“Not that I don’t wish I could,” he continued. “If not for the kid, then at least for his old man.”
“You were his friend, right?” Lena asked, and Artie nodded his head.
“Now Nathan Monroe was a stand-up guy,” Artie said. “He would have led the charge.”
“Okay. So then that’s what we’re going to do.”
She was on her feet, the gun nearly back in her hand when Artie was at her side, shaking his head. “But it ain’t me, Lena. And the odds are not stacked in our favor. Only thing to do now is---”
“Is what?” she asked. “Run?”
Artie struggled to force the words out, and Lena kept her stare fixed on his eyes. “It’s the only thing I can do for the kid now,” he said. “For both of you. I promise I’ll get you somewhere even safer.”
“Because you did such a bang up job the first time,” Lena hissed.
“We were working on the fly,” he said. “But now that the crew’s got their head turned in the other direction, I’ll make it right. Hell, I’ll even get old Sully out of Deerfield once the dust has cleared.”
“And then what?” Lena asked. “What happens then?”
“You try to get on with the rest of your life,” Artie said. “Maybe even go back to school or whatever.”
School? How could she even think about finals and parties when she had seen the lengths to which Jax would go and the consequences of her secret shame? How could she even breathe if there was no chance he would make his way back to her side?
“Not happening,” she said as she pushed away from him and snatched the gun from the porch. Charging into the safe house, Artie’s arms flailed behind her, but she returned to the bedroom and rested Jax’s pistol against the rumpled sheets. Feeling bold, she stripped Jax’s tee from her body, and Artie hid his face in his hands as she dressed quickly. “Problem, Artie?” she asked as she tugged her skirt over her thighs. “Like you’ve never seen a naked lady before.”
“Not the kid’s lady,” he said.
“That’s right,” she said. “I’m with Jax. And there is no way in hell that I’m just leaving him now.”
Hoisting her bag over her shoulders, she grabbed the gun again and moved back to the door when Artie caught her wrist in his hands and turned her back to his side.
“What do you think that you’re going to do here?” he asked. “Gonna go all gun’s blazing and race to his rescue?”
“I’m going to try,” she said as she pushed him away and carefully stuffed the gun in her waistband. “Because I couldn’t live with myself if I just left him dangling in the wind.”
Backing away from Artie’s protests, she spied his bike and started to mount when she realized that she needed one more thing from Artie. “Hand over the keys,” she said.
“Lena, no! No way I’m letting you ride off without me.”
“Then come with. Make yourself useful.”
Artie’s eyes sparkled around the possibility, and Lena impatiently tapped her toes to the ground. When his hesitation was more than she could stand, Lena spied his keys poking out of his pocket and took hold.
“Too long,” she said.
But before she could get back on his bike, Artie easily wrestled the keys from her grasp. “I’m not letting you do this!” he said. “Not on my bike at least.”
Could she take him? Pound her small fists to his chrome dome and literally take off like a thief in the night? She could always use the gun, but that wasn’t her, not some coldblooded killer. Lena pressed the keys back into his palm and grumbled her frustration. “Then I’ll walk,” she said. “Thanks so much for all the help, Artie.”
His voice and nothing else hit her back as she stomped her way down the path of Jax’s departure. It would take longer this way. Maybe too long. And there was the sudden fear that she might run into Eric and his boys before they found Jax. What move would she make then? Duck and cover, or pass her body into their clutches. Even if Artie were strong enough to lay his life on the line for his so-called friend, Lena could do more. She would submit and throw Eric Stiles off the scent for as long as she could stand it. And when she saw Jax again…
Would she be damaged beyond repair? Would he even want her anymore? But it was still a chance, one she had to take, and she started to hit the road when her head turned at the sound of a bike roaring towards her back? Eric? Already. Jesus…
Lena pulled the gun from her waist and took aim again when she spied Artie speeding into view. Her jaw dropped open, and she held her breath as he lingered by her side and sadly shook his head.
“I hope I live to regret this,” he muttered.
“You will, Artie.” Lifting her body to the bike, she wrapped her arms around his waist. Not as taut and smooth as the lines of Jax’s body, but he felt brave even as she reached up and felt his pounding heart.
“So we’re really doing this?” he asked, the crack in his voice suggesting he would still take a way out of the one that she had to offer.
“I’d do anything for him,” she said. “Now ride.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Aggie listened with unblinking eyes and a few moans here and there. Jax didn’t skimp on the details. Lena’s violation always stayed at the forefront of his mind, and even though he could sense Lena didn’t want to talk about it any more times than once, Jax allowed his mind to fill in the gory blanks. He had seen what Eric could do if he wanted a girl against her will, and even now he shuddered to think of Lena being subjected to such treatment when he had no hope of helping her. Now would be different. It just had to be.
“So… Stiles took advantage of your woman?” Brutus asked, his fists as his sides and seemingly reserved for Eric if the man ever had the misfortune to cross his path.
“She wasn’t exactly mine then,” Jax confessed. “Kind of just my best friend.”
“Friend?” Aggie asked.
“Lena… you would like her, Mom,” Jax said. “Never judged me. Always made me feel like I was worth something.”
“Because I didn’t.”
Jax’s anger was still ripe, but he bit it back and kept it at bay as he saw firsthand how she had suffered. First her husband. Then her son. What else would Eric Stiles take away from her if the demon were given half the chance? “No more of that now,” he said. “And I’m not so pure. She ran, too, and I didn’t get it. Like I didn’t get it with you, Mom.” Aggie started to apologize when Jax took his mother into his arms and pressed his lips to her ear. “But I understand it all now,” he said. “And there’s no way this asshole is hurting any of my women ever again.”
Tears finally left Aggie’s eyes as she rested her chin to her son’s chest. Jax stroked her back and sighed into her shorn hair.
“Not such a little man anymore, Mom,” he assured her. “Time to put the bastard in his place.”
Aggie’s relieved tears trailed down his chest, and he spied Brutus moving out of the corner of his eye. He retrieved the fallen ice, already melting from the ground, and nursed the wounds he had inflicted as he grunted.
“Always heard that he was a sick fuck,” Brutus said. “And not just from Aggie either.”
Suddenly sensing a strange camaraderie with the man who had tried to do him in, Jax kept talking when Brutus pressed his hand into the air and cocked his head to the side.
“He did your girl like that?” he asked. “And you’re only here now?”
“I didn’t know,” Jax confessed. “She kept it quiet to keep me safe.”
“And now that you got the lay of the land, you’re thinking there’s another way.”
“No question about it,” Jax continued. “Maybe I didn’t see what he did to Lena, but I see it in her eyes. And I’ve loved her for most of my life. Have to help her now.”
“Of course you do.” Aggie pulled away from and stared to pinch his cheek. She stopped short at the sight of the swelling still crossing his face and folded her hands in her lap. “So let’s make something happen,” she said. On h
er feet and offering her hand, Jax took it slowly and basked in the feel of her fingers curling tightly around his. “We got our own chief,” she said. “And he listens to me on all things, little man.”
Aggie led him from the room, and Jax held his mother’s hand tighter and suddenly felt grateful to have Brutus at his back as they stepped through the farmhouse. The other Silver Horses still regarded him cautiously, but Viv gave him a bright smile as she pointed the way to a darkened room.
“So it’s him?” a voice asked. “After all this time?”
Aggie stepped to her son’s side, and she clung to his arms as she lengthened to her full height. “Like a miracle, Milo,” she said. “Let’s say you get a good look at my boy.”
The stranger turned around in his swivel chair, and Jax waited without words as he saw a sculpted face stretching below a fine patch of fine brown hair. The man leaned across a desk and tapped his fingers together as he looked Jax up and down. “You’re boy in the flesh,” Milo said. “Even kind of looks like you, Aggie.”
She nodded her head and gripped his arm tighter as she relayed the series of events that had brought him here. Milo listened without any eye contact, and just when Jax feared he would lose the battle before he had a chance to truly fight, he pulled away from his mother’s hold and dared to grip Milo’s collar.
“Watch it.”
Jax heard Brutus pulling a gun from his side and pushing the weapon into the open air. Even his mother’s pleas might not be enough to save him, but he kept his hands on Milo’s leather as he peered into his eyes.
“I mean you no harm,” Jax insisted. “All I want is some help.”
“Help?” Milo asked.
Jax swallowed hard before he was able to continue. “Eric Stiles needs to be put down like the dog that he is. But I can’t do this in house. Too many men are like loyal to him or scared or what the fuck ever.”
“Nathan must be rolling around in his grave,” Aggie murmured.
He turned his head over his shoulder and tried to speak up for his father’s afterlife when he suddenly knew he just couldn’t make the call. Because Nathan Monroe’s bare bones would always rattle if they didn’t make the move.
“Then it’s high time that we took it all back,” Jax said. Facing Milo again, Jax took a deep breath. “End of the day? It’s my club and my patch. And I’m fucking sick and tired of seeing it with shit dripping down all of our backs. My dad never would have wanted that.”
Aggie whimpered as she clung to her son’s back, and the pair of them turned their eyes to Milo as he stroked his chin and seemed to carefully consider the request.
“So what do you propose to do?” Milo asked.
Jax sighed in relief before he continued. “I need a crew at my back,” he said. “Firepower to take him down. All I ask is Deerfield and Lena’s safety.”
“Lena?”
“His lady friend,” Aggie offered, and Milo laughed.
“Doing all this for a piece of tail?”
Fighting back the need to pound him into the floor, Jax sighed heavily and lowered his head. “She’s the woman I love,” Jax said. “The only one I’ll ever want. So yeah. Help me have that, and I won’t fight you on the rest.”
Milo cocked his head to the side, and Jax sank into the feel of his mother’s hand and waited for Milo to render his verdict. He looked to Brutus, and the big man barely nodded his head before Milo left his chair and stepped around his desk. “Big man that gives up what he doesn’t have with one hand as he offers the world with the other.”
Some truth to that. But if he had a little bit of help, he could make all of them happy under the weight of one word. “It’s mine,” he said. “By right of birth and the patch.”
“That’s what nearly got you into all kinds of trouble,” Milo said.
“But it’s also what got me close to you,” he said.
Reaching into the heel of his boot, Jax found his knife. Aggie’s yells harmonized with those of Brutus as he pointed the tip of the blade towards Milo’s face. But just when he was on the point of slicing the man’s flesh, Jax pushed his knife into the desk, the handle right there for anyone who dared to grab it first. Milo made the move, and as he twirled the knife around his fingers, Jax knew the tip could hit his heart as any time.
“Cut me,” Jax challenged. “Smoke out all my secrets. Maybe you wanted to take Deerfield on your own. But wouldn’t it be so much---?”
Milo brought the blade to Jax’s neck and licked his lips. “Would be easier,” he confessed. “Let’s hear what you have to say.”
Milo gestured for Jax to sit before his desk, and as Jax settled in the chair, his mother’s hand still on his arm, he maintained his focus.
“I’ll tell you where he hides and everything that he had planned,” Jax started. “Up until like two days ago, he trusted me.” He lifted his gaze to meet his mother’s eyes. “Playing the right role, Mom.”
Aggie nodded as she looked to Milo.
“He’ll know it if anyone does,” she said. “Think of how much fun it could be to smoke him where he stands.”
Milo’s lips lifted into a smile at the idea, and he was on the verge of lifting his hand when the sound of a motor started to roar towards the farmhouse. “What the---?”
“Good question, Brutus. You?”
Despite Aggie’s objections, Milo pressed the knife into Jax’s back. “Maybe you aren’t being straight with me,” Milo said. “Let’s say we see who’s on your tail.”
Pressing his hands into his air, Jax focused on his mother’s eyes. Was it all about to go south right now, just when he nearly had Milo eating out of the palm of his hand? As he passed through the main room and caught the shine of a million glares, only Viv’s eyes were kind in the space of the throng, and Jax tried to think of a way to spin this if Eric were back and ready to do battle. Should he play it like he was a plant or sic the Silver Horses on his former crew with no though of blood spilling around his boots?
“Got ‘em!”
The motor came to a stop, and Jax nearly leaned into the feel of the blade at his back when he saw two burly men dragging two captive figures closer into view.
“Artie?”
The bald man fell to the ground, and he crawled through the dirt, barely managing to take Jax by the arms as he strained to his knees.
“Kid,” he croaked. “She said she had to find you. Because I---”
“Lena! Where is she?”
Pushing away from Artie, his heart stopped at the sight of Lena’s body being dragged through the dirt. There were no hands reaching up her skirt or down her blouse, and for that he was thankful. It meant they were in better company at long last. But when their eyes locked, he could still see her trembling, and Jax fell to her feet and gathered her legs in his arms.
“Stop it!” he cried. “She’s what I’m fighting for.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lena had worried during the whole ride that she might be too late, that Eric had beaten them to the punch before she had a chance to save him. Just seeing him was nearly enough to allay her fears, but as soon as she heard the click of a trigger and felt a gun at her back, she whimpered and struggled to find his eyes.
“Maybe it’s all a fairy story,” Brutus said. “Timing seems just a bit too precious.”
An older woman tried to protest, and as Lena felt Jax’s body dragged away from her side, she fell into his chest and hid his head under her arms as she peered up at the men that seemed ready to tear them apart at the first chance.
“Timing is everything,” Lena spat. “Looks like he needs me now.”
Fearing the end might be at hand despite Jax’s best efforts, Lena leapt up and clung to his neck. As soon as she felt him under her arms again, tears of joy and relief sprang to her eyes. Kissing his skin, she started back as soon as he flinched. And she took note of his bruises. “Oh my God,” she moaned. “What happened to you?”
“It’s nothing,” Jax assured her as he fell into the
feel of her hand. “Hardly hurts at all now that I see you again.” Bringing his bruised lips to hers, he kissed her lightly when they were pulled apart again, a scarred man forced Jax to his face as he flicked a knife into his face.
“And like magic your little girl, your best friend just shows up to confirm your story?” he asked. “And what about this one?”
He kicked Artie hard, and Lena’s soul shattered at the sound of his moan. Suddenly hating the fact that she had dragged him into the breach without his wanting, Lena fell to the bald man’s side and seized his shoulders as she stared into scarred man’s eyes.
This Savage Love: A Bad Boy Romance Boxed Set Page 15