Chapter Five: The Wolves Circle

I woke to the sound of breaking glass.

My eyes flew open. Unfamiliar ceiling. Unfamiliar room. Then I remembered. Jackson's house. My new prison.

Another crash came from downstairs. Voices. Angry voices.

I grabbed the lamp from the nightstand and crept to the door. My heart hammered against my ribs. Through the crack, I could see down the stairs into the living room.

Five men stood in Jackson's house. Iron Wolves cuts. My father's men.

And Jackson faced them alone.

"You have thirty seconds to get out of my house," Jackson said. His voice was deadly calm.

"We are here for the girl," one of them said. Tommy. My cousin. "Marcus wants his daughter back."

"She is not his daughter anymore. She is my wife."

"That marriage is not legal. We checked."

Jackson smiled. It was terrifying. "Check again. Call your lawyer. Call the courthouse. Hell, call God himself. Lisa Wood is now Lisa Kane. Legally. Permanently. And she stays with me."

"Marcus will not accept this."

"I do not care what Marcus accepts." Jackson took a step forward. "Now get out before I make you leave."

"There are five of us. One of you."

"I like those odds."

The room exploded into violence.

Tommy rushed Jackson first. Jackson sidestepped, grabbed his arm, and slammed him face-first into the wall. Blood sprayed from Tommy's broken nose. Another man swung a bat. Jackson ducked, kicked out his knee, and the man went down screaming.

Three more came at once.

I should have run. Should have hidden. But I could not move. Could not breathe. Jackson fought like something inhuman. Fast. Brutal. Efficient. He broke bones like they were nothing. Every hit was precise. Every movement calculated.

One man pulled a knife.

"Jackson!" The warning ripped from my throat.

He spun, caught the man's wrist, and twisted. The knife clattered to the floor. Jackson's elbow connected with the man's temple. He dropped like a stone.

The last man standing pulled a gun.

Time slowed.

The barrel pointed at Jackson's chest. His finger tightened on the trigger.

I threw the lamp.

It hit the gunman's shoulder. Not hard. But enough to make him flinch. The shot went wide, punching through the window instead of Jackson's heart.

Jackson closed the distance in a heartbeat. He grabbed the gun, twisted it away, and put three bullets into the ceiling. The gunman hit the floor, hands over his head.

"Do not shoot! Please!"

Jackson stood over him, breathing hard, the gun pointed at his head. For a moment, I thought he would pull the trigger. His finger twitched. His eyes were black with rage.

"Jackson." I came down the stairs slowly. "Do not."

"He tried to kill me."

"I know. But if you kill him, my father wins. He wants you to start a war."

Jackson's jaw clenched. The gun did not waver.

"Please," I whispered. "Do not become what they think you are."

Something in my voice reached him. He lowered the gun slowly. "Get up. All of you."

The five men struggled to their feet. Blood. Broken bones. Fear in their eyes. Tommy held his shattered nose, glaring at me with pure hatred.

"Tell Marcus this is his only warning," Jackson said. "Lisa is mine now. If he sends anyone else, they will not walk out. Do you understand?"

They nodded.

"Get out."

They limped toward the door. Tommy stopped beside me. "You are a traitor. You betrayed your own blood."

"My blood beat me every day of my life," I said quietly. "You all watched. You all did nothing. So do not talk to me about betrayal."

He spat at my feet and left.

The door slammed shut. Silence filled the house except for Jackson's heavy breathing. He stood in the middle of his destroyed living room, gun still in his hand, looking at the damage.

"Are you hurt?" I asked.

"No." He set the gun on the table and looked at me. Really looked at me. "You saved my life."

"You saved mine first."

"This makes us even then."

"I do not think we will ever be even, Jackson."

He walked toward me slowly. Blood spattered his shirt. His knuckles were torn open. But his eyes never left mine.

"You should have stayed upstairs. Hidden. Where it was safe."

"I could not just let him shoot you."

"Why not? I am your captor. Your prison. Your cage." He used my own thoughts against me. "Watching me die would have set you free."

"Maybe I do not want that kind of freedom."

The words surprised us both.

Jackson reached up and touched my face. His thumb brushed my cheek gently, so different from the violence I had just witnessed. "You are full of surprises, Lisa Kane."

"So are you."

His phone rang. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and his expression hardened. "It is my father. This is going to be bad."

He answered. "Yeah?"

I could not hear Diesel's words, but I could hear his tone. Loud. Angry. Demanding.

"I do not care what Marcus is saying," Jackson said. "The marriage is legal. Done. Final." Pause. "No. She stays with me." Longer pause. "Then we have a problem, old man, because I am not giving her back."

He hung up.

"What did he say?"

"Both clubs are meeting tomorrow. Emergency session. They want to discuss the marriage. Decide if it is valid." He ran his hand through his hair. "This is going to get messy."

"Will they try to annul it?"

"They will try. But they cannot. Sarah made sure of that." He looked at the broken window, the blood on the floor. "But your father will not stop. He will keep pushing. Keep testing. Until one of us breaks."

"So what do we do?"

"We show them we are united. Strong. Untouchable." He walked to the kitchen and grabbed a first aid kit. "And we prepare for war."

I followed him. "Let me help."

"I am fine."

"Your knuckles are bleeding. Sit down."

He looked surprised but sat at the kitchen table. I pulled out antiseptic and bandages, cleaning his torn knuckles carefully. His hands were huge. Scarred. Deadly. But he held perfectly still while I worked.

"Why did you marry me, really?" I asked quietly. "And do not say it was just to save me. There is more to it."

He was quiet for a long time. "My father wants me to be like him. Cold. Brutal. Heartless. He has spent my whole life molding me into his weapon." He looked at me. "But I am tired of being what he made me. I want something different. Something real."

"And you think I can give you that?"

"I think you see me as human. Not as a monster. Not as a tool. Just as a man." His fingers curled around mine. "That is worth more than you know."

My chest tightened. "What if I am not strong enough? What if I cannot survive this world?"

"You are stronger than you think. You threw a lamp at a man with a gun." A small smile touched his lips. "That takes courage."

"Or stupidity."

"Sometimes they are the same thing."

I finished bandaging his hands. "What happens tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow we face both clubs. Together. And we show them that this marriage is real. Permanent. Unbreakable." He stood, towering over me. "Can you do that? Can you stand beside me and lie to everyone?"

"I have been lying my whole life. What is one more?"

"This lie is different. This one matters." He leaned down, his face inches from mine. "Because if they do not believe we are united, they will tear us apart. Your father will drag you back. My father will punish me for defying him. We both lose."

"Then we make them believe."

"How?"

I took a breath and made a decision that would change everything. "We stop pretending this is just business. We make it look real. Make them think we actually want each other."

"And how do we do that?"

I grabbed his shirt and pulled him down. Our lips met in a kiss that was not gentle. Not sweet. It was desperate and fierce and full of all the fear and anger and confusion inside me.

Jackson froze for half a second. Then he kissed me back. His hands came up to cup my face, tilting my head to deepen the kiss. He tasted like whiskey and danger and something darker I could not name.

When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.

"That is how we convince them," I whispered.

Jackson stared at me like I had just set his world on fire. "You are playing a dangerous game, Lisa."

"I know."

"Because I am not a good man. And if you keep looking at me like that, I will forget all my promises about being patient. About waiting for you to choose." His thumb brushed my bottom lip. "I will take what I want. And I will not stop until you are completely mine."

My heart raced. "Maybe that is what I want too."

His eyes went dark. Hungry. Possessive. "Do not say things you do not mean."

"I mean it."

He kissed me again. Harder this time. His hands slid into my hair, gripping tight. Not painful. Just possessive. Claiming. I melted into him, into the heat and danger and promise of something I did not understand.

When he pulled back, his voice was rough. "Tomorrow, we tell both clubs we are married. We show them we are united. Unbreakable." He rested his forehead against mine. "And then we survive whatever hell comes next."

"Together?"

"Together."

But as I looked into his eyes, I saw something that terrified me.

Jackson Kane was falling for me.

And I was falling for him.

Which meant we were both in terrible danger.

Because in this world, love was the deadliest weapon of all.