Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

36. Trent

THIRTY-SIX

TRENT

SIX HOURS EARLIER

I sped down the winding road, fucking hating that I’d had to walk out on Eden like that.

Only thing I wanted to do was slip back into the sanctuary of her bed. Into the warmth of her eyes.

Place I’d wanted to cling to forever because I knew it had to be a fantasy.

Something so good it couldn’t be meant for me.

Blips of trees and sky and earth blinked by as I made my way to the small town about twenty minutes on the other side of where Juna and I typically met hidden in the forest.

With each mile, the anxiety had built.

Steadily.

Viciously.

Violently.

Until I was nothing but a ball of crackling aggression.

My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I entered the tiny town off the beaten path.

That’s where Juna should have stayed.

Off the beaten path.

Hidden.

Forever out of sight.

After I’d put Cutter in the ground, we didn’t know what the threat would look like in LA. The rest of the Owls had disbanded, some joining Pillage of Petrus, others falling into the Demons. The immediate threat had been ended, but we’d made enough enemies along the way to know not to be fool enough to think that no one would ever come looking for us.

It’d turned out Pit hadn’t even been involved with Juna all that much.

Yeah, she’d hooked up with a bunch of their crew at their club bar.

Got on her knees for Pit, like she’d said.

Inserted herself in the middle of them and made it look like she was something to him when she hadn’t been.

Juna had confessed it.

That piece was a lie.

A bait.

A trap.

One I’d played right into.

Turned out, Juna had met Cutter in Vegas one night. She was looking for a way out and he was looking for a pawn. Someone who could worm their way into my life. Someone who could get close enough to dig out my loyalty to Cutter.

Considering there hadn’t been any in the first place, it hadn’t been hard to do.

“I think I’m in trouble, Trent,” she’d said on the phone back at Eden’s place. Panic had ricocheted through the words.

But she’d been trouble all along, hadn’t she?

Guessed I’d always imagined she’d be the one to bring it back to our doorstep.

And the fucking problem was I couldn’t trust her. Couldn’t tell if she needed me to stand up to take her back or if she was driving the knife she’d left in mine deeper.

If she was just luring me in.

Setting another trap.

“You gonna let her live?” It’d been Jud who’d asked it outside the hospital room the night Gage had been born.

There’d been plenty of reasons to end her.

Her betrayal.

Her lies.

The manipulation.

Fact she’d fucked me on my father’s dollar.

Was no secret the real reason Jud had asked it, though, his own hatred thick, although he’d left that decision up to me.

She’d gotten Nathan killed.

But she’d also come to stop it. Gave the warning hoping she might be able to thwart what she’d set into motion.

Most of all, she’d given the world the gift of Gage, and I’d already had so much blood on my hands I couldn’t take any more.

So we’d made this tenuous deal.

I got Gage and she got the money.

We got a second chance and she got hidden away.

One thing she’d demanded was she got to pick the city I raised him in—a place she’d said she’d visited when she was a child and had dreamed she’d raise a family there one day.

Far enough away from LA that no one would find us.

Redemption Hills.

And I’d started to think that maybe…maybe…I’d find redemption there, too.

Wasn’t quite sure how that shit was gonna happen when rage burned through my bloodstream.

After she’d shown her face back in LA?

How could she do it?

Risk it?

Or maybe that’s what she’d been intending to do all along.

My entire body vibrated with hostility as I cut across the two-lane road and into the long dirt parking lot in front of the run-down, single-story motel. To the left was a diner, the open sign blinking a sad plea in the window.

Dust billowed behind my car as I flew to the far side of the lot and whipped into the spot in front of a faded turquoise door.

Room seven.

Hand was shaking out of control as I fumbled into my phone and dialed her number.

Stomach in knots and my mind spinning out of control.

Just this…feeling taking me hostage.

A thick dread that something wasn’t right.

Same sense I’d gotten the night we’d lost Nathan.

Her phone rang and rang before her voice came on the line. “This is Juna. Leave me a message.”

“Fuck,” I spat, pulling the phone away and glaring at it before I tucked it into my pocket and hopped out. I ran for the door, hammered on it with the back of my fist. “Juna!” I shouted. “Open the fucking door.”

Nothing.

I moved to the window, slamming my palm against the pane. “Juna. Where the fuck are you? Open up.”

Silence echoed back.

I pressed my face to the glass and tried to peer through the gap in the drapes.

Couldn’t make out shit through the glare.

Until I did.

A foot…there was a foot hanging off the side of the bed.

I smacked the glass again.

That foot didn’t move.

“Juna!” I screamed it that time. Screamed it and screamed it. “Juna!”

She didn’t move. I rammed my shoulder against the door.

Took me two times before the wood split and the thin metal lock busted free. The door banged against the inside wall, and I raced in only to freeze in the middle of the room.

Lungs losing air at the sight.

Juna stabbed at least a dozen times.

Lifeless eyes staring into nothing.

I bent in two. Tried to breathe.

To focus.

To fight.

But the walls spun.

Spun and spun.

I barely registered the sirens. The two cruisers that pulled up behind my car. The stampede of feet and the cock of a gun and one who yelled, “Get on the floor. Face down, hands out in front of you.”

Could feel nothing but the truth.

I was a monster. And my sins had finally caught up to me.