Page 6 of Queen of Wrath

How did Jax’s five-foot-nothing, one-hundred-and-fifteen-pound mother get such a large and frightening man like Diesel to jump through hoops for her?

On second thought, maybe it’s best if I don’t know.

A part of him knew that his uncle had always had a soft spot for his mother, even when Jax’s father was still alive, but he hardly wanted to think any deeper on the subject.

He couldn’t remember very much about his father, but he could recall what a borderline hothead he’d been. If his old man had caught as much as a whiff of Diesel sniffing around his wife, he would have shipped the guy out of the family in pieces.

Not that any of that matters now. Diesel got what he wanted. He always seems to do…

“Really, Mama! I don’t want any money. My company is just fine,” Jax insisted, pushing his seething hatred for the man standing next to his mother as far down as he could. “We are simply experiencing some—um—growing pains. That’s all it is.” Jax didn’t want to ask Diesel for a single thing ever again, much less have his mother do it for him. “I just came by to see you.”

“Oh, aren’t you too sweet?” She patted Jax’s cheeks like he was still a child.

The way her eyes dazzled with amazement for her son, Jax didn’t want that look to go away. Ever. He wanted her to keep seeing him the way everyone else did, a successful man capable of conquering the world.

Jax’s eyes flashed to Diesel when Omara wasn’t looking, and though they held contact for a mere second, he made sure his glare conveyed just how much he wanted to skin the other man alive.

The fear Jax had once harbored for his uncle had cultivated into something more like pure, unadulterated disdain lately. He’d come to see Diesel for what he truly was. A parasite.

“If that’s all, then I suppose you better be going now.” Diesel’s voice was calm, but his eyes were threatening.

“What’s the rush?” Omara turned to see Diesel’s expression, and seemed to think better than to push things this time around. She then turned back to Jax, her eyes marked with hesitance, but gave him another hug that didn’t falter in its gentle warmth for an instant—not even now. “Thank you for stopping by, darling. I love you.”

“I love you.” He hugged her back before Diesel saw him out the door.

Once outside and after striding down the quiet street for a while, Jax rubbed his face in frustration.

“Dammit. What the hell am I going to do?”

3

LEA

The room was quiet.

The weight of everyone's disappointment was enough to crush me.

I’d already been working for Jax for two weeks now, and had failed to come across any damning evidence against him. At this rate, I was more likely to be found out before I could dig up anything useful.

“And you said you’ve searched all the levels of the facility?” Rowan asked, turning around with a long stick in her hand. “Emma?”

I was too distracted trying to figure out what the stick was for to answer her right away.

“Lea!” she shouted, and I shot upright in my chair.

“Yes! I told you already. That building is squeaky clean. Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. Is Jax even dumb enough to be doing illegal activity in his own company building?” As I posed the question, another thought came to mind. “Unless…”

Without further explanation, I got to my feet and made my way over to the board where Rowan had pinned a large blueprint of the Ransom building.

“Are you sure this is one hundred percent correct—no errors or changes made since?” When my gaze dragged back to her, Rowan seemed offended by the very question.

“I'm sure,” she said flatly, her features twisted into something I could only describe as haughty distaste. “I'm nothing if not thorough, I’ll have you know.”

I pumped my palms out in apology. “Damn, I’m sorry. I just had to ask.”

I turned back to the blueprint and analyzed it more closely. “I’ve looked everywhere, but if we are going by this blueprint, it looks like there's a whole section underneath the building that has no access point… Not any that I've seen anyway.”

“So, you think there's literally an underground operation going on there?” Rowan crossed her arms and leaned into the blueprint as well, rubbing her chin with her thumb and pointer finger as she studied it more closely. “Hmm…” Then her contemplative eyes flickered to me.

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