by Karin Tabke
Hard, callused hands grabbed her. She flung them off, but a hard ring of bodies circled her. Panic set in fast and intense.
The last time she’d been surrounded like this, Montes had pushed his animals aside and, with them watching, he’d violated her in the most terrible of ways.
She felt faint for the slightest second. Her pulse raced out of control. Her chest heaved so painfully she couldn’t breathe. Yet, somewhere in the deepest darkest reaches of her soul, a calmness overtook her.
Straightening from her crouching position, Jax snatched the knife from her thigh sheath and tossed it back and forth from hand to hand. They were straight up gangbangers. Nortenos by their red bandanas. “Ven con mama,” she taunted. In the air across her neck, she made a quick slicing motion with the knife. She had their attention. As she brought the blade across her jaw, she jabbed it at the guy to her immediate right. Jabbed it straight into his neck, yanked it out and kicked the thug closest to her with her right heel in the nuts. When he grabbed his groin, she stabbed the back of his neck. As she yanked out the blade, Jax whirled around in a crouched position moving menacingly toward the five who remained standing.
It was enough to evoke bedlam.
“Who wants to go next?” she softly asked.
She didn’t wait for an answer. Surprise and the unexpected were her biggest weapons. She grabbed the closest one with her left hand, yanking him right into her knife. He squealed like a pig. She shoved him backward and took two more out. The two left standing backed up. She tossed the knife back and forth and stepped toward them. “C’ mon, boys, you aren’t afraid of little ol’ me, are you?”
“Cassidy?” Shane breathlessly asked. “What’s your damn 20?”
Jax laughed. The two men who stood undecided in front of her looked confused. She tapped her right ear. “My partner’s all worried about me. He wants to know my location. Should I tell him to just look for your carcasses?”
Inexplicably, Jax did not want to be found. She was high. High as Mount Everest. On top of the world. Undefeatable. She didn’t want the adrenaline rush to end. She wanted to exact justice. She looked at the two thugs standing in front of her. Normally the gangsters carried.
“No heat?” she asked.
They looked at one another, then at her. “We were told no heat,” the smaller of the two said, shaking his head.
“Shut the fuck up,” his buddy warned.
So, this was no random meeting, was it? “Told? By whom?”
“No way, puta,” the bigger one said, shaking his head and stepping back until he hit the wall of the building.
Jax moved in. “I really don’t care for that word.” In a lightning-quick move, she jabbed the big one in the throat with the heel of her hand. He dropped, gasping for breath. That left the little one with the answers. She moved in on him, pushing him back until his back hit the wall of a building. He did not try to fight her. He just stared wide-eyed at her. When his stare lifted past her right shoulder and he turned white, then crossed himself, mumbling, “Dios mio,” Jax crouched and turned.
Her own heart felt as if it had dropped twenty stories to the ground. She too crossed herself. “Holy mother of God,” she mouthed. And wondered if this night could get any worse.
Seventeen
Jax couldn’t move. Terror grabbed ahold of her and shook hard. Marcus Cross stood behind her, his blue eyes blazing red and in full fang.
The gangster behind her hissed in a sharp breath, cursed a blue streak in Spanish, then shoved her toward Cross, who caught her in his arms, then protectively pushed her behind him. As the gangbanger moved past them he threw the knife he had threatened her with at Cross. It landed with a meaty thunk in his right bicep.
Jax flinched. Cross just growled. Not in pain but anger. He looked at the knife impaled to the hilt in his arm, then back at the gangbanger who stumbled all over himself to flee the scene. Cross grabbed the knife from his arm and hucked it at the gangster’s back. He hit him right between the shoulder blades, stopping him in his tracks.
In another lightning-quick move, Cross snatched the flailing, screaming body up by his right arm and flung him against the brick wall he had just been standing against. He hit with a sickening thud, then slid down the wall, leaving a bloody trail of shattered bone fused with gray matter before he crumbled in a heap onto the dirty ground.
Speechless, Jax ignored Shane’s desperate pleas for information, stood still, and watched what followed.
The original bad guys were pouring out of the alley toward them. Cross stood in front of her to the left. She inhaled a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
“Cross, I’m not armed,” she said to his back.
“I have this. Get out of here.”
“There’s six of them and one of you!”
“I said I have this. Now get the hell out of here!”
Torn by whether to stay and fight beside Cross or take off and save her own skin, Jax stood rooted to the pavement.
Tat. Tat-tat-tat-tat.
“Down!” Cross yelled. Jax hit the ground. Bullets ricocheted off the wall behind her and the ground in front of her. Most of them, however, hit their mark. Cross’s body jerked back and forth, as bullets tore into him.
Jax watched in fascinated horror as Cross continued forward. He’d been hit at least six times!
“Cassidy? What’s going on?” Shane screamed in her ear.
“You wouldn’t believe it,” she said and watched Cross systematically reduce the gang from six to none.
He’d felt her fear, her distress. He’d heard the rampant beat of her heart as she’d run through the dark city streets. He’d watched her fight her way out of one group of gangsters even as she’d seen the other approaching. They’d carried guns. He’d known they would kill her. And for some reason, even though he’d known he’d probably end up having to kill her himself, Marcus hadn’t been willing to let that happen.
He wasn’t done with Jax Cassidy. He didn’t like the name. It was too abrupt, and it didn’t do her justice. She was a complex melding of all things female and kick-ass bitch. So much more than three letters.
Despite the dozen bullets that hit him, many in his vital organs, Marcus felt only marginal pain. He grabbed the closest gangster. With the other hand, he yanked out the six-inch blade the prick had just stuck into his liver.
He stared down the last two standing. Marcus grabbed one by the throat and yanked so hard that his neck snapped. He dropped the corpse to the ground, then turned and heaved himself into the night air after the last one, who had taken off. He didn’t get far.
Marcus landed effortlessly five steps in front of him. He grabbed the kicking, screaming norteno by the scruff of the neck and tossed him to the ground. He grabbed him up and tossed him to the ground again.
“Madre de Dios!” his victim screamed.
Marcus laughed. “Not even that great lady can save your sorry ass, mijo.”
“I got drugs, man, anything you want, I got it.”
“Drugs kill,” Marcus quipped.
“I got kids! My mother, she’s dying, man. Por favor!”
With his forearm, Marcus pushed the unfortunate up against the wall of the building they stood next to.
“I might let you live.”
“I’ll do anything. Anything.”
“Who sent you?”
The man stilled. “Nobody, man, we were out looking for some action.”
Marcus growled and dug his elbow into the man’s throat. A fit of coughs wracked the guy. As he caught his breath, Marcus pressed into him again.
“Who sent you and why?”
“I—I didn’t ask his name—” Marcus cursed and pressed harder. The guy squirmed.
“What did he want?”
“He said to watch the second-floor window at the Veterans Building for a man in black, but to follow the person who came after him. He didn’t say it was gonna be a chick!”
“What were you supposed to do with this person once you fo
llowed them?”
“Rough them up some. Tell ‘em to back off.”
The distant wail of sirens infused the still night air. Marcus decided to save the taxpayers some serious cash and give the overworked cops in San Francisco a little breather.
In one hard jab, he crushed the gangster’s windpipe with his elbow. Marcus dropped the body he’d just broken in half and immediately turned his thoughts to Jax. Was she hurt? Had she been hit? His long stride picked up. His mind ran rampant with thoughts. He jumped into the night to find her.
As he flew down the alley, he slowed his frantic pace as he saw her running toward him. He dropped to the ground in front of her and slightly to the right.
“Jesus! Cross!” she screamed at him, then punched him in the chest.
“Are you hurt?” He resisted reaching out, touching every part of her to make sure for himself she was unharmed. She would kick his ass.
“No, damn it. What the hell was all of that?”
The distant wail of sirens infiltrated the tension between them. “You’d better get out of here or you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do to SFPD,” he said.
Jax looked over her shoulder to the carnage behind her. “That’s all your fault, Cross. Hell if I’m going to pay for it.” She moved past him.
“You owe me,” he called to her retreating back.
He laughed aloud when she flipped him off.
He stood and watched until she had completely disappeared, then took off in the opposite direction. As he made his way across town, he wondered who Jax really worked for and who would want to put the brakes on Rowland’s people.
The obvious answer was the man running a heated campaign against the senator. Mayor Mercer.
But why? And what was the point of chasing down Jax? There was only one way to find out. The next time Mercer tangled with Jax Cassidy she was going to give him straight answers.
Eighteen
Jax nearly collided at the end of the long alley with a frantic Shane. “Damn it, Cassidy!” he bellowed, grabbing her by the arms and practically shaking her. “I was worried sick. Why didn’t you call out your location? And what the hell was Cross doing there?”
Jax shook her head and grabbed his arms. “Dante, do you copy?” she asked.
“I copy,” he said. “What the hell happened?”
“Boys, you are not going to believe this,” she said, shaking her head. Hell, if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes she wouldn’t believe it either!
When she was done replaying the entire episode, they didn’t believe her.
“A vampire?” Dante asked incredulously.
“He took how many rounds?” Shane demanded.
Jax shook her head. “I know, it sounds like a bad episode of The Twilight Zone, but I’m telling you, this guy is for real. If he hadn’t arrived on-scene when he did, I’d hate to think of what would have happened to me. I owe the guy, and that really pisses me off.”
“Godfather is never going to buy this,” Shane said, shaking his head. They were almost back to the Vet Building.
“I’ll talk to him,” Jax said, wondering how the hell she was going to convince Godfather of what she had witnessed tonight, when she could barely believe it herself!
“We’ll discuss Cross later. Dante, what’s going on, on your end?”
“I took immediate possession of the envelope and instructed the senator and his staffers to mingle and act as if all was well. But as the evening began to wind down, the senator began to wind up. Prepare yourself, Cassidy. He’s pissed, scared and demanding answers.”
She could handle Rowland.
As they came upon the Vet Building, Jax grabbed her pumps from the courtyard and slipped them on before they hurried to the anteroom. Half a dozen heads shot up, including the senator’s. He looked as if he had seen a ghost.
“Sir,” Jax said as she approached. “If you would excuse everyone but my team from the room, perhaps we can make some sense of what’s going on.”
He stood, his hands fisted, his lips drawn thin. “I trust every person in this room.”
Jax smiled wanly. “I don’t. Please, do as I asked. I can’t help you if you refuse to follow my orders.”
“Now look here!” he spouted, taking a step toward her.
Jax tossed her head back and stepped into the senator’s space. “With all due respect, sir,” she calmly began, “I just spent the last hour fighting for my life against the thugs who left you that lovely calling card. Please, empty the room now.”
Anger and fear wreaked havoc with the senator’s handsome features. Reluctantly, Rowland curtly nodded to his staffers as well as his security detail.
Where was Sophia Rowland? Jax wondered. Were there trust issues between the senator and his scheming other half?
Jax drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Dante, the envelope.”
He pulled a plastic bag with the envelope in it from the back of his jacket. Carefully he handed it to her. Gingerly, Jax extracted the single photo from it. She cringed for the second time. Rowland made a sound reminiscent of an animal in pain.
The photo was of Grace Rowland, naked and snorting cocaine with a naked man three times her age.
“I’m sorry,” Jax said softly.
Rowland’s head snapped around and his eyes narrowed. “It’s Photoshopped!” Rowland defended as he stood up and began to pace the room. “Gracie would never do drugs! Or have sex with a married man! She wouldn’t do that to me!”
Jax understood his pain. Trust. Such an elusive animal.
“You said he’s married. So you know the man?”
Rowland swiped his hand across his face and closed his eyes for several long minutes. “Alan LeVech, my daughter’s high school counselor.”
Jax nodded. Shane and Dante stood quietly by; when she looked at them, they evaded her gaze, almost making her smile. Apparently, this touchy-feely stuff was outside their scope of skills. Not that it was her forte, exactly, but they were happy to have her do the hard work.
“Either LeVech is in on this or—” Jax looked closer at the photo but could discern nothing in the background but a rumpled bed. “Do you recognize the setting?”
Rowland dragged his eyes from the floor to the photo. He swallowed hard and shook his head.
“Okay, so unless you want to confirm the authenticity of this picture with your daughter, Senator, I’m going to go on the assumption that someone, most likely Mercer or someone who really wants him to win the election, took this picture. It’s obvious what they intend to do.”
Rowland put a hand to his temple and shook his head. “Mercer is a smarmy piece of shit, but he’s not this stupid. He knows by circulating a picture of a minor this way, I could have the feds up his ass on a child porn charge so fast he wouldn’t know which side was right or left.”
Shane coughed. “Sir, hardly a child.”
Rowland speared Shane with a daggered glare. “She just turned eighteen. Do you have children?”
“No, sir!” Shane vehemently denied.
“Then you don’t understand a parent’s desire to protect their child from every bad in the world.”
Rowland turned dismissively away and looked at Jax. “Regardless of who is behind this, I don’t believe this is authentic. I want my daughter brought in here to look at it. When she denies it, I’m—”
“Senator, I’m sorry to interrupt, but whether it’s real or not isn’t our primary concern right now.”
Rowland’s face turned red. “What could be more of a concern than—”
“You seem to be forgetting that there’s someone else who might have delivered this photo.”
“Who else?” Rowland asked. “Who else would want to drag my name through the mud and use my daughter to do it?”
“The same man who threatened to kill her,” Jax offered.
Roland sat down and dropped his head into his hands. He moaned and rubbed his eyes, then looked up to the three of them. “This is something L
azarus is more than capable of, but I’m no use to him if I no longer hold my Senate seat. He wouldn’t jeopardize it at this stage. He knows there’s no way I can recover from something like this if it goes public. Lazarus is a lot of things, but impatient is not one of them.”
“He’s up against a wall at the moment. He needs funds, funds that only you can provide. He’s showing his entire hand, and if you still resist? If he can’t have you, no one will,” Jax said.
Rowland ran his fingers through his thinning blonde hair and stood. He looked as if he’d aged twenty years in the space of an hour. “Bring my daughter to me, but keep my wife out of this. This would kill her regardless of its authenticity.”
It took some wrangling to get her away from the clutches of overzealous supporters, but after twenty minutes, Grace Rowland was finally brought into the anteroom. She knew immediately something was wrong. Her blue eyes darted from her father to Jax, then back to her father. “Daddy? What’s wrong?” She flew into his outstretched arms. A hard lump formed in Jax’s gut as she stepped toward the table with the plastic-enclosed envelope.
“Grace,” Jax slowly began, “I’m going to show you something. But before I do, I need for you to understand the importance of your complete honesty with me.”
“Oh, kaaay,” Grace carefully said, looking to her father for support. He nodded imperceptibly. Shane and Dante had the forethought and common courtesy to move across the room. The senator looked away.
Jax slid the photo out of the envelope. Grace gasped. Rowland groaned and turned farther away from his daughter and the incriminating photo. “Is it legit?” Jax softly asked.
Grace’s cheeks flared red, her head dropped and her blonde hair hung down, covering her face. Slowly she nodded.
“Damn it, Grace! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Rowland roared.
Silent tears stained her cheeks. Jax slid the photo back into the envelope. Rowland strode to the window.
“I love him!” Grace shouted at her father’s back.
Jax groaned and rolled her eyes. Shane and Dante stood, stoic, on the other side of the room, but she read the same can-this-get-any-worse? look on their faces.