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“Six?” I pressed when he didn’t answer. “Sixmen with crossbows against just her.”
I jabbed two fingers into the air, pointing to where she lay now, safe in our Nest. A part of me wished I could keep her there, bar her in and guarantee her safety forever.
“She survived, didn’t she?”
My fists clenched.
“The trials are meant to be fair,” I ground out. “To test loyalty and strength and wits. That was a fucking massacre that Ava Jade somehow managed to escape and you damn well know it.”
Some of the rage Diesel kept tampered down tight came surging to the surface, and my own fury fought to be set free at the sight of it. If he could lose control, then so could I.
“So she didn’t tell you I had the jump on her, then?” he asked, his voice like a whip, cracking against my defenses. “I could’ve killed her. It would’ve been a fair death. Just her and me at the edge of that cliff.”
I heard what he was saying without the need for him to speak, piecing it together in my mind.
…he let her jump instead, leaving her death up to fate.
It didn’t absolve him from this, but it softened some of the blow.
He left out the part that if they faced off on the edge of that cliff, Ava Jade could just as easily have ended him with a toss of her blade. And she didn’t.
There was restraint on both sides.
“I didn’t come here to argue about a trial I had every right to put her through as the leader of our crew,” he hissed, running his teeth over his lower lips. “I came to warn you.”
I started, my beast roaringwhat nowin a way that made my rib cage rattle.
“About?”
His gaze dropped to the ground, where he dug the toe of his boot into the gravel and worked his jaw. “It’s going to get ugly,” he said after a minute. “I know you don’t agree with me, Son, but it’s my job as your father to look out for you.”
My stomach twisted.
“You don’t want to hear this, but I’m going to say it anyway,” he continued, this time looking me dead in the eye. “She isn’t who you think she is.” How the fuck would he know who she is? He hadn’t even tried to get to know her, and he would only know the same things I did from looking into her past There wasn’t much to find. Unless he found something I hadn’t? Or knew something I didn’t? But if that were the case, why wasn’t he sharing with the motherfucking class?
“Don’t say anything.” Diesel cut me off before I could say a word. “Just listen. She’s fooling you. She’s a liar and a con artist and you, my son, all of my sons, are her long game.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” I argued, my nostrils flaring as the fury worked its way to a head, filling mine with steam.
Ava Jade wouldn’t…
My Sparrowwouldn’t.
He was wrong about her. He would see that eventually, but I couldn’t let him kill her in the process.
“I’m going to show you who she really is,” he promised.
“How many more trials do you have planned right now?”
He was caught off guard by the question but answered honestly. “One, though there are several others I’d been consider—”
“No,” I cut him off. “One.You can have your one, but no more. If she passes it, that’s it. It’s over. You accept her as a Saint and make her one of us.”
His upper lip twitched, but I could tell he was considering my not-so-subtle request. He knew that shit in the Deadwood last night was pushing it to the limits of what would be considered a fair test of skill. By the look on his face, he was willing to negotiate if it meant peace between us. As a way of admitting his mistakewithoutactually admitting it.
“Andwhenshe fails?”
A chill wormed its way into my belly, reaching icy fingers up to squeeze my lungs and crust over the thing beating behind my rib cage. “Ifshe fails…if she truly is what you say she is, then we’ll deal with her ourselves.”
