JARED (Lane Brothers Book 4)
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Authors: Kristina Weaver
JARED
Lane Brothers, Book 4
KRISTINA WEAVER
Copyright © 2016
All Rights Reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to events, businesses, companies, institutions, and real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Paulette
The beeping of machines is the first thing I hear when my mind makes its way out of the fog, and I can’t help but resent whatever force pulls me back to life.
I’d rather be meeting my maker right now instead of having to open my eyes and see the one man I don’t want to see.
“Her BP is levelling out…spleen…over the danger…”
All I hear as I struggle against regaining consciousness is little snippets interspersed with the sound of pacing and the odd voice that I can’t seem to recognize.
Now that Cleo is gone and I’m “free” of the Patriots, I’ve got nothing, less even than I had before. So what’s the use in waking up and being happy to have survived when all I have to look forward to is going back home to my parents and marrying a man I despise more than any other human being in creation.
If there’s a version of the devil wrapped in flesh, it’s Andrew Huley, the man I’m engaged to, and also the one who got me so wrapped up in this mess in the first place.
He’s the one who suggested me to Cleo, and he’s the one who gave her an in with me so that even now, almost a year and a half later, I’m so deep in this cesspool that the only way out is death.
A death I almost attained before Jared Lane came to the rescue.
To what end, though? I know he has to hate me now that he knows what I’ve been involved in. I mean, I suspected he liked me...since he spent a long time watching me from afar. Then when we’d talk on the phone, ostensibly for him to get information about the Lanes out of me, it was more than just business.
I liked that, though, because as wrong as it is to admit, I am in love with Jared Lane. And yet I knew from the start that it wasn’t meant to be.
I’m one of the bad guys, willing or not, and he’s a good guy. And I’m also not really the kind of girl who guys look at as more than just a friend.
So maybe Jared thought of me as his pal, and now he knows that I’m nothing more than a dirty, rotten liar.
It sucks, because for the first time I don’t want a guy to look at me that way. I want something more. The truth of the matter is, I want more with Jared because I know that if I were ever lucky enough to have him, to be his, I would be protected and loved with an intensity that would scare most women, but would be heaven to me.
Too bad for me that Jared will probably see me incarcerated along with whoever else they catch and cuff.
I lived. I fucking lived after having the shit beat out of me, and now I have to open my eyes and face punishment. If I thought all I’d see is the face of a cop and the clang of handcuffs clicking around my wrists, I’d actually be okay with that.
But I know he’s here, standing right next to me, watching me. I can feel it. I always have. Since that first moment he started spying on me, I felt him there, and just having his eyes on me made me feel safe.
Now all I feel is despair.
Maybe I should play possum for a day or two. I am, after all, a walking bruise. I can feel it on my face, my swollen eyes and the bruised ribs. I should just lie here and think for a few days.
“Yo, we got nothing yet. Jace has been following up leads on Williams, and Wyatt is still watching Ronny and Cleo. Nothing yet. Ma spoke to that doctor friend of Pop’s and they don’t want to do anything that might upset Cleo’s recovery.”
That’s Miah. I recognize his voice and feel the air change around me as Jared’s twin walks into the room. The two are identical, but where Miah is easygoing, Jared is hard and controlled and somewhat ruthless.
“I could give a fuck about her recovery. I want that bitch awake and talking before Paulette wakes up,” he growls and I feel my heart plunge into despair.
I inwardly cringe when I hear him say my legal name, making our relationship sound so impersonal.
“I don’t think we should push things, bro. Paulie will wake up soon and tell us what we need to know. Christ, just look at what those animals did to her.”
“Paulie.” He snorts and I feel his eyes on me again. “You think
Paulie
will do anything but tell us what those bastards want us to know? Don’t put all your eggs in that basket, asshole, because more than likely the things will come out rotten. Nah, Paulette will wake up and probably put on that sweet, confused act she plays so well and everyone will just forgive her lying ass.”
He thinks I’m sweet and confused? God, why does that hurt and make me mad at the same time. I have never once gone for sweet or confused in my life, and I hate it that he thinks so.
I’ll show him sweet and confused, and if my head and body weren’t aching like a pulverised tooth, I’d kick his awesome ass!
“Screw you, Lane. I am not confused. Just stupid,” I mumble past the split lip while one eye cracks open to glare at him.
I can’t look good. One eye is swollen completely shut while the other feels puffy, but my glare is in full force when my vision clears and I see both Miah and Jared staring down at me.
Miah, bless his heart, is smiling and throws me a wink while the world’s biggest A-hole stands glaring at me with enough intensity to catch my hair on fire.
“Ah, should’ve known you were awake and listening like the sneak you are,” he says and I groan at the pain his words cause me.
I want to tell them everything and beg them to fix it. And yet I can’t, because he believe me and I am terrified of what will happen when they find out everything that was done to me.
Those bastards, those slime-sucking evil bastards took something from me that I can’t even think about. If I do, I know I will fall apart and never get back to myself.
“Eat my ass, Lane,” I mutter, wincing when I shift and try to sit up and pain streaks through my entire body.
“Goddammit, lie down! You’re not healed enough to move,” Jared yells, stalking over to me to push me back down with a curse.
For a man of his size, considering that he’s beyond pissed with me right now, his actions are so gentle, I hardly feel a twinge as I’m pressed back into the mattress and scooted up a little.
“I’ll be fine. It’s not like I’ll need much movement where I’m going anyway, so chill it and let me up, Lane,” I say, covering the tears that have yet to leave my eyes with a disdainful sniff. “I need to talk to you about—”
“I don’t want to fucking hear it, Paulette. You had more than ample opportunity to come clean about this shit, so if that’s the angle you’re gonna try and play before stiffing me…just stop.”
“No—”
“Enough! I said I don’t want to fucking hear it. Now just lie there while me and Miah go talk and I’ll bring you something to eat when I come back.”
“But—”
He walks away before I can finish my plea and exits the room with a curse, leaving Miah shaking his head before turning to me.
“He’s gonna need a little time to get over this shit, sis.”
I know, and even as I nod, I accept that it will likely take a lifetime and a freaking day before he looks at me with affection again. I know I said I hated him looking at me like I’m his pal or something, but right now I’d take any freaking scrap I can get if it means he won’t hate me forever.
“I had no choice. I swear, I had no choice,” I whisper, swallowing past the tears clogging my throat.
Miah’s eyes soften before he straightens and looks at me sternly.
“There’s always a choice, Paulie. Always. You just made the wrong one, sweetheart.”
“I know. I just…I was alone and…it was already too late for me by the time Jared came along.”
No, that’s a lie. It was too late for me a long time before that even. My parents, those soul-sucking demons, put me in a position that is inescapable, and then when Cleo got her hooks into me I had nowhere to turn.
I resent this attitude the Lanes are throwing my way, because as cool as I think they are, they have no idea what it is to never be loved or cherished. They have the perfect parents and each other while all I have are parents who sold me to the highest bidder and a sister who has enough shit of her own that she doesn’t even acknowledge my existence.
There is no going back from this. I fucked up, big time, and nothing I say or do will ever excuse or make up for the betrayal I dealt to the man I love.
“Paulie, honey, just give him time.”
“I would, really I would, Miah. But we’re out of that luxury. The Patriots aren’t going to stop till they get what they want, and right now they want their leader back.”
He scowls at me, and for the first time I see his face harden so much that he looks exactly like his twin. For some reason, and one I can’t really put into words, I am more afraid of Miah in that split second than I have ever been of Jared.
As his eyes narrow on me, I realize that looks are totally deceiving. This man is way more dangerous than Jared, I know it instinctively. He just hides it behind a laid-back attitude and ready smiles.
For whatever reason, Miah chooses to let people believe he’s the easy mark, and I almost pity Lynn Conrad if what those assholes said is true. If she is, in fact, alive and in Miah’s hands, then she’s not anywhere I would ever want to be.
“
Your
leader, you mean?”
“No. I—”
“Let me make something very clear to you, Paulie. I like you. I always have and I consider you one of us knowing that Jared wants you, but if you lie to us, if you hurt my brother again, I will lock you away in the deepest, darkest hole I can find and enjoy knowing that you’re suffering just a tenth of what he’s suffered at your betrayal.”
My heart stutters and the monitor starts beeping wildly when he walks closer and leans in to look deep into my eyes. The blue is so like Jared’s that I can’t look away from their hypnotic pull and I swallow again, hearing my own heartbeat race in mechanical beeps.
“You want to lie and hurt us, I will make sure you regret it, but if,
if
you want to be one of us and live the happiest life you will ever have, you got to work for it. Understand?”
Is that what I want? I know it is. I’ve seen my babies in Jared Lane’s eyes since the moment I first got a glimpse of the dark blue depths. I want everything I could ever possibly have with the man. Babies. Marriage. Hell, I’d take mistress status and die happy just to have that little piece of him.
But I’m not good enough for him anymore and I know it. Who wants a woman who lied and cheated for months while he did nothing but be nice to me?
My parents are right, I’m nothing and I never will be. Why should I saddle the Lanes with my traitorous hide when I belong in that nest of vipers who spawned me?
“Miah—”
“You’ve got a lot of thinking to do, honeydew. Now stop those tears I see brewing there and get some rest. You look worse than shit and I don’t want Trace and Clari getting all upset when they see you tomorrow.” He smiles, losing that deathly serious look so fast, my head is spinning in shock when he turns and leaves with a chuckle.
It’s only when he’s gone and I’m left completely alone that I let out the breath I’d been holding and my heart-rate monitor stops going crazy. I let the tears that I’ve been holding back go and start streaming in silent tracks down my cheeks.
This is why I was so relieved to be halfway to dead in that alley, and why waking up in the first place was a hard pill to swallow. Not only do I have to live with the knowledge that I am alone and worse off than I was before, but I now have Jared’s hatred to bear as well as my own.
I’ve lived with this self-loathing for months and only once contemplated ending it all quickly, and yet now—as I lie in this bed, broken, bruised, and hurting in every cell I possess—I know that those feelings weren’t the worst I could feel.
I am weak and pathetic and nothing like the woman I’d once hoped to be. No, Cleo took that away from me with her kind smiles and treacherous tongue and I’m as dead inside as they could have made me.
But Jared deserves better, and no matter how much it hurts, I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that when this is all said and done, I will be gone enough that he can forget my existence.
I just hope the sacrifice I’m planning to make will be enough to fix the monumental mistakes I’ve made, and maybe one day they’ll remember me with some sort of fondness and a kind word for the girl I used to be.
“We need to talk.”
I squeak and peep at the door when that growl reverberates through the room, only to see Jared standing in the doorway, glaring at me so fiercely that I feel cornered.
“Yes, we do. Jared, I—”
“You’ll be transferred to our home sometime during the course of the day where a private nurse will care for you while you convalesce. My family have graciously offered you a safe place to heal while we sort this mess out, but—”
“No! Just let me go home.”
Please, please, please just let me go home. I have items there that need to be retrieved and a backup plan that may not be the world’s most genius notion, but if I work things just right I think we should be able to bring the Patriots down before things get worse.
Most importantly, we should do it before they get Lynn out of her little cage. Yeah, I heard everything that day, when they beat me so bad I lost half a molar to Clyde Rydell’s fist.