Jax scowls as he takes out a rolled joint and lighter from his pocket. “Well, that’s fucking inconvenient.”
“As much as I want to kill Julio, we need to take care of the problem of the other families first.”
Jax blows out a ring of smoke and offers me the joint, but I decline. I don’t need to be in a mind fog right now. I have too much shit to take care of, and time is running out. My phone vibrates but I ignore it, not in the mood to deal with either Carmine or Marcellus anymore today.
As we walk out of the room and down the hall, I consider my options. Part of me wishes that I could turn my back on this life. Rafe had always wanted out. Wanted to live a normal life. Get married. Pop out a few kids. Enjoy the mundaneness of a nine-to-five job. But men like us never get a happy ending. Our souls are too black, and our hands are too bloody. There is nonormalfor us.
Jax stubs out his joint on one of the marble busts that sits on a pedestal inside a curved niche inset into the wall. Max was always buying stupid crap like that.
“I want her back here with us.”
“You prepared to knock her ass out and drag her here against her will?” I ask him.
Because that’s what we’d have to resort to. Andie made it clear that she wanted to stay with Declan and Rafe. After everything Max put her through, I don’t blame her. This house represents him and the abuse she endured at his hands. The cage and the beatings. The rapes. I’m surprised she hasn’t sent Declan to burn the entire place down yet.
My phone vibrates again just as Jax’s phone rings. “Ignore it,” I tell him.
He looks down at the screen in confusion and puts the phone on speaker.
“Alejandro and Julio just made the biggest fucking mistakes of their lives,” Andie clips out, her voice raw and husky as if she’s been crying.
Jax and I look at each other.
“Alejandro came after me, and Rafe was… he may not…” Her breath comes out ragged, and she doesn’t finish her sentence.
What the ever-loving fuck?I don’t realize I’m cracking the screen of Jax’s phone with the grip I have on it until he quickly extricates it from my hand.
Andie’s voice snaps over the speaker, “Now open the fucking door.” The line goes dead.
Chapter 22
“I’m not sitting in the car like some fecking teenager.”
I can’t stop my smile. “Your Irish is showing.”
Liam scowls at me from the driver’s seat.
“You said ‘fecking.’ It was cute.”
I’m only amused more when his scowl deepens. “I amnotcute.”
“You are alsonotcoming with me,” I tell him.
We’re sitting in the Rover outside the south wall of the Rossi estate, and Liam isn’t happy. But I need to have a conversation with Jax and Keane, and I sure as hell am not doing it over the phone or through a text. I don’t want the guys to show up at Falcon Tower again and have the families and Julio catch wind of it, and with what happened tonight with Rafe, I’m not willing to take the chance of meeting them anywhere else. And I can’t just drive up to the gate, expect a warm welcome, and be allowed entry onto the estate without causing a shitstorm. Keane may be at the helm of the family for the moment, but as far as Max’s men know, I’m still his daughter who was kidnapped by their enemy. Me suddenly showing up with one of Declan’s known enforcers in tow would cause too many problems and generate too many questions. It would result in a fight and Liam being killed or captured before Keane or Jax could intervene and say otherwise.
So, here I am, about to infiltrate the Rossi estate like I used to as a teenager when I would sneak out and clandestinely meet up with Rafe. God, it’s killing me to be away from him.
Ignoring Liam, I check to make sure Jax’s knife is holstered securely to my calf, then pop my ass up off the passenger seat and slip my phone into the back zipper pouch of my lycra leggings.
“If I don’t hear from you in thirty minutes, I’m crashing the gates.”
“Two hours.” I pull my hair into a ponytail and hold it in place with an elastic band.
“One hour.”
Opening the passenger door, I’m immediately met with the sounds of crickets singing their mating calls. The humid night air is heavy with a dense fog, which will help keep me cloaked in the shadows of the forest that surrounds the house. “Two. And if you don’t like it, you can drive your ass back to the city.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Stubborn-ass woman,” he grumbles. Just as I’m getting out of the vehicle, his hand grabs my wrist and pulls me back inside the SUV.
