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He didn’t bat an eye.
There was no movement.
No reaction.
No emotion.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity of trying to figure out the truth, I saw right through him.
“Jace…” he warned, fully aware I was onto him. “Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. I trained you better than that.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I told you. I have eyes everywhere. You more than anyone knows that.”
“Bullshit! You son of a bitch! You wouldn’t have information like that!” Moving on autopilot, I walked toward him. “You have one minute to tell me the truth, or I’ll shoot you right between the eyes.”
“Jace, you’re being impulsive, son.”
“I’m not your fucking son.”
“I. Made. You.”
“Forty seconds.”
“You’d be nothing without me.”
“Thirty-five.”
“I taught you everything you know! Everything! Look at this life I’ve given you!”
“Twenty-five.”
“You don’t know what you’re thinking. You’re exhausted, and you’re not seeing reason.”
“Fifteen.”
“Enough with the dramatics! How dare you question me? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”
Before I got the last number out, we both had our guns aimed at each other’s foreheads, but I was quicker and younger. My fist collided with his jaw in one swift movement, and his head whooshed back, taking half his body with him.
He stumbled, and I used his own momentum against him. Quickly, I snatched his Glock out of his grasp and then aimed both of them at his head.
Through a clenched jaw, I spewed, “Don’t fuck with me, old man.”
He swallowed hard, glaring me up and down.
“Now tell me the truth. Why?”
Despite the trepidation in his eyes, he replied, “Tony was my brother.”
I jerked back from the impact of his confession.
“At first, I wanted revenge against you for letting him die on your watch, but then… I just wanted you. You are the fucking best and it didn’t take me long to figure that out. Hope was the only way I could get you, and Cove was the only way I could keep you.”
“You motherfucker!”
“Fuck you, Jace! You’d be nothing without me!”
“Why weren’t you at his funeral?”
“Our father remarried and left me behind since I was much older than Tony. Besides, I was always the blacksheep. Tony was the solider. I wasn’t there, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t fucking love him!”
I desperately tried to calm my emotions, keeping my anger in check.
Needing to know, I roared, “Hope makes sense, but Cove doesn’t. She was barely in my life. Why would you go after her to begin with?”
“She wasn’t initially my target. Your sister was.”
I saw red.
Bright. Fucking. Red.
“But then she got with her boyfriend, and it was too many tracks to cover, so I waited until another opportunity arose to get your attention. When I realized she had a best friend, and how close Cove was to your family, I shifted gears. I implanted Deacon into her life. He was always working for me.”
“What did he know?”
“I told him I thought you were a traitor, and I needed information on you.”
“You set me up. You told me Deacon was one of my enemies that I needed to take out!”
“It was the only way you’d take Cove. I had to set her up to look like a mission and the next target to you. It was the only way to get her here with you.”
“Jesus… how did I not see this?”
“You didn’t fucking want to!”
“All this because I wanted out?”
“You’re the best, Jace, and I’ll do anything to keep you.”
“You motherfucker!”
I didn’t waver. Gripping the front of his suit jacket, I slammed his back up against the concrete wall behind him. He hit it with a hard thud, knocking the wind out of him for a second. I never took my eyes off his while I lay into him.
He deserved every blow to his body.
Every punch to his face.
Every wound I wanted to stab into him.
No damage could ever compare to what he put me through or what I lost in the process of trying to find myself. Because of him. This piece of shit made my life a living, breathing hell.
“You piece of shit!” I snarled, punching him in the stomach and then again in the ribs.
Another hit to the side of his face.
An uppercut to his jaw, making him instantly taste blood.
I hurled his body across the room, leaving nothing but destruction in my path.
“Why aren’t you fighting back, huh?”
He staggered to his feet, wiping the blood off his face with the back of his arm. That was all it took for me to be over to him in two strides, punching him in the face again.
“I fucking hate you!” I hit him in the side of his stomach. “Did you think I wouldn’t have figured it out? Your attacks were too personal, and it made you sloppy! All your training! All your knowledge! All your fucking contacts can’t save you from me!”
