Page 26 of Jax
I paused at the side of the bed, looking back at her. Her hair had come loose in the night, fanned across my pillow, her lips parted as she breathed slow and deep. Peaceful. As though she was unaware that the world beyond this room had teeth and claws aimed straight at her.
I dragged on my jeans, shoved my feet into my boots, and palmed the phone before slipping out into the hall. The clubhouse was quiet at this hour, the silence broken only by the hum of the air system and the faint creak of wood as the building settled. I ducked into the side corridor and thumbed the encrypted call back.
The line clicked, then a voice I hadn’t heard in over a year came through, low and tight. “Bishop.”
“Henley.” I leaned against the wall, keeping my tone flat. “You don’t text unless you’ve got something heavy.”
“You always were quick,” she muttered as papers rustled on her end.
Special Agent Henley Roebel, DOJ cyber division—though not officially. She and I had done work together back when I was still half in the system, half out. We’d run parallel tunnels: me as a “civilian contractor” doing jobs the government didn’t want their names on, her as the woman who made sure my invoices didn’t vanish in red tape. Off-the-books, plausible deniability, all that shit. Eventually, she’d gone straight. I hadn’t.
“Listen. I saw a log this morning that made me sit up. You’ve been busy.”
I ground my teeth. “Define busy.”
“Don’t play, Jax. A week ago, someone dug deep into Carly Nolan’s sealed file. Not the alias—the real one. That dig wasn’t just a shadow trace. It left a fingerprint. Yours.”
Cold slid through my gut. I kept my voice steady anyway. “What the fuck?”
“Look, there are probably only a handful of people in the world who would recognize it, but I’ve seen your work for years. The thing is, you’re not the only one who noticed. The marshals aren’t the problem anymore.” Her voice dropped. “The door you opened, I think someone else walked through behind you.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. Look, I’ve been trying to scrub traces, but this was a wide net. And someone was watching it.”
For a second, silence crowded in. Just the fan hum in the hall and the muted sound of somebody clattering pans in the kitchen down the hall. My jaw clenched until my teeth ached.
I shoved my free hand through my hair, pressing hard at the back of my skull. “You saying I drew a map straight to her?”
“I’m saying whoever still has a hard-on for that testimony she gave might have caught your scent. If they’ve been monitoring for irregular access, then yeah—Bishop, you might’ve led them right to her doorstep.”
For a beat, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe past the ice in my chest. The exact fear I’d shoved down a dozen times stood in front of me now.
“You’re not certain,” I finally said.
“No. But here’s my advice—keep your fucking head down. Don’t go digging again. And for the love of all that is holy, if you care about this woman, move her somewhere tighter than wherever she is right now. Because if they don’t already have her location, they will.” Henley exhaled into the line. “Don’t leave her alone. Not now.”
The call ended with a sharp click.
I stared at the black screen, my reflection faint in the glass. My jaw locked, and my fist tightened. The silent hall seemed smaller, the weight pressing in from all sides.
I’d been right. The itch in my gut. The nagging thought that it hadn’t just been marshals who’d noticed me poking around. I’d done exactly what I swore I’d never do—put her in more danger.
Son of a bitch!
Forcing myself to breathe slow and steady, I turned and headed back into my room.
Lark was still asleep, curled small under the sheets, hair tangled, one arm stretched across where I’d been. My chest pinched tight. She looked so fucking breakable like that. Too innocent for the shit aimed at her.
I sent a text to Kane, telling him we needed to meet, then I grabbed a pad off the desk and scrawled a note.
Club business. Back soon. Stay here. —J.
Then I set the paper on the nightstand where she’d see it first thing, before standing there longer than I should’ve, just looking at her.
Finally, I tore myself away and left.
Kane’s door was closed,but the light under it carved a bright line across the hall. I didn’t bother with polite. Two quick knocks, then I pushed in.
