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“When I found out I was going to be a father, knew it was time to get out. Get my brothers out from under the life that we’d been forced into.”

“Forced into?”

His nod was tight. “Our father was the President of a small but vicious club back in LA. We were raised in the life. Conformed into it. Coerced into it. We were all in deep before we realized it wasn’t a good life. But we didn’t know anything different. Just seemed our lot. But the thought about bringing a kid into that world?”

His head shook with the severity. “Knew it was time to get gone. Take my brothers and my child with me where we could start a new life. A better life. We had been heading nowhere good, and all of us were gonna end up dead or behind bars if we didn’t make a change.”

The sound that came from his throat was close to a growl. “Of course, our father wasn’t going to be so keen about that. We’d made a plan that we were just going to go. Pack up and split. Get lost in some no-name town and disappear forever. Made a deal with Gage’s mom, Juna.”

He paused, maybe seeing me gasping. Hanging onto every word. Trying to keep up.

“She’d hooked up with the President of a rival MC, right about the same time she was hooking up with me. She’d be buried if they knew who her baby’s daddy really was, so I gave her a solution. A big payoff for the kid. She’d never have to think about money again. She agreed, except what she’d really done was sell me out to our father. Went to him with the plan and earned herself some extra cash.” He spat the words, venom in his voice and loathing in his eyes.

My insides withered. Curling with the horror of his past.

This dark, ominous man who held so much pain.

“An ambush was waiting to take me out. She woulda got the cash and the kid and me dead. Except she got cold feet at the last minute—went to my house. My brother, Nathan, was there. She confessed and he came running to stop it. He got caught in the crossfire.”

Trent itched. Coming out of his skin as the admission left him, pure misery on his tongue.

Sorrow.

Shame.

Guilt.

They bled and wept from his flesh.

My breaths were shallow and short. Stricken and hurting for this man. Scared, too. There was no question now that I’d crossed onto unstable, shaky ground. Ground that would crack wide open and gobble me up. Where I’d lose myself. Who I was and who I wanted to be.

Everything Trent Lawson had said from the beginning was true. He was dangerous and I didn’t belong. But still, my mouth was moving, whispering, “I’m so sorry.”

His hands shot to the edge of the table like he needed the support when the devastation fell from his mouth. “My fault.”

My head shook. “You said you didn’t know what you were getting into.”

He chuckled a menacing sound, a snarl wrapped around the words. “Might not have as a kid, Eden, but a man’s soul knows. Knows when his deeds have him destined for Hell. Right where he belongs.”

My mouth felt dry, my appetite gone. My gaze darted everywhere but at him, knowing I was pushing through a boundary I shouldn’t. That I didn’t want to know, but I had to.

“But you…still paid her off? After what she did?”

My head spun. Too much to process. This world something I didn’t understand. The one thing I did know was this woman’s face had become something vile in my mind.

Wicked, evil, and cruel.

Trent swallowed hard. “She warned us, got the rest of us out of there before it was too late, carried my son to term and signed him over to me the way we’d agreed, so I spared her.”

Spared her.

There was no more denying it. No more diverting or pretending.

No more blissful oblivion.

And still, I needed him to say it. Admit how dark it went. I didn’t want some vague foreshadowing. Didn’t want to be kept in the shadows. Didn’t want him to hide from me.

I needed to know.

Know his truth.

“You’ve…killed people?” I didn’t even know how I’d managed to push out the hushed plea. Praying for a different answer than the one I was sure to get.

Vengeance flashed through his fierce eyes, and he gave me a tight, short nod.

My guts revolted. Nausea twisted through my stomach and bile rose in my throat.

Oh god.

I hitched forward, clinging to the table the same way as Trent had done.

I wondered if we did it for the same reasons?

If he was haunted the way this would haunt me?

This man who I’d come to crave.

My knees trembled and my spirit warred.

From deep within, I had the urge to get up and bolt. Turn my back. Hide away before I got any deeper.


Tags: A.L. Jackson Redemption Hills Romance