Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption (Road to Redemption #1)(102)

His face falls into a sad, painful smile. “You always were the smart one.”

Okay that definitely was a compliment.

Right?

“You gonna explain yourself?”

He sets a hand on my shoulder.

It’s heavy.

“That’s a story for another time, son.”

The way he carries himself right now doesn’t look like a man who’s had a drinking problem for the majority of his life. He looks like someone who’s been dragged through the wringer about a hundred times over.

He’s not getting any sympathy from me, if that’s what he’s after.

One good deed doesn’t make the f*ck up for all the shit he’s put us through over the years.

Am I a tad impressed that he pulled this shit off? Quite frankly, yes. Okay, maybe more than a tad. He doesn’t need to know that, though.

“For now, I’m just glad I didn’t lose another son through all of this.”

My breath catches with those last words of his.

Simple. Yet perplexing.

Everything is muddled right now, between what I expected to hear come out of his mouth, which was a whole bunch of self-righteous bullshit, and what he actually said. For the first time in a very long damn time, I’m caught off guard by the old man.

“I don’t understand.” I’m not sure why I let that slip out. But there it hangs, like a f*cking matzo ball, for all the world to see.

I search his eyes for the punchline, but he doesn’t give it to me. Instead, he gives my shoulder a tight squeeze and tries to grin—only it’s more like he’s forgotten how.

“We’ll talk more, soon,” he tells me. “Let’s just say your mother made a few things clearer for me.”

I am still so confused.

“Women do that to ya,” he jibes, and instinctively, I find Green again.

“Excuse me, Dad.” I stride past him. We’ll pick up on this conversation again at some point. I’m not sure I can process any of it right now anyway.

I eye Nick getting taken care of, and Stix, who’s talking easier than you’d think with one of the men in blue. And Walker, of whom I have serious f*cking doubts about. For now, everyone else becomes a blur until I’m up in Green’s personal space. Her, I can see.

She opens her mouth to say something, but I stop her.

“You confuse the shit of me, Green.”

She nods. “I know.”

“I don’t like to be confused.”

“I know that, too.”

A grueling minute goes by. She doesn’t make it easy to be ticked off when she freely admits to what she’s done to make me ticked off.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the same person I was earlier.”

She’s right. She’s still the same confident, smug, infuriating woman I’ve come to know over the past couple weeks.

I’m still ticked. Don’t get me wrong.

“Did you know about Connor?”

She shakes her head. “Not a damn clue. Not until I got here.”

“That’s gonna be an interesting conversation someday.”

“If I ever see him again.”

“I have a feeling you will.”

She lets out a shaky breath.

“And Walker?” I push because come one, it’s what I do.

She looks over at the dick himself. “He’s not as bad as you think, Stiles.”

“Jesus. Fucking A. You, too?”

A hand reaches out and hooks itself around mine. When I look down to see us connected, I think how easy it would be to let the feeling of her in my arms take over and just forget about tonight.

Move on.

Only I’m not like every other schmuck on the street.

I need some f*cking answers.

“What the hell happened tonight?”

I’ll decide whether this can even happen or not.

“Where do I start?”

“Wherever you need to make this shit make sense.”

She nods and takes a deep breath before she begins.

“At the bar.”

“Fine.”

I notice something as she starts to tell me her story.

“Walker confronted me about the texts from Anonymous.”

I haven’t let go of her hand.

“So he does know the guy.” I goddamn knew it.

“Only because he’s been tracking him for about a year now.”

So he says.

“Anyway, he doesn’t call him Anonymous. He calls him Nathan Threshold.”

Threshold. Threshold. Where the f*ck do I know that name from?

“And how did he know you had anything to do with it?”

“He tied him to my dad. I’m not sure how, but it wasn’t difficult for him to figure out who I was after that.”

“So he’s been planning this shit all along.”

But exactly how long? That’s the million-dollar question here.

“I don’t know, Stiles, but he’s definitely given it some thought.”

“What does that mean?”

“You sure you wanna hear this?”

I find a bale of hay to sit on. Something tells me I’m gonna need to be sitting down for this shit. “Yeah.”