Page 114 of Jax
And I was already moving toward the war it called for.
26
Stella
“Tell them.”
Jax’s voice didn’t shake or rise or soothe. It cut through the air like a ritual blade meant for sacrifice. And I was what he laid on the altar.
The kitchen air was thick, like breathing through molasses. The refrigerator hummed behind me, a low, relentless drone underscoring the silence. Wood creaked under boots I wouldn’t look at. Someone cracked their knuckles, probably Niko, pacing slow and sharp, like a soldier circling ground he no longer trusted.
I sat frozen, hands folded in my lap, fingers pressing into my thighs deep enough to bruise. I didn’t look up. Not yet. Because if I did, I’d break. And if I broke, I might not come back.
Jax was beside me, his posture unreadable. Not loose or tense. Just there. Heat at my side. He didn’t shield or speak, or make excuses. He simply stayed, and that stillness, his weight, his quiet, was the only reason I hadn’t fled.
They were all here. Carrick stood with his arms crossed, his shoulders tight with a storm that hadn’t chosen whether or not to break yet. Sully leaned against the far counter, trying for ease,but his eyes were sharp. Deacon didn’t move at all, ancient and unmoving in his silence. Niko shifted like friction personified, boots whispering as he circled the hardwood. Bellamy stood near the doorway with arms crossed in front of her chest, a fortress drawn in flesh and fabric. Maddy was beside her, wide-eyed and unsure.
Every person in that room had trusted me, and I had lied to them all. Now they were waiting for a story I had never wanted to tell.
I pulled a breath into my chest, shallow, cracking at the edges, and finally let the words out. “There was a voice,” I said, and the sound of it felt rusted, corroded from the inside. “At the station. Not someone I could see. Just a voice, through the intercom. It felt like they’d been waiting for me.”
No one spoke, but I saw Jax’s hand twitch against his thigh.
“Quinn put me in this room,” I went on, my fingers curling tighter. “Nothing but white walls. A bolted table. Fluorescents that buzzed like hornets. He had to leave to process some paperwork or something. Then the voice came. Clear. In control. Like this wasn’t their first time. They told me… they told me that they’d kidnapped my sister, and I had to do whatever they wanted if I wanted to see her alive again.”
Still, no one interrupted, but the shift was clear. Deacon leaned in slightly, his eyes sharpening. Niko stopped walking. Sully’s jaw tensed.
“They told me exactly what was going to happen, and what I was supposed to do. That I’d be brought here. That the police were housing witnesses off the record. That the location was classified, and the people they were holding there were important to the Dom Krovi. They said that if I could find it, escape, and report back, they’d let my sister go.”
That word, sister, hit harder than anything else. The room froze around it. Even Jax went somehow more still beside me, and I hadn’t thought that was possible.
“Her name is Violet,” I said. “She is a few years younger than I am, and my best friend. She helps me with anything I need, keeps me organized, and sort of runs my studio. Or at least, she did. Before… before all of this.”
Carrick’s voice came, hard and immediate.
“You sat at our table. Ate our food. Slept under our roof. And you didn’t think to mention there was another goddamn target out there?”
My spine jolted with the hit, but I didn’t shrink. I couldn’t afford to.
“I didn’t know who to trust,” I said tightly. “You think I walked in here with a checklist of allies? One of the men whotookme wore a badge. Auniform. You tell me how I’m supposed to know who’s real and who’s just wearing the right costume.”
Niko turned toward me, voice low and cold.
“You had actionable intelligence. Something that could’ve saved us days of blind digging. We’ve been following whispers, trying to trace the Dom Krovi’s moves, and you were sitting on a thread that could’ve connected the whole damn web.”
“I was trying to keep heralive,” I said, louder now. “Not play informant. Not throw darts at a wall hoping they wouldn’t bounce back and hit me. I was trying to keep my only goddamn sister breathing.”
Sully’s voice broke through next, softer, but heavy. “Easy, guys. She’s not wrong. She didn’t know who we were. Hell, half the timeIforget who we are.”
Deacon didn’t say anything yet, just studied me like I was a problem to solve. Like he wasn’t sure if I was the key to the puzzle, or the part that would blow it apart.
I stared at the table, jaw clenched, eyes burning with shame I didn’t want them to see.
Then Jax spoke. Not softly. Not cruelly. Just truth, stripped bare.
“She didn’t know who to trust,” he said, heat simmering beneath the words. “Her captor wore a badge. That warps your compass. It doesn’t matter what’s in our files, or how safe we think we are. To her, we could’ve been just more wolves dressed like sheep.”
He glanced at me, brief but weighted. A flash of calculation, pain, pride, and loyalty. The twitch of his jaw said the rest. Then he turned back to them.
