I take in a lungful of crisp, clean air, the scent of damp grass and blooming jasmine a reprieve. Listening to the birds chirp, I try to clear my mind. But the second I exhale, the same spinning thoughts I wrestled with for two hours in bed come rushing back.
James knows my name. He knows Nix’s name. He could own us just the same as he owns Jax. Our house had to be burned down because there was about to be a search warrant. A search warrant because there’s a detective that thinks I hadsomething to do with a dead cop—missingcop.I remind myself that they don’t know the part about him being dead before continuing my spiral.My little sister needs therapy that she won’t agree to. I have to take six different medications for my heart at age twenty-six. The spot where the stent went in is itchy from healing. Oh, and I keep fucking a killer.
“Jesus,” I mutter and run a hand through my hair before digging my bare toes into the plush grass.
But to be fair, I can let go of the wholefucking a killerthing, right? Technically, Jax is a lawyer being blackmailed into not practicing and instead killing people. I can live with that. I think. I don’t really have a choice, seeing as how I can’t resist him.
There’s something in the way he looks at me… He says I’m his, but it shows in his eyes too. I’ve never belonged to anyone. Definitely not to a man and not even to my own dad. I never thought Iwantedto belong to anyone, but Jax fills a crack in me I didn’t know I had. The slivered gap that’s kept the softer, more fragile parts of myself—the parts I’ve never been able to indulge—isolated from who I’ve had to be is now mended. He allows me to be both.
It feels nice. Vulnerable and scary. But nice.
I crave it—needit now that I’ve felt it. And it’s Jax that gives it to me.
Even when I hate him, I want him. Even when he burns down my house without permission, he’s who I want to run to. My heart doesn’t care about morality or logic when it comes to him. And isn’t that what love is?
My heart stills, and I press my fingers to my lips.
No.
Do I love Jax Landon?
The thought alone feels reckless. He’s dangerous. His whole life is dangerous. For me. For my sister who I have a responsibility to protect. And love is supposed to be wholesome.Safe. It’s definitely not supposed to be tainted with a charred body.
But then again, was wholesome ever supposed to be in my cards? I tried, I really did. But who am I to talk down about Jax’s criminal activities when I’ve hidden Nix from the system for eighteen years? And it may not be murder, but I was also corrupted enough to want to hide Marshal’s body. How different are we really? If I was in Jax’s shoes, I have no doubt I would become who he became. Because that’s what I’ve always done. Whatever it took to survive. Fuck, I mean, I could just as easily end up doingexactlywhat he does if James sees fit.
I jerk my shoulders back. I don’t know what I’m thinking. I can’t be debating over whether it’s right or wrong to love Jax right now, not when there are bigger problems to worry about. First things first, I have to—
“Pretty nice upgrade, huh?”
I spin around so fast my pulse jumps. I come face to face with Arnold, and he must have been right on my back because his steel-tipped boots are an inch from crushing my toes. I can make out the pores on his cheeks and the coils of his beard. He’s smiling, but I have an unsettling up-close vantage of the pits he has for eyes. Shark eyes. Dead eyes.
I stumble backwards instinctively, and then quickly curse myself for letting him rattle me. If there’s anything I’ve learned from working at Bell’s since I was sixteen, it’s that you aren’t supposed to show fear to men like this. You look them in the eye, head on, even when you’re shaking on the inside.
“Excuse me?” I try to raise my chin, but it’s hard to seem tough when I’m wearing thin sleep shorts and no shoes.
He jerks his chin toward the house, toward all the marble and glass and trimmed hedges.
“Excuse you? No, sweetheart. Excuse me. I’m just admiring how quickly you settled into the good life. Pretty sure there’s a word for that, but I justcan’tput my finger on it.”
He holds up a hand, and I steel myself as he stretches out a finger to run his prints down my cheek. Repulsion rushes through me at his calloused and filthy touch.
“I haven’t settled into anything,” I seethe, smacking his wrist away from me, my anger outweighing my self-preservation.
His grin only widens, showing a flash of a gold tooth farther back. “Oh, no?” he asks, letting the word drawl out. “Funny, how all that mess with your house… and then you land here. A real rags-to-riches tale, isn’t it? Though I suppose in your case, it’s more of a scorched-earth-to-silk-undergarmentssituation.”
His eyes drop to the silk shorts I’m wearing, the ones that Nix picked out on Jax’s dime and probably cost a small fortune. I shift uncomfortably, wishing I was in my old jeans so that he didn’t have a place to talk. I know what he’s insinuating, and he’s fucking wrong. But I can’t say anything, not without divulging more than I want to.
“You know,” he wags a finger at me, “Jaxy might be blinded by that cunt of yours, but I’m not so easily played. No shame on him, it happens, but I’ve been around the bend a few more times, and it’d take a lot more than a piece of ass like you to pull the wool over my head.” He leans closer, his breath sour on my face. “But if you wanted to try, I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”
Bile rushes up my throat, and I can’t help jerking away. “You’re a fucking pig.”
He tips his head back, gripping his stomach as a barking laugh cuts through the grounds. The sound is hearty and cruel, and I recoil to avoid his spittle.
“You’re a fighter, aren’t you?” He wheezes with satisfaction, swiping an invisible tear from his eye before catching his breath. “Ah, just don’t get comfortable, sweetheart. The second Jamesdecides to stop entertaining his son, you’ll be handled. You can bet on that. And trust me, I’ll be the one on duty. I doubt Jax will have the stones to do it himself. Not that I’m complaining,” his eyes gleam with a disturbing hunger, and a new wave of nausea hits me, “because I really do love the fighters.”
What he’s implying… I see girls… fighting tooth and nail against him while he laughs, and something snaps inside of me. Frankly, it’s long overdue with everything that I’ve dealt with lately.
“You’re a sick fuck,” I hiss before raising my fist to punch him in his disgusting face, but he catches it mid-air.
