Page 59 of Jagger's Remorse

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Jagger

The chapel reeks of stale beer and fresh rage.

My brothers pack the room, still bloody and sweat ridden from burying Ripper and Chord.

Poncho's face is wrapped in gauze, left eye gone.

Hammer's moving stiff, probably shouldn't even be standing with two bullets still in him.

And they all want the same thing.

Blood.

Specifically, Scarlett's blood.

"She set us up," Digger snarls, slamming his fist on the table. "Sent our brothers into an ambush."

"Fed us to the fucking cartel," someone else adds.

"Two dead. Two maimed. For what? Some pussy and a promise?" another brother shouts.

Squirrel raises his hand for everyone to shut the fuck up.

"Jagger," he says, voice deadly calm. "Your pet cost us two brothers."

"The stash house was real. The money, the drugs—" I start.

"The trap was real too," Squirrel cuts me off. "The question is, did you know?"

Every eye in the room turns to me.

Questioning.

Accusing.

"No," I say firmly.

"But she did," Squirrel states.

"Yes," I admit.

"Then she dies." Squirrel says it simple, like ordering breakfast. "Tonight. Make it clean, make it quick, but make it happen."

Something primitive roars to life in my chest.

"No," I growl.

"No?" His eyebrows rise. "You refusing a direct order, VP?"

"I'm refusing to waste an asset," I counter.

Squirrel spits. "Asset? She's a fucking liability, a liability who cost us two men!"

"She'smywoman," I declare.

The words hang in the air like a grenade with the pin pulled.

Everyone is waiting for the explosion.

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