efficiency and detachment with which he was capable of apprehending the woman he loved even as she cried in his arms. Cried because he had hurt her. And because he continued to do so – in so many ways. He had never told her a bald-faced lie, but he’d kept things from her, and to her, there was no difference between the two. And he knew she was right.
“You spied on me, you drugged me up,” she cried, “what else have you done?” She tried, one last time, to yank away from him, but it was a pointless action, done out of her uncontrollable fury more than anything else. “I hate you, Jack Thane.” She finally sobbed, her head falling forward in defeat. Her hair cascaded in wet locks around her hidden face, but her body shook with each pathetic sob, and the trembling wasn’t letting up. She shook with pain, both physical and emotional.
Something inside of Jack snapped.
“Boss?”
Jack knew they were there. He’d heard them coming down both sides of the alley. Jack looked up and, while still holding Annabelle’s wrists in one of his gloved hands, he held out his other for the cuffs that he knew his employee would supply.
Without a word, one of the men came forward, handed him a gleaming steel pair of cuffs, and then stepped in front of Annabelle to hold her arms still as Jack slipped them onto her.
Her head snapped up when she heard them click into place.
“You’re going to keep me locked up, Jack?” Her tone skated the thin ice between hysterics and despair. “And I didn’t think you could be any more cruel to me.”
In a self-deprecating tone that Annabelle had never heard him use before, Jack laughed. It was a nasty laugh, pitiless and cold. “You have no idea, luv.” He roughly took hold of her upper arm then and pulled her toward the end of the alley, where a black luxury sedan with dark tinted windows idled patiently, waiting for its passengers.
“They say that only a woman he loves can drive a man to drink.”
Jack gently set down the empty shot glass and looked up. He didn’t say anything as Avery took a seat beside him and waved the bartender over. “Pint of ale, mate.”
The bar tender nodded and poured the amber liquid into an ice-rimmed glass and set it down in front of the Hell’s Angel.
Jack looked away.
“How long has it been?” Avery asked, nonchalantly, as he eyed the man beside him, who, as he was himself, was dressed from head to toe in black biker leather.
Jack didn’t answer.
“Heard about the scene in London,” Avery said next, turning the mug so that he could get a grip on its handle and take a long swig.
Still, Jack said nothing.
“Heard it was because you’ve been keeping an eye on your girl without her knowing about it.”
“You hear a lot of things.”
“Aye,” Avery nodded. The silence stretched between them for a minute.
“Also heard she was bloody fast and that you were bloody lucky she didn’t decide to just blow your head off.” Avery said then, as he took another swig and then set his drink down, sighing. “She’s a good shot, eh?”
“She is.”
“And she’s fast.”
“So what?” Jack muttered. He was on his fourth shot and was just now starting to feel the second one. Some of the pain inside was numbing a little, finally, and he frankly couldn’t bloody wait until he couldn’t feel a fucking thing.
“So, I know why she’s mad, JT. She’s lost here, in this world,” Avery gestured to the bar around them and England, beyond. “Where she doesn’t belong – or at least, doesn’t
Jack listened quietly, his gaze steadily ahead as he reached for his fifth shot glass and Avery gently slid it out of the way. Jack’s jaw tensed and his gaze rose to meet Avery’s – sapphire meeting amber.
“You’ve taken away everything she’s ever known, mate.” Avery continued softly. “And then you went and told her that part of what she
“It saved her life, Avery.”
“I know, mate.” Avery nodded, placatingly. He glanced at the shot of brown liquid that he’d moved and looked thoughtful. “Listen up.” He swung on the stool and picked up the shot, downing its contents himself. Jack watched him with a mixture of interest and irritation. Avery swallowed it with a clenched-teeth expression and then continued. “You and I both know that what you do is dangerous. So dangerous that once you’re in, you’re in forever, or you’re dead.”
Silence. But Jack nodded. Once.
“So, what if I told you that I’d decided I’d rather kill people for a living than walk into another classroom and deliver another lecture to a bunch of rich kids who don’t give a fuck about what happened the day before yesterday, much less two hundred years ago?”
JT narrowed his gaze at his friend. Avery was a professor of British history at Oxford University.
Being a Hell’s Angel was sometimes a little like being Batman. One mask for the day. One for night.
At work, Avery wore a long-sleeved button-up shirt that hid his ink. To his students, he was Professor Avery Valentine. None of his pupils would know who he was if they saw him in that bar, at that moment, dressed in black leathers, an earring in his ear, and having a private conversation with a paid assassin.
He took another swig of his beer, as if to chase the aftertaste of the shot and then asked, “What would you tell me?”
Jack was distracted enough by Avery’s proposal to give that thought for a moment. Avery was a capable man and in good shape. Jack had never personally seen him chase after anyone or pull a gun and shoot, but he knew that Avery kept himself up and had no compunctions about panning someone’s head in. And he was fairly good at
“I’d tell you to get some training,” he said, his tone flat, his words soft. “And I’d think about it.”
Avery smiled, cocking his head to one side. “Really?” He narrowed his own amber gaze. “And you don’t even know whether I can shoot, mate.” He lowered his voice and leaned in a little. “Who’s the safer bet, JT? Me? Or Annabelle Drake?”
Jack blinked. The alcohol was beginning to buzz through his blood stream now; the world fuzzing a little around the edges. It had been twenty years since alcohol had made it past his tongue, and it was hitting him hard. But he wasn’t so far gone that Avery’s words didn’t hit him where it counted.
“You want me to induct the woman I love into the Business?” Jack asked softly. Right now, all he wanted to do with the woman he loved was have her brain washed until she loved him again and then fuck her brains out for the remainder of his life.
He’d never been so unreasonably furious as he had been in the last two days. Never, in his life. Not even when Adam Night had led him into the catacombs in France and allowed him to get lost for a full day and night before sending someone to the rescue. Not even then, had he felt the rage in him that he had felt for the past forty-eight hours.
He was so out of it that he’d been handed Godrick Osborne’s file, assigned him as a mark, and he didn’t give a whit. He only cared about Annabelle.
“Nah, JT.” Avery shook his head. “I’m not telling you to induct her. She’s already been inducted, hasn’t she?” Avery said, making the sign of a gun and shooting it three times at an invisible foe.
Jack knew he was referring to the men Annabelle had killed in the tunnels under Columbia, and he wondered how his fellow Hell’s Angel had come by
“Besides,” Avery shrugged gently. “She was involved the moment you decided you were going to invite her into your life, mate. The only way out of this mess now is to give her what she needs to be able to protect herself.” He paused, for effect and to let the information sink in. “You’re pissing in the wind if you think she’s going to just let
