“Defending him?”she echoed.
There was a bitterness in it that caught even Wolf slightly off guard.
“You think I’d defend him?”Jade demanded.Wolf waited for her explanation.
“That bastard left,” she said, the words coming faster now, sharper, like they’d been building for a while and finally found a way out.“He walked out knowing exactly who he’d pissed off.Knowing what would come knocking.”
Her voice wavered, just once, then steadied.“And he didn’t look back.I’m not covering for him,” she said again, quieter now but no less certain.“And I’m sure as hell not defending him.”
Wolf watched her a moment and decided he believed her.
It was the way she said the words.Her anger burned clean and direct.There was no hesitation when she cut Derek out of the equation like he’d already stopped mattering.He’d seen enough lies to know what they looked like, and Jade didn’t strike him as a liar.
Still, the situation hadn’t changed.Something in the back of his mind stirred anyway.An unwelcome memory of a small kitchen.Wolf saw a younger version of himself, pressed back against a wall, watching his mother stand her ground while his useless and sad excuse of a father raged.
Wolf saw his own mother in Jade.She was a woman desperately holding herself together when everything around her was falling apart.Still Jade was fighting.The thought sat wrong, but he shoved it aside.
“Good,” Wolf said.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, like she wasn’t sure what he meant by that.
“Then we’re clear,” he added.
Jade exhaled slowly, tension still coiled tight in her frame.
“If that’s all,” she said, already shifting, already starting to pull the door in, “I need to—”
Jade started to shut the door, but the baby’s cry spiked, urgent now.Jade’s focus broke just for a second, her head turning slightly toward the sound.Wolf’s hand came up, bracing against the door before it could close.
Jade’s gaze snapped back to him, sharp.“I told you—”
“Derek owes the club.”
The words cut through everything.Jade stilled, and the air between them seemed to go tight, stretched thin.
“He didn’t just leave you,” he continued, voice even.“He took something that doesn’t belong to him.He owes us.”
Jade’s throat worked as she swallowed.
The defiance was still there, he could see it, bright and stubborn, but something else slid in alongside it now.Wolf didn’t look away.
“Which means,” he said, “this isn’t over.”
