Page 101 of Infamous
Jayson glances over, jaw tight, eyes hard. “He wouldn’t dare. Dante Accardi’s name carries more weight in this city than the Twelve Apostles combined.”
“I’ve known men like Graves. There is generally no force on earth that makes them question their power. They don’t concede easily.”
“Neither do we,” he says. “But you need to have your wits about you, Jude. You’re no good to Nadia otherwise.”
He’s right. I know he is. I’ve had more than ten years to cage the thing inside me - to train the beast that lives under my skin, waiting for a reason to bite. I’ve learned to bury it deep, to smilewhen I want to break bones, to keep my rage folded neat and quiet like a weapon hidden under a coat.
By now, I should be a master at control. But the thought of Nadia - alone, hurt, terrified - makes that leash strain and splinter. The monster doesn’t want patience. It wants blood.
Silence mixes with the hum of the road as we drive. My mind won’t stay still - it jumps between plans, anger, and memories. Nadia’s face keeps breaking through the dark, stubborn and bright, like it refuses to fade. I keep holding on to it, to her, because it’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
Jayson shifts in his seat, the leather creaking under his weight. He clears his throat, but the sound that follows isn’t confidence - it’s hesitation. The kind that sits heavy in his chest, thickening the air between us. His jaw flexes once, twice, as if he’s wrestling with words that don’t want to come out, like whatever he’s about to say might cost him something he’s not sure he can give.
“Remember the night of…” Jayson pauses, throat working. He stares at the strip of road ahead like he’s reading a page he never wanted to. “The night I killed Keira’s father.”
Keira - the name knots something raw inside me. It’s a bruise I don’t like to press, but it’s there. The Mayor was a job. Keira was the collateral I didn’t think twice about before I pulled the trigger. I remember the cold rising in my chest when Jayson came out of that house dragging the Mayor’s daughter with him, hair wild, feet bloody, and I wanted the world to end for him - for letting a witness live.
“What about it?” I ask, even though I already know every inch of that night.
“You got so mad when I didn’t pull the trigger.” He gives a short bark of a laugh, one that lands flat in the truck. “You wanted her dead. Said you’d do it if I didn’t.”
I can see it - the memory snaps into place like a cut on film.We should have killed her that night, and part of me wanted it that way because clean kills keep secrets buried. But Jayson couldn’t. He couldn’t make himself do that. He brought her out alive.
“I remember,” I say. The words are small. I don’t know yet where he’s steering this conversation.
His voice drops. For a second he sounds almost like he’s talking to himself. “She’s more broken than anyone knows. More than she ever showed. That day, we almost killed her, Jude. And I - ” He swallows. “I never thanked you for not doing it. For trusting that I could keep her quiet, keep her away from the police. You spared her, and in saving her, you saved me.”
The truck hums. Streetlights smear across his face. He turns that glance my way - something soft, raw. “You let me have her. You trusted me with something I didn’t deserve.”
I should have shrugged. I should’ve deflected. That’s the old way — keep the world at arm’s length, never let it see where you bleed. But his words pull at some place that’s been numb for a long time.
“Some things were meant to be,” I mutter, not sure I believe it. “She chose you, Jayson. She chose this family. She could’ve gone to the police. She didn’t.”
Jayson looks at me then, and for a second the rough lines around his mouth smooth out. There’s a softness in him that surprises me - not weakness, but an honest thing I don’t often get to see. “She did choose me. As much as I chose her.” He taps the steering wheel, like he’s marking a point on a map. “And because she chose me, I got a life I didn’t know I wanted until it happened.”
The sudden memory of Nadia in her kitchen, sunlight on the bone at her collarbone, flashes hot and small behind my eyes. Jayson’s voice steadies. “We all think we’re built for the job. But some of us get lucky. Some of us…find something more.”
I hate the way those words land because he’s right and I know it. Ten years taught me how to lock the beast away, taught me which buttons to press to keep the fury coiled. But that knot in my chest - Nadia - is not something leather straps can hold down. The thought of her small and frightened inside some warehouse makes the leash fray at the edges.
“You helped by trusting me,” Jayson says now, “when you could’ve taken the easy route and just ended Keira. That mattered more than you think.”
“Maybe,” I say, and the word is thin. It’s enough to keep the conversation moving but not enough to forgive myself entirely. The truck eats up the distance and the sky hangs low. Behind us the convoy moves like a shadow with teeth — Mason, Scar, Lucky: all the men who have given me muscle and a reason to keep breathing.
“We will find her,” Jayson says, snapping me out of my thoughts. “We will bring her home. You will get your life back. You will get your ending, whatever that looks like.”
I let the promise sit there between us. The work we’ve done together has carved a kind of hard trust between us. He owes me, and I owe him. In this life, that is everything. I want to tell him I don’t know what the ending looks like. Instead I stare at the road and let the memory of Keira fold into the hope he’s trying to hand me - messy, hard, and maybe, for once, true.
60
NADIA
There’s blood everywhere.
It coats the floor, the sheets, my skin - too much red to make sense of. I know it’s mine, but it doesn’t feel real anymore. The pain should be unbearable, but it isn’t. The drugs have eaten it whole. What’s left is a strange, hollow calm - like my body’s already halfway gone and forgot to tell me.
I think I’m dying.
And I don’t know if I welcome it or fear it.
