Page 31 of Jax
And that’s when the guilt came roaring back. Not because of them. Because of Violet. Every second I spent here pretending to belong was a second I wasn’t getting her back.
“I’m gonna head up,” I said quickly, standing before I could overthink it.
“You okay?” Maddy asked.
“Just tired,” I said, forcing a smile again. “Thanks for the war zone manicure.”
Bellamy raised her brows. “Just wait till Maddy wants to do facemasks.”
“I had a fever that day.”
They laughed, and I walked away faster than I needed to, heart thudding, head buzzing. Their laughter clung to me like smoke. I wasn’t here to make friends. Forgetting that, just for a second, could get someone killed.
I waited for the house to settle. Not the artificial quiet people adopt when they think someone’s sleeping, but the deeper hush that sinks in when guards go down and comfort takes over. I lay fully dressed on top of the covers, fingers laced over my stomach like I could keep everything inside if I just held still enough.
The polish on my nails caught a sliver of hallway light. Still tacky. Maddy had done well, all things considered. My hands looked like they belonged to someone who cared.
I stared at the ceiling, then shut my eyes.
The plan I’d made unfolded behind my eyelids. The sliding door downstairs was reinforced and tinted, with an electronic lock that would require a code or blackout to breach. The front door saw too much traffic. The pantry window on the side was small, but I’d squeezed through it once. That wouldn’t happen again.
Upstairs, there was a hallway camera near Deacon’s room with a small blind spot high in the corner by the attic hatch. Jax and Carrick’s doors stayed shut, maybe locked. I hadn’t tried either. Not worth the risk. As for the guards, Deacon walked early, Sully patrolled late. Their shifts didn’t overlap, at least not visibly, leaving maybe a ten-minute window in between. I’d confirmed it tonight. Right after painting my nails.
I rolled to my side. The comforter was still folded. The room smelled like cedar and sterilized dust—untouched, unused, like something meant to be preserved rather than lived in.
My gaze swept the walls automatically. No displaced furniture. No light bounce. No obvious glint from a hidden lens. But I still felt him. Jax. I hadn’t seen him since the night I ran,but his presence lingered under my skin like a bruise that hadn’t fully bloomed.of
I exhaled and dragged my thumb along my thigh.
The outer fence was double-lined. The first layer stood at standard height, with motion sensors disguised as birdhouses and painted to blend with the trees. Beyond that was a clearing, then dense woods, thirty yards deep at minimum. No lights past the boundary, which meant night-vision, or the illusion of isolation.
The laundry room window was still the most viable exit. There was a shallow dip in the terrain behind the garden that might provide brief cover if there weren’t aerial feeds. I hadn’t confirmed whether the outermost line was reinforced.
My nails bit into my palm, just enough to anchor me.
Even under all that planning, past the layered logic and tactical grind, something pulsed beneath the surface. Something raw.
Violet.
She felt further away tonight. Maybe because I’d let myself laugh. Maybe because I let them be kind to me. Maybe because I’d stopped thinking about her for a moment, and that felt like betrayal.
I sat up slowly, elbows to knees, hands to face. The room was too still. Too deliberate. Like someone had tried to make it livable. I hated that it worked.
“If I stay too long,” I whispered, “I won’t want to leave.”
That was the danger.
Not the cameras. Not the guards. Not the quiet man with glacier eyes who hadn’t spoken since pinning me in the dark.
The danger was in the comfort. The warmth. The illusion that this place could be home.
If I stayed too long, I might start to believe it.
And Violet didn’t need someone comfortable.
She needed someone who could burn the world down to get her back.
8
