Page 20 of Jax
She laughed, short and real. “Less stubborn? You broke into a federal database at sixteen. They probably had a point.”
I grinned. “I wasn’t caught.”
“You were recruited, which is kinda the same thing.”
“Semantics.” The corner of my mouth pulled a little sharper because the memory lived bright. The northern side of Tallahassee felt like a different state when you were born into it—hotter, quieter, and with rules that made less sense. I’d learned early that some doors stayed closed unless you picked them. When I was seventeen, I picked Kane’s.
Kane had been twenty-four, already dangerous in ways that put other men at ease because the danger was on their side. Tatum—Edge now—was twenty-two with green eyes that lookedat you like he’d already built the rifle that would end your day if you needed it ended. Drift was the same age, quiet where the other two were loud, with fists like anchors and a jaw like he’d carved it with his own hands. They weren’t a club yet.
I’d slipped past a firewall Kane paid a contractor too much to build, left a note that read do better, and went about my night. The next afternoon, all three stood on my parents’ porch while I tried to look like I was not home, not me, and definitely not the kid who moved through code like it was air. My mother had answered the door and gone pale at the sight of men who looked like trouble but smelled like the kind that paid cash and didn’t apologize. My father came down the hall with his jaw hard.
Kane didn’t chew me out. He asked me questions. Two minutes into the answers, he hired me.
He also made me finish high school. No negotiation. I still heard his voice in my head sometimes, “You don’t get to be vicious and stupid. Pick one.”
I attended class in the morning and spent the afternoon in a back room at a warehouse, learning systems that were so old they should have been in museums and systems that were so new they felt like rumors. Kane and Edge split time between Tennessee and Crossbend back then, but Drift only lived half an hour south. We hung out more and more, ate cheap pizza, and wrote bad code, then fixed it until it wasn’t bad anymore. When I left my parents’ house at eighteen, I moved into his spare room. And when Kane and Edge made Crossbend permanent, we did too.
My parents didn’t like it. They liked me not getting arrested, but they didn’t approve of the men who made sure I didn’t. Things got quiet and brittle until they broke. When I patched with the Redline Kings, they forbade Alanna from seeing me. She ignored that order more than she obeyed it, but we learnedthe rhythm—quiet meets, careful texts, and holidays threaded like wires through a wall.
“You’re far away,” Alanna observed now, reading my face like she always had. “Want to come back?”
I exhaled, a slow pull that loosened something between my shoulder blades. “Always.”
She shook her head, hair slipping loose from her bun, and leaned against the car again, like it might hold her steady. The last rays of the sun caught the curve of her cheek, painting her in the same gold that set the pines on fire. For a second, it almost looked like peace.
Her voice dropped quieter, and she sighed. “I miss this. I miss you. I hate that we have to meet like this—out in the middle of nowhere like it’s some big secret.”
My chest pinched. I shifted my weight, crossing my arms again, jaw working tight before I forced it loose. “I know. But I’m not giving our parents one more reason to hate me. If this is how it has to be, we make it work.”
She bit her lip and looked down. “It feels like I’m already losing them.”
I didn’t answer right away. Couldn’t. Because I’d seen it too—the way our parents grew colder the longer I wore the cut, the deeper I sank into the Kings. Alanna was still theirs, but the leash was tightening. One day, it would choke her, and she’d have to cut it herself. I saw the flicker of it in her eyes now.
“Then that’s on them,” I said finally, voice low. “Not you.”
Her throat bobbed like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t. She just looked at me for a long second, soft gray eyes steady.
She tipped her head toward my bike, her glasses flashing the last smear of light. Her lips tipped up in a clear attempt to lighten the mood. “You couldn’t have picked a coffee shop? Somewhere with air-conditioning? I look like humidity is my personality.”
“You look like you’re late for new tires.”
She kicked lightly at my boot toe. “If your strategy is to nag me until I love you more, it’s working.”
“Not a strategy. A lifestyle.”
“Uh-huh.” Her mouth softened, eyes scanning my face. “You look tense. More than usual.”
“It’s been a week,” I answered, keeping it vague.
“Work?” she pressed, not letting it go.
I shrugged, aiming for casual and hoping to change the direction of the conversation.
She tilted her head, not buying it. “You’ve always been a terrible liar.”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m serious, Jaxton.” Her voice cut sharp enough that I looked at her again. “Something’s going on. What is it?”
