“I should have fucking killed you a year ago.”
Chapter 20
Jaime
“You really don’t know how to pick your friends, kid. First that bitch, Vera, and now the Silver Rapids half-breed?”
Jaime had to be having a nightmare. That voice—Jackson Bishop’s voice—yes, he was having a nightmare.
Bishop reached down and grabbed Jaime by the upper arm, claws digging in harshly as he yanked him from the bed. He looked Jaime up and down, clad only in his boxer briefs, nostrils flaring before his lip curled up in disgust.
“You’d be pretty if you weren’t covered in that mutt’s cum. Did you let him fuck you, or did he just take what he wanted?”
That shook Jaime out of his frozen stupor and he scrambled to get away, hitting and scratching and fighting Bishop’s hold, all the while yelling and screaming for Finn.
Too late, he realized that Bishop was shifted, and of course he was, he was a fuckingwolf,and Jaime’s attempts to get away were swiftly rendered useless as Bishop wrapped a heavily muscled arm around Jaime’s throat, ceasing his ability to scream, and pulled him downstairs.
Through the choking hold, scratching deep marks into Bishop’s arms that began to heal and close right before his eyes, Jaime rasped out, “Finn is coming back soon—he’ll kill you for this.”
Bishop chuckled, and Jaime hated how the sound skittered up his spine. He threw Jaime onto the couch, and growled, “Don’t fucking move.”
Leaning back against the counter, Bishop smirked at Jaime’s frantic attempt to cover himself with the blanket that was left sprawled there from the night before.
“He’s not coming back inside anytime soon. It’s just you and me, and we are going to have a conversation.”
Jaime’s breath started coming too fast. All he could picture was Finn, his beautiful, kind, and gentle Finn, sprawled out on the ground outside, torn open and ravaged the way Vera had been…
“Relax. He’s not dead. Yet. Just tied up. Alpha Cain will decide what to do with him—he could be useful with the right motivation. You, though. You’ve been a fucking thorn in my side from the start.”
Jaime couldn’t get his voice to stop shaking. “How did you find me?”
“I didn’t findyou,” Bishop spit. “You were a mistake the first time, too. One that I should have ended. I won’t make the same mistake again. No, I’m not here for you. The Detective told me that reject alpha’s Second would be here, but when I smelled you on him, so fresh, I knew you were inside. So I came to do what I should have done a year ago.”
Jaime’s mind was spinning, momentarily shocked out of his panicked worry for Finn. He couldn’t process anything this monster was saying.
“But—the attack at my house. The Salt Creek wolves on the force leaked my identity to the press. Why would you?—”
“Do you really think that we couldn’t have killed you at any time in the last year if we had wanted to? Our contacts in Monroe PD knew who you were the whole time. They knew you never saw me, that all you have is a vague recollection of a phone call. We left you alive in hopes they’d blame the murder on you, and when that didn’t happen, leaking your identity became a useful distraction while they organized my escape. You never mattered. You were always the sideshow. Vera was always the sideshow, too.”
Jaime felt his world tilting upside down.
Finn. Where is Finn?
If Jaime could get out of here, if he could find him… Bishop chuckled again.
He had seen pictures of him of course, but up close he really was the monster of Jaime’s nightmares. Not because of his dark eyes, or thinning blonde hair, or the elongated canines and claws, but because of the look in his eyes.
It was feral, barely contained rage. Hate. Contempt.
“You’re not getting out of here alive, so stop looking like you’re about to bolt. You can’t outrun me, anyway.” He gave Jaime another long, calculating look. “Your idiot brother hiring that security firm to protect you was the worst decision he could have made, but it turned out to be a lucky break for us. They didn’t attack your house to kill you, kid. They were there for the reject and the mutt. Why do you think they waited until he showed up? Until they were separated? Attacking them at your house was the perfect cover—everyone would think that they were there for you.”
Jaime shook his head. “But,why?They didn’t get involved in all of this until they were hired to protect me. They haven’t done anything?— ”
“They were the target from the very fucking beginning!” Bishop roared, an unhinged look in his eyes.
Had he always been like that, or had a year in prison messed with his head? Probably both.
“Second Dugan dispatched me to kill the reject alpha and his sorry excuse for a pack—the mutt outside, and the other one he lets boss him around. But his meddling wife stuck her nose where it didn’t belong, and she found out about our plan. She threatened to go to the police if we didn’t call it off. So, we pivoted. I was going to kill her, drive to the reject’s house to kill him and the mutt who lived there too, and then plant everything on Sheppard. The DA is already suspicious that he’s hiding shit from law enforcement through his business. They may have squabbled a bit about motive, but all of that evidence on him would have been too overwhelming. It would have been an easy sell.”
