“You’re going back out there,” the man snaps. “So take it.”
Jax hesitates, then picks it up. “How do you know my family?”
The man leans in, breath reeking like alcohol. “Ask your grandfather.”
Before I can say anything else, he grabs my arm and drags us toward the back of the shop. “Come on. I don’t have all night. And neither do you.”
He pauses once, glancing toward the front door like he’s listening for something, then moves faster. He flips a latch, shoves a heavy crate aside, and reveals a hidden metal hatch in the floor, scarred and locked with multiple mechanisms.
“This leads to the old sanitation tunnels,” he says. “Safer than the streets. It’ll take you two miles north, right at the train station.”
Jax swallows. “Why are you helping us?”
The man glares at him. “Call it paying an old debt.”
He pulls the hatch open. The reek hits me hard. “Down you go. Don’t stop for anything. You’ll see an exit about two miles ahead.” He nods at the knife. “Stick with the pointy end.”
I shiver as we climb down. The ladder groans beneath us, the light above shrinks as we descend, the hatch slams shut and the tunnel swallows us whole.
Eleven
NOW | JAX
Every step is a war as I move toward her. If she’s not here, I won’t be able to stop myself. I know it. My body knows it. The tar knows it. She wasn’t home.Why the hell would she be out tonight? She knows how this works.
My vision sharpens to razor clarity. I’m seconds from slipping. Seconds from taking the first wrong person who turns the corner. A flash—the woman the tar wants tonight—flares across my mind and I blink, forcing it away.
I brace a hand on the studio doorframe. The wood trembles under my palm. I’m going to break the damn building if I wait another second. I think about knocking. For half a second, I really do, but I don’t have time. I reach for the lock and the magic jumps to my fingers like it’s been waiting for me to give up pretending. The doorknob rattles, turns—click—I push the door open.
She’s not alone. There’s music playing from a speaker on the counter. Her hair is down—which means this isn’t work, this is pleasure. Behind her, with his hands on her waist, is that fucking guy. The dad. A red haze drops over my vision, and all I can see is his neck snapping under my hands.
Heat slams into my ribs so violently I double over.
He sees me first and startles. “Can I help you? Who are?—?”
I don’t hear the rest, in two strides, I’m on him. I grab a fistful of his shirt and slam him into the wall. The drywall cracks. “GET. THE. FUCK. OUT.”
His eyes go wide. A dark patch spreads rapidly across the front of his light-colored pants.Piss.The coward actually pissed himself.
“I’m—?” he stammers, not even looking at her.
“Now,” I snarl, and the voice that comes out… isn’t entirely human.
Magic hums beneath my palm, begging me to push harder. To break bone. To feed it. I crack my neck and slowly release him. I’m holding myself together by threads and grit and nothing else.
I don’t even have to look at her. She already knows what’s happening. “You’re fine, Spencer,” she says, her voice steady. “Let him go, Jax.” She comes closer. “Spencer, I’ll see you next week.”
The fucking fuck she will.
A loud crack snaps behind me—something structural giving out. I grunt, swallowing the magic down. I lean in close to the coward, my voice a low promise. “If I ever see you near her again, I’ll peel your skin off while you’re still breathing.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice; he scrambles away, tripping over his own feet, not daring to look back.
I stand there, chest heaving, one hand braced against the wall like the entire building might collapse if I let go.
“Jax,” she whispers. “His daughter is a student, you can’t…”
She doesn’t even finish her sentence because I’m already losing it. My head snaps back, eyes glaring up at the ceiling as a searing heat bleeds into them.
