Page 52 of Jax

“No way in hell would I give birth to a devil like you,” Kay tutted.

Anna shrugged it off, not denying it before crooking a long red nail my way. “Come on then, Mr. Grey.”

Damn, that is enticing—even if she was my Prez’s old lady and intimidated the shit out of me.

“The boys are waiting for you downstairs.”

Downstairs.Fun time.

Hitting the hallway, I wound around until I came to the last door at the end of a narrow corridor. It was the one area we kept under lock and key, not wanting anyone other than a brother walking into it by accident. It wouldn’t turn out well for them.

I knocked on the door twice, and within a couple of seconds, the heavy metal creaked open with a painful sound.

“This thing needs oil,” I grunted, rubbing my ears.

“Don’t start complaining.” Ripper’s scarred face popped out of the dark from behind the door. “Get in here. Prez is pissed at you.”

“Nice to see you too, beautiful,” I retorted, giving him a cheeky wink. Ripper rolled his eyes.

Had that been Prez, I would be six feet under before I could even take my next breath.

Ripper behind me, we headed down the dark corridor until a square of light at the end caught my attention. I stepped into its reach, my brothers all turning to face me.

“Did y’all call for tall, handsome and—”

“You dicks should just let me go,” the man hissed, interrupting my amazing entrance. “If you don’t there’ll be hell to pay.”

“For the last fucking time.” Pretty spun, growling and pissed off. My eyebrows shot up. “We’re not holding you hostage.”

Pretty was not our calmest member, but he sure wasn’t as hotheaded as most of us, making this behavior fall into the category of his unusual behavioral traits. Must have interrupted his studies.

My eyes went straight to where I saw my best friend and closest brother, Hunter, leaning in one corner of the room, arms crossed, black shirt and cut on tight display over his chest. I swore his little old lady, Mallory, was shrinking his shirts on purpose. My brother was fit, but he wasn’t anywhere near as cut as his tight-ass shirt was making him out to be.

Hunter’s green eyes were dull as they met mine, giving a shrug of his shoulders. Perhaps I had missed out on most of Pretty’s behavior. Shame.

“What’s going on here?” I mused, head-counting the room. “Where’s Prez and Lamb?”

“Meeting with his bosses.” Ripper stepped in behind me, clapping my shoulder, pushing me out of the way to step toward the rude man. “Polo and Jasper also went as backup.” I realized then that he had been the surviving member of the mafia boys we had met at the airfield yesterday.

“And we’re keeping him here because…?” I drawled, looking over his harassed appearance. He was showing vicious and disrespectful behavior to my brothers and despite his young age, he should know not to be rude to his hosts. Not to mention we had no reason to hold him; it was obvious that the shooter had been after both our groups, not just theirs.

“He goes outside, he gets shot. We’ve got no one to corroborate that it was both our groups that were targeted. If our deal doesn’t go through, we don’t get our money and shit starts with the local gangs,” Mint cut in from the other side of the room where Ripper was now taking his place.

“Ah.” I nodded. “Gotcha.”

“You’d have known all this if you didn’t ditch us yesterday at the border,” Ripper chastised, rubbing a hand along the dark growth across his jaw. He said he wanted to soften up his features. I wondered if he hadn’t noticed the big ass scar across his face.

“Yeah,” Pretty tossed in his two cents. “Where the hell did you go, man?”

“I—”

“He’ll answer that later.” A deep, heavy voice came from behind me and from the crisp, Eastern accent, I knew I was screwed.

“Prez!” I whirled, smiling and stepping away from the hulk. Fucker made me feel tiny. “Didn’t see you come up there.”

Wolf flashed me a white, sharp grin through his bearded face, and, fuck, I was man enough to admit it was intimidating. “It’s because I didn’t want you to.”

His wide head looked over my shoulder to where our guest was standing in the cell. “Come with me. You’re going back.”

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