Jax: Black Angels MC, #3

by Fisher, A. E.

  A tense moment passed, and Prez was looking at me when I turned my gaze back to him. Not Mint, nor Pretty. To me. “Do you think it’s the Black Jacks?”

  I returned his stare, my brain going back to the state of the house when Pretty and I had snuck in.

  “I—”

  “Anatoli Ivanov?” Anna added as she wandered back in. “Can’t be sure. We still haven’t managed to track him. Been getting pings around the state, but that’s as close as we can get.”

  Anna dropped her ass on Wolf’s armchair, his arm going around her waist until she gave it a sharp pinch with her nails. He hissed but otherwise refused to move it.

  Some things just don’t change.

  “I’ve got my feelers out and Charon’s also keeping tabs, but we can’t be sure. The mafia is getting angsty as well, but it’s open ears between us. We’ve been sharing any intel we’ve got.” Wolf jostled closer to his woman, and his gaze at me dropped. I had a feeling we’d be talking later.

  “Still not going to be good if it turns out to be a Black Jack that dropped their man. They’re not gonna be happy it was one of our enemies, not theirs,” I added, rubbing a hand across the back of my neck, glad to be getting some feeling back into my skin. I was barely stopping myself from shivering like a little bitch in front of my brothers. “Not to mention, I’m not sure how I feel about Charon being involved in this.”

  I didn’t like Charon. He was a slimy bastard and we never knew what he was thinking. With an unpredictable man like him who had all the power he wanted, it was damn sure there was a disaster waiting to happen.

  “He’s not doing this as a favor,” Wolf growled, the look of disgust mirroring the one on my own face. I wasn’t the top of the list when it came to distaste for Charon. “He’s doing this because he wants to get his hands on the remaining Black Jack to get their bosses’ info. Or he’s just sticking his nose in our business to piss me off. Either way, this is off his own back.”

  “I don’t trust the fucker as far as I can throw him. Off his own back or not,” I grumbled, unsure whether the unnerving sticky feeling I had was from my wet clothes clinging to me, or Charon’s delightful effect on my body.

  Being taught to read animals was one thing. Humans were more complicated, but when it came down to it, they were animals too.

  “I’m not president because I always agree with you, Jax. Suck it up.” Prez chided and I bit my tongue. I may have the same club seniority as Hunter or Lamb, but it still didn’t sit well being told off. I wasn’t a child.

  I glared at my president, but instead of ignoring it, or dismissing me, he held my glare. And just in the corner of my eye, I saw his lip quirk.

  I shook my head. “Bastard.” I rolled my eyes, tugging on my wet shirt. “I’m gonna go get changed.”

  With a growl, I walked past the chair without a backward glance.

  “Neanderthals, the lot of you,” Anna scoffed before hopping up off the chair and sashaying her ass right up behind mine. “He bites your head off and then you just leave. Just because he’s President? I’d have fried his balls. Sell them, buy one, get one free,” she grumbled, tracing my wet footprints with her own shoes all the way to my door.

  “What?” I peeked at her over my shoulder as I headed down the hallway. I could see her petite figure frowning at my sopping clothes.

  “Don’t mind me.” She waved at me, catching my glare. “I just think you smell like a wet dog… or rather wet horse.”

  “Stop prying,” I grumbled, coming to my door. I heard the click of her tongue at my jibe, but she didn’t take much mind. I must’ve hit the nail on the head. I loved her to hell and back, but she loved to poke her nose into my business way too much.

  I swung it open and walked in, not bothering to shut it behind me.

  Anna walked in without pausing, pushing through my dirty room with only a sneer or two in the direction of shirts and jeans dumped across the floor. She did pause, however, at the lacey panties hanging on my lamp. “When was the last time you cleaned your room?” she sneered. “I know for a fact you haven’t had girls in here in a while.”

  I grabbed clothes from the dresser, giving them a sniff to check they were clean as I heard Anna’s pleased chirp. “I found the matching bra!”

  “I haven’t been here in a while,” I answered her question as I opened the door only to find her using a pen to lift a pink bra up that had been peeking out from under the rug. She shrugged. “Girl’s got good taste. Wait… this is a different shade of pink.” Anna faked a disgusted gasp. “You dog!”

  The only reason I knew it was faked was because she shuffled toward me and held up her palm. I rolled my eyes and gave her a light high five. “You’re weird as shit.”

  “Tell me about it.” A deep, sarcastic growl came from the doorway.

  Wolf’s brown eyes, worn deep into the grooves of his face, were unreadable as he rolled over the mess on the floor before his eyes landed on the firecracker he had been to war and back to make his. Although some could argue being with Anna was a new kind of war. I would agree with them.

  “Woman,” Wolf growled, as Anna stopped stiff in the middle of the room. “Go check on my son.”

  Ah, this will be fun.

  I didn’t even bother to interfere, and instead, dropped my tired ass onto my bed and watched the fireworks. Anna turned so slowly that the room had enough time to turn to molten lava before she met her old man’s eyes.

  He didn’t look deterred; he looked pleased.

  Crazy bastard.

  “I get that you’ve got something to say to him, but call me woman one more time, I dare you,” she hissed, wielding her bra-laden pen at his face.

  Wolf smirked, crossing his arms over his chest as one heavy eyebrow crooked on his face. He said nothing.

  As the challenging tension passed, Anna’s pen lowered, the bra falling back to its place on the floor and she set the pen back in her pocket after wiping it on her jeans. Without a word, she walked toward Wolf’s lounging spot against the doorway. Anna stepped in front of him, her miniature five-foot frame much smaller than his.

  He took his time in moving out of her way, and Anna did the same in passing him, as if waiting for him to bite the bullet and say it just as she was leaving. I wouldn’t put it past him.

  He didn’t in the end.

  I heard Anna’s distant muttering of, “Good boy,” as she disappeared down the hallway.

  I looked back to Wolf who hadn’t watched her leave.

  “You’re gonna call her “woman” again, aren’t you?” I smirked.

  Wolf returned it, and I knew I was right. Anna would be getting payback for that comment, just as much as Wolf would for her passing remark.

  “That’s talk for grown-ups,” Wolf commented as he stepped into my territory and shut the door.

  “Still going to treat me like a child?” I growled, the annoyance unable to be hidden. “I respect you a hell of a lot, Wolf, but you can’t talk to me like this.”

  “Then how should I talk to you? Like a man?” Wolf pushed, and I could see he was trying to rile me up. “You don’t look like one to me.”

  “Wolf,” I growled in warning, rising from the bed. Squaring up to the man, I felt tiny, but the broiling annoyance bubbling beneath the surface had me stepping up nonetheless. “Not tonight.”

  “Why not tonight? You going to grow a pair of balls tonight or you going to continue crying like a little boy?”

  I swung.

  I didn’t think about it, fuck, I couldn’t. I was too tired, too wound up, too emotional.

  My bellowed shout rang throughout the compound as the echoing slap of skin on skin echoed throughout the small room.

  My hand throbbed with burning pain as Wolf’s grip tightened on my knuckles. “Stop dancing around it, Malen’Kaya mysh’.”

  “Fuck,” I hissed, twisting my fist into his weight, forcing his hand to release mine. I stepped back out of his space, but the man was seven-foot with arms to match. Th
ere was no way for me to step out of his reach. As he swung, I barely managed to turn in time to duck.

  “Stop this!” I yelled.

  “Then make it stop, Jackson!”

  “Don’t call me that,” I yelled, dropping and ducking as another fist came flying my way. Time was a blur of motion, and on my haunches, his opening was clear. I dove, propelling my weight forward.

  My shoulder came crashing into his steel abs and the muscles surrounding the point of impact cried out in agony, but the force was enough. Wolf’s huge hands came around my ribs to anchor himself, but it wasn’t enough to stop our motion.

  We flew forward. The door didn’t have a chance to hold our weight and splintered into a thousand pieces as we went through it.

  We hit the floor, door and all, with a mighty bang as the landing crash of our weight rivaled the sky’s rumbling thunder.

  Footsteps and shouts blew up around the club house and they grew louder as everyone came rushing our way.

  Wolf had me flipped and on my stomach before I could recover, his arm leaned over my shoulders, huge hand pinning me down by the neck, immobilized.

  “Get off me, Wolf!” I growled, trying to kick him off. The fucker was double my weight at the least. There was no way I could force him off.

  “No. You’re going to listen to me, Jax.” Wolf growled over my shoulder. “You’re not strong enough to fight with brute strength, you hear me? You only fight because you use your brain. Without that, you’d have long since been dead by now. Roscoe knew it, and so do I.”

  “What’s your point?” I hissed, a splinter in my cheek beginning to sting.

  Wolf pushed my face harder into the wooden floor. “You’ve got your head stuck so deep in this girl’s shit that you haven’t been using it.”

  “I haven’t?”

  “You think I’m a dumb shit? I can see the way you look at her.” Wolf growled over the vibrations of boots coming closer. “You almost got yourself shot and killed the other day, asshole. And now you let a gun for hire break into your house without your notice? I’ve lost one brother already and have come close to losing others. I am not going to lose another, Jax. You hear me?”

  “Jax!” Mint and Pretty’s voices were yelling as they reached us. They were lunging for Prez before I could even respond, and I felt his weight jostling on my back before they managed to tear him off. Heat flash across my ribs as I pushed off the wood.

  Arms came around my shoulders and I was hoisted to my feet.

  “I won’t sort your shit out for you, Jax.” Wolf shoved Pretty and Mint off his arms. “I am not your dad. And you ain’t no boy. I’m your president, and your only job is to listen to my orders and say ‘Yes, sir!’ You hear me?”

  Wolf stood with his shoulders pulled back, a red mark coming up on his arm and splinters from the broken door covering his clothes, but otherwise the man was unharmed.

  Bastard.

  “Fuck you,” I growled, a grin pulling on my lips.

  A smile turned on my president’s face, and his shoulders relaxed. “Cocky shit.” He shook his head, turning and pushing past my brothers with ease before heading down the stairs.

  “So, it was your turn this time.” Pipe patted his hand on my shoulder. “Prez’s lessons are always so tough.”

  “Sometimes it’s the only way to get us dumbasses to understand,” I groaned, stretching my muscles and feeling the bruises that would surface by tomorrow. That takedown was a rough one.

  “Neanderthals.” I peeked my head around Pretty’s figure and saw just the top of Anna’s head peaking over the stairs. They glared at me but otherwise didn’t say anything else.

  I had a sneaky feeling she knew what Wolf was doing in my room.

  Had I been using my head, so would have I.

  I smiled.

  “Want a drink?” Pipe offered, looking over my reddening skin.

  “Nah,” I said, clasping his shoulder. “I gotta go sort my shit.”

  My brothers all gave me knowing smirks and a roll of their eyes.

  “There goes another one.” Mint shoved at Pretty’s shoulder.

  “Another fallen comrade!” Pretty returned, both treating me as if I wasn’t there.

  “Hey!” I snapped. “I’m not dead.”

  They ignored me, wailing dramatics as they headed down toward the stairs. Anna joined in under Pretty’s arm.

  “I call dibs on his room!” Pretty added to Anna.

  Pipe, Mint, and Anna all sneered.

  “You can have it.”

  * * *

  Returning to the house, I felt my body ache in the familiar way it used to before I joined the club. Getting into fights had once been my day to day life before I joined. I had thought I’d left it behind me, but scrapping with my brothers also came with the territory. We were more like a family than I had thought. Although I did try to avoid fighting Wolf for reasons I was now recalling—vividly.

  I toed off my boots at the door, eyeing the bruising and inflammation around my ankle and cursing the huge bastard just as I heard the soft padding of footprints. The distinct pause between her strides was as unique as her face. I stared at her small bare feet both, her long middle toes bowing, her feet scrunched up against the cold wooden floor.

  I took note of her clothes, wrinkled, mussed and bunched around her small but present curves, all of them screaming for an immediate iron. Even my cut around her shoulders hugged her broader shoulders but swept long past her waist, down to her slim thighs.

  I looked at her face.

  Printed red marks crisscrossed her cheeks in the shape of the couch’s floral crochet. The dim light warmed her deep green sleep-glazed eyes and downplayed the lighter brown tones of her mussed hair. Watching me with a steady but dazed gaze, she didn’t seem to notice my long, observing scan. She just stood still, waiting.

  “How are you feeling?” I straightened out my back, stretching my arms above my head, my muscles protesting with fierce pangs everywhere.

  “Tired,” she murmured, her voice groggy and rasp. “But okay.” Her hand moved with absent purpose and it wrapped around her side, pressing the leather tight under her opposite arm. Her body also tilted. Only slightly and toward her left, it was enough to make me aware of her discomfort.

  What a liar.

  I shook my head.

  “Come on.” I reached to grab her free hand, and without jerking her side, I gave her an encouraging tug behind me. She didn’t fight me, and the soft patter of her bare feet followed behind my sock-covered ones.

  The feel of her hand in mine, reminded me of how small that hand had once been, and how long it had been since I’d held it. It was softer than before. Once it had been full of callouses and dried out from too much time spent outside, belonging to a girl who gave little care for cosmetic and skin care products.

  Her priority of animals over herself hadn’t changed. But judging by her smooth, warm hand, perhaps her idea of skincare had at least risen.

  Coming into the kitchen, I made my way to the cupboard and using my free hand, I dug through the higher shelves until I found my secret stash.

  I pulled the crocodile cookie jar down, popped open the lid, and fished out two white tablets. One for her, one for me.

  Sharing is caring.

  One glass of water and one tablet down my throat, I turned back to her. Pulling her closer, I slid my hand down her thin wrist, feeling the soft bumps of scars that were otherwise invisible to the eye, and paused. It was only a moment, but her eyes looked down to her hand with a distant gaze.

  I shook my mind free and opened her palm, placing the white tablet inside of it. “Take this,” I whispered in the quietness of the house, the early morning sunlight telling me that the day had yet to start, as I waited for her to understand. “This is just for pain. Not a sedative like last night.”

  Fighting through the lingering drowsiness of the sedative painkiller I gave her last night, she put the tablet in her mouth.

  “Now drink.�
� I handed her the glass and she did as she was told, almost downing the whole thing before handing it back to me. The rustle of the leather cut was loud between us and the house’s eerie echo of the noise made a thick atmosphere in the air.

  As the moment between us lengthened, I could see Ronnie’s clarity starting to resurface. The docile, obedient attitude that came with the grogginess that I was beginning to enjoy was not meant to last as her eyes fluttered with brightening awareness. Her gaze ran up and down my own body, much like mine had done moments before, and I waited with patience as she took the changes in.

  “You changed?” she noted, running a small hand up to her hair to brush down some of the springing strays.

  “No need to get self-conscious on me now, Ron’,” I whispered, reaching up to sooth the side of her hair where she was touching. She stiffened underneath my touch, her eyes jumping to mine, thoughts whirling fast behind them.

  “You’re different,” she breathed, her hand moving to grab mine. She pulled it down from her hair, our hands resting just above her shoulder as those green, perceptive eyes got a better look at me.

  I waited to see what she was thinking, watching as the trickling light of the sun was beginning to set in through the window, casting across the top of her sharp cheeks and irises. The dark green was now lit with a yellow hue, more the color of spring grass than a winter’s fir forest.

  She opened her mouth, lips parting with the softest noise.

  And then they closed again. Her mouth didn’t move for minutes after that, and at the five-minute mark, I let her cowardice go.

  “I’m off, away for a few days on club business. The brothers will be coming up to keep an eye on you just in case that guy from a few days ago comes back.”

  No need to tell her about yesterday.

  “Don’t worry. It’ll just be the ones you’ve met already. Nobody you don’t know. Also, no training with Max when I’m gone. Just let her in and out of her stable during the day. If it rains, leave the stable door open and she’ll go in on her own to get out of the storm. We’re not repeating yesterday.”