by Jory Strong
But it wasn't all that mattered, it couldn't be, not for her. There wouldn't be another chance to catch the train.
She thought of Jacob with his homemade book. Jacob who'd reminded her of her brother Michael. Who'd also made her dream of what it might be like to stop living as if her life could only truly begin by running back to the place and the family she'd been taken from. Who'd made her consider that Jax and his warren could be home.
Longing swelled, sending ache through her chest and into her throat. She wanted Jax. She wanted to stay with him. She wanted to trust that they could have a future together, but how could she?
I'm yours until I say I'm not.
That wasn't the declaration of a man who viewed her as anything but a possession, a prize for the moment.
Soon he'd get to the bar and learn about Stefan from the spies. She didn't want to believe Jax would trade her, but…
"I'm only his until he says I'm not."
Jax reached the front gate, and the ache in her throat became a burning knot. She pressed a hand to the glass, clung to the sight of Jax until he disappeared into the warren.
"I can't stay," she whispered, hoping that saying the words out loud would beat back the desire to remain.
If she didn't catch the train leaving tomorrow morning, she would never escape New San Jose or the warrens surrounding it. If she didn't catch this train, she would never rejoin the tribe and the family she'd been stolen from.
The train schedules were kept secret to prevent the knowledge from leaking into the warrens and allowing the warlords time to prepare an attack so they could steal the cargo.
She'd risked having her plans exposed by slipping into Stefan's private office during a visit. She wouldn't have that opportunity again.
"I can't stay."
The words sounded stronger this time. They came with a swell of fear and desperation. The longer she delayed, the greater the chance word would reach one of the trackers that she was with Jax. Then escape from the house would only lead to capture.
Her heart tripped into a panicked race at the possibility of being caught, at the prospect that Jax had set guards inside the house to make sure she didn't leave.
She took a deep breath, drew upon the same strength of will she'd used to escape the house that had never been home, and the walled city she'd always considered a prison.
Donning one of Jax's shirts over the green bra and panties, she went to the bedroom door and opened it, exhaled in relief.
The hallway was empty.
She crept forward, stopped at a bedroom door and pressed her ear to the wood.
Hearing nothing, she cautiously turned the knob, pushed the door open.
Enough daylight remained to allow her to scan the room.
It was filled with mechanical parts that shone in the gloom. What clothing she could see belonged to a man.
She closed the door and opened one on the opposite side of the hallway.
A low growl and menacing hiss warned her against entry. Two spotted cats faced her, both of them baring their teeth.
She closed the door, reached the stairway and froze at hearing a woman say, "Come with me, Shell. The best you can hope for if you stay is that Jax'll use you as a fluffer before he goes upstairs to put his dick in her."
"Fuck off, Janice."
"Just trying to do you a favor. You need to get over him and move on to another man."
Eliana's hands fisted. Shell had to be the blonde who'd been in the bar with Jax, the same blonde whose eyes had flashed with jealousy even though she'd had her mouth on another man's cock in the hallway.
"Come party with me," the one named Janice said.
"No."
"Suit yourself."
Footsteps preceded the sound of the house door being opened and closed.
Eliana's pulse pounded furiously in her throat, one beat hope, the next pain.
Shell might help her escape, but more than that, she could tell her how to get to the railroad track.
A flutter went through Eliana's chest. Sharing her destination was a risk but…
I can't afford to get off course with night falling.
Memory of the two would-be rapists created a wave of fear and revulsion. She needed to get to the railway track and find a hiding place for the night.
She forced herself forward, into the stairwell and downward, hoping Shell was alone. There couldn't be witnesses. She didn't think Jax's former lover would help her escape if someone might tell him she'd done it.
The burn returned to Eliana's throat. Ache radiated from her heart.
Get over him, she told herself, just as the woman named Janice had told another of Jax's lovers.
Eliana reached the bottom stair, stepped into the hallway.
The blonde woman she'd expected to see sat on the floor, her back to the wall and knees hugged to her chest, her chin resting on them.
It was too easy to imagine herself in that same position, desperately clinging to the hope that she might return to Jax's bed.
I belong to you until I don't.
Eliana barricaded her heart against pain and longing and took a step forward.
Shell's head jerked up and around.
Hatred blazed in her eyes and she stood.
Eliana waited until she'd reached her rival before saying, "I need to get away from Jax. Will you help me?"
Chapter 13
Jax entered the bar in no mood to dick around. Rand was sitting against a front table, leaned back in a chair with a bottle of white lightning lifted to his lips.
He lowered the bottle and glanced at Luke on a stool with his back to the bar counter. Snagging a silver piece off the table, Rand shot the coin to Luke with a hard flick of his fingers.
Jax didn't ask what the bet was. He didn't have time for that shit. He wanted answers from the spies, and then he wanted answers from Eliana, along with some pain relief that would come in the form of her hands and mouth on his body, her skin touching as much of his as possible. Because the further away from her he'd gotten, the faster the caine had worn off.
The bar was cleared of customers. The only people in the place were his men and the three spies sweating on stools lined up between him and the hallway to the back room.
Playing his part perfectly, Rand said, "I didn't lay out the tarps or take them to the warehouse because I thought you'd probably give them a chance to cooperate in a civilized manner first instead of going straight to the violence."
Jax pulled the gun. "We'll see if you've made more work for yourself or not."
He ejected the magazine, checked it. Made sure the spies saw that it contained at least one bullet, then slapped it back into the gun with a metallic snick.
"I'm not going to waste a lot of time on this," he said.
He was willing to do violence, extreme violence, to keep Eliana. But he didn't think it'd take brutality to get what he wanted from these spies.
The one to the far left already looked close to crapping his pants. All three had heavy sweat stains beneath their armpits.
They were on his turf. If they were never seen again, hell, if their bodies were left in front of a gate, no one from the city would retaliate—and they knew it.
Only the man who'd been in the bar last night might actually be working for one of the elite, not that it made him valuable to his employer. The others had the feel of the poor in every warren, like men doing what they had to do to put food on their family's table and keep a roof over their heads.
Weakest link first. Rand knew his shit and had lined them up in order.
Jax focused his attention on the spy to the far left, a wiry man with a laborer's darkened, leathered skin.
The spy's hands were in constant motion. As soon as his palms reached his knees, they returned to his upper thighs and rubbed along his pants until he got to his knees and did a repeat.
Jax got close enough to smell sweat and a hint of piss.
"Stefan Thorpe," he said, touching the barre
l of the gun to the man's knee.
Movement stopped.
"You recognize the name?"
"Ye-ye-yes."
"Who is he?"
"E-E-Elite."
Jax's mouth hardened. Eliana's voice whispered through his mind, telling him the man she was running from was no one important.
You knew she was lying when the words were leaving her sweet mouth, he reminded himself, hooking a thumb in his belt, the feel of the smooth leather a second reminder. He'd already punished her for that particular lie.
Jax moved the gun to the man's other knee. Immediately the one he'd just left was covered by a twitchy hand.
"What else do you know about Thorpe?"
"No-no-nothing. I sw-swear."
The man's eyes met his, flicked away.
Returned.
Flicked away.
Returned. Held. "Sw-swear it."
Jax believed him, doubted the man in front of him had any purpose other than to carry rumors back to some low-level official or security officer hoping to cash tidbits of information in for a reward or promotion.
Jax stepped to the right.
The second man held himself stiff, sweat rolling down either side of his thick neck. He reeked of burned grease and was still wearing the blood-stained cooking apron he'd had on when he was scooped up.
He'd been put in the warren to collect rumors or create them when given the order. Jax knew he was a plant because it'd taken a payoff for the man to get a job in one of the bars along the square—and that payoff had been duly reported to him by the bar owner.
Now the owner and this man's coworkers noted who he talked to, who he expressed an interest in, and passed it on to Rand or one of the others when they made their rounds.
This man would have heard about the fight between Eliana and Tanya last night, might even have seen it, and Jax's claiming of Eliana afterward.
Nothing could be done about it. Too many witnesses and he had no intention of hiding Eliana.
"Talk," Jax said.
The man licked his lips. "He's got a reputation for always sending others to do his dirty work."
Around them, Jax's men laughed. He did the same, sliding the gun into his front waistband. "Tell me something I don't already know about the elite."
The man relaxed on the bar stool. "True enough. Thorpe's got enemies among the elite. They all do, but him more than most because he's got the Chancellor's ear despite not being from one of the families that civilized New San Jose."
Ask directly about Eliana?
They might not have made the connection between the woman he'd claimed last night and Thorpe.
Ask about her, make that connection for them, and they'd scurry back to their bosses. She'd become a prize with a lot more men coming after her.
Jax stroked the gun butt with his thumb. If he asked, it'd be better to kill these men.
"What else do you know about Thorpe?"
The man shrugged. "He lives in the part of town where the rest of them do. He's got a son."
Jax put his foot on the bottom rung of the stool the man sat on. He leaned forward, pulled the gun from his waistband and rested it casually on his raised knee.
The barrel pointed at the man's well-fed belly. "Who do you work for?"
Sweat popped on the man's forehead and ran downward along red-brown sideburns. He swallowed, swallowed again. "Merati, Peace Force."
Jax's men stirred from their casual positions. Any one of them would be happy to send this man's corpse back to Merati as a message not to interfere in the warrens.
Sweat dripped from the spy's face onto his blood-smeared apron. "I've told you what I know about Thorpe. If you want something in particular, I'll try to get the information for you. I don't have any allegiance to the elite."
Pushing away from the stool, Jax turned to the spy who'd been in the bar when Eliana walked in and sent his world into chaos.
"Who sent you into my warren?"
The man glanced at the other two, started to shake his head, stopped with Rand's sudden appearance at Jax's side, offering a choice of metal knuckles while Asher and Enrique took up positions behind the stool, there to grab and hold.
Jax holstered the gun and picked up the plain knuckles, sliding them on as if for feel before swapping them out for the knuckles built up so every punch was a four-prong attack.
"Easy way or hard," Jax said. "Choose."
The man rubbed his lips. "Beckman."
Jax relaxed. There was no direct working relationship between the warlords and the elite, but his own sources pegged Beckman as a man who profited from the illegal drugs and booze that made it behind the wall.
"We can talk more about him later," Jax said. "Right now I'm interested in Thorpe."
He waved Enrique and Asher away then slipped the knuckles off and handed them back to Rand.
"Anything specific you want to know?" the spy asked.
"Just talk."
The spy rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know much more about him than you've already heard. He's on the railway commission, scheduling cargo I think. First wife died in childbirth. Second wife gave him a son, just the one. She died a year ago. The mourning period just got done with. Rumor is he's got his eye on someone and will be marrying again soon."
"Second wife die of natural causes?" Jax asked, betting the answer was no.
The spy glanced around. Rubbed his mouth, spoke quietly through his fingers. "There's no proof. Never was open speculation. But I overheard Beckman talking to another of the elite and wondering if wife number three was going to prove unlucky. Something in his voice made me think wife number two's dying wasn't an accident."
He looked directly at Jax. His hand fell away from his mouth. "Just my opinion. Not something I'm telling you is true."
Jax nodded. Considered the three men in front of him and whether there was anything else he could squeeze out of them.
He decided there wasn't. What he needed to know right now was what it'd take to end Thorpe's interest in Eliana.
Slipping into the city and killing him would be immensely satisfying, but nearly impossible since Thorpe was one of the elite.
There'd be guards and alarms. It'd take a traitor to get to Thorpe, a name supplied by an enemy.
Diego could get him that name.
Jax's skin iced at the prospect of trusting Diego. That left Eliana.
Eliana might be able to give him the information he needed to keep her safe. She might know Thorpe's weaknesses, be a way to draw a man who didn't like to do his own dirty work out from behind the wall.
Jax's chest tightened. Even to kill a man who deserved killing, he wasn't sure he could put Eliana out there as bait.
He turned his back on the spies and headed for the door.
"Kill them?" Enrique called after him.
Jax paused, decided.
"Put them in the holding room. Make them reasonably comfortable. They don't talk to anybody but one of us until I say otherwise."
"Got it."
Luke peeled away from the bar, joining Rand and Asher for the walk back to the house.
When they passed through the front gates, Rand was the one to say what the others were probably thinking.
"Railway commission, he could arrange for a car to come uncoupled. Protocol is for the train to keep going. By the time the Peacekeepers arrive to guard and recover, the cargo could be ours. Pretty good trade for a woman."
Explosive pressure filled Jax's chest. He told himself Rand was mostly yanking his chain, trying to get him to admit he'd fallen and fallen hard, that Rand was also saying he needed to make Eliana's position clear, so his men understood they'd be expected to lay down their lives for her if a threat came.
But knowing Rand's motive didn't lessen the urge to wheel around and throw a punch, followed by more of them.
Jax kept going without answering, cleared the front door.
"Stay out of my sight," he said over his shoulder to Rand. Because even
if Rand was mostly playing around and asking for solid direction, he was also floating an idea.
Jax headed for the staircase. Took the stairs two at a time, with only Luke behind him, heading toward the room he shared with his woman.
Shell ambushed Jax at the top of the stairs. Wrapped herself around him.
Her hand rubbed a cock that was hard and ready for Eliana. Her mouth touched to his ear, whispered his name in a husky voice that said she'd do anything he wanted.
He peeled Shell off with a ruthless grip and forcefully shoved her away. Time to make things clear. He didn't need Eliana seeing this shit or having to deal with it.
"I've got a woman."
Pain flashed through Shell's eyes.
A hint of guilt surfaced, evidence that Eliana had messed with his insides.
Jax stomped the guilt down. Shell had known the score. Fuck, she was still going down on other men and spreading her legs for them when she was doing it for him.
He turned his back on her and headed toward his room.
"If she's yours," Shell hurled after him, "then when you see her again, tell her I don't appreciate her stealing my things."
Jax felt as if he'd been knifed again, only this time the strike didn't miss his heart and the blade remained, digging in and cutting.
He wheeled around, saw that Luke had stopped and was looking at Shell.
"You're accusing her of stealing?" Jax said, fighting to keep his expression hard so none of the hurt and fear coursing through him showed.
"Whether you want to believe it or not," Shell said, her voice belligerent. "She stole my hoodie and left."
Shell stormed down the stairs. Jax heard her stomping to the front door then slamming out of the house.
He reached his bedroom, entered, and the knife in his heart twisted.
He punched the wall. Punched it again, the pain in his knuckles nothing compared to the pain slicing through his chest.
Blood smeared the wall.
Luke appeared in the doorway, crossed massive arms over his chest. "That helping any?"
"I—"
Jax punched the wall.
"—fucking told her—"
He hit with his left, then his right.
"—that she belonged to me."
He slammed his foot into the wall, stood there, breath coming fast and hard.