Jax by E. M. Moore

25

Ireach out to steady both Finn and Leenie when his excitement almost makes them topple to the floor. My feet tangle up, and Jax has to save us all, steadying my hips with his enormous hands. The protector that Finn is makes sure Leenie’s okay before he spins on Tiron. Evidently, Finn’s match has started.

Finn peels his shirt off, showing off his athletic build. Leenie takes his shirt and drapes it over her shoulder as we watch him enter the circle.

Tiron’s a sneaky fucker. He’s always hiding shit and lurking where you least expect him. I don’t trust him being in the fight with Finn one bit.

Jax pulls Leenie and I close, eyeing the guys around us. I peer over Finn and Tiron, who are circling one another, and watch Psycho. A scowl darkens his face as he scrutinizes the fight. No doubt, he believed his girl would kick Leenie’s ass which didn’t happen. He probably kept me locked up in that room to make sure I was so energy deprived that I’d lose to his new girl. He couldn’t have known I would have chosen not to fight her. Psycho doesn’t think like that.

Now that we’re to the guys’ fights, tension fills the room like unbearable smoke. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Finn in a fight, and come to think of it, I believe I only saw it once before. He was always wanting to do everything Jax did so he followed him right into training.

He’s agile and quick, but Tiron is too. The difference is that Finn is a freaking professional. He doesn’t train in a squatter house, he runs his own damn gym. He knows about strategy, and his plan, apparently, is to blitz him. He doesn’t want Tiron to have room to even breathe.

We’re still in the first round when Finn wrestles Tiron to the ground and puts him in an arm bar. Psycho stands over them, glaring at Tiron whose free hand is hovering over Finn’s leg. It’s evident he wants to tap but he hesitates.

“Fucking tap,” Finn barks. “Don’t think I won’t break it.”

Tiron holds out for a few more seconds, but when Finn starts to lean back into the lock, Tiron taps quickly. As soon as Finn has extricated himself from the lock, Psycho picks Tiron up by the collar and throws him against the closest concrete wall. Psycho’s followers scatter like cockroaches. He punches Tiron until Tiron’s head bounces off the concrete, and he falls to the floor.

Psycho’s shoulders hunch as he stares down in disgust. He peers over his shoulder, and a light turns off in his eyes.

“Two to one,” Jax growls, entering the center of the ring to face Psycho. “You still want to go through with this? You can only hope to tie us.”

“Which still works out for me,” Psycho snarks. “I said you had to win, not tie.”

Jax shrugs. He obviously doesn’t plan on losing to Psycho, so his bend of the rulebook doesn’t matter to him. “Tell you what,” Jax says. “I’ll give you another day to prepare. Hell, I’ll even fight you in the Ring in front of anyone who wants to come. You win, we’ll walk out of there after handing over the keys, our tails between our legs. You lose, you lose for good. You get the hell out of Rawley Heights and stay out. You never touch Sadie again. You never even think about her.”

Psycho leers at me. “No problem. I’m done with the cheap slut anyway so you’re welcome to my seconds.”

Jax’s muscles tighten like he wants to fight right now but there must be a reason why he’s delaying it.

“If we fight in the Ring, we still fight with my rules?” Psycho asks.

“Three five-minute rounds. For the final match, no tap. You have to be knocked out or a bone broken.”

Psycho’s eyes glimmer, and I can tell he’s coming up with something. The extra time is only going to allow him to perfect whatever his scheme is. I’m about ready to tell Jax to finish him right here when Psycho nods. “But Sadie stays with us another night.”

“The fuck she does,” Jax snarls. “You already weren’t supposed to touch her yet she’s bruised from head to toe.”

“It’s not my fault she’s clumsy. Isn’t that right, Sadie?”

Jax isn’t a fool. “She’s not staying with you. If she can’t come with us, we fight now.”

Finn shuffles from one foot to the other. No one else notices, but it tells me that Jax just went off-script.

“How will I know the fight will happen tomorrow if you take her? There’s no incentive.”

Jax’s lips curve up. “Trust me, I’m excited to have your blood dripping from my hands. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Though I appreciate your bloodlust, your word means nothing to me.”

“That’s not my problem.”

We wait while they stare each other down for a few moments before Finn moves closer. He claps his brother on the back and beckons me closer. Jax reaches down for my hand and steers me toward the exit. With my heart in my throat, I count the steps all the way through until the sunshine hits my face. It’s midday. Jesus Christ. I hate living in that hole in the wall. I could’ve sworn it was nighttime.

“Steady,” Jax warns as I start to pick up the pace. “He won’t come for us. He’s scared.”

“A scared Psycho makes him a problem. You don’t know how he’ll react.”

“Don’t be late!” Psycho’s voice booms from behind us.

Jax snickers. He turns toward me to whisper, “We have our own surprises up our sleeve.”

A few blocks down, I spy Leenie’s car stashed beside a building. It isn’t until we get in and are heading back to the Heights that I breathe a sigh of relief. I start to take stock of myself, wincing when I can see my bruising with my own eyes. He really did a number on me this time, and the fight didn’t help either.

“You hungry?” Jax asks as he wraps his hand around my own on the seat.

I nod. “Very.”

Something black and shiny catches my eye out the rear window, so I turn to look. A lump sticks in my throat.

“Don’t worry,” Leenie says from the driver’s seat. “It’s my brother’s guys.”

If I squint through the swollen bulge on my eye, I can just make out the figure behind the wheel. It’s Ninja.

“Speaking of, you better call my brother,” Leenie says.

Finn raises his brows at her. “You want me to call Cole? I thought you wanted him to like me?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m driving, so one of you have to do it.”

“I’ll do it,” Jax grumbles. “This was my idea anyway.”

“Yeah, he really hates you now,” Leenie points out. In the rearview mirror, I see the slight darkening of her skin where she got caught in her own fight. Overall, though, she looks good.

Jax holds out his hand, and Finn slips a cell phone into his palm. The older brother presses the screen where it says Cole and holds it up to his ear. A dark voice sounds over the line even though I can’t quite make out what it says.

“No, it’s Jax. We’re out. Leenie’s fine.” He frowns into the phone. “Well, I’ll have to take my chances when you see her because she has a bruise.”

“I’m fine,” Leenie calls out. “Seriously, Cole.”

Jax takes the phone away from his ear and glances at the screen. “He hung up on me...after threatening to rip my balls off if you had so much as a bruise.”

Leenie rolls her eyes. “I’ll talk to him. Your balls will be safe.”

“He’s probably already on the way to the house,” Finn remarks.

“Actually, I thought we’d head to the tower,” Leenie tells them. “We can’t be too safe, and we still need to talk to my cousin.”

“Cousin?” I ask, wondering who else she has up her sleeve that could help with this.

“He’s an FBI agent.”

“Ex-FBI,” Jax corrects.

“Yeah, only because he wanted the girl more than anything. Sound familiar?”

Jax doesn’t make a snappy remark like I thought he would. Instead, he moves me closer to him on the seat, lying his arm across my shoulders. “Does this hurt?”

I shake my head, drinking the smell of him in. Within a few seconds, my stomach growls, and Jax tells Leenie to stop somewhere to get me something to eat.

Even though he said stop somewhere, he refuses any of the fast food restaurants, and we end up outside one of the mom-and-pop sandwich shops. He runs in, loading up with a bunch of stuff and comes out with three whole paper bags worth of food.

I nibble on a bag of chips as we approach the underground parking garage of the tower. My stomach drops like a ten-ton weight when we enter. I don’t have the best memories of this place. Being in here again is like facing the battering ram of my past.

I pull away from Jax, and he frowns as Leenie waves to the guard in the little security booth before parking.

My stomach tightens as we ride the elevator up to the penthouse floor. Almost everything is the same. The paint scheme is a little different, and when the elevator opens, a mural of a dragon greets us but it still has all the same feelings of dread and hopelessness the Crew facility held.

At first, I’d thought my spot with Kingston was a good one. I had a roof over my head. I had nice things. I had food. It didn’t dawn on me that my life wasn’t my own until I met Jax.

“It’s okay,” he reassures me as we walk down the corridor. My heart rate triples when we near K’s door.

My feet freeze as everyone else walks in. I don’t know if I can face the past like this. Doing so will make me confront the present too. The things I had to do with K to have a comfortable living. Fuck. I’m no better than Kingston Marx. I brought people into Psycho’s group, stood back, and watched them get abused. I knew what was going to happen when we were recruiting them but I kept doing it and doing it.

How can I hate someone like K when I am fucking K?

Cole’s voice comes blistering through the chaos in my head. He’s spitting out obscenities, getting into Jax’s face. When Jax turns to look at me, he immediately comes over, ignoring the enraged gang leader. “Hey, you okay?”

I shake my head. There are so many things wrong, I don’t know where to start.

Jax turns back to Cole. “Listen, you can kill me later. Can Sadie and I get some privacy, please?”

Cole’s gaze runs down my body. He spits out a curse and runs his hands through his hair. He starts to give us directions to the bedroom but I shake my head. “No. No, no. Somewhere else, please.”

Cole peers between me and Jax, and Leenie punches him in the arm. “I’m sure there’s a room downstairs they can have for a few moments. Right, brother?”

“Yeah, of course. Whichever one you want.” He glances behind us. “Ninja, follow them down, and open up whatever room they choose.”

Jax grabs the food he bought me in one hand and steers me in front of him with the other. The short elevator ride reveals another dragon mural, and we head toward the first room on the lower floor. Ninja opens the door, and Jax and I step in.

These rooms are all exactly the same. I had one just like it when I lived here. It was on an even lower floor but it was laid out the same. This one, though, smells as if it hasn’t been in use for a while.

Jax drops the groceries on the coffee table, grabs me some ice for my face, and then pulls me down to the couch with him. Like before, he wraps me in a hug. “You are more than the person you were when you were here last time. You are more than the person you had to be in Psycho’s gang. You are more than the person you were with me, too, Sadie. You. Are. More.”

His words tighten my throat until I cling to him like I’ve never clung to him before. Jax gets me, and I’m glad someone believes in me because I’m not sure I believe in myself.