Reaper's Salvation: A Last Riders Trilogy Jamie Begley (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📖

knowledge. Was it Hammer? He brokered the deal with the FBI and was the one she wanted to accompany her. There was only way to find out.

“What’s your relationship with Hammer?” Reaper watched her reaction like a hawk, unaware his breathing had stopped.

Ginny switched her gaze from the ocean to his. “Hammer and I don’t have a relationship.”

His breathing returned to normal, whereas his jealousy remained. “Then why ask him to come with you? Why not someone else?”

“I didn’t exactly ask him. Hammer told me he was coming, and I only agreed when he swore to me that, if it anything happened, he would put his welfare first.”

“He agreed to that shit?”

“I didn’t leave him a choice,” she said firmly.

“You didn’t make me promise anything.” Reaper wasn’t sure if he should be angry at the revelation or not, but he knew one thing; his jealousy grew deeper. He should be happy Ginny hadn’t tried to continue to protect him, but did that imply she didn’t care about him as much as did Hammer?

“I made that a condition with Hammer, and if he was going to join me he had to agree; otherwise, I would have shut him out of the plan with the FBI altogether. I can’t use the same leverage with you.”

“You could have told the FBI”—Reaper dropped his voice low so only she could hear—“the truth about our marriage. They could have called in manpower to stop me.”

“Do you wish I had?” she challenged him, turning it around to question his feelings.

“I wouldn’t have let you set a foot on the plane without me.”

“You couldn’t have stopped me.” Ginny folded her arms over her chest as if she were cold.

“I could have delayed it long enough for Diamond to get there. She would have made mincemeat of the deal you arranged.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t bring her with you and that you didn’t drag me back to Treepoint.”

“It was a consideration,” he admitted.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because you didn’t use your friendship with Sex Piston to involve her sister Diamond, so I figured you had an important reason to want to come back to Clindale.”

“Trudy and Sex Piston both have tried to convince me to ask Diamond for help.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“I knew I’d be exposing myself, which then opens the chance of Trudy, Diamond, and Sex Piston getting hurt. It wasn’t worth the risk.”

“If it wasn’t for me, you would’ve never admitted to being Evangeline, would you’ve?”

“It was time.”

“Because T.A.’s pregnant?”

“Yes. T.A. and I grew up pretending we didn’t know each other. I can’t pretend my niece or nephew isn’t related to me. I can’t erase the past, but I can attempt to move forward with all my cards on the table.”

“Are all your cards on the table?”

“Yes.”

“Sweetie, Silas should have told you to never play your cards.”

“Don’t talk down to me.” The no-nonsense Ginny had come out to play.

Reaper had to give her credit. Ginny had the ability to come across as easygoing, until her anger or frustration dropped her guard.

“I wasn’t talking down to you.”

“You could have fooled me. I don’t like to be called sweetie, especially when you think I’ve done something you don’t like.”

“You want to bust my nuts? Go ahead. But be prepared. If you want to talk like you have game, you fucking better be prepared to have game.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I won’t watch what I say, especially when you do something stupid as shit.”

Ginny made a comical face at him. “Since when have you ever held back what you wanted to say to me? If you want to call me the B word, then call me the B word. I’d rather be called a bitch than sweetie.”

“The B word wasn’t what I was trying to avoid. Try reckless and irresponsible.”

Ginny winced as if he’d struck her, but Reaper was ruthless.

“And I won’t be the only one saying the same thing. Sex Piston and Dalton will agree when you come back. T.A.—”

“Stop, Gavin.” Ginny buried her face in her hands. “I can’t do what I need to do if I’m worried about Trudy.”

Taking the opening he finally found, Reaper moved in before she could regroup. “What do you need to do?”

“I have to defeat the monster.”

“Allerton is the monster?”

“Yes.”

“How do you plan to beat him?”

“I have to turn the table on him, and make sure he can’t hurt anyone else.”

Reaper reached out to pull her hands away from her face so he could see her. He expected to see tears, but what he saw shook him to his core.

Fear.

He had become intimately familiar with that emotion, even before his kidnapping, back when he had served overseas in war zones.

Reaper tried not to think of the terror-stricken people he’d come into contact with during his time in service. Many were either running or in hiding when his company moved in, despite the fact the soldiers sought to help.

What stuck out the most was that Ginny wasn’t hiding. She made herself a visible target in Allerton’s scope.

“Who has he hurt?”

She didn’t try to pull away from his touch. Instead, Ginny swayed toward him.

Loosening his hold on her hands, Reaper gathered her shaking body closer, giving Ginny the heat of his body.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she whispered so low that he had to tilt his head down to hear her.

“Try me.”

“He hurts thousands of people every minute of every day.”

“That’s a tall order for a man who is retired and lives like a recluse on a private island without any internet.”

“Allerton wants to have the entire world at his feet, and he has enough money and power to accomplish his goal.”

Reaper took what she said with more than a grain of salt. “No man I know of has that type of power. But if that’s true, how in the fuck do you think you can be the one to stop him?”

“I have to find something that will expose him and cohort of others who have been helping him.”

That revelation stopped any