Page 5 of Jericho

I only used that alias during that first case and refused it when the suggestion was made years later. I never wanted to be that man again. Luke Gannon was a weak man. He was flawed and easily manipulated.

I blow out a ragged breath as I read. Even though the words are typed, I can sense the pain and longing inside her. She writes of loneliness and years of sadness. She misses me and wishes things were different.

My lip twitches with irritation, but it doesn't stop my heart from beating faster, doesn't stop me from wishing things were different.

I shake my head and step away for a moment. It all seems like too much, like a ghost from my past is haunting me and trying to make me remember only the good times and none of the bad.

I force myself to step forward and to continue reading with a whispered vow in the back of my head that after this, I'm done, and not in a sense that I'll not check the email again. I'll delete the entire fucking account. Even with her betrayal and the years separating us, she still has too much power in my mind, and that's just one more thing I fucking hate about her.

Her emails speak of her unhappiness and her safety. She mentions the volatile situation now that her father is gone andhow she's constantly wondering when someone will come after her. The hostile takeover has left many men in the organization thinking they have more power than they actually do.

I read each word and, with every breath, I use the energy to build up a wall inside of me. One that was there before, but distance, time, and lack of attention have managed to weaken it. I can't care about her life. She fucking chose it with her silence.

With the last words of her email engrained in my head, I log out and close my laptop. I'm still not strong enough to delete the account, proving her claws are well and truly embedded in my skin.

Chapter 2

Aspen

I don't have to see myself in the mirror to know just how blank my stare is. I've mastered the look of seeming not to care about anything in my life. There are days when my look is a true reflection of exactly how I feel. There are days I want to give up. Those types of days are coming faster and closer together, and it worries me.

My husband, Damien, doesn't give a damn about my happiness. If anything, he prefers me sad and weak, wondering if death might be a better option. It places me exactly where he wants me because he's one hundred percent the reason I feel this way.

I sit at the bottom of the stairs, the app on my phone for the front gate letting me know he has come home. Me waiting for him as if we're some happily married couple is the expectation. There have been a few times I didn't wait for him, and the consequences were dire. I do my best not to make those mistakes, although I think he tries to catch me off guard some days just so he can punish me.

I stand when I hear the crunch of gravel on the driveway out front and plaster the best smile I can manage by the time the front door opens.

It's ten in the morning, and he hadn't come home last night.

Unlike my father, the late Ivan Reese, Damien would rather party than cultivate the business. My father had late business meetings, but the man never compromised what he wasdoing to have a good time or to get laid. Criminal enterprise or not, he was a good businessman.

Damien, now the head of the family business, seems to want to run it all into the ground, and I know the men surrounding him have taken notice. They're biding their time before they form a mutiny and remove him from the top. There are days I wish I'd get the call that they found his body on the side of the road in a ditch, but as he opens the door, his eyes darting right to where I'm expected to be, I realize that I have to go yet another day without my wish coming true.

"My love," he says in a grandiose way as he throws his arm out in my direction. "Help me with my coat."

"Good morning," I tell him softly, without a hint of reprisal in my tone.

I don't care that he stays gone so often. If I had a choice, I'd have him forget this address.

I don't say a word about the guns strapped to his body or the lipstick stain on his collar. I don't mention the scent of another woman's perfume and sex on his skin, but the thought of him expecting the same from me makes my stomach turn over and over.

I pull his jacket from his shoulders and walk to the coat closet and hang it up.

"Good morning," he says, walking toward the kitchen. "What's for breakfast?"

"What would you like?" I ask, knowing he doesn't see me as a threat with the way he shows me his back as he leaves the room.

"Peach cobbler cinnamon rolls, bacon, and eggs," he says as he takes a seat at the dining room table.

I swear my teeth will be nubs from grinding them before I'm pulled from this earth.

I make a fresh pot of coffee because although he didn't ask for it, I know it's something he'll want.

Damien Gaines has hated me since the first day he laid eyes on me, and the feeling has been mutual on my end as well. We didn't marry for love. I could never love a man as violent and vile as him, but that didn't stop me from saying my vows. I was promised to him. My father was grooming him to run the organization. When my father wasn't moving fast enough, probably because he realized at some point he had made a mistake, Damien had him killed, putting him right at the top of what my father spent his lifetime building. It's been only a month since my father met his tragic end, and Damien has managed to piss off nearly every other family already.

I set to making the cinnamon rolls, which take forever because I can't simply stuff peaches in already-made rolls from the grocery store. I have to make the dough. He purposely has me do these things just to anger me and waste my time. He'll eat one or two, then leave the rest on his plate. If he wants the same thing tomorrow, Damien Gaines is much too important to eat anything that would be considered a leftover, so I'll have to make a new batch.

I fight the burn of tears as they sting the backs of my eyes and inside my nose. Crying won't help. If anything, it'll only make all of this so much worse. I don't have to look over at him to know that he's staring at me, probably considering what else he can pile on top of me so he can watch me break.

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