“My bar!” Carlos snapped. “Jax gave it to me. Signed it over right before he flew off with you . . . said he was looking to make some changes.”

What?

“I thought that meant he was going to try and live on the right side of the law. For you.” Fear flashed in his eyes. “But he’s . . . gone?”

“You haven’t watched the news,” Emma muttered. “You should really turn on a TV sometimes.”

“I never watched the damn news!” Carlos shouted. “When? When was he taken?”

“Two hours ago.” Hours that were eating at Sarah’s soul.

“No.” Carlos jerked away from her. “Liar. You’re lying!”

Emma was right beside Sarah. “Two hours ago,” she said.

Carlos pulled out his phone. “He texted me!”

Sarah snatched that phone from his hand. Her fingers slid over the screen as she pulled up the texts and sure enough, there was a note from Jax.

It’s Jax. Pull off detail on Sarah. We’re done.

Goose bumps rose on her arms. She shook her head. “This isn’t Jax’s number.”

“The guy keeps burner phones. With our lives, it pays to have a few of those.” He shrugged, but his eyes were darting nervously between her and Emma. “I didn’t . . . didn’t even question him.”

You should have. “Jax and I aren’t done.” Her chin lifted. “That text came in an hour ago.”

She heard Emma’s hard inhale.

“He wants me unprotected,” Sarah said. “The perp wants to make sure that no one follows me . . .”

So he’d texted Carlos. Gotten the guy to back off. “But I’ve got you,” Sarah whispered. She called Gabe. He answered on the second ring. “I have a number I need you to monitor. If we can find this phone, then we can find Jax.”

JAX JERKED AGAINST the ropes that bound him. They were cutting into his wrists, slicing his skin. He could feel the blood dripping down his hands. The bastard had tied him up tight.

The dead bastard.

Or, rather, the man who was supposed to be dead.

“You can pull against those ropes all night long,” Mitch Fontaine told him with a cold smile. “It won’t do you any good. You’re not going anywhere.”

“How the fuck are you still alive?” Jax demanded. The guy’s neck had broken. He’d been dead.

“I guess it takes a lot to kill me.” Mitch strolled toward him. Moving like he didn’t have a care in the world and taking his sweet-ass time. The knife in his hand glinted. “Let’s see how much it takes to kill you.” Then he drove the knife into Jax’s side. The burn of that blade was white-hot as it sliced into him. And it went deep, shoving until the hilt hit him. “This is the start,” Mitch said, “of the payback I owe you.”

Jax slammed his head into the guy’s chest, and Mitch stumbled back. He yanked the knife out of Jax as he fell back.

“You going to kill me?” Jax locked his jaw against the pain and snapped, “Then do it!”

Mitch shook his head. Mitch . . . Mitch. The bastard even looked the same. Same dirty blond hair. Same eyes—eyes that were darker than Jax’s. He and Mitch kind of looked alike—that was why everyone had believed that Mitch was Jax’s father. But he wasn’t!

Mitch’s hair was longer and stubble covered his jaw, but it was as if all of those years hadn’t passed. Jax was staring at the man who’d made his life hell.

The man who wanted to slice him apart.

“You and that bitch dumped my body. You left me in that stinking field to rot.”

“You were my first dead body,” Jax muttered as he bled out. “Sorry if I didn’t do shit right.”

Mitch laughed. Laughed. “Here’s a tip. Make the fuck sure the victim is dead!”

Charlene had been the one who told Jax that he was dead. She was the one who said they had to leave his body out there. Then get away, get out of town as fast as they could. She’d . . . “She knew,” Jax realized. “Charlene knew you weren’t dead!” And she’d wanted Jax to get away from him because she’d been afraid that Jax would kill Mitch.

A muscle jerked in Mitch’s jaw. “After all I did for her . . . she left me in that field and chose you.”

He yanked harder at the ropes. He shoved against the chair.

“She thought that was her chance to be free.” Mitch raised the knife. Stared at the blood that dripped off the blade. “It took me some time, because the two of you had fucked me up so bad . . . had to stay in a hospital for months after that farmer pulled me out of his field, but, eventually, I found her.”

Jax struggled even harder. “No!” He shook his head. “No, you—”

“I didn’t realize how much I liked killing back then. I mean, I was mostly worried about getting caught. So I just made it look like she’d killed herself. Shoved those pills right down her throat. Made her choke on them.” He smiled. “Then I watched her. I watched all that life bleed right out of her eyes, and I finally understood just why he’d done it.”

“You killed Charlene!”

He shrugged. “I’ve killed a lot of people. More than him . . . and I haven’t been caught.”

“Who are you talking about?” Mitch was insane!

“You know, he laughed at me the first time we met. He brought Charlene and your bratty ass to me. Told me I had to take care of you or he’d come back to slice me apart, just like he’d done to your dad.” His eyes turned to slits. “Who the hell was he to talk to me like that?”

Murphy.

“I ran because hell was breaking lose in that city. Took you and Charlene, but you two never appreciated a damn thing I’d done.”

No, they hadn’t appreciated the beatings or the drugs or the shit.

“Then I realized . . . he wasn’t coming after me. I could do anything I wanted.”

And Jax remembered that Mitch had become even more violent. That last night . . . when I pushed him down the stairs, he was about to kill Charlene.

“But you thought you were the one in charge. You shoved me down those stairs. I was in a hospital for all those long months! Trapped in that damn bed! Barely able to move!” Spittle flew from his mouth. “When I got out, I killed that bitch. Then I was gonna kill you but . . .” He shook his head. “I wound up in fucking jail . . . got sent—” Mitch broke off, his lips clamping together.

But the way the guy was raging . . . Jax could put the pieces together, and as he did, shock rolled through him. “You were at the same prison with Murphy.” Sonofabitch. Fate could sure be a twisted bitch.

All that time, he’d thought Mitch was long gone, but the guy had been alive. Alive—and what? Getting kill lessons from Murphy the Monster?

After Charlene had died, Jax had left town—moving again—and he’d never looked back. Jax had been on the streets, moving fast and just trying to stay alive. He’d wound up in New Orleans. He’d never even thought about searching for Mitch. Why would he? The guy had been a dead man.

“When they locked me up, that bastard recognized me. The guards were all scared of him. Let the fool do whatever the hell he wanted.” Mitch yanked up his shirt. Jax saw the slashes across his skin. “He used his shiv on me within forty-eight hours of my check-in. But he didn’t want to kill me. That wasn’t what he did. He just wanted to make me beg. To show me that he had the power.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

“I know about the power rush that comes from death. I felt that power when I took Charlene’s life . . . and after a while, after all of his twisted torture games, Murphy realized we were more alike than he’d thought. He told me things . . . showed me so much . . .” His words trailed away. “I survived by playing him. Then one day, I was free and he was still rotting on the inside.”

“That’s when you came down here.”

“I was just gonna kill you, then I saw Sarah. Beautiful Sarah.” His hand slid over the scars on his chest. “I couldn’t think of a more fitting payback for Murphy.”

Jax shook his head. No. “You aren’t killing her.”