Chapter 16 – Ava Jade #2
“Who is that?” I asked, inclining my head to the guy across the room. Something about him seemed so familiar, but I just couldn’t place it.
“One of the Kings,” Corvus answered, and I should’ve known he’d do his homework on them, especially since making the alliance. “Don’t have a name for him, though. I only managed to get intel on the major players. He’s likely low on the food chain.”
“Does something about him…”
“Seem familiar?” Grey finished for me, and I sensed him growing nearer to my side, trying to covertly get a better look at the guy.
And then it hit me.
“He fits the description,” I said in a low voice.
“What description?”
“Becca’s. He’s about six feet. Brown hair, long on top. Pale. I don’t see any ink.”
“Becca’s guy was an Ace,” Rook said, bored.
I shook my head. He was right. I was probably just seeing things that weren’t there. But I had a right to be on edge.
I shivered. “Whatever, the guy gives me the creeps.”
“Me too.”
I spun at the unfamiliar voice, finding a guy standing a couple feet away from us, a pint of golden beer in his right hand.
The jeweled crown tattoo around the base of his index finger giving away his status as a King.
He looked… familiar, but then again he also looked like half the male students at Briar Hall.
Great cheekbones, even better skin. With sandy blond hair cut short, a chin dimple, and a classic Cali tan.
But overshadowing it all was the weathered veneer of a man who’d already seen some shit in his short life.
Truly though, if it weren’t for the roughness of his hands, the wicked gleam to his eyes, and the style of his clothes, the guy could’ve passed for the son of one of the bluebloods in attendance here tonight, too.
But he wasn’t that. He was a King.
“What?” I cocked my head at him.
“He’s creepy as fuck,” the guy repeated.
“Isn’t he one of yours?” I asked, a rhetorical question, really.
The guy nodded. “Yup.”
He turned, feeling the unanswered query still lingering between us.
His brown eyes roved the length of me before continuing. He leaned in closer, conspiratorially, making Rook growl low from behind him. Guy had balls, I’d give him that.
“His name’s Aries,” the King whispered to me, the smell of his grapefruit and sandalwood cologne strong in my nose.
“He’s always been kind of a loner. But he’s lethal when Maverick needs him to be.
He’s the one we use when there’s a message that needs sending if you catch my meaning. He’s also our one man cleanup crew.”
My stomach churned.
The guy they sent in when they needed to send a message…
Could that fuck be the one who took out my dad?
Unconsciously, my hands balled at my sides. I only realized when Rook dropped a heavy palm on my shoulder, shocking me back to the present. He dragged me back a step, pulling the King’s attention.
“And you are?” Rook asked, his smile all teeth.
The guy stretched out a hand to Rook, inclining his head respectfully. Clearly he already knew who they were. “Drake.”
Rook’s upper lip twitched, but he took Drake’s hand.
“And you must be Rook Clayton.”
Drake nodded to Corvus and Grey. “Greyson Winters. And Corvus James. Your reps precede you.”
“Afraid yours doesn’t,” Corvus said gruffly, staring openly at the guy.
Drake frowned, but there was still a smile lingering at the edge of his mouth. He wasn’t offended, or at least he was doing his best to appear like he wasn’t. “Well, shit, man. Way to call me out. We can’t all be the sons of a veritable street god.”
“Touché,” Grey put in, throwing a covert elbow into Corvus’ ribs. Reminding him that we were trying to make friends here, not enemies.
The guy snorted a laugh.
Corvus gave the guy a nod. “Enjoy the fight, man,” he said before stalking away, likely gone to scope out the competition for Rook.
“What crawled up his ass,” Drake whispered playfully, tossing me a wink before he turned to the bar for another drink.
Rook eyed him as he turned away, and I gave him a hard look. Play nice, I mouthed to him. The guy had paid me barely an ounce of attention. I pitied the fool who one day tried to actually pick me up in front of them. That guy barely flirted and Rook looked close to smash mode. Grey too, actually.
“What are you smiling at?” Grey asked me, confused.
I shook my head, clearing my throat. “Nothing.”
He narrowed his eyes on me, as if he just looked hard enough he could see straight through skin, muscle, and bone to see exactly what I was thinking.
I heard Diesel over the music and peered to my left from the corner of my eye, finding him walking toward the high top table where he usually sat during the fights.
Either the injury to his ankle was healing really well or he’d just gotten hella fucking good at hiding it. I detected almost no limp whatsoever.
He stopped, turning to bark something at Pinkie, who was following him. Pinkie nodded before taking off in the other direction, leaving Diesel to sit alone, adjusting his battered leather jacket with a sneer on his lips.
Now was my chance.
I rolled my shoulders back, wishing Grey had let me finish my beer. “I’ll be right back,” I told them, not waiting for the protests I knew would surely follow before picking my way through the crowd.
Diesel’s gaze snagged on me as I approached, watching with a wary distaste as I dragged the tall stool opposite him out from beneath the table and plunked my ass atop it.
“Ava Jade,” he said, cold blue eyes burning into me. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
I leaned over the table so he would hear me without the need to raise my voice. It was one thing saying what I was about to say to him, it would be another thing if he thought people could overhear us.
“You’re being a dick,” I told him, careful to keep my voice even, watching his face for changes in his expression.
He managed to keep a level of neutrality, but the slight downturn of his lips gave him away, even concealed by his beard as they were.
“I think I misheard you,” he said.
I shook my head slowly. “You didn’t.”
“If you think?—”
“Hear me out, and then I’ll fuck off.”
A vein throbbed in Diesel’s neck, but he said nothing else. Probably just wanted to get rid of me as quickly as possible. I was banking on that.
“I don’t know what you said to him on Monday?—”
“That’s between me and my son.”
I waited, not letting his defense wake the dark within. This needed to be said. And it needed to be said in a way that he might actually listen.
“I know it is,” I replied coolly. “Which is why I don’t know what you said. What I do know is that he’s been a shell of himself since then.”
That seemed to strike a nerve. Good. Maybe I was on the right track, then.
“He won’t return any of his manager’s calls. He’s completely given up on an entire part of himself. An entire chunk of his soul.”
“That’s fucking dramatic.” Diesel scoffed.
“You don’t get it, but that isn’t a good enough reason for you to take it from him.”
“He lied to me. I’m not having this conversation.”
He jerked his head toward a Saint nearby. Axel, I thought his name was. Get her out of my sight written in his stare.
I lifted my leg, letting my black skirt fall up my thigh to reveal the blades strapped there. I held Axel’s gaze, daring him to interrupt.
He glanced between Diesel and me, hesitating.
“Let me finish,” I told Diesel. “And you’ll never hear another word about it from me.”
His jaw tightened, but Diesel gave Axel a little nod, rolling his eyes.
“Corvus lied to you because he knew you wouldn’t understand. He knew you wouldn’t condone him spending his time doing something that could take him away from all of this, regardless of how important it is to him.”
“What’s your point?”
I swallowed down the frustrated rage trying to claw to the surface, clutching the bottom of the table to keep from flying over it at him. For a guy who clearly cared so much about his sons, he was being so fucking dense about this.
“My point is that he’s been The Bone Man for years .”
I let that sink in.
“And has he ever once shirked his duties to his family? To the Saints?”
He didn’t like being reasoned with.
“He’ll resent you for this,” I continued. “Whether he understands your reasoning or not. His music is a part of him.”
There was so much of him, of his soul, his heart, in every word he sang. It would be a fucking crime to stop him from creating.
“You wouldn’t chop off his arm, would you?”
“You don’t understand our ways.”
“I don’t?” It was my turn to scoff.
Diesel’s attention wandered, catching on something to our left, and I followed his line of sight to where Corvus was standing with the guys again near the bar. Grey pointed at us, and Corvus lifted his head, going white at the sight of me sitting across from his father.
“He asked me not to do this,” I added. “But I care about him. I care that he’s hurting.”
Diesel looked doubtfully at me but said nothing.
This was the part my body physically fought against me saying, but Corvus and the shit with Primal Ethos was only part of the problem.
There was a rift between this father and his sons. And a large part of it was my fault.
A bigger part of his was his own damned fault, but regardless of who was to blame, I wouldn’t take sons away from a father who would do literally anything in this world to keep them safe.
If only I’d been so lucky.
“All I’m asking is for you to consider what forcing him to stop might do to him . He can have both.”
“If that’s all?—”
“I also know that I have been the cause of a lot of tension between you and them.”
He lifted a brow.
“Even though the vast majority of that shit is your own fucking fault,” I added, completely unable to help myself, then I sighed. “I don’t want to carve a rift between you.”
“Oh?”
“Which is why, I’m…”
He tipped his head slightly to one side, light eyes glinting with triumph.
“You know what, I’m not going to fucking say it,” I decided. “I’m not sorry. I know you don’t trust me. You don’t like me. And frankly, I don’t give a shit. I don’t need you to like me. But I will try harder to not want to slit your throat… for them.”
A slow smile spread on his mouth. “All right.”
“All right?”
A Saint approached the table, clearly drunk, with two shots held between his fingers. He set them on the table in front of Diesel, sloshing half their contents over the wooden top. “Hey, Dies,” he said. “Happy Birthday man! Have a shot with me.”
“It’s not my birthday,” he told the Saint. “Not for a while yet.”
“Oh shit man, I thought it was today. Gives me time to get you something; though, eh?”
Diesel shook his head, getting annoyed. “Crowley,” he said, eyes indicating me across the table. “I’m in the middle of a chat with our newest member. Do you mind?”
“Oh fuck, yeah man. Sorry.”
The Saint left both shots untouched on the table and left, giving me a wicked side eye as he went.
“Where were we?” Diesel said, pushing the shots away. But before I could open my mouth to say anything else, we were interrupted a second time.
Pinkie returned, leaning down to whisper something in Diesel’s ear. His jaw tightened, and he cursed between clenched teeth.
My pulse raced in my chest, adrenaline spiking in my blood as my hand unconsciously went to my thigh, assessing the immediate area for threats.
“Relax,” Diesel told me, sensing where my mind had gone. Then his stare deepened, considering me in a new light.
“You still have a line on Alpha?” Diesel asked Pinkie without taking his eyes off me.
“Yeah. You have someone for her?”
He nodded toward me. “We promised our new comrades a show. Make the call.”
Pinkie turned, vanishing back the way he came, cell phone to his ear.
“Am I missing something?” I asked, skin still tingling as the burst of adrenaline began to fade.
“It seems the fighter we lined up for Rook soiled his big boy pants and took the first bus out of town.”
I lifted my brows, scowling.
What a pussy.
Diesel nodded, agreeing to my unvoiced sentiment.
“But our new friends,” he said, sweeping an arm over the gathering of Kings, Saints, lawyers and bankers. “Still expect a show.”
“So you’re replacing the fighter?”
“ Fighters ,” he corrected me, and the smile crawling across his mouth made my insides shudder.
“Looks like you have a chance to prove that you meant what you said,” he continued, running his tongue over his teeth. “You are now tonight’s fighter, Ava Jade. I suggest you go get ready.”