She reached for him with her hand, feeling his fingers enclose hers as she continued to stare at the terrified Jason.
His brown eyes were bloodshot, pupils enlarged with terror. The tanned flesh of his face was strikingly pale, the once immaculate shirt and slacks hanging on his frame, torn, smeared with dirt and blood.
“Mark was brave when he died,” she whispered, seeing none of that quality in the friend he’d so trusted. “He wasn’t afraid for himself, just for me.”
She remembered that. Remembered the pain and regret, the sorrow and how his gaze had been so heavy with the lack of hope.
The hand on his shoulder moved.
Another whimper left Jason’s throat, filtering through the gag tied across his lips just before it was released.
“Gypsy?” Frantic, terrified, he searched the shadows where she stood. “God, Gypsy, honey, what are you doing here?”
He tried so hard to seem sincere, confused. He wasn’t confused, not in the least.
“Mark always told me to cry when I needed to,” she mused, feeling a heavy, dark fury filling her. “He said it would heal my heart. He said I didn’t have to be brave, that was what big brothers were for. And he never gave me nicknames. But you always laughed at me. Told me to be a big girl when you caught me crying over something. You always jeered at me because you said I wasn’t brave. And I f**king hated being called Peanut,” she spat out at him. “It’s over, Jason. I remembered what Mark was trying to tell me when he told me to be brave, not to cry, and called me Peanut. But even more, I remember what I saw when I watched Grody whisper the name of the friend who betrayed him in his ear. The pain.” It tore through her, ripping at her soul. “He loved you like a brother.”
Jason’s nostrils flared as he stared back at her, despite the darkness surrounding her. His gaze searched the darkness for some sign of weakness, for a way out. She recognized that look. The look of guilt, calculation and pure fear.
“Gypsy, you’re wrong—”
“Save it,” Rule snapped. “She’s not alone, Harte, and the stink of your lies makes me want to rip your throat out myself.”
“Gypsy, please . . .” Jason cried, only to whimper as that claw-tipped hand landed on his shoulder again.
“I have a better idea,” Gideon rasped, amused despite the anger she could feel pulsing from him. “You want the truth, but this man will never give you such a thing without a little help. And with men like this, they never give such things willingly.”
“No,” Jason whispered, shuddering, whimpering as the claws bit into his shoulder.
Blood seeped into the shirt from the points where the sharpened nails bit into his flesh.
Gypsy inhaled, fury beating at the edges of her brain despite the shield she felt Rule throwing between her senses and the ragged, raging emotions clawing at it.
“Stop,” she whispered to him. “Don’t make me hide from it.”
“Gypsy, you don’t have to hurt like this,” he growled, the sound powerful, commanding.
“Me and my emotions are old friends, Rule,” she told him then. “I’ve waited nine years for this moment. I don’t want to lose a single emotion, a single second of it.”
Lawe murmured something to him, and though the shield was suddenly gone, she felt Rule with her more strongly than ever.
She could handle that, though. It kept her moored, kept the agonizing rage from poisoning every particle of her being as a low, enraged cry parted her lips.
“Dammit, Gypsy, I loved Mark like a brother . . .”
Grody leaned to Mark, but his gaze was on her as he whispered the words. She watched his lips, saw the words form and her gaze jerked to her brother’s eyes.
Resigned sorrow and rage had filled her brother’s eyes.
“When Grody whispered the name of the friend who’d betrayed him, Mark had one last minute to tell me something in a way that if Grody were to have mercy, he’d never know what Mark told me. ‘Be brave. Don’t cry, Peanut,’” she spat back at him. “You miserable bastard. Only you ever told me that. Only you.”
His jaw clenched, fury gleaming in his gaze as his lip curled in disgust. “He treated you like you were his f**king child . . .”
“He treated you like a f**king brother,” she charged furiously. “You had him killed, Jason. You tried to steal his family, you stole his fiancée, were you really that jealous of him?”
“You’re crazy,” he yelled back at her. “I tried to help your family . . .”
“He’s lying,” Gideon stated with an air of boredom. “I have a wonderful little drug that will ensure he tells you the truth, though.”