Jax by E. M. Moore
27
“Actually,” Jax says, bringing out his cell phone to check the screen. He hits something and smiles. “It’ll be easier to show you. Are you ready to see how we’re fixing this?”
There’s a sly look on his face, and I love it.
He searches the room for some clothes for me to put on, and I end up wearing black joggers with a black t-shirt. Anything is better than the other clothes Psycho had me wear. As we leave the room, Jax throws the sexy shirt and shorts in the garbage and then takes my hand. He walks us to the elevator and pushes P for penthouse again. There is one other slight difference now than there was when it was Crew owned. Security used to be everywhere. Currently, I don’t see any guards on the Penthouse floor. Anywhere. They were all downstairs.
Walking next to Jax to Cole’s suite, I feel so small compared to him yet I don’t feel fragile anymore. I’m emboldened and ready. I need to hear what the plan is to take Psycho down because I’m so ready to help. I have years of retaliation all pent up and ready to be used.
Jax knocks on the suite door, and we wait for someone to open it. It turns out it’s Cole himself. He sneers at Jax half-heartedly but gives me a smile. “Hi, Sadie. I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t realize you’d spent time in this building.”
I give him a small grin. “It’s all in the past,” I reassure him.
“Oh sure,” Leenie calls out. “You act all nice to her when you were just giving us shit.”
“Because you three,” he says, looking at Leenie, Finn, and Jax, “...won’t let me do my job.”
“We just don’t want you to do your job the way you do it,” Finn says, hiding a smirk.
“I’m only saying, it would be easier to kill him.” Cole makes an exasperated sound as he sits on a couch opposite the one Leenie and Finn are currently sitting on. The room looks different so I’m not taken all the way back to how I used to spend time in here. Plus, the people are so different. These guys are actually joking and kidding around. There was none of that when I was one of K’s girls. It was straightforward business all the time. “Plus, my sister wouldn’t have been dragged into all this if you’d just let me go in there, save Sadie, and blow his shit up.”
Jax sits on the couch next to Finn and helps me down with him. “Seeing Sadie and what that fucker did, I kind of wish we had done that.”
“Liking you a little better now,” Cole admits.
Jax shrugs as if he couldn’t care less. He never was one to care if he was liked. He was oddly cool like that. Nothing ever fazed him. Except me.
“I’m fine,” Leenie tells her brother while her gaze skips to me and the ice pack still resting against my swollen face. “Plus, it was actually fun. You should’ve seen that Psycho guy’s face when I got the punch in on the girl. He was stunned. You could tell he thought my fight was going to be an easy one.”
For a moment, Cole beams a prideful smile but he tucks it away again almost immediately. “As much as that sounds entertaining, you could’ve been home safe while I dealt with everything instead of going into the lair of a known rapist and con artist.”
“Technically, you don’t own the Flats jurisdiction,” Jax states.
“Technically,” Cole reiterates, mirroring Jax’s tone. “I own whatever the fuck I decide I want.”
Leenie huffs. “Dick measuring contest aside, this idea is much better and no one dies in it either.”
Cole looks personally affronted as if he has no idea why it’s bad for someone to die. I was always good with gang logic to a certain degree. Bad people should come to bad ends. I’m all on the side of fucking killing Psycho. He doesn’t deserve to breathe for all the hurt he’s caused people over the years. “I hope this idea is a good one because right now, I’m all on board the Cole train of killing him.”
Cole glances between me and Jax. “Why are you with him again?”
Jax growls in response like the burly teddy bear he is but I smile. “Because he’s a much better person than I am.”
Cole rubs his temples. “All this talk about morality is giving me a headache.”
“Please. Don’t act so tough,” Leenie chides. “Didn’t you just finish helping out your gang buddy’s sister? Who’s the softie here?”
“Yeah but I got to kill people,” he deadpans. “She didn’t care that I killed people.”
This whole thing makes me smile. In any other living room, this conversation would be wildly inappropriate but for the tower in the Heights, it’s absolutely, one hundred percent, normal.
Leenie’s phone rings, and she stares down at the screen and squeals. “He’s here.”
My stomach bottoms out but Jax places a reassuring hand on my leg. “A friend,” he whispers.
I calm instantly. I don’t know what I thought. That Psycho was just going to show up in the known gang territory of the Heights. He’s way too smart for that. Leenie’s affiliation with the gang leader must still be a secret to him. The leader of the Dragons has been a mystery, and I didn’t even know he had a sister. They keep that shit on lock.
Leenie gets to her feet and bounces on her toes. The anticipation while she watches the door even gives me butterflies. “What’s going on?” I whisper to Jax.
“We asked for a favor,” he explains.
“Yeah, a favor you didn’t have to ask for,” Cole grumbles yet he, too, stares at the door with concentration. As if he knows exactly how long it takes for someone to ride an elevator up, he gets to his feet and walks toward the door just as there’s a knock on it. He has enough time to open it before Leenie pushes past him and throws her arms around a red-headed man.
He’s dressed in head-to-toe black with some scruff on his face. He looks hardened until a smile crosses his face. “Leenie,” he says, squeezing her. “It’s been too long.”
“I have so many things to say to you,” she says. It sounds like it’s supposed to be chiding but it comes out with warmth and excitement.
“Alright already,” Cole grumbles. “Let him breathe.”
Leenie finally steps back, and I can get an accurate image of the guy. He has red hair and a face full of freckles that look as if they were brought out by a healthy dose of sun recently. He’s built, large like Cole’s own security guys, and he looks as tough as them too.
“Mag,” Cole says in greeting, and the two of them bro hug.
When Mag steps back, he looks around the space. I recognize the same reaction to this place in him that I had. It’s as if he has to shake off ghosts. When he gets closer, he looks more and more familiar. If he was ever in this place, then I definitely would’ve seen him before. “Ex-Crew?” I ask.
He whips his gaze toward me, eyes inspecting me from head to toe, spending an awful lot of time on my bruised face. Finn gets off the couch and moves forward. “That’s Sadie. Good to see you, man.”
They shake hands, and Mag gives him a smile in greeting. “You too.”
“How’s Kyla?”
If the curl of Mag’s lips is anything to go by, Kyla has to be his girl. “She’s good. We’re still taking a much needed break from everything.”
Jax half gets off the couch and shakes Mag’s hand, too. I fully stand, letting the ice go for a second to shake his hand as well. He seems like the kind of guy who should see you as strong and not some pushover. “Sadie,” I introduce myself.
“Jacob,” he responds. I narrow my gaze because that’s certainly not what Cole called him. He must see the question in my gaze because he clarifies. “Mag’s my Crew name.”
Okay, there it is. He was Crew, so I definitely saw him around here. I don’t say as much because I don’t want to bring attention to the fact that I was basically a sex slave for K. Obviously, the guy isn’t Crew anymore, and I don’t see a Dragon tattoo on him, so he’s not in Cole’s gang either.
“He’s our cousin,” Leenie finally explains. “Who just so happened to not only be a Crew member but also an undercover FBI agent.”
My eyes widen—at least as much as they can. Shit. K had an undercover FBI agent in his house? He must’ve shit a brick when he found out. The information brings a smile to my face, stinging my already cracked lips. Jacob stares at me curiously. “I was Crew first, then went straight and decided to work undercover to take Kingston Marx down.”
“Which is why,” Jax says, “...we thought of him when we were brainstorming ways to deal with the Psycho problem.”
Cole shakes his head. “Still can’t get over his name. He probably gave it to himself.”
“You’re just jealous you never got a name,” Jacob quips.
Cole lifts his hand and gives Jacob the finger. I settle back beside Jax who helpfully places the ice pack back on my face. Peering at the collection of people we have here, it seems so surreal. A gang leader. An ex-gang guy. A gang leader’s sister who’s actually a really cool, chill person. Finny, who was more like my little brother, and Jax. I’m a long way from the Flats, and I’m definitely okay with that.
Jacob takes a seat across from us. He leans over, elbows on his knees. “Here’s the deal. I talked with my guy at the FBI, and he says Psycho and his band of misfits have been on their radar. There have been several complaints over the years, but nothing they could really go on, and of course, no one talks. So, he said if Sadie here is willing to talk, they can take him down.”
I blink. “Just like that?”
“Well...” Jacob grimaces. “Yes and no. I don’t know how far you’re into his cons but I’ve heard some evil shit. Not judging,” he adds at the same point my stomach does a flip. “We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. But they’re not going to just let you get away with it either. They’ll give you lenience if you talk first, and it depends on how much information you have.”
“Wait a damn second,” Jax argues. “We didn’t talk about that part. Sadie was—”
I place my palm on his leg. Somehow, this feels right. Sure, would I like to ride off in the sunset with no worries whatsoever? Of course. But I’m not sure that would help quell the troubled thoughts inside me anyway. “I did some shit,” I tell Jacob. “I’m not going to lie about it.”
“You were coerced,” Jax spits.
“And if that’s the case, they’ll take it into consideration too,” Jacob mediates.
Jax places his hand on my cheek and makes me look at him. “I just got you back. I’m not going to let you go away again.”
I swallow. We both know there’s probably some jail time in this for me. He doesn’t know the extent of what I did. I remember the trusting faces of the people I conned. I remember the sickening feelings afterward and how I grew to hate Psycho because of it. But I also remember that doing what I did also helped me get fed and kept a roof over my head. I was scared and lost and I would’ve done anything.
I place my hand on his and squeeze. “I have to do this.” Turning toward Jacob, I say, “I know pretty much everything. I was Psycho’s girl through every con. I know who and when. I know people who were just randomly gone one day. I don’t know where any bodies are but I know who could possibly be dead that he would’ve had a hand in.” I take a deep breath, remembering Lyla’s fierce eyes. “There’s one more thing, too.” Everyone in the room looks at me. “There’s another girl there that I promised I’d get out. If she talks, can she get leniency too?”
“Maybe,” Jacob hedges. “If you’re already—”
“I promised her,” I say firmly.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Jacob states simply, “but the same rule applies to her. If she’s implicated in anything, she’ll also face consequences. I can’t tell you what that’s going to be yet.”
I’m not going to answer for her. Honestly, if I get the chance, I’ll tell her to run. That’s how I atone for what I did to her. “I’ll do it,” I say finally. “Everything I know, I’ll spill.”
Jacob regards me and finally nods. “You’re doing a good thing here. I know it’s not easy.”
“And he won’t be able to hurt you anymore,” Leenie adds, concern clearly in her eyes as she watches me.
“Thank you,” I tell her. She pushed me from the beginning. She urged me to open up to Jax, to be true to myself. She tried to help me even before Jax did, back when he was still blinded by what I did to him and who could blame him? “You’ll never know how much I appreciate it. All of this. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of it on my own,” I say, peering around at all of them.
“If you just let me kill him, you won’t have to go through this at all,” Cole offers. “Fuck punishment. That guy’s a sick bastard.”
“Tempting,” I tell him truthfully. I’d love nothing more than to see Psycho come to an end he deserves. “But...people need to hear what he did. There are families out there wondering what happened, and they need to see him be brought to justice, too. If it was just me, I’d tell you to go ahead and kill him.”
It’s not only him who needs recompense though. There’s something inside me that says I need it too. I’ll never be able to fully move on from the past until I mete out my own consequences—whatever they may be.
