Page 104 of Short, Lethal & Claimed

“Was it the man who tried to kill me?” Jill asked, her silver eyes flickering up to meet his.

“No, Angel,” Logan said softly, watching her nod as her gaze went back to the file, taking in the surveillance pictures of her, copies of her schedule, lists of her acquaintances, her bank accounts, and the notes documenting her every move after he’d marked her.

“So, he’s still out there,” Jill murmured quietly to herself.

“Not for long,” Logan promised.

Nodding absently, Jill asked, “What else?”

“Why did you feel the need to acquire that particular skill?” Logan asked as she finished reading through the file before closing it and tossing it aside.

“Stealing?” Jill asked. When he nodded, she shrugged it off and said, “When we were little, Candy used to take Joshua’sbottle and lock it in a cabinet as punishment for crying. I waited until she left or passed out before I grabbed a butter knife and popped the rusted hinges off the door.”

“From there, I worked my way up to learning how to pick locks, pick pockets, and a few other skills along the way to make sure that Joshua was taken care of.”

“Did your sister know?” Logan asked, reaching up to run his fingertips along her jaw.

Shaking her head, Jill said, “She didn’t need to know.”

“Why’s that?” he asked as a sense of sadness washed over him.

“Because she did enough for us,” Jill said only to follow that up with, “Do you know who put the bounty on my head?”

“Pierce,” Logan said hollowly, watching her slowly nod as she thought that over.

“Makes sense,” Jill mumbled absently as she shifted her focus to the buttons on his shirt. “What are you planning on doing now?”

“Making sure that Gray has everything that he needs to get his revenge,” Logan said, forcing the words out of his mouth when all he wanted to do was to hunt Pierce down and rip his fucking throat out for going after his angel.

He couldn’t take the risk, not with his family vulnerable, which meant that he had to count on Gray to pull this off.

“Against Pierce?” Jill asked, watching as she slowly traced the button with her fingertip.

“Gray had the unfortunate luck of being born into a Pack with too many Alphas. His family traded him to a Master to settle a debt. He was raised with the purpose of being a guard dog for his Master, protecting him during the day and doing his bidding. He was starved, beaten, and spent most of his childhood chained in a basement,” Logan said, watching as Jill went still.

“When Gray was ten, the Master sold him to one of the New York Packs, who made his life a living hell before they traded him until one day, one of them sold him to Pierce, who made what the Master and Packs did to him look like child’s play while he waited for him to reach his immortality. When he turned fifteen, Pierce began placing him in cages, each one smaller than the last to ensure that his bones snapped when he went through his first transition to force his body to heal rapidly, making his blood more potent.”

“What happened?” Jill asked as he took her hands in his and entwined their fingers.

“He turned sooner than they’d expected and managed to escape, but not before he found himself mated to a woman in Pierce’s Pack. They barely had a chance to run before the Pack descended on them. Before Gray could shift, a silver dagger was rammed into his spine, dropping him to his knees.”

“While he begged for his mate’s life, they drove silver stakes into his hands and feet, nailing him to a wall before chaining his mate to the opposite wall. For the next two years, they alternated between starving and torturing her, forcing Gray to watch until they simply grew bored and sold her to another Pack. They left him there for months before Pierce decided to throw him in another cage. When they realized how much damage the silver did to his blood, they decided to move on, leaving him behind in a cage locked away in the corner of a basement in Boston,” Logan said, remembering the moment when he walked into that basement and found the shifter locked in a cage.

“Which makes me wonder what he did to you to piss you off.”

CHAPTER 50

“Nothing worth mentioning,” Jill said on a bored sigh.

“And yet, I remember you mentioning that you planned on killing him,” Logan pointed out, watching her closely as she did her best not to react, knowing that he would be able to feel it.

“I have anger issues, Logan,” Jill pointed out with a sad shake of her head, refusing to say or do anything that would force Logan to go after Pierce. She wouldn’t do anything to risk losing him and if that meant keeping her mouth shut so that he stepped back and allowed Gray to make Pierce pay for what he did to him, then she would happily keep the fact that he had a feeding tube rammed down her throat before having her arms broken and shocked her every chance he got to herself.

“I have noticed that,” Logan murmured absently as he searched her gaze. “Why were you so different at the compound?”

“I believe I already answered that question,” Jill said as she pulled her hand free and climbed off his lap, deciding that they’d talked enough for one night.

“Is that why you’re running away?” Logan asked as she grabbed her shoes and made her way into the bedroom.

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