Chapter 13 - The Last Stand at the Altar
The click of the revolver's hammer sounded like a thunderclap in the ruined chapel. Reyes stood fifteen feet away, swaying slightly, the barrel locked onto Jax’s chest. The fire near the entrance was growing, yellow flames crackling up the fallen timbers, casting wild, flickering shadows across the broken altar.
"Any last words, brother?" Reyes sneered, his finger tightening on the trigger.
"Just one," Jax said softly.
He didn't charge. He didn't dive. Jax dropped straight down to one knee.
Behind him, Toby wasn't hiding. The boy was holding the heavy stone head of the angel statue—a jagged, ten-pound piece of chiseled granite that had broken off during the roof's collapse. With all the desperate strength in his small body, Toby rolled the heavy stone forward off the raised edge of the altar.
The granite block struck Reyes squarely across the shins with a sickening crack.
Reyes shrieked, his legs buckling instantly beneath him as the bone snapped. His shot went wild, the heavy bullet punching harmlessly into the timber ceiling above, showering more dust down upon them.
Before Reyes could reacquire his aim, Jax surged forward like a wounded predator unleashed. He closed the distance in a heartbeat, his combat boots slamming against the shattered floorboards. He drove his right knee into Reyes’s chest, pinning the larger man against the fallen bronze bell.
Reyes swung the heavy revolver, clipping Jax across the jaw, splitting his cheek wide open. Jax took the blow without flinching. His left hand clamped down on Reyes’s gun wrist, slamming it repeatedly against the hard bronze rim of the bell until the revolver clattered into the ash.
With his right hand, Jax brought the heavy steel hilt of his knife down against Reyes's jaw, then leaned in close, his face inches from the man who had stolen fifteen years of his life.
"This is for Elena," Jax growled.
Reyes gasped, blood spraying from his ruined mouth, but his eyes were wide with sudden, pathetic terror. "Jax... wait... we're brothers... the club..."
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"The club died the day you laid hands on her," Jax said coldly.
He didn't use the blade. Jax drove his fist with everything he had left directly into Reyes’s throat, crushing the windpipe. Reyes convulsed once, clutching his neck, his eyes rolling back as the oxygen fled his brain, then slumped motionless against the bronze bell.
