“I’m going to ask you one more time.” I felt chillier by the sound of his voice. His calmness, I realized, was deceptive, for he looked like the kind of man whose anger was unforgiving.

“What happened to my brother?”

There was no disguising my fear. I’m sure he could hear the drumming of my heart, and if not that, could see the trepidation cascading out of my eyes along with the tears.

This was it. To lie, or not to lie; that was the fucking question I kept asking myself. How is it that one moment can feel like an hour? As if the world slows and revolves around you as your life hangs in the balance.

What to do? Tell the truth and expect some kind of hope for survival? Yeah, right. Men like him – the Jackals – they don’t play fair. They lie, manipulate, and do all the dirty one could think of. Ridding the world of one woman was just another notch in their book of sins. Dump ‘em and move on type of thing. If I lied? Who would I be protecting? The Scorpion gang? As if their world meant anything to me because, let’s be honest, they weren’t a bunch of nuns. They did the dirty too.

Still. The truth would lead to Jaxon and I couldn’t stomach hurting him. The last thing I wanted was for him to cop a death wish for killing the man that was moments away from raping me. He did the right thing, I realized.

“I don’t know,” I whimpered brokenly. There was no convincing him with that tremble of words.

His jaw clenched and his hands tightened around each other. His tongue flicked out, tracing the bottom of his red lip and his dark gaze circled the room around us. What the fuck was he going to do?

“I don’t know why you’re protecting them, and I don’t know what the fuck a girl from Winthrop would be doing in a place like theirs with that killer of a man holding your hand. But I’m not going to play your game. You were warned.”

I let out a cry when he stood up and stepped toward me. I tightened my knees to my chest. Shaking all over, I closed my eyes and continued to sob.

“From recollection, you were a lot more funner flirtin’ and shit in that bar all those years ago. Even Daniel praised you. Tough cookie gone soft, I see. Which means this game’s going to be run my way. You’re the property of the Jackals, and it’s about time you understand what that means since you’re heading down that route anyhow.”

What the fuck was he talking about? Flirting? Jackals? Daniel? Fear overtook the confusion. I was waiting for him to do something. Maybe grab me. Beat me. Rape me. Something!

“Why are you sitting there all confused, birdy?” he asked, crouching down in front of me as I looked up at him. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you what you are?”

Birdy? Birdy? Birdy! “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” That was sincere, for once. I truly hadn’t a fucking clue.

“Don’t remember my face at a particular set of swings one night when you were fourteen? Or when you chatted me up in front of your Scorpion boy all those years ago at that bar job of yours?” He said all this soothingly as I studied his face in disbelief. That familiar cologne… I’d entrenched it into my memories after that night on the swings, trying to savour a piece of him. That explained the nostalgia.

“And that Daniel boy,” he added, leaning his darkened face into me until he was half a foot away. “Didn’t ever wonder why that law firm called you up outta the blue to come in for an interview? Or how they even got your resume? Or that your lack of experience was never an issue? Same with that convenience store job. None of that clicked in that pretty little head of yours?” He eyed me with a soft smile, like he enjoyed my shocked reaction to all of this. “Although I’m pretty pissed he was fucking you on the side when he was explicitly told not to touch you.”

I gazed into his eyes, and they stared openly back at me. He wasn’t playing any games. This was for real.

“The Jackals have been looking out for you for some time now, sweetheart.”

“Looking out for me without my knowledge? Why didn’t you look out for me when my father was beating mom and me?” I bit back, scowling at him with unrepressed anger. “Seems like the Jackals didn’t give a fuck that I starved most of my life while my mom drank herself to oblivion.”

“Christ, you really are so clueless,” he muttered quietly. His fingers touched my cheek and I flinched away, trying to get his touch as far away from me. But he only kept coming at me until he tangled a strand of my hair around his index finger, raking his eyes all over me.

“Your mother was the daughter of a once Vice President of the Jackals, birdy. In our club, that means you’re ours whether you like it or not. But when he passed, your mother met a fucking douchebag wannabe loser that wanted nothing more than to be a part of our club. When it was clear his pathetic ass wasn’t gonna get in, Joanne wanted nothing to do with us. She chose a piece of shit to play daddy to you before he turned her to the drink.”

What…? “What do you mean ‘play daddy’?”

“Norman wasn’t your real father. Sorry I have to break that to you. Doubt that’ll actually pull on your heartstrings, though.”

No, it certainly didn’t. In fact, I felt elated at that news. “How do you know that?”

“Because she had you before she met him.”

A tear escaped my eye. I wasn’t a monster like him. All those years of hating my bloodline because it was linked to a sick fuck like him. Didn’t mean my situation was any better. His words were vibrating through my system like a tsunami. The news digested in waves.

Fucking Daniel. I can’t believe how naïve I was. But how the fuck would I have known better? Was anything he did genuine? Ordered to hire me, and then fucking me against said orders. Did he keep me at an arm’s length to hide our relationship from the outside world – from the Jackals? Was that whole broken hearted woe-is-me he spouted to me all a lie to get me to acquiesce to the arrangement?

I’d wondered how he knew about the bikies, and that I was in a dodgy part of town. Or that Jaxon was a Scorpion long before I’d known it. That was a piece of the puzzle fitted. Everything else still felt like a giant sloppy mess of fucked up shit with a cherry on top.

“So she left and then what?” I found myself asking as I took him in with more ease than before. It seemed like the danger was over, that he wasn’t going to hurt me after all, not if he was spouting all that “looking after you” shit.