Annoying true-blue type. Should have given her my damn jacket.

“You see, my father killed his mother. Tortured her for hours before he ended her suffering.”

Jax sucked in a sharp breath.

“So it seems that when Eddie found out I was in town, he thought he’d take the opportunity to strike out at my dear old dad . . . by killing me.” Her smile was sad. “An eye for an eye. A life for a life.”

“Sarah.” Wade’s hand squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I. Because now Eddie is going to jail. He looks young, but turns out he’s twenty-one. No juvenile status for him.” Her lips turned down in a sad frown. “I highly doubt he’s going to come out in any better frame of mind.”

My father killed his mother.

“Time to leave this town,” Sarah said. Once more, her gaze found Jax’s. “How am I supposed to repay you?”

No one should have eyes like her. “Don’t worry,” Jax heard himself murmur, “I’m sure I’ll think of something . . .”

Chapter 2

IT WAS NEARING 3 A.M. SARAH SHOULDN’T HAVE been exiting a taxi in front of the little bar on the wrong side of the town. She should have been in her new hotel room. The one on club level with all the so-called great security. She should have been warm and safe in her bed.

A catcall followed her as she headed across the street and toward the entrance of Shade.

She knew she shouldn’t be at that place, but . . . she was.

The past is too strong tonight. I need to escape before I go absolutely crazy.

Wade was her friend, and he’d tried to understand what she was going through, but the thing was . . . he could never really understand. No one could.

A bouncer was waiting near the door. And there was a long, snaking line that seemed to circle the bar—even at 3 A.M. Hell, she hadn’t even thought that so many people would be there. If she stayed in that line, she’d never get inside. Sarah inched forward and when she looked up, the bouncer’s stare was on her.

He was a huge guy, rather tanklike, with a long, twisting scar that slid over his left eye, slicing right though the eyebrow. Whatever had caused that scar, well, it was pretty amazing that the guy hadn’t lost his eye.

He stood up. And Sarah looked way, way up.

“You don’t belong here,” he said, his gaze raking over her.

She wore jeans and a T-shirt. Tennis shoes. Her hair was loose because she hadn’t wanted to waste time with it. A light jacket covered her arms so no one could see that ever-so-stylish bandage she was sporting.

Sure, this might not be her typical place. Sarah usually avoided bars, but . . . “I need to see Jax.”

“Dark hair. Chocolate eyes. Fucking sex appeal.” The man whistled. “Pretty Sarah.”

Uh, okay.

“I know you.”

He did? “And you are . . . ?”

“Carlos.”

Great. So now he waved to someone else, and a slightly smaller guy took up a guard position at the bar’s door.

“I was told to always let you in. Provided that you came calling . . .”

Jax had known she’d come looking for him?

The guy took her inside. Music was blaring in there. Voices were shouting, and drinks were flowing. Pumping out from the long, wooden bar. There was also a woman doing some serious gyrating on the small stage that was just a few feet away. When the chick grabbed for the pole near her, Sarah looked away.

“This way.” Her guide wasn’t leading her toward the bar. He was taking her to a small door on the far right side of the place. “Jax is in there.” He reached for the doorknob.

Sarah grabbed his hand. “Is he alone?” Maybe she should have thought about that part before. She didn’t want to burst in there and find Jax with some half-naked chick—like the one out on that stage. He said to come and find him, but I don’t want to find him with someone else.

“Does it matter?” the man asked, his head tilting as he studied her.

“Uh, yes, it matters. A rather great deal.” She looked back at the bar. There was an empty space there, and Sarah was pretty sure she could wiggle into that spot. “I think I’ll just wait for him over there.”

But her guide had just thrown open the door. “Jax! She’s here!” That bellow was close to deafening.

Jax spun around. His eyes widened when he saw her.

“Uh, hi there, Jax,” Sarah mumbled.

He was alone, thank goodness. No half-naked woman to be seen.

The door closed behind her. Her guide had sure vanished fast.

Jax was stalking toward her. “What are you doing here?”

“I—” She broke off, trying to think of a fairly believable explanation. The truth wouldn’t work. Every time I tried to close my eyes, I saw my dad’s face. I heard screams. And I started to wonder if Eddie was really so wrong when he came to kill me. Because I think I’m just as much of a monster as my father ever was.

Maybe more.

But she couldn’t tell that to her friends in LOST. They wouldn’t understand. Wade was already treating her with kid gloves. Her closest confidante on the team—Victoria Palmer—was still recovering from an attack on their last mission. So she sure couldn’t go to her.

None of her friends had ever understood about her past. They’d sympathized, they’d told her how very sorry they were for all that she’d had to endure. But they didn’t understand. And their pity drove her insane.

Jax’s blue stare was on her. And there was no pity on his face or in his gaze.

“I shouldn’t be here.” There. Those were the words that finally came out of her mouth, they were so true. “You’re dangerous and you’re too sexy and you’ve got a stripper on the stage outside of this door.”

His brows shot up. Then he laughed. Hard.

She kept staring at him.

“Which of those,” he finally murmured, “bothers you the most?”

Sarah rubbed her arms and started pacing around that little office. “Why do you even have this bar? It’s a serious hole in the wall.”

He seemed to consider her question for a moment, then he said, “When I was eighteen, I was begging for money outside this place.”

She stopped pacing. Sarah turned back around and stared at him.

“The owner said he had something to give me. I was starving, desperate—and he brought me around back.”

She waited. The owner had helped him? He’d—

“Then he beat the shit out of me and told me to never come back and loiter in front of his business again.”

That wasn’t the end of the story she’d expected. Sarah shook her head and said simply, “Bastard.”

Jax shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Oh, he was. But don’t worry, the guy got exactly what he had coming to him.”

“What was that?” Sarah was almost afraid to ask.

“I healed up. Lucky for me, someone found me and took me to the hospital.”

He said the words so simply, but she knew it must have been a brutal experience for him. He’d been so young then . . .

“When I was healed up, I made a vow to never beg for another damn thing in my life.” He was so close to her, less than a foot away. “I took every job I could find, and, no, all of those jobs weren’t exactly what you’d call legit. I worked my way up the ladder down here, I became a fucking force to be reckoned with, and on my twenty-first birthday, I bought this bar and four others.” His smile was cold. “I took the former owner out back on my move-in day. I told him that I had something for him . . .”

She wet her lips. “I think I know where this tale is going now.”

“He’d just beat two of his dancers so badly they could hardly walk. I figured it was time he had some payback coming his way.” Jax shrugged. “So I paid him. In full.”

She glanced toward the door. Coming there had been a huge mistake.

“Sarah.”

Her gaze slid back to him.

“No judgment,” he murmured. “There’s no anger in your eyes, no rage or disgust at me for being a cold bastard. No pity for the kid I was who got beaten in a dirty alley and left to die.”