Unbreakable

“I’m not letting you go,” she said, but she had to know that some part of him was already long gone. She held up the sale papers he’d left for her months earlier. “We bought it all back—the tattoo shop, the garage, the bar. All of it. And we’re fixing it back up.”

“Then you’re stupider than I thought.”

She picked up the files then and flipped through them. “The El Coyote was the first job you did after you left me,” she said. It seemed like years ago that he’d done that. “And then we traced a line of crimes along the Ivory Coast and through the Sudan.”

Brutal jobs. His bank account was fat with blood money. But Avery and Jem had been standing here safe in front of him, and he had to assume the same of Key, Dare and Grace. It was all he’d asked, and in turn he’d separated himself from them.

Fuck, being back here in Avery’s presence was wiping away his carefully built resolve. He didn’t want her to know all this shit. Didn’t want her seeing into his past, his present, especially when she couldn’t be a part of his future.

She tipped his chin up so he was forced to meet her eyes. His chin brushed the file she still held, until she climbed into his lap, holding the file behind the back of his chair. His dick was hard and she ground against it while he ground out, “Simple biology, baby. You want to fuck me, go for it. Don’t expect it to change anything.”

“It already has, Gunner.” She leaned in, licked his earlobe. He fought a shiver, tried to stay cold as fuck, but she was so goddamned warm. He wanted to thrust against her, let her come against him, calling his name. “I’m going to fight dirty. And I’m not stopping until you give in.”

“Why?” He heard a trace of despair in his own voice.

“Because you wouldn’t stop for me. Because I don’t think you want me to stop.”

He looked up at the ceiling. She took the opportunity to kiss his neck. Run her hands over his chest. “Come back to me, Gunner. Please, come home.”

“I don’t have a home, Avery. Especially not one with you.”

She blinked at him.

“You told us we have to make our own decisions. I’ve made mine. You need to accept it.”

“I won’t.”

Infuriatingly stubborn. He stared into her beautiful eyes—she had an old soul and he’d noticed that from the moment he’d met her. She could always see right through him. “Let me go.”

“I can’t.”

“You have no idea the kind of wrath you’re going to bring down on your newly formed family.”

“You’re part of the family, Gunner.”

“James. My name is James.”

“Never to me. I don’t know him.”

“You’re meeting him. This is me, Avery. Gunner was a facade.”

Avery blanched and he knew he needed to hurt her, needed to twist the knife, sink it so deep she’d ache if she even started to think about him.

Gunner cocked his head, smirked when he told her, “Your family couldn’t beat mine—in the end, it wasn’t you or Dare who took out Powell. You needed me. Your own father couldn’t do it.”

Chapter Eleven

Avery blinked at him in disbelief for only a second at his callousness at Darius’s death. Before she could think, she’d slapped him, twice, hard across his cheek. It didn’t wipe the smug, satisfied look off his face, the one that said he knew he’d driven the knife deep.

The one that said he didn’t care. But if he had to try this hard, he must care. Must be feeling threatened.

God, she hoped she wasn’t wrong, but exhaustion and fear overwhelmed her.

Kidnapping him had been a mistake. She saw that now. Never before had the saying if you love someone, set them free seemed more clear. She grabbed the files, turned away from him and walked out, but not before hearing his soft chuckle behind her.

He thinks he’s won. And he’s right.

“Told you it wouldn’t be easy, sweetheart,” Jem said as he ate his lo mein with chopsticks. “You didn’t cry in front of him, did you?”

She wiped the tears from her cheeks with her fingertips angrily and shook her head.

He tipped the carton toward her. “Want some?”

“Jesus, Jem, how can you eat now, after what he said?”

“Have to keep up my strength to beat some sense into him,” he told her. “He didn’t mean that.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because I’m not Darius’s kid. He’s playing dirty. Mike told you this would happen.”

She turned to stare through the two-way glass, the way she’d been for the past couple of days, refusing to cover her eyes or shut the sound off when things got bad. But everything Jem did to him seemed to make Gunner’s resolve not to come back to their side strengthen.

“Let him go,” she told Jem, her voice hoarse.

In turn, Jem dropped the container and his legs from the table and stood. “Are you kidding me? First of all, that’s like signing our death warrants.”

“Won’t be the last time, I’m sure. If we’re moving ahead with S8, we’ll have to expect this. Although not from someone we thought was one of us.”

Jem shoved a hand through his hair. “Sweetheart, love’s made you blind and stupid. The goddamned way he looked at you when you walked into the room—how could you have missed that?”

He turned and rewound the tape, showed her the moment she hadn’t seen, because she’d been too busy worrying about Gunner and how badly he was being hurt.

“He’s in love with me,” she whispered.

“Right. Now get back out there and make him fucking admit it. Because I can’t do that lovey-dovey shit with him. Well, I could, but it might make you jealous.”

She sputtered a laugh and it felt good. Maybe she did have Gunner where she needed him to be, in pain and lashing out because he was losing resolve. If he didn’t care, he’d be sitting there, stoic, not allowing his emotions to poke through.

Jem caught her by the shoulders then, continuing the pep talk. “You’ve come this far. Don’t back down now. We can’t lose him to that man. You wouldn’t have let Grace go back to Rip.”

“Dare would never have let that happen.”

Jem nodded. “I’ll do the hard part.”

“No. I’ll have to do the hard part. He can handle the kind of pain you’ll give him.”

“But no man can deal with the kind of pain a woman can inflict,” Jem finished.

“You’re an asshole.”

“An asshole who’s right.” He stared at Gunner through the two-way glass. “He’s not going to know what hit him.”

She waited another hour, turned the heat up in the room and watched him fall asleep. Then she turned the temperature back down, walked in quietly and poured freezing-cold water over his head to rouse him.

He woke immediately, blinking away the water, baring his teeth. Growling. He looked beautiful. Dangerously so.

“You are really pushing your luck.”

“What are you going to do about it, Gunner?”

“I told you, my name is James.”

“I’ll never call you that.”

“You will. And you’d better pray I’m not in front of you, making you say it, Avery.”

“It was okay when I yelled your name in my bed, right?” she challenged.