Betrayal at the Pier

I snapped my gun up and leveled it at Jules McKenna and Nicolas Bernstein.

A second later, a dozen guns cocked behind me, their barrels pressed to the back of my skull.

"Boss, you can't force someone to love you."

I swept my eyes over every face there. My nose started to sting, the way it does right before you cry.

The scar across the web of my thumb, ridged like a centipede's legs, was from the day I fought to pull Tyler Barrymore out of our enemies' hands, and the gun's chamber blew apart in my grip.

The bruise running from my shoulder down my arm was from the three days I'd spent trapped in a casino trying to get Carter Robinson out. I'd been beaten half to death before it was over.

But now, every one of them stood against me.

Ace Munroe and Ruby Sandler were just two more familiar faces in that crowd. I'd saved their lives, put money in their pockets, and every one of them had once sworn to serve me for life.

I wiped the tears from my face and swept my eyes over them, refusing to back down.

"Why?" I demanded. "I have never once wronged a single one of you."

For five years, they'd watched me tear across the city expanding my territory like a man punishing himself, watched me hurt myself every night, grieving Jules. And not one of them had bothered to throw me the mercy of telling me she was alive.

"That's enough."

Jules sighed and pushed through the crowd toward me.

"It's my wedding day. I don't want to fight with you."

Her eyes were cold and empty. She looked at me like I was a stranger.

"No explanation?"

I stepped toward her, my eyes locked on Nicolas, standing just behind her shoulder.

"Five years of lying to me, and that's all you have to say?"

Jules spun back around and pressed the cold barrel of a gun to my forehead. Our eyes met, and I started to laugh.

"Is this your answer, then?"

A second later, she turned the gun on herself and fired into her own shoulder. Smoke curled between us. She smiled at me, cold and thin.

"That's for the bullet I took for you. We're even now."

Blood ran between her fingers. Her face went white with pain. Nicolas lunged toward her.

"Jules, why would you do that?"

He grabbed the gun from her and pressed it to his own shoulder.

"I'm the one who wronged him. Let me pay it back!"

Jules kicked the gun out of his hand and pulled him behind her, shielding him with her whole body.

"This has nothing to do with you!"

She turned back to me, her eyes full of hatred.

"We were only engaged. We were never married. You were so possessive, so controlling, that I couldn't even find a way to break up with you. Faking my own death was the only way I could get rid of you."

My nails dug into my palms. I'd always believed Jules and I had fallen in love at first sight, two equals coming together. The night we got engaged, she told me she'd stay by my side for the rest of her life.

I'd believed her completely. When I thought she'd died, I'd even wanted to die with her.

And now I knew it had all been a lie.

Nicolas held her tight, his eyes red as he looked over at me.

"Max, I'm sorry. But I really do love Jules."

He was crying just as easily as he always had, the same way he'd cried the day I pulled him out of the hands of human traffickers.

"Nicolas, do you really think you've earned the right to say that to me?"

Jules pulled him behind her again.

"Actually, I suppose I owe you a thank you."

She laughed, as if savoring some private memory.

"If you hadn't always had Nicolas keeping tabs on me, I never would have fallen for him. He's gentle. He's considerate. He's a thousand times better than a tyrant like you."

My lips trembled. Jules still wasn't finished.

"You knelt at my funeral for three days and three nights. Nicolas and I were right there, in the house across the street, the whole time. Watching you cry every single night felt wonderful."

My tears spilled over.

"Leave. You're holding up the ceremony."

She looped her arm through Nicolas's and walked toward the stairs. Behind her, my own men closed ranks, blocking the staircase.