Fuckers.
Who gets to decide what a person’s life is worth?
Certainly not some guy in a fucking suit who talks about quarterly results and profits. It’s the definition of conflict of interest.
And another thought churning in my mind is Isla and Kai. They look so goddamn pretty together. Happy too. They’re like a matched pair. But is it selfish to want them both too?
Is it selfish to tell Kai I’ve changed my mind on the polyamory thing? And what if it doesn’t work out? What if Isla doesn’t want what I’m thinking? What if I open us up, and she says no, but then the door is open for Kai to love anyone?
And who the fucking hell am I to tell Kai who he can and can’t love, anyway? I’m being a selfish prick because, while I could see a path to us both loving Isla, I can’t imagine a world where he loves anyone else but the two of us.
“You okay?” Kai asks when we pull up outside Jinx’s house.
“No. I’m really fucking not. But let’s do this anyway.”
Jinx lives in a trailer that looks like it’s being held together by duct tape. Like Grizz, he’s been skipping work rotations, missing his security shifts at some of our legal enterprises, and generally been an ass about anything that doesn’t include beer or poker when he does show his face at the clubhouse.
Feels like today was just him reaching the end of Grudge’s rope.
We don’t need to knock. Jinx opens the door, shirtless, scratching his chest. The guy used to be built, but now he looks like all that muscle has congealed in his stomach.
“Oh, it’s you two,” he says, then looks to the steps and spits. It lands on Kai’s boot.
Once, I put a gun in a man’s mouth and pulled the trigger while he was pissing his pants. I’m tempted to do the same thing here. Instead, I climb up the steps, put my hand around Jinx’s neck, and shove him back so hard into the fragile siding of his trailer that it leaves a head-shaped dent. “Get down on your motherfucking knees and clean that spit off his boot.”
Jinx huffs, but his eyes are wide with fear. “Fuck you. It was an accident.”
“Do it, or they’ll never find your fucking body.”
He freezes, then. Realizing he’s not in the negotiating position he thought he was in.
“Fine,” he says, his voice rough.
I let him down, but I place my hand on the handle of my Glock.
When Jinx falls to the floor, reaching for a rag sitting on his porch, Kai looks at me over his head. “I love you,” he mouths, as if I haven’t been an ass.
And the corners of my lips twitch in a smile as Jinx cleans the spit off.
“Done,” he says as he stands. “Sorry about that, Jackal. Wasn’t aiming for your boot. The wind must have got it.”
Kai licks the tip of his finger and points it in the air, as if testing for this imaginary wind. “Yeah, I can see how that happened.”
Jinx’s cheeks flush red, and I can’t decide if that’s embarrassment or shame.
I shove him toward the chair on the small deck area outside the trailer door. “Sit your ass down and listen.”
I’d like to think that, in a pack, a dog knows when it’s beaten. That it recognizes who the alpha really is and falls in line. But Jinx’s color is returning, and his shoulders fall back as his nose turns up.”
“You’ve been skipping responsibilities,” Kai says.
“So?” Jinx shrugs. “Didn’t think it mattered. You got all these new members, like the two of you. And a load of prospects wanting to join. Young blood and all that shit. Let them do it.”
Kai steps closer to him. “You don’t get to stop pulling your weight because someone else joined. That’s not how the Outlaw family works.”
“I already paid my dues,” Jinx says cockily.
I stand shoulder to shoulder with Kai. My favorite fucking place, in spite of the turmoil I currently feel. “Thing about dues is, they get paid annually. No contribution of effort, you don’t get a share of the pot.”
