Deadline to Damnation (Sons of Templar MC 7)

I had to admire his stupid bravery for provoking Liam like this. The danger in his eyes was physical. It was a hand fastening around my throat. A vice constricting my lungs. More unsettling than anything I’d witnessed in here. Because it was something that I didn’t think I’d ever have to witness inside those emerald eyes. Something I didn’t even know existed until I buried Liam.

It was a look that told me again that I had buried Liam. This wasn’t him.

He strode to me, snatching my hand. “You’re getting the fuck outta here.”

I tried to snatch it back. He held fast. “They’re not done,” I said calmly.

His eyes bulged. Then they changed. All fury seeped out. The skin where he was touching me burned, not from heat, but from an icy chill that was coming from his eyes. He let go of my hand. Yanked the gun from his jeans, calmly walked past Swiss and Claw and shot the man in the head.

The gunshot bounced off the damp concrete walls and rang in my ears. But the silence was what roared. There was no silence louder than after a gunshot that ended a life.

Liam put the gun back into his waistband and walked over to me. “They’re fuckin’ done.”

“Dude,” Claw whined. “Not fucking cool. We might’ve got something.”

Liam didn’t take his eyes off me. “You know you wouldn’t have got shit.”

This time, when he took hold of my hand, I didn’t struggle. I let the man who had just shot a man in cold blood lead me up the stairs and back into civilization. Or whatever it was above us.

I didn’t say a word as he walked me back to my room.

He didn’t either.

He only let go of my hand when we were standing in the middle of the bedroom.

I blinked rapidly at him, throat still clenched with something like shock.

He still didn’t say a word. Didn’t try to explain himself. He just turned around and walked out.

The locks clicked after he closed the door.

Jagger

His hand was shaking as he locked the door.

It hadn’t been when he pulled out his piece and sprayed the brains of Fernandez’s third in command and second cousin all over the floor.

Not even when he touched her, when he fucking touched his Peaches with hands he’d used to end a man’s life.

It didn’t matter that the man in question was involved in one of the most brutal human trafficking rings in the world. Or that he likely had a hand in the massacre of an entire club. That he was likely one of the most vile and soulless human beings to walk this earth.

It didn’t matter because Jagger knew that he had just proved he was exactly the same. Just as soulless.

He’d done it on purpose.

He wanted her to be afraid of him.

To be disgusted by him.

So when his resolve failed, and he knew that it would, that she would fight violently against him being anything to her. He needed her to find him a stranger. A monster.

Which was why he locked her inside his room, despite the fact she was no longer a prisoner.

No, that wasn’t even why he’d locked her inside.

“Take this.” He threw the key at a passing Elden. “Unlock it in the morning.”

Elden nodded once and kept walking. No questions. Prospects didn’t ask questions.

Jagger thanked fuck for that. He’d given him the key because he didn’t trust himself with it. Didn’t trust himself not to give in to the urge to storm back in there, rip her clothes off and fuck her senseless. Something about her standing there, in pools of blood, in the ugliest part of their world, calm, collected, not fucking flinching, it disturbed the shit out of him. But it also hardened his cock instantly. Making him wild with need for her.

Not that he wasn’t already.

But he’d been able to keep that shit locked down.

Barely.

Mainly because he left as soon as church was over, with instructions to make sure Caroline didn’t sleep anywhere but his room.

It was fucked up that he wanted her in there. Especially since it caused her obvious pain being in that room. What kind of sick motherfucker was he? Hadn’t he already caused her a lifetime, two fucking lifetimes of agony? Now he wanted to give her more. The boy who won her heart sure as shit wouldn’t have made decisions like that. Decisions that hurt her. That boy, no matter how far he was from being a man, would’ve rather lost a limb than hurt her. That boy was more of a man than he was now.

But he couldn’t go back to being him, no matter what, and that was the ultimate cause of Caroline’s agony. So maybe that’s why he was intent on causing her all these little pains, to distract her from the one huge one that might destroy what was left of the girl he fell in love with.