Page 96 of Whips and Chains
Just like X and I now were as well.
Jesus, this woman had all three of us so pussy-whipped. I knew it, and I didn’t even care. It didn’t feel like a bad thing to want to protect her, to give her what she wanted as well as what she needed.
Right now, she was asking for our support.
And we were giving it.
Grayson handed over his copy of the list. We all reported back which targets we’d taken out, and the list now had several crossed-through names, mostly all courtesy of Trigger, Ace, Torch, and maybe Scythe.
I knew Levi, X, and I hadn’t contributed much, since we were too busy running around after Violet and fucking around in sex club camera rooms. But at least the body in X’s truck would help toward evening up our tally just a little.
Violet ran her nail down the list of names, though I wasn’t sure why. She was a nice girl. A good girl, who didn’t hang out with criminals.
Well, she hadn’t, until she’d met us, but that was beside the point. She wasn’t going to recognize anyone on that list.
Except halfway down it, she paused, and her head jerked up. “I know this name.”
I leaned in to peer over her shoulder. “Travis Jones.”
Any humor that might have been lingering in X’s expression faded away. “Travis? As in the Travis who was bothering you at Psychos the other night?”
She nodded. “Travis as in my foster brother Travis. I don’t even want to know what he did to get himself on here. But I can imagine.”
I gritted my teeth. I didn’t know off the top of my head what he’d done either, but Grayson didn’t put people on the list lightly. There was nobody on there who’d done time for a simple break and enter, or someone who had been sentenced for fraud.
The list was reserved for the worst of the worst. People we knew were associated with the most vile things humans could do to each other. Rapists. Traffickers. Murderers.
For her brother’s name to be on there, he had to have done something reprehensible.
And the thought of her growing up in a house with someone who could do things like that sent chills down my spine.
I suddenly went from wanting to bang Violet up against a wall, to wanting to lift her in my arms, taper her in bubble wrap, and never let anything bad happen to her ever again.
She’d already been through too much. She’d been dealt so many shit hands, it just didn’t seem fair she’d found herself square in the middle of another, just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And I hated it was all because of us.
If she’d never met us, none of this would be happening to her and she and Toby would be living their best lives right now.
Except if X hadn’t been there that day, to save her from Paul Jeddersen, the very man whose name had been scratched off the list she held now in her hands, she would be the one chopped up into little pieces and dropped off the Saint View bluff.
Everything happened for a reason.
And there was no turning back now.
“You need to use me as bait,” Violet said quietly.
We all stared at her.
“It makes sense,” she continued, like she couldn’t hear the screaming in my head. “Either I’m a target for them, or they’re using me because they know it will hurt all of you. Either way, they’re watching me. So let them come. I’m sick of them having the upper hand and us always looking over our shoulders, wondering when they’re next coming at us. We need to flip the tables. Take back the power.”
The screaming in my head got louder. I managed to keep it from pouring out of my mouth, but I could feel the same sort of thing vibrating off X and Levi.
Nobody liked this plan. But nobody was willing to say it either, because all three of us wanted to have her back.
A tiny part of me really wanted the others in the room to object though.
Grayson nodded. “It could work. Something staged and well controlled with all of you working together. We’ve been picking off people from the list one by one, but it’s not getting us anywhere. Maybe this will.”
