other end every time, begging me to get out of Gosnells and to come home. After a while, I’d stopped calling her altogether. I was tired of the guilt tripping and how shitty I felt at hurting her for what she perceived was my abandonment. I couldn’t discuss how fucked up my life had gotten. So she was confused in her own right, but not completely oblivious to the dark I’d put her in.

“If anything is wrong, you need to tell me,” she’d repeat to me every single time. “Sara, I’m tempted to come down and see you myself. Friends don’t do this to each other. You need to tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing is going on,” I’d respond. “I’m enjoying my time in Gosnells, Lexi. Please don’t be worried.”

Then there was Lucinda. Every time I called her phone, I reached a dead end. There was never an answer. I’d left voicemail after voicemail, even told her the times I’d call her again, but nothing. I wanted to see her, but if Remy knew, I feared he’d get the wrong idea – that I still wanted Jaxon and was using her as an excuse.