by R. J. Lewis
“Jaxon…” I muttered, my voice betraying me. There was that plea in there, the one that begged him to take me roughly, softly, any way he liked.
“Look at me,” he demanded. “Don’t keep turning your head away from me, Sara.”
I turned my head to him, and my eyes slowly travelled to his face. He was different, my Jaxon. Nothing like the pretty boy I grew up with. His features were strong, more prominent. His cheeks hidden behind an inch-long beard that suited him so well. I missed his face, though. It was the face of the man I grew up with, and it was hidden beneath a look that at times caught me off-guard and reminded me of another bearded man. Now that thought saddened me.
What was wrong with me lately?
“You dodging my kiss for a reason?” Jaxon asked, half-amused, half-serious.
“I know what every kiss leads to,” I answered, my lips flinching up into a weak smile. “And we don’t have time for it. You have to go.”
He leaned down again and captured my lips. His kiss started out soft and slow. I didn’t realize how tense my shoulders were until he tasted me. I relaxed them and kissed him back. It frightened me how much I yearned for this man. I wrapped my arms around his neck, deepening the kiss like it was medicine to my soul. I poured my heart out into this kiss, trying to make up for all the wrongs I committed in the past.
Jaxon pulled away, abruptly, resting his forehead against mine.
“Tiny,” he whispered, his voice aching. I felt his hand at my face, his thumb stroking away the tears that were falling unbeknownst to me. I couldn’t bear to open my eyes. Pain spread across my chest, and I didn’t understand why this was happening to me suddenly.
“Stop thinking about it,” he told me, tenderly. “Stay here, in the now.”
I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat. “I will. I’m trying.”
He frowned, looking concerned for me. “I thought about last night, and it hit me why you’re sad.”
I gave him a questionable look. “And?”
“And this was the time of year you left him. A week from today is when you walked out.”
“When I tricked him.”
“When you had no choice but to trick him,” he corrected.
Huh. It was too. “You think that’s the reason I’m all weird lately?”
“Yeah, I do. And I also think you have a lot of personal shit to get over.”
“Like what?”
“Like your mother.”
My face fell. I shot him a sour look. “There’s nothing to get over when it comes to her. I know exactly what she thought of me right before she died.”
“You have questions.”
“They’ve been answered by Remy. She was raped, conceived me, thinking I was her rapist’s kid. She resented me for it. She never had motherly emotions for me, which is why she was so happy to take Rita in like her own fucking daughter than her actual kid!” I paused, realizing what Jaxon meant. I’d just gone from one to a hundred.
“See?” he said, his brows raised. “You’re not over it. Got a lot of hate in that tiny little bod, and it’s not something I can fuck out of you. Believe me, I tried.”
“So, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“Confront it. Talk to a therapist, get that pent-up rage out of you, or hell, have a word with Rita. She might still be kicking around here.”
Hate bloomed inside me at the thought of seeing that bitch. It was likelier I’d beat her face in than sit down and have a docile chat with her.
“She’ll just rub it in,” I said, bitterly. “She’ll carry on how close she was to her.”
“What’s the alternative?”
“I can talk to Frank about it. I haven’t been able to really bring that topic up around him. He’s skittish about her.”
He shrugged one shoulder, looking doubtful. “Your dad’s kind of fucked up, too. Your mom did a number on him. I think he’s the one that has more questions than you.”
I thought of Frank, and my chest tugged for him. “She hurt him.”
Jaxon nodded. “Yeah, she did.”
How my mother could still haunt us all from the graveyard bewildered me.
“Go,” I told him, stroking his cheek with my thumb. “You’re going to be late.”
He kissed me. “And when I get home?”
I smiled against his lips. “When you get back home, I’ll be waiting in bed.”
“On all fours.”
I laughed. “On all fours.”
He studied my face and let out a long sigh. “God, I love you, babe.”
My chest bloomed. “I love you so much, Jaxon.”
Thirty-Seven
Sara
Jaxon’s mom was late for lunch. I was in the café with Lucy, waiting for her. Peak hour had just passed, and there were only a handful of people left in the small shop, eating quietly at their tables as they watched the television screen mounted on the wall. Idly, I watched too, grimacing as the news story of the latest major crime in Winthrop aired, of a shooting outside of a church the infamous Dillinger family frequented. It’d been a couple months and the church, which had temporarily closed to the public, finally reopened. The journalists were still running the same regurgitated story, predicting the fall of the Dillinger/Esposito factions that would leave a major vacuum open for new kingpins to swoop in and feud over.
I knew the second someone filled that gap, these journalists would be muted. With lots of money.
“Look, Ma, see?” Lucy showed me another picture she’d drawn of…well, I didn’t know what it was. A splatter of red and black and green that seemed to please her and make me smile. I told her it looked great and she turned her attention back to it, scribbling more colors in haste.
“Hey, Sara,” came a quiet voice. I turned to it, surprised to see it was Fritz. Still unkempt and glossy eyed, Fritz didn’t look any different than usual, which saddened me, because I knew through Jaxon that underneath the hair and filth Fritz was unrecognizable.
“Hey,” I replied, cautiously glancing around the café. “What are you doing here?”
This place was Scorpion owned, and while there had been peace among the two clubs here, there were still lines that weren’t crossed, and one of them included the Jackals keeping to their side of town.
I wasn’t intimidated by Fritz’s presence. He was the only Jackal I trusted wholeheartedly, but not one I saw often at all.
“Business,” he answered, looking between Lucy and me curiously. I knew business meant it was none of my business, but I already knew how they operated. The Jackals distributed drugs and hid the cash by laundering through Scorpion owned territory for a nice price. It kept both clubs content and flushed with money. I figured he’d probably done a drop off here.
“Are you alone?”
He shook his head. “Nah, Logan’s in the back sorting something out. He’ll be out soon if you wanted to say hello –”
“Uh, no,” I cut in, shaking my head. “I don’t.”
Fritz smiled softly. “We don’t hate you, Sara.”
I scoffed, pretending to be distracted by Lucy’s drawing. “Yeah, you might not, but the rest of the club would happily watch me burn.”
“Not Logan.”
“Logan couldn’t hate a woman if he tried, he’s too sweet. I was referring to the others, Fritz. The ones that glare at me if they see me across the street. Seems like no matter how many years go by, I’m still the outsider.”
“You chose a different club.”
“A different man,” I corrected him.
“Yeah, a different man, and that made you look like a disloyal snitch.”
I winced at his words, feeling like they’d just cut me to the core.
“I know,” I whispered. “The funny thing is, I wasn’t any of those things. Not until the very end. But you…” I looked at him, inquisitively. “You weren’t the whole way through, were you?”
Fritz just stared at me, not at all fussed I knew he was still working for Jaxon on
the side, doing things for him I didn’t know. “I don’t play both sides against each other,” he explained casually. “I have a bond with Jaxon, and it forces me to step out of the club sometimes. It doesn’t make my loyalty to the Jackals a lie. I cared for Remy just as much. I still do.”
A bolt of pain hit me like a bullet at his name. I felt like I hadn’t heard it spoken out loud in forever. I swallowed, burying still the ache in my chest at the mention of him.
“Have you…” I paused and took another breath, forcing my voice steady when I pushed out again, “Have you heard from him?”
Fritz frowned. “No, I haven’t heard a thing since…”
My heart jumped. “Since what?”
He clenched his teeth, looking at me like he wasn’t sure how much he should say.
“Please,” I said, turning to him now. “Please, tell me, Fritz. I won’t get another opportunity to speak to you for a very long time. I need to know.”
“Why?” he asked, looking at me in confusion. “It’s been over four years. I thought you left that behind you.”
“It matters to me.”
“You still got some Stockholm syndrome thing going on?”
I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Mm-hmm,” was his skeptical response.
“Fritz,” I pressed, impatiently. “Tell me what you know.”
“It’s confidential, honey. Shit only the club knows, and as far as I can tell, you haven’t been part of the club in years.”
I felt my chest constrict, that helpless feeling gnawing at the pit of me. It bothered me that he knew something I didn’t about Remy. So much so, I felt a swell of anger cut through me.
“By blood, I’m a Jackal,” I told him in a hard voice, narrowing my eyes at him. “Just like you have your loyalties outside your club, as do I outside mine. Remy meant something to me, Fritz, and I’m in the dark and it’s hard, because I just want to know he’s alright. At least give me that.”
His face softened, that amusement in his eyes trickled out every second that passed between us. Finally, he let out a resigned sigh, and I knew I’d won.
“I think he did jobs,” he said quietly, sweeping the room with his eyes in case anyone was listening. “He wound up in prison for a bit. Did a year long stint.”
“What did he do?”
“Assault. Nothing too serious. Went to a rough place, though.”
“Was he okay?”
Fritz smirked. “This is Remy we’re talking about. Knowing him, he probably kicked back and relaxed. Anyway, I think he did it for a reason, maybe a job. Which means he needed money.”
“He could have turned to the club for that.”
“He’s not part of the club anymore, Sara. He ain’t coming back. After he got out, he disappeared off the radar again. He was hiding, we weren’t looking. Edge didn’t want to waste time looking for someone that didn’t want to be found.”
“Doesn’t Edge care that he’s okay?”
He raised a brow, looking at me wryly. “Sara, Edge is the president of our club. Before him was Manny, and Remy took care of him for his betrayal. Technically Remy should be in Edge’s place right now, and he can take his place any second he pleases because we’d vote him in without blinking an eye. To Edge, Remy’s a major threat, so we don’t talk about him much anymore. We don’t even need to. Edge is doing his job just fine, and the guys love him.”
When I didn’t respond, he sighed. “I guess my point is, you gotta let go of him once and for all. Every time I talk to you it leads straight to him. It’s not healthy.”
I knew that. It just sucked thinking he was alone, away from the only family he knew, all because of what I did.
“I know that,” I muttered, unable to meet his eye. “I shouldn’t be thinking of him at all after what he did.”
“He made a lot of mistakes when it came to you.”
“I should hate him.”
“With all due respect,” Fritz said, sternly, “you didn’t know much about Remy. You never gave him the time to open to you. If you had, things might be a little clearer to you. It’s too late for that, anyway. Move on, Sara.”
It wasn’t that I hadn’t moved on. It was that Remy had been part of my life in a big way. He had looked out for me for years before I’d even known of his existence.
I sighed, shutting my eyes briefly. “I guess I just hoped…I hoped he’d come back and be part of the club. Not wandering out there alone, with no direction.”
Fritz gave me a long look, and then he smirked slowly. “Sara, not all who wander are lost. Keep that in mind, okay?”
I raised a brow, my suspicions high. “You know something else I don’t?”
He just stared at me for a long moment, his lips pressed into a thin line. I could feel there was something else. I gave him a pleading look, but he shook his head at me. Now I really needed to know.
“Tell me,” I pushed. “I don’t get this opportunity to talk to you often, Fritz, so tell me what you know.”
“It’s not for me to talk about, Sara. Edge forbids any mention of Remy –”
“Tell Edge I want to speak to him. I have the right to know.”
“Edge would never talk to you after what you did.”
“Tell him he owes me.”
“Owes you?”
“He wouldn’t be where he is if it weren’t for what I did.”
Fritz went still, his gentle features turning dark. “What you did was fuck an entire club up, Sara. You drove him out –”
“And it was awful, but I did it, and Edge wouldn’t be on his throne without my help. He should be talking to me regardless anyway. He knows what he is to me. So, you tell him that.” I was playing dirty. Being nasty was all I had left to get any closer to the truth.
Fritz was pissed. “Does your man know you’re out pleading to know what happened to his old competition?”
My shoulders sagged, and I sighed wearily. “There was never any competition, Fritz. Jaxon was it for me all along.”
I had a feeling Fritz knew that. He was just angry because of what I said. I wanted to take it back, but I wanted to know about Remy more. Maybe what I said was the wrong approach to take, but I didn’t get the opportunity to try again because Logan suddenly appeared from across the room, emerging from the kitchen end of the cafe. He searched the room for Fritz, and when he found us, he paused and gave both of us a curious look, no doubt feeling the tension in the air. He didn’t come any closer, but he gave me a weak wave. At least there were two Jackals that didn’t loathe me. And a third if we were counting Frank, but I never counted him because he was family now. But the rest…Well, the rest would have been happy to burn me alive at the stake.
I responded to Logan with a gentle smile as I quickly looked him over. There was something off about him. I didn’t know if it was because I hadn’t seen him in so long, maybe close to a year since the last time I had run into him in town, but he seemed…tanned and rougher. There wasn’t that playful look on his face he was known for. No, he looked…serious. His eyes were aged, and his body looked stronger but tired at the same time.
I shot Fritz a strange look. “What’s happened to Logan?” I whispered.
Fritz didn’t answer that. He just gave me a long look instead and said, “You take care of yourself, Sara. And be careful what you wish for, darlin’.”
I watched them leave together, already second-guessing myself. Be careful what you wish for. Edge wasn’t a reasonable man. My brief encounters with him were unpleasant. He had a darkness about him that frightened me, but at the same time there was a connection between him and Remy I didn’t know. I knew there had been a falling out at some point in their lives, but I didn’t know what the reason was.
Fritz was right, I realized.
There was a shit ton about Remy I would never understand.
Thirty-Eight
Jaxon
Jaxon’s body was thrumming. He felt himself shake. Fritz had revealed some ser
ious fucking truths.
Fritz and Logan.
The black gates of the Jackal compound opened for them, and Jaxon rode through on his bike. Damien followed closely behind. They parked their bikes and hopped off. Barge, the club’s Treasurer and still large as ever, was already out and waiting by the entrance door. They thought Jaxon was here to talk business, but there was more on his agenda, and he needed to speak with Edge.
They walked in, greeting the club on their way to Edge’s office. Fritz pretended he didn’t give a fuck, Rita was nowhere to be seen, the boys were already drinking and...Jaxon had to do a double take.
Was that…
“Christy?” he said.
She was relaxing by the pool table, talking to one of the guys. She heard her name and looked at him. She froze for a moment, and then she nodded pleasantly.
“Why is she here?” Jaxon wondered.
“We took her in just recently,” Barge explained. “She said she needed a fresh start.”
Jaxon decided he didn’t want to know. This club loved their drama.
“So what else does this have to do with?” Barge asked, looking at him peculiarly as he led him into Edge’s office.
“It has to do with my wife,” Jaxon answered without reservation.
“What about your wife?” Edge sounded out, seated behind the desk. His blond hair was longer than before. He was still ripped, still a tank, and still angry as ever, but maybe that was just for show. Maybe there was a kinder side to him the club was privy to. After all, if he really was such a cunt to be around, they’d have knocked him off his throne.
“First of all,” Jaxon said, “you should be nicer to my wife. Just because the club has a problem, it doesn’t mean you get to skirt out of your obligations.”
Edge just stared at him. “I don’t want to even talk about that right now.”
“Is this because you tried to pick her up that one time –”
“Please, Jaxon, I ain’t gonna talk about that fucked up shit, alright? How was I supposed to fucking know? It’s like Jerry Springer shit, okay? Moving on now. What the fuck do you want that you couldn’t wait to ask for?”