The Dangerous Curves Series

Chapter 56

“Murdoch lost it. He f*****g flipped out, totally. They were in the park late at night, and he dragged her into some bushes, and strangled her. It was late autumn, so he was wearing gloves, and he took the pictures with him, of course.”

“Was there a trial?”

“Nope. Not enough evidence.”

Sarah paused. “The friend from the restaurant would have had copies of the pictures, right? Wouldn’t they be able to testify to the blackmail plan? She'd at least be able to say that she saw the pictures, and she knew about the plan. Isn’t that motive for him to hurt your Mom?”

“Sure. Except for the fact that this woman claimed that none of that ever happened.”

“Len Murdoch got to her.” Sarah touched his chest, knowing that she was right. “Paid her off. Bought her silence.”

“Sure did. She quit her waitressing job, bought a house in Miami, moved away, never to be heard from again. That was the end of the case, since no witness was found, and there was no strong suspect.”

“Yeah,” Sarah said again. “Rich people can do that, huh? Literally buy justice.”

“Damn right they can. I said that I knew how you felt when Dave’s Daddy wanted to buy you to forget about his asshole son beating you up, and now you see that I really did. When you told that lawyer to f**k off, and you hung up on him? That was when I knew you were an amazing woman… one that I wanted to get to know better.”

Sarah blushed a bit. “So, what happened next?”

“Well, I freaked out. I broke into Murdoch’s f*****g mansion one weekend while his wife and kids were away, waited for him to come home. Tied him up, beat him up, hoped to get a confession. I got it, but by then I’d – I’d gone too far.”

“You killed him.”

“I didn’t mean to. That wasn’t the plan, I swear.” Jax’s eyes were strangely vulnerable. “All I wanted was to scare him into telling me the truth, and get some justice for my mother. But I was young and strong and angry – I was seventeen – and I lost control. I was hitting him and hitting him, and at some point, a switch just flipped inside of me. I couldn’t stop… and to be honest with you, Sarah, a part of me didn’t want to stop. It felt good. It felt – right. Like he was getting what he deserved, somehow.”

“I can understand feeling that.” She paused. “I can understand the desire to hurt someone who hurt you.”

“When I came back to myself, he was almost dead. I called 911, called the cops. Turned myself in, confessed to everything.” Jax shrugged. “I mean, I’d done it, and I decided to stand by it. He died the next day, and I was ready to be tried as an adult, and get sent away for twenty years. But I ended up taking a plea bargain, since the family wanted to keep the whole mess out of the press, and I served just three years. One in juvie, two in a maximum security prison upstate. Rough as hell, baby, but I survived. When I got out, I went back to Detroit, scrambled for work. Megan was still in the city, and she’d been great about what had happened. I mean, she’d been basically orphaned and abandoned at the age of fourteen, and then she got shoved into the foster care system. But she’s smart, my kid sister. She kept her head down, stayed in school, came and visited me in prison once a month. She held it together somehow, and when I got out, we moved in together for a few years. I worked construction and bounced in bars, kept my PO happy. She finished school, and got work as a waitress.”

“Is she still in Detroit?”

“No. When I won the lottery, I gave her twenty million dollars, told her to do whatever the hell she wanted with it. Then I moved here, to get away from all that s**t back in Michigan, and she followed me. She’s here now, and she manages a restaurant.”

“And you bought the bar?”

“Yeah. A little over five years ago, I bought Curves from the previous owner, and then spent almost two years trying to figure out how to run the damn place.”

“Baptism of fire?”

“Not really. I hired a guy named Harry to manage it for me, and I learned on the job. He trained me, essentially, and when I felt like I was ready to do it on my own, I paid him a massive bonus and sent him on his way.” Jax shrugged. “And… that’s it, really. I run Curves and I pay my taxes and I plant roses in my garden. My life is what it is… and it’s as far from what I had before as possible. It’s the best I can do, I think.”

Jax stopped talking. That was it; that was all of it. His whole life was laid bare to Sarah, and if she decided to take a long, hard look at it and walk away, he wouldn’t blame her. She deserved better than an ex-con who beat a man to death, no matter what his motivations or intentions. She deserved better than him.