“Love is so fucking blind.” Wade gave a sad shake of his head. “Blind as a bat and I hope I can always keep seeing.”
Sarah frowned at him.
“Sarah . . .” Now Gabe was sighing her name. “The guy had means and plenty of motive.”
She wasn’t so sure about means. “He was with me when Molly vanished. He was—”
“His guards have been following you for days,” Victoria reminded her. “How hard would it have been for one of those guys to swipe Molly?”
“His guards don’t have blond hair and blue eyes.”
“Maybe one does,” Victoria told her. “And you just haven’t met him yet.”
Sarah’s fingers twisted in her lap. “He’s the one who helped me get Molly out of that building. He wouldn’t do that, unless—”
“Sarah.” Gabe’s voice was quiet. “Profile him. You tell us why the perp would help to rescue her.”
She didn’t want to profile Jax. She’d never wanted to . . . “To throw me off. To establish trust. To make me think that he was someone I could . . .” Love.
No, she wouldn’t say those words. Wade had been mocking a few moments ago. He had no clue just how deeply she had actually fallen for Jax. “A perp would do that,” she continued, clearing her throat, “so that when he did go in for the kill, that final act would be all the more painful because of the lies and betrayal.”
The room was quiet. So quiet she could hear the faint ticking of Wade’s watch.
“We found out something while you were out of town.” Wade glanced at Gabe. Gabe nodded, and Wade said, “That building that nearly blew you and me to hell and back? The one wired with all the cameras? It belongs to Jax Fontaine.”
Instinctively, Sarah shook her head, denying his words.
“We had to pry through a paper trail about fifty miles long,” Wade continued, “but we tracked the place back to him.”
If Jax had owned the place, he would have told her . . . right?
“You know that Jax Fontaine is capable of murder.” Those soft words came from Victoria.
She did. She knew he could kill but . . .
Sarah stood. “It’s wrong.” I won’t let this doubt eat me alive. I have to trust someone!
And that someone wasn’t going to be her father.
“Jax was enraged when my father made his big revelation.” She’d never forget the sight of him going across that table. “He didn’t know until that moment.” His reaction couldn’t have been fake.
“Are you sure?” Victoria asked.
Trust . . . trust . . . Jax’s face flashed in her mind. She remembered the way he’d held her when she’d woken after her nightmare. The way he’d rushed into that fire even when she screamed for him to leave.
He could’ve rushed in because he knew he was safe. Because he’d told one of his men just where and how to attack in order to set off the explosives.
Sarah gave a hard, negative shake of her head. “He didn’t know,” she said again. “My father knew, and Charlene knew.”
“Charlene?” Emma stepped forward. “The woman who raised Jax? How did she knew his real parents—”
“She was his real mother.” And Sarah hadn’t told Jax that. Because he’d already been hurting enough. To find out that his real mother had committed suicide, that she’d been the one abused with him for so many years . . . “It’s possible she told someone else. Or that Mitch Fontaine told somebody. Someone knows about Jax’s past, and that person is using it against him.” She rubbed her temples. “Using it to set him up.”
“Maybe the guy is just fucked in the head,” Wade offered with an exasperated wave of his hand. “Maybe he’s—”
“He’s more than you think.” She rose from the couch. Paced to the window. Stared out. “There is more going on here than we see. The perp out there . . . I still think he’s using Jax. I think he wants to destroy Jax just as much, if not more than he wants to destroy me.”
She put her hand on the glass. It was slightly cool to the touch. The city was a hum of activity below her.
“Is that why you called us in?” Gabe asked as he paced toward her. “Because you thought Jax might be in danger and you wanted to put some distance between the two of you? The same way you tried to ditch all of us?”
“I just want you all safe.” She wanted to protect them all.
“Yeah, we figured out why you were trying to ditch us,” Gabe added.
Sarah glanced over at him. Eve was beside him. Her eyes were worried. “You were shot,” Sarah said to Gabe. “Eve wasn’t exactly going to forgive me if something else happened to you.”
Gabe threaded his fingers with Eve’s. “Do you think I’d forgive myself if something happened to you?” Gabe asked her. “We’re a team, Sarah. And we stick together.”
Yes, they did. She knew they would have her back, but . . . who would be watching Jax’s back?
JAX TURNED OFF the alarm at his house. He stood there a moment, just inside the doorway. The place was big and empty and dark, dark even with the faint sunlight streaming through the windows.
I lost Sarah.
After all the shit that had gone down in the last twenty-four hours, that was the part that jarred him the most. Sarah. She’d been afraid when she looked at him.
Emma had been afraid of him, too. She’d run.
Charlene had been afraid. She’d died.
Everyone who feared him . . . they left.
Sarah was gone now, too.
Fucking . . . Sarah.
He slammed the door shut behind him. He looked up at that staircase, but, no, he didn’t want to go upstairs. If he did, he’d just see Sarah there. In his bed. He’d smell her scent in the air. Sweet vanilla and—
There was a scent in the air. Only it wasn’t sweet and it sure as shit wasn’t vanilla. His nose burned as he stepped forward.
It was heavy, rank . . .
Jax started climbing the stairs. The scent deepened. It was definitely stronger up above.
He stopped at the landing. The smell so strong up there. But it wasn’t coming from his bedroom. The bedroom was empty. He glanced around.
The bathroom door was ajar. He pushed it open a little more. The rancid smell was thick enough to choke him.
He wasn’t really surprised when he saw the body. After all, that particular scent was pretty damn unmistakable.
The body was spread on his bathroom floor. It looked like the man had been shot in the shoulder and his throat had been cut.
From ear to ear.
The man’s bald head gleamed.
“Sonofabitch.”
Ron Tate was dead on his bathroom floor.
Jax just stared at that body a minute. “I told you to run fast,” he muttered. But Ron had obviously thought Jax was the only one after him. And the cops were going to think he was the one who’d gone after Ron, too. He’d already been booked for assaulting the man once.
Now the guy was dead, in his house.
Jax backed out of the room. He tried not to touch anything, but, hell, it was his house. His fingerprints were going to be everywhere.
He went back down the stairs. Out the door. He hit the remote to open his gate—
And he saw Brent West standing there.
“Have a good trip out of town?” the detective asked. Brent took a step toward him. His hand went to the butt of his weapon. “Because I just got the most interesting tip about you.”
Jax lifted his hands. “It’s not what you think . . .”
Brent glanced over at Jax’s house. “I can’t help you anymore, man. I just . . . can’t.”
Jax knew he was well and truly fucked.
The sonofabitch out there had set him up, and he’d played right into the guy’s hands by letting his emotions rage out of control.
GABE’S PHONE RANG.
Sarah glanced over, wondering if one of their assistants had already struck pay dirt in South Carolina . . .
He frowned at the screen, then put the p
hone to his ear. “Spencer,” he said. His face tightened. “What the hell?” he demanded.
Sarah tensed.
“And why would I do that?” His gaze slanted toward Sarah. “That could be straight bullshit.”
Then his lips clamped together.
“I will destroy you if you’ve been playing us,” he promised.
Sarah had no clue what was happening.
Gabe lifted his phone and offered it to her. “It’s Jax.”
Her heart slammed into her chest. She took the phone, far too conscious of everyone staring at her. “H-Hello?”
“Sarah . . .” Jax said her name with longing, with need, and she ached.
“Why did you call Gabe?” she asked him, trying to calm her frantically racing heartbeat.
“Because I think you’ve switched phones a dozen times in the last few days. I don’t have your current number . . . and I figured you’d be with him.”
“Jax—”
“I don’t have long to talk, so just listen, okay?”
She could hear voices in the background. A siren?
“I’m using up my last favor, but I needed you to know . . . I’m sorry, Sarah.”
Her hold tightened on that phone.
“I was out of control at that prison. I never wanted you to see me that way, but hell, maybe I wasn’t hiding from you. I was hiding from myself.”
“What’s happening?”
“I’m going to jail. This kill wasn’t mine, but the body was in my place.”
What?
“Ron Tate. Shot in the shoulder . . .”
The shoulder . . . the shoulder . . .
“And with his throat slit. The cops are going to say I was enraged at him. I made the threats in front of everyone—”
Her mind spun. “I shot the man who—who came after Gabe and me—I shot him in the shoulder.”
Jax’s laughter was bitter. “Then maybe the cops will say I thought Ron was the one who’s been hunting you. That he was the one who took Molly. I wanted to stop him, so I did. I killed him.”
“Jax, please, don’t say anything else.” Because she had heard a siren in the background. If the cops were there, they would be paying careful attention to every word that he said.
And they’d use those words against him later.
“Fuck them, Sarah, I need you to know, I didn’t do this. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t use you. I won’t hurt you. You got to me, pretty Sarah. Know that. You made me want . . . so much.”
She had to swallow to clear the lump from her throat. “Jax, what can I do?”
“Watch your back. Because he’s out there, and he’s taking me away from you.”
She couldn’t suck in a deep enough breath. “I’m coming to the police station. We’ll fix this. Victoria is here. She can examine the body. She’ll find proof that you didn’t so this!”
“Sarah, there’s something you should know . . .”
“Jax, I didn’t know what my father had done!” The words were torn from her, tumbling out so fast. “I didn’t know, and I’m sorry.” She hadn’t been able to look at him without guilt eating her alive. He’d lost everything because of her father. Because—
“I love you,” he told her.
Then he hung up.
Sarah gazed down at the phone. She could hear the erratic sound of her own breathing. Could feel her too fast heartbeat shaking her chest.
This wasn’t right. It wasn’t—
He shouldn’t love me.
She’d wrecked him. She’d destroyed his life—her father had taken everything from him.
“Sarah?” Victoria said her name softly. She touched her shoulder.
Sarah jerked. “They’re arresting Jax.” She grabbed for Victoria’s hand. “They found a body at his house. I’m going to need your help, Viki, please.”
Victoria nodded. “Always.”
“YOUR LAWYER ISN’T going to be able to get you out of this one,” Cross said as he closed in on Jax. Yeah, it figured that guy would be there. Like a shark, smelling blood in the water. He’d just pulled up at Jax’s house. “Your ass is going down. You’re going to rot in jail, and that’s just where you belong. Locked up for the rest of your life.”
Murphy Jacobs was locked up. Locked up and still laughing.
“Did you enjoy hitting that girl?” Jax asked Cross.
Brent was a few feet away, watching them warily.
Two uniforms stood by their car.
No one had cuffed Jax yet. Their mistake.
“What girl?” Cross demanded as his chin jutted into the air.
“The nineteen-year-old stripper at Lucky Lady. She wouldn’t give you a private dance—oh, sorry, I mean a private fuck for free—so you broke her nose. Made it so that she couldn’t get any money. That’s what you told her, right? ‘If you can’t fuck me, then I’ll make sure no one fucks you.’ ”
Cross flushed and glanced toward Brent. “That’s a lie! That’s—”
“I know what you did. She told me. And now . . . it’s your turn to get broken.” He drove his fist into Cross’s face. Hell, he was already going down, so why not enjoy the hell out of his last bit of freedom?
He heard the crunch of bones as Cross yelled.
Then the dirty cop was attacking him. The other cops closed in, and Jax just punched Cross even harder.
“You shouldn’t hit women,” Jax told him. “Because it just pisses me off.”
Brent grabbed his arms. So Jax used his legs to fight. He slammed them into Cross’s stomach. The guy grunted and then he collapsed. He fell in a heap on the ground.
“Payback,” Jax told him. “It’s a real sonofabitch—”
His house exploded.
HE SMILED AS he watched the fire. Jax Fontaine had just flown through the air. He’d slammed into the side of a police car, and the guy wasn’t getting up now. Maybe he’d broken some bones. Maybe his damn neck.
The cops weren’t moving. They’d been knocked back by the blast.
Chunks of debris were littering the street. And that house—the house that Jax had been so very proud of—was nothing but fire right then.
He headed across the street. Kicked a groaning cop out of his way.
Then he reached down and put his gun under Jax’s chin. “Hey, asshole,” he said. “Want to live or die?”
Jax’s eyes slowly opened. He saw the flash of surprise there as Jax stared at him. Yeah, the fool had never seen him coming.
“ ’Cause I can shoot you right here . . . or you can drag your ass into my car and live just a little longer.”
“Fuck . . . off,” Jax said. He was bleeding from a huge gash near his forehead.
“That’s not the right answer.” He slammed the gun into the side of Jax’s head. He hit hard, and Jax’s eyes rolled back into his head. “Guess I get to drag you.” He started hauling the guy with him, humming as he walked.
“Stop!”
He didn’t.
“Stop or I’ll shoot you!”
It was the detective—the one who was so freaking chummy with Jax. Detective Brent West. Sighing, he stopped and turned to look at the guy. West was on his stomach, trying to crawl toward him. All of those cops were still alive. Groaning, hurt, but breathing.
Why?
He fired at West. The guy cried out and fell back. Then he shot at Cross. A bullet to the head. He took care of the two uniforms in seconds.
Now when help finally came, people would wonder . . . had Jax attacked them all and escaped? Set the bomb to try and cover his tracks?
People in this town always suspected Jax.
He was such a good villain.
But I’m better. So much better.
JAX DIDN’T MAKE it to the New Orleans PD. And neither did Sarah. Gabe got the call about the fire at Jax’s place while they were racing across town. They spun around and headed hell fast for his house.
When they got there, the street had already been blocked off. The fire—a sight that Sarah had become f
ar too familiar with—was lighting the sky. There were ambulances in the street and . . . body bags.
Jax. No, not Jax. No!
Sarah leapt out of the car and ran ahead. She shoved people out of her way, people who’d just gathered to watch the carnage. She was counting those body bags and not even breathing. One. Two. Three . . .
“Jax!” Sarah screamed. Because he couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t.
She saw a stretcher being loaded into the back of an ambulance. And—Brent was on it. Strapped down, covered in blood, but still alive. “Brent!” She ducked under the police tape. “Brent!”
A cop grabbed her arm and tried to shove her back.
Wade caught the cop’s hand. “You don’t want to do that, buddy,” Wade told him, voice flat. “Trust me.”
The uniformed cop’s jaw dropped. “This is a crime scene, bozo! Get your ass back—”
Sarah slipped away from him and ran to Brent. His head had turned. He was staring blearily at her.
“Brent, what happened?”
“Jax . . .”
Jax hadn’t done this. She knew it. I love you. His words were cutting into her. “Where is he?”
“Ma’am, you need to step back,” one of the EMTs told her.
Sarah stepped closer. “Where is he, Brent?”
His chest was covered in blood.
“T-Taken . . .”
No. “Who took him?”
“Ma’am, get back!” The EMT pushed her. Sarah pushed right back.
“Brent, please!”
But his eyes were sagging closed. And more cops had closed in on her. They grabbed Sarah and carried her back. Her gaze darted frantically around the scene. One of the body bags was partially open. She could see—
Detective Cross.
The other bags were zipped up. Smoke filled the air. Sirens were screaming.
And Jax was gone.
“Stay here!” The cop told her when he shoved Sarah beneath the police tape. She almost ran right back under, but Victoria caught her hand.
“He’s not dead, Sarah!” Victoria’s hold tightened on her. “I talked to the ME. Cops . . . the three dead are cops. Detective Cross and two uniformed officers. Jax isn’t here.”
She sucked in a deep breath, but her heartbeat wouldn’t slow down. It felt as if her heart would leap right out of her chest at any moment. “Where is he, Viki?”