Jet (Marked Men, #2)(72)

“Your life is worth more than twenty grand, as well. I know it would kill Mom if I had to go home and identify your body, Asa. Take the goddamn money and get the f*ck out of my life, once and for all. This offer has a time limit. Once I walk out that door, you are on your own come hell or high water and I will do what I have to do to protect myself and Mama and you from yourself, just like always.”

“What does that mean?”

He sounded bored, like he didn’t believe I would go through with any threat I made. Maybe old Ayden wouldn’t have, but I was a kickass hybrid of old and new, who had no time to mess around with my brother’s games, not when I was broken-hearted and feeling so raw.

I got up and held the money out to him.

“It means take the money or I’m calling Silas on my way out the door. Like I said, he’s been following me all around town, and he might even be out in the parking lot now. If you don’t work with me, Asa, I honestly don’t care what happens to you from this point on. I don’t have it in me to save you, to do anything and everything for you the way I once did.”

He must have seen the seriousness in my face, and the fact that I had nothing left to lose, because he snatched the envelope from me and peeked inside. I saw his eyes get big at the sight of all that green, but he made no move to get me the book.

I crossed my arms and tapped the toe of my cowboy boot on the floor. I think he was waiting to see what I was going to do, so I just stared him down until he swore. He took his sweet time going to his suitcase and digging out the little leather-bound book that was about the size of my palm. Why criminals didn’t just digitize all their illegal doings and password protect that shit was beyond me. I caught it in one hand when he threw it at me, and tucked it in the back pocket of my jeans. It felt like it weighed as much as my heavy heart at the moment.

I put my bag over my shoulder and made my way to the door.

“I’m serious, Asa. This is the last time I’m doing anything for you or because of you. I like my life here, I like the person I am here, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep it. Even if you are blood and family.”

He crossed his arms over his bare chest and his radiant eyes glinted at me.

“You’ve changed, lil sister. You’re a lot tougher than you used to be.”

I looked back over my shoulder. “Damn straight, and you would be smart not to forget it.”

“I know you won’t believe me, Ayd, but the things I did, the things I never told you not to do, even though it was obvious it was killing you inside, I was just trying to get us by. I always loved you more than anything. You’ve always been the only one who ever had my back.”

I turned to look at him and had to fight back tears. “When did you ever have my back?”

He looked confused for a second, but Asa was good and could look anyway he wanted to. It sucked that I couldn’t trust whatever was shining out of those eyes that were so like my own.

“What are you talking about, Ayd?” For a split second it looked like he was going to move toward me, to try to hug me or comfort me, but it was way too little and far too late for any of that to exist between us now.

Maybe he really didn’t know, maybe he didn’t want to know, either way it was too late and all those things and him were in the past. It wasn’t a conversation I felt like I wanted or needed to have with him. When I closed the door on him without answering, I was closing the door on more than just my brother. I was closing the door on a past that had held me hostage for too long. I wasn’t sure Asa even knew what love looked like, but I knew that now I did. I had been living a life that was driven by things that seemed like a good idea but had proven to be superficial and were really just armor to insulate myself. Moving forward, it was going to be all about the balance between what I wanted and what I needed. It sucked that Jet Keller was the only thing that fit both those criteria, when I was pretty sure he was never going to want to have anything to do with me again.





Chapter 14

Jet

The last week had been torturous. I was emotionally exhausted and running on fumes and a flurry of avoidance. Between scurrying all over hell and back to replace the stuff we would need for the tour at the end of next week, and trying desperately to avoid any kind of run-in with Ayden, I was scattered all over the place and barely holding it together.

So far I had managed to spend most of my time with the band, practicing and working our asses off, to the point that I was just crashing overnight at the studio on a blow-up mattress, or dragging myself home long after Ayden returned from her shift at the bar. I was writing songs that made my head hurt and my heart ache, and I think the guys in the band were sick of ballads about broken hearts.

I didn’t know what to say to her, and didn’t know how to look at her without having it rip me into shreds and burn me up more than I thought was possible. I didn’t want to be constantly mad at her or let her know that the chasm she’d rebuilt between us was killing me, so I thought that distance was my best bet for holding on to my sanity. On occasion, our paths would cross in the morning on the way to the bathroom, or at the kitchen table for breakfast, and I had to admit she looked about as broken as I felt. None of that made me feel any better, and the fact that Cora wouldn’t leave it alone just made it easier to avoid the house as much as I could.

At the moment, I was sitting in court, and even though I had been waiting for this moment, I felt like an igniter on a stick of dynamite. My lawyer kept telling me to stop twitching and fidgeting, but I was anxious, because my dad was sitting on the opposite side of the room, with his bruises healing and looking madder than a sack of wet cats. My mom was sitting behind him, her gaze nervously moving back and forth between the two of us. Her black eye was artfully covered with makeup and I could tell she was trying really hard not to cry. I was also uncomfortable as all get-out, in a pair of pinstriped pants and a white, button-down oxford cloth shirt that made me feel like a big, fat phony. Court clothes sucked, but I could tell by the way the judge was eyeballing my hair and the spikes in my ears that dressing up had been to my benefit.