Chapter 17 – Ava Jade
AVA JADE
“ I told you,” I groaned as Corvus pushed the pool cue into my hand. “I don’t know how to play.”
“It’s easy,” he told me, snatching a cue from the rack for himself. “It’s all angles and calculating force. Grey tells me you’re ahead of him in your math class. You’ll pick it up quickly.”
I fumed quietly by the edge of the pool table Corvus just cleared of players with a single look. My teeth ground together as he gathered up all the colored balls on the table and put them into a triangular frame, plucking some out to move them around to the right spots.
I hated that I could still barely look at him after the other morning. There were only a handful of people who’d ever seen me like that, well, maybe handful wasn’t the right word. My dad was the only other person who’d ever seen me cry. And now there was Corvus.
It’d done something between us, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. He was being nice . Cautious. Like he was afraid if he said the wrong thing, I’d shatter again. It was driving me fucking mental.
I cried. So fucking what. He needed to get over it. I needed to get over it.
If he kept treating me like I was made of porcelain, I would show him just how sharp my broken edges could be.
Grey appeared behind me at the pool table, lightly brushing my elbow with something cold and wet. I whirled on him with a snarl to find him holding out an iced drink with a slim black straw. It smelled like dark soda with a bite of...rum, maybe?
“Here,” he said, pushing it toward me. “I got you a drink.”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
His face fell, lips parting as though I’d just refused a fucking proposal of marriage instead of a damned drink.
“ Jesus, ” I said on a laugh. “It’s not like I kicked your dog. I just want to keep a clear head.”
He cleared his throat. “Right. No worries. I’ll just, uh , hold onto it in case you change your mind.”
I lifted my brows. “ Okay , then. You do that, Superman.”
Grey’s face pinched, his lips quirking up into the tiniest smirk before he stepped past me to go and sit in the booth next to the pool tables.
Rook slid in a second after him, appearing out of nowhere.
He leaned back in the booth, plucking a napkin from the silver dispenser on the table to wipe something that looked suspiciously like blood from his fingers.
“What?” Corvus asked and followed my line of sight to where Rook was now discarding the napkin atop the table and flagging Sasha for another drink.
“For fuck’s sake,” he cursed, and I followed him back to the booth in time to hear Grey hissing over the table at Rook.
“What the hell did you do?”
Rook gave a one shoulder shrug, his eyes looking lighter than they had in days. “He called her a whore,” Rook said offhandedly, his wicked gaze flitting to me and away again.
Was he talking about me?
Corvus leaned over the table, his fingers splaying over the worn wood. “Who?”
“Some idiot.”
“Rook?” Grey pushed. “Where is he?”
Rook sighed, graciously accepting a fresh bourbon from Sasha with a wink. “He’s alive.”
He didn’t seem particularly thrilled about that. “He just won’t be talking shit about our girl anymore. Or...talking much at all I’d imagine.”
Oh my god. “You cut out his tongue.”
It wasn’t a question. I knew it, and he loved that I knew it, grinning at me wildly.
“Bingo.”
That...that was kind of sweet. In a super fucked up, totally psycho kind of way. I bit my lip, hoping the sting of it would quell the rise of heat in my bloodstream.
“Fucking hell, Rook. You know the rules. No bloodshed at Sanctum. Diesel’s going to shit,” Corvus said, his face reddening.
“Relax, brother.” Rook rolled his eyes. “I took him out back. I know the rules.”
Grey relaxed some, nodding absently. “Fucker kind of deserved it,” he muttered, making something flutter in my belly. Corvus didn’t disagree, but he groaned, standing upright as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“At least he didn’t kill him,” Grey told Corvus. “Progress.”
Corvus shook his head, fixing his stare back on Rook, who was sipping his bourbon like he didn’t have a care in all the world. “All right. Just...just fucking clean yourself up. There’s blood on your jacket.”
Corvus grabbed my elbow and steered me back to the pool table, away from the situation that was his brother.
“You want to break?” Corvus asked, indicating the neat triangle of colored balls on the table.
I knew enough about pool to know what he meant, but that was about it. Besides I was still reeling from Rook’s blood display of affection. “ Uh , I don’t even know how to shoot.”
“Come here,” he offered. “I’ll show you.”
I snorted, imagining it. Imagining Corvus adjusting my hands on the cue.
Him telling me to bend over and get a good line of sight down the cue to the ball while he positioned himself behind me.
His warm body wrapped around mine. His warm breath on the side of my neck as he guided my cue into position with his hands on top of mine.
It was probably the fantasy of any girl in this room, and I’d have been lying if I said it wasn’t tempting.
But I didn’t want to reenact cliched scenes from romantic comedies.
Besides, I could figure it out my damn self.
Just as soon as I shook off this feeling still heating my cheeks and making my knees weak.
“Well now,” a rough voice called over the raucous laughter and music in the pub. “You boys didn’t tell me she could play pool.”
“Diesel,” Corvus said, his jaw flexing as he stared somewhere over my right shoulder.
I turned, keeping any trace of discomfort from my expression. I’d show him no fear. Men like him could smell it in the air. They thrived on that smell. Bathed in it. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“I can’t,” I said for myself. “Your son was just going to teach me.”
I couldn’t help rubbing it in just a little—that his sons chose me . Had chosen to let me live despite what Diesel might’ve preferred. That they liked me enough to teach me how to shoot pool. To cut out a man’s tongue for calling me a whore.
It was stupid and maybe a little childish, but I didn’t care. I didn’t ask for any of this, and I wouldn’t go down easy.
“Is that so?” Diesel’s question was meant for Corvus, and I turned back to him expectantly.
“Yeah. Passing the time till you got here. Took you long enough.”
“We got held up,” Diesel replied, and I watched him shrug off a busted up old leather jacket and pass it to an enormous guy to his left. I recognized him as Tiny . The bouncer from the illegal boxing ring downstairs.
Tiny carefully draped his boss’ leather jacket on the back of a tall chair, as though he were afraid too much force might tear it in two.
He wasn’t wrong. The thing looked to be holding on by threads and a prayer.
Not the sort of thing I’d have expected the leader of one of the largest gangs in Cali to wear.
“If you don’t mind, son. I’d love a go,” Diesel said, crossing the floor to hold out a hand for Corvus’ cue.
The level of sound in Sanctum had dropped exponentially since Diesel’s arrival and as I spun in a slow circle, I noticed how many of the Saints who’d been drinking merrily five minutes ago were now watching. Rapt at the exchange between Diesel and his sons.
Between Diesel and their potential female new recruit.
Fuck.
Corvus reluctantly handed over the cue and Diesel flipped it over, holding it up to his eye to stare down the length of it.
Should I have done that?
“What do you say, princess?” he asked, his voice carrying in the pub as he set the cue down and fixed me with a ready stare. “Humor me with a game?”
“I told you, I don’t know how to play. And don’t call me princess.”
He inclined his head, studying me from head to toe.
I took the opportunity to do the same. This was only the second time I’d seen Diesel St. Crow in the flesh and the first time, I’d been more than a little preoccupied.
The man was taller than I remembered. Handsome, for an older guy, with a trim, but muscled figure and bright eyes that I knew saw more than he let on.
I normally didn’t like beards, but somehow his suited him, long and tapered, mostly straight and groomed.
I couldn’t picture him without it. He had a relaxed sort of power.
Like a lion at rest. He could spring up and strike whenever he wanted, but why would he when he had a pride at his back ready to do the work for him?
“Very well. Corvus? We’re overdue for a game, I think. Why don’t you take Ava Jade’s cue? Or shall we just get started with the real reason we’re all here?”
“Want to tell me what that is?”
Diesel smirked. “Why the rush?”
Corvus hesitated before coming to me. “Unless you’d rather just get this over with?” he muttered, holding a hand out for the cue.
I opened my mouth to reply yes, because fucking duh, I just wanted to go back to the house, but Corvus grabbed the cue before I could reply, taking my split second of silence as a non-answer. Or maybe he just wasn’t ready for whatever it was to begin.
Grey beckoned me to the booth, and I went while Corvus bent over the raised edge of the pool table and broke the triangle of balls apart with a loud clack .
“How about that drink?” Grey asked, sliding the rum and Pepsi over to me.
Why was he so insistent on me having a drink? I wasn’t a joy to be around sober, if I started drinking I was liable to knife someone.
“There’s not much rum in it,” he said. “It’s just a single.”
I met his gaze, finding a worried crease between his brows.
“I think you need it more than I do,” I joked but took the proffered drink, swirling the straw before I removed it and downed the icy cold drink in two long swallows. The ice made my teeth sting.
Grey visibly relaxed, and I peered into the bottom of the glass. “If this was roofied or some shit, I’ll kill you.”
Rook smirked at that because of course Grey wouldn’t roofie me, but with how bad he wanted me to drink the damn thing, it was a valid comment.