“Raven Grey? She’s a short woman with black hair?” Jax held his hand in front of his chest, approximating how tall Raven was compared to himself.
“Ne’er heard o’ her,” he slurred, then shut the door in Jax’s face.
There were twenty apartments on each floor, and after his knocking didn’t earn him a response from any of the other apartments, he trudged up the stairs to the second floor. It was more of the same, no one opening their doors, or those who did refusing to help him.
Tired and defeated, three and a half hours later Jax found himself on the sixth floor. The hallway smelled of urine and vomit, mixed with the sweet smell of pot. Never mind dry-cleaning his clothes after this; he would throw them away. He didn’t need the reminder of how low he’d sunk to find a woman for her signature.
He struck pay dirt at apartment six-twenty when a woman opened the door and actually spoke with him. “I’m looking for Raven Grey.”
Immediately, he knew the woman knew Raven, or at least had heard of her because a worried frown puckered her mouth and the lines between her forehead became more exaggerated.
She’d been pretty, once upon a time. Though streaked with gray, her blonde hair shone in the light of a lantern she used for light. The orange glow made her clear skin luminous. As tall as she was, the woman could have been a model. But stress and fatigue lined her face, aging her by many, many years.
Narrowing her eyes, she asked, “Why?”
“My name is Jaxon Brooks, and I met her a few years ago. I heard about her situation and want to help,” he lied. His mother always told him he could catch more flies with honey and telling this woman the truth would only earn him another door slammed in his face.
She bit her lip and looked to the ceiling.
Jax followed suit expecting to see a large spider hanging above their heads, but the only thing above them was a ceiling full of cracks, the plaster coming off in chunks.
“The last I heard, Raven was on the tenth floor.”
Trying to keep excitement out of his voice, he murmured, “Do you know which apartment?”
“Ten-oh-three,” she said. She ran a hand over her eyes. “I don’t trust you, but I don’t trust . . . listen. If you go up there, be careful.”
That was a given. But Jax tilted his head and asked, “Why?” He wanted all the information he could get before stepping into any kind of situation.
“She’s not alone.”
The woman retreated like a scared mouse, quickly closing the door.
Jax pulled out three one hundred dollar bills from his wallet. He slipped them under the door, but he didn’t wait to see if the woman would take them or thank him.
He almost wished he had his weapon. The comfort of the heavy piece in his hand. The knowledge he could take a life and make the world a better place for it. Some people didn’t deserve to live.
But that bullet could take the life of someone innocent. Someone who had a family who would mourn their loss for the rest of their days.
Taking the stairs from floor six to ten could have been a hell all its own if Jax didn’t make it a priority to stay in shape. He tortured himself in his weight room every day as penance for all his sins.
It wasn’t enough.
Running up the flights of stairs made his blood hum and warmed his muscles.
He was ready for a fight.
Jax pushed his ear against the door of ten-oh-three. Murmured voices came from inside, but none of them sounded female.
He trusted his gut; he didn’t think the woman on the sixth floor lied to him. Raven made friends and evoked trust wherever she went, and the woman downstairs wanted Jax to help her.
She’d trusted the wrong person, and a sick feeling twisted his stomach.
He never used to be the kind of person he was now. Now he was just a cold, calculating, son of a bitch, and he had no intention of changing that.
For anyone.
Jax knocked on the door.
The murmuring stopped.
There were a few rustling sounds, perhaps they were hiding their stash, before the door creaked opened.
A bald, beady-eyed man peered at him through the crack. Black and blue bruises rested beneath his eyes, but they weren’t caused by a fist. More than likely drugs, malnutrition, and lack of sleep made the bags under his eyes more pronounced, and his overall lifestyle gave his skin an unhealthy, waxy pallor. His lips were drained of color, and the lower half of his face blended into his neck.
The man stood shorter than Jax by at least a foot, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t armed and didn’t know how to use his weapon.
Bringing a knife to a gunfight was one thing, having nothing against anything was something else entirely.
“What the fuck do you want?” Slimeball asked, revealing a mouth full of rotted teeth.
“I’m looking for a Raven Grey,” Jax asked, fighting for calm. While his “catch more flies with honey” approach he used with the woman on the sixth floor had worked, he didn’t think it would go far with this guy. Only, he didn’t want to start a fight if he didn’t need to.
“Never heard of the bitch,” Slimeball said, already shutting the door.
The fact that he called Raven a bitch, even when claiming he didn’t know her, told Jax everything he needed to know, and he wedged his foot between the door and the doorjamb. Too bad the guy hadn’t opened the door with the chain in place. Jax hadn’t kicked down a door in a long time. And yeah, it looked just as cool in real life as on TV, as long as the person attempting it had the leg power to do it right the first time.
But his foot sufficed in this instance, and he pushed his way inside, snagging his coat on an exposed nail in the doorjamb.
If that was the worst that happened tonight, he would consider himself lucky.
“I think you have,” Jax said, scanning the room.
A bald lightbulb hung from the ceiling on an exposed wire over a card table. Two others looked his way, but dismissed him, continuing to bag white powder.
“What the ever-living fuck do you think you’re doing?” Slimeball roared.
“Cops ever come out here?” Jax asked absently, stepping into the kitchen. Pizza boxes littered the counter, paper plates overflowed from a city trash receptacle that had been stolen from the street. The room was just warm enough to make everything reek, and Jax breathed shallowly from his mouth. He was curious if water ran from the faucet, but even with his leather gloves, Jax didn’t want to touch anything.
“That’s none of your fucking business,” Slimeball said, crowding Jax between his gaunt body and the sink.
The woman on the sixth floor might have been scared of this guy, but Jax batted him away like an annoying fly. This skeleton couldn’t hurt him.
Jax retraced his steps through the living room and searched down a short hallway. One open door revealed the vilest bathroom he’d ever smelled. A toilet that couldn’t be flushed shouldn’t be used as an outhouse. The stink was worse here than in the kitchen, and Jax gagged. He closed the door, hoping to trap some of the odor inside.
The hallway contained three more doors, and opening one revealed a storage closet with nothing inside it.
Another door opened to two bare mattresses laying on the floor, a hodgepodge of blankets and old pillows piled atop each one.
Just to be on the safe side, Jax checked the closet in the room, but the only thing in there, surprisingly, was what a closet was meant to store—clothing.
Slimeball waited in the hallway, but he wasn’t empty-handed. “You think I’m just going to let you look through my shit, you dumb fuck? I told you, I don’t know no cunt named Raven, now get the fuck outta here.”
Jax stilled. He’d been on the receiving end of a gun before. The best thing to do was act like Slimeball was in control. The timing couldn’t be a coincidence, and Jax would bet his savings Raven was in the other bedroom.
He lifted his hands in surrender, but in one swift motion, he relieved Slimeball of his gun an
d pinned him against the wall, his hand around the asshole’s throat. “I think I’ll search where I want to search,” Jax murmured, squeezing.
The gaunt man struggled against Jax’s hold, his feet dangling over the floor, kicking out at nothing.
Only when Slimeball’s lips turned blue, and his eyes turned bloodshot, did Jax drop the asshole to the floor, where he lay in a heap, wheezing.
Jax clicked on the gun’s safety and pocketed it. He didn’t like the heavy feel of the metal inside his coat, the feeling foreign and all too familiar at the same time, but he pushed the uneasiness aside as he turned the knob on the last door.
He was met with resistance.
The door was locked.
Tempted to kick it in as he’d wanted to earlier, he took a step back, then stopped. Instead, he grabbed Slimeball by the back of the neck and hauled him to his feet.
“Open this door.”
With shaking hands, Slimeball pulled out a keyring from his pants pocket, and tried to shove a key into the lock.
Jax gritted his teeth. He’d been in the building going past four hours now. He was hungry and had to piss. He wanted a drink.
His driver probably felt the same, and a wave of remorse rolled through Jax. He should have made the poor man go home.
“I’ll do that,” Jax said, grabbing the keyring and shoving the druggie onto the floor, his head bouncing against the scarred and dirty wood.
He lost the key Slimeball had tried to use, and it took Jax six tries to open the door.
When he did, he wished he hadn’t.
The room smelled like death, and he took a step back, as if the Reaper himself were in that very room waiting for him.
Fear slicked his throat. He wanted to be rid of Raven, but not this way.
The bulb remained black when Jax tried to turn on the room’s overhead light, and he used his flashlight on his cell phone.
Something scurried away from the bright light, and Jax grimaced in disgust.
Rats.
Typical of a city apartment, the room was tiny, and there wasn’t much in it except another bare mattress with a lump lying along the side, pushed against the wall.
“Raven?”
The lump twitched at the sound, and Jax knelt on the edge of the mattress. He pulled away an old blanket full of holes more than likely made by the rats that also used the room as a haven against the cold.
Raven’s pale skin stretched against her skull, pasty, glistening with sweat.
She opened her eyes when he shone the light toward her, but her pupils didn’t focus.
Drugged out. Typical.
He shook her shoulder. “Raven. Do you remember me?”
Her eyes rolled into the back of her head.
In frustration he grabbed her chin, his thumb and fingers digging into her face. “Look at me, goddamn it.”
Her skin seared his fingertips.
“Fuck.” She wasn’t strung out on drugs.
Raven was sick.
Jax flung aside the dirty blanket that smelled of urine and sweat. Slimeball hadn’t taken care of her, hadn’t helped her. God knew how long Raven had gone without food or water. He yanked up her shirt and pressed his palm against her side.
Her temperature was too high.
“Please,” Raven whispered. “I didn’t mean to be late. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Delirious with fever, Raven babbled words Jax couldn’t understand.
What the hell was he supposed to do with her? Let her die? She wasn’t in any shape to sign anything. She had no knowledge of her surroundings. Didn’t know who he was.
Jax had only one choice.
He’d have to bring her home and nurse her back to health, or at least to the point he could make her sign the divorce decree before kicking her out on her ass.
Just like he did before.
Jax tried to lift her from the filthy mattress, hefting her into his arms, but he could only move her a few inches, a rattling and scraping coming from the wall. “What the hell?” he muttered. He lay her down again and grabbed his phone, sweeping it over her body.
“Jesus Christ.”
Slimeball had Raven cuffed to a radiator. Her wrist oozed blood. She’d tried like hell to slip the handcuff off her wrist.
Goddamn it.
Familiar with handcuffs, it took Jax only two seconds to find the right key from the keyring and unlock the thick silver bracelet. He held her hand for a moment, smoothing the hair from her face.
Lifting her in his arms, he held his breath. She stank of her own body fluids, blood, and grime.
He didn’t even want to think about what Lucia would make of this.
Lucia.
How much would this cost him? Both financially and emotionally? He couldn’t even imagine her reaction to Raven.
Maybe he could ask Erik to take her . . . no. Erik’s taunt in Jax’s office came back to him, and the jealousy Jax felt at the church seeing Erik and Raven together slithered down his spine.
Making Erik Raven’s caretaker would only set them up to fall in love.
He would make Raven sign the minute she was of a mind to do so, and that would be that.
Raven wasn’t anybody’s business but his.
As he lifted her to his chest and stood, Raven curled herself into his embrace.
She weighed almost nothing, and Jax stepped easily into the hallway, where Slimeball still lay on the floor, gasping, a sullen and hateful look in his beady eyes.
“You can’t fucking take her. She’s mine.”
Jax narrowed his eyes in return.
He hadn’t thought about Raven that way, while she was sick, and it made him ill Slimeball had been using her for his own pleasure while she lay unwilling, and perhaps, unknowing.
This time, Jax did give into his own wants, and securing Raven to him, he kicked the druggie in the groin as hard as he could. The toe of his shoe connected with a satisfying whap, and the gaunt asshole assumed the fetal position with lightning speed.
He didn’t stay to watch the sleezebag vomit from pain, but the sounds of retching that followed him down the hall and out the door was enough to bring a smile to his face.
“She wouldn’t have lasted another day.”
Jax stood in the hallway outside the bedroom he’d given to Raven in which to convalesce. Erik leaned against the wall, a foot anchored against the wooden paneling, a dour look on his face. His arms were crossed against his chest, and Jax read the disapproval shining bright in his brother’s eyes. The doctor who had examined Raven snapped blue rubber gloves off his hands.
“What?”
“I said, she wouldn’t have lasted another day. Her fever is a hundred and five degrees. She’s dehydrated. Starved. She should be in a hospital.” His mouth pulled into a displeased scowl. “If your father and I weren’t golfing partners, I would insist on it. She needs twenty-four hour supervision.”
“You know I appreciate it—especially at this late hour. And I’ve hired a nurse, Stephen,” Jax said.
Taking Raven’s temperature, the nurse was there, now, not looking like any nurse he’d had in mind. She wore her light brown hair in a bun, yes, but dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt, they made her look more of a college student than a nurse. The stethoscope around her neck did little to make her look professional.
Erik had scoffed. “What do you want her to look like? A paper hat with a red cross perched on her head? A white dress with pantyhose and old lady shoes? You don’t live in a gothic romance novel, Jax, your house only makes it look like you do.”
Jax admitted to himself that’s exactly what he thought the nurse would look like. He wouldn’t give Erik the pleasure of being right.
“You’ll need to hire more than one,” Stephen replied, bending over his black satchel and shoving the gloves inside a small white bag made for waste. “You don’t understand how sick this girl is. She needs her temperature taken every two hours to make sure the antibiotics are working. She’ll
need the IV until she can begin taking liquids by mouth, and that won’t be for several days—her throat looks terrible. I’ve instructed the nurse to keep her sedated. She’s been through a very traumatic experience.”
Jax ran his hands through his short-cropped hair, though not short enough for his taste. With all his searching for Raven, personal maintenance had fallen from his list of priorities. “She’s been raped.” That much had been obvious when he’d taken her from Slimeball’s possession.
“Not recently, if she has been. When I examined her, it appears she’s had sexual intercourse recently, but certainly nothing forceful such as rape.” Stephen paused and regarded Jax with steely gray eyes framed with white bushy eyebrows that matched the cap of curly white hair on his head. Jax often thought Stephen kept a clean shave so as to never resemble Santa Claus. “Though, I’m not an OB/GYN, and someone in that field may see things I missed.”
Stephen picked up his bag. “But—”
Jax sucked in a breath. “She’s given birth?”
Fear and something he might have called pain blossomed around his heart at the thought of Raven having his child. He pursed his lips. Of course, the regret was coming three years too late.
“No. Not that I can tell. Again, that is not my specialty, but from what I could ascertain, her pelvis has not cradled a child. She may have an STD, but I won’t know until I get the results back from her blood test. This woman, wherever you found her, whoever she is, she’s lived a hard life.”
“Thank you, Stephen,” Jax said, dismissing the doctor’s examination results. He wouldn’t let himself feel sorry for her. She chose to live the way she lived. Jax also ignored talk of an STD. Raven may have one, but he did not. He’d had himself checked after the incident—that’s what he’d relegated him fucking Raven to, an “incident”—and he was always punctual with his yearly checkup. He would have known a long time ago if Raven had given him anything during their dalliance.
He turned toward the stairway to walk his father’s friend out. There wouldn’t have been anyone else he could call at four o’clock in the morning and taking Raven to a hospital wasn’t an option. He needed to keep his eye on her so the minute she was coherent, she could sign the papers.
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