Say It's Forever (Redemption Hills 2)

“I want Juni to be safe. I want to stop running. I want a home.”

TWENTY-THREE

JUD

Jud stumbled in his tracks when he saw Marcello push from the car he was leaned against in the parking lot of Iron Ride. Jud rushed a hand through his hair, half inclined to run, half inclined to grab his gun.

Take out the deviant before he became a threat.

Because Jud would never return to that life.

Because there was the past Jud was afraid would haunt him forever standing out in the snow-covered lot in Redemption Hills. A place this man should never be, should never show his face.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Jud grunted, hating that he was caught unaware. Being caught unaware in his past life meant you were dead. But considering it was that life he was trying to separate himself from, he’d let down his guard.

Marcello tsked. “You seem surprised to see me.”

“I am. Had hoped to never see you again.”

Jud had ridden for Marcello and his crew more times than he could count. A guard. A sentry. A deprived warden protecting all the wrong things. How many times had Jud pulled the trigger in the name of the treaty that had been made between their families?

Jud’s father had gotten a wide-open corridor to run his drugs through Los Angeles.

Marcello had gotten a killer.

Grim.

The tattoo burned like the scar it was on his side. He could almost hear the blood spilling to the ground. The bodies that’d fallen.

Jud gritted his teeth against the pain of the memories.

Marcello asked, “And why is that?”

Jud lifted his arms out to the sides. “My father is dead, means our deal is done.”

Marcello laughed a low sound. “I’m afraid you and I both know it doesn’t work like that.”

Jud’s heart panged in dread, his mind spinning to his wife and daughter who were across the small city of Redemption Hills. Tucked away in the little house where Jud was building a home. In this town where it was supposed to be safe. Where their past lives no longer mattered. Where no one was supposed to know they’d put down roots.

Jud cocked his head, refusing to give any sign that his knees were shaking as fierce as the shitstorm he could feel coming. A hard challenge lined his voice, “Yeah, and exactly how does it work?”

Marcello lifted too casual of a shoulder. “Well, you see, a job was left unfinished.” Jud’s chest stretched tight as Marcello took a step in his direction and said, “Your baby brother, Logan?”

Marcello phrased his name like a question, like he didn’t know full well he might as well have a knife pressed to Jud’s jugular.

“You see, he was working our books. He’s a smart one, that boy. Things had never been so profitable as when he was sitting behind our desk. And now that he’s gone…let’s just say things are a bit of a mess.”

Dread spiraled and heat flamed.

Jud seethed.

With aggression.

With hatred.

Fuck.

He should have known his father had drawn Logan into the life in some way. Manipulated him. Chained him.

Like he would have left any of them unscathed.

No doubt, their father had made a million threats to Logan to keep it hidden.

Sweat gathered along Jud’s brow even though the mountains around him were covered in two feet of snow. “The Iron Owls are dead.”

That fucking bike club where their father had led them to Hell.

“The Iron Owls still owe a debt. Your father guaranteed your services,” Marcello countered. He glanced around. “And even if he’s gone, it seems to me, a few of you are still alive and well. That doesn’t have to remain true.”

Jud edged forward one step, his voice a slow, controlled threat. “Are you asking for a war?”

Marcello wasn’t stupid.

There was a reason they’d wanted Jud.

He was a good fuckin’ shot.

And there he stood, itching to take another.

To put this remaining link in the ground.

Marcello smiled too bright. “Nonsense. We’re old friends, aren’t we? I’m here with a proposition. That is all.”

Bullshit.

Any proposition Marcello came to offer wasn’t optional.

Still, Jud asked, “Yeah?”

He crossed his arms over his chest.

“You personally do one last job for us. In and out. And your debts are paid. The Lawson brothers will be free to go on with their boring little lives.”

Marcello waved a deviant hand in the air.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then I’ll be having this conversation with Logan, and it won’t be as friendly.”

Smoke billowed. A heavy darkness that filled the air and choked out hope.

Consuming.

Disorienting.

A black plague that annihilated everything in its path.

Still, he rushed, searched, fumbled through the abyss from one room to the next.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Fear crushed, as suffocating as the smoke that filled his lungs. He pulled his shirt over his face, his eyes wide and unseeing, the world a blur of fire and white-hot pain.

It didn’t matter.

He pressed on.

Pushed.

Forever passed.