Page 41 of Jax

“A Black Jack.” The man sighed, the lilt he had matched the intruder. From the name the girl gave, I was assuming that my earlier guess was correct, and both men were Russian.

A black jack? Like the playing card?

“It’s not the one I found in Portland. I’ve been keeping tabs on him, and he’s still hanging out in the city,” the smallest of the men said from the other side of the room, his expression not once changing since he had waltzed in the door. He ran a hand through his short blond hair.

“Then his friend must be the one. He works fast,” the Russian grunted.

“His word travels faster,” the pretty blonde man said. I recognized him as the one who had come with the big Russian man to visit Jax this morning.

“His actions are the quickest,” the petite woman quipped, her eyes jumping to me. It was the first attempt at humor—if that’s what it was—I’d seen since this whole thing began.

It mustn’t have gone down well, however, as not a second later, the door to the back slammed open, and I turned just in time to see the sole familiar face disappearing out of it.

The blonde got up from her seat to go after him but was halted. The Russian man’s hand came down on her shoulder, pushing her back in her seat. Dark, brown eyes turned from her blue glaring ones and settled on me.

He didn’t say a word.

I tried to hold his gaze, but the man was intimidating and my best attempts to return it faltered. They lowered to where a small scar ran over his crooked nose, not wanting to wonder where he got it. When the man’s eyes still didn’t move from me, I began to rise from my seat. “I suppose I should go after him?” I said, looking for confirmation.

Nobody said anything. They just stared as I headed toward the door. When nobody stopped me, I slipped out the door, closing it firmly behind me, and breathed in the humid night air.

Do they all have to be cryptic?

My boots made noise as grit worn into the rubber grooves fell through the wooden cracks to the earth beneath. Jax leaned over the old, wooden railing, his leather stretching across the cresting expanse of his back as the light from inside of the house illuminated the worn motorcycle patch.

Black Angels MC.

Fellpeak, OR.

Eyes tracing the cursive white letters, I waited for Jax to make his move. The tension rippling off him had my feet still on the worn, wooden panels, listening to the sound of distant mosquitos and crickets echoing from the darkness.

His sigh made me jump.

Pushing off his elbows, he turned to face me. I was shocked to see his expression. He looked…defeated. It was so strange to see emotion on him that I almost had to look twice to see if it was really him. His terse frown from earlier was gone, and in its place, his soft dark eyes were washing over me bit by bit.

He took a step toward me, his hand reaching up to my face, enclosing around my fingers. “Stop rubbing it,” he breathed, pulling my hand away from my cheek. I hadn’t even realized I was doing it, surprised as I felt his calloused palm brush against the smooth outside of mine as he lowered it to my side. He held it for a moment and I seized the opportunity to study his face up close.

Where the warm light had sharpened my intruder earlier, the contrast seemed to soften Jax’s harsh features. With a face made up of so many edges and angles and leathered wrinkles around his eyes, it was hard to see the soft roundness of his lips, chin, and nose. Nor the way his shoulders were narrow, or the way his muscles seemed leaner and tighter to his body, all of it allowing him the advantage of speed and agility over strength, winning him many trophies and hearts alongside them in his youth. I couldn’t help but wonder what it earned him now.

“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling me out of my studying. Dark curls of hair slipped from behind his ear. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s not your fault,” I whispered back, shaking my head. “I came here knowing full well what your gang was. I’ve seen the news articles on you and them. I knew danger was a possibility when I came to you.”

When the man earlier had asked me who the message was for, it wasn’t hard to make the connection, especially with a gang as notorious as the Black Angels, who had come recently under the wing of the infamous Grim Reapers along with their neighboring MC, the Hell’s something-or-other. After their huge feud a few years back, I wasn’t surprised. It seemed bad news followed them wherever they went.

It was a lot of information. But I had a lot of spare time at night over the past year and a half.

“Club,” Jax grumbled, shaking his head.

I frowned, his dark eyes rolling away from me before turning back in quiet amusement. “We’re a motorcycleclub.Not a gang. And what we do might not always be on the best side of the law, but that doesn’t mean we’re bad people, Ron. I want you to know that.”

I felt my brows dip once more, but then they rose as his words sunk in, I studied him. I stared at the new man before me, the one who was watching me with a serious gaze I wasn’t used to seeing on him. The one who had come flying with his friends by his side the second danger arrived, armed and ready to incite violence. The man who, even though hating me, didn’t turn away my plea for help. I witness all that and yet….

“I can’t know that, Jax. Not really,” I whispered. His face transformed with a flat-lipped frown. I pushed my hair away from my face and then gestured down to him. “A long time ago, I knew Jackson. The boy who had a wild heart, who tried his best to be kind and to please. The one who saw a horse as more than just a tool to make money. Who, even though I annoyed the absolute shit out of, never sent me away. Never made me not feel welcome. But you—” I reached out, and for once Jax didn’t move as my hand settled on the warm leather cut on his shoulders. It held tight to the fading warmth of the day and the soft, worn material was smooth against my skin. “—I don’t knowJax, the Black Angel motorcycle member. The bad boy flirt who’s had nearly every girl in town. I don’t know the darkness I saw in your face when you stepped through the door today. You’re a face I no longer know how to read, or the man whose words I always knew were honest. You are someone who I don’t know. A stranger….”

I let my hand slide from his leather, taking a slow step back. He didn’t deny anything I said, and both of us knew I wasn’t wrong. I didn’t want to deny his club, but I also knew that the words of this new man didn’t mean as much to me as they may once have coming from Jackson’s mouth.

“I trust you to keep me safe, Jax,” I said, glancing through the lit window to the tall shadows of hisclubmembers. “I trust you to look after Max. And I trust that you won’t put me in danger on purpose. But whether you’re a good man or a bad one, whether your club is on the better side of the law or not… that’s not up for me to decide. Not anymore.”

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