Chapter 30 – Ava Jade
AVA JADE
B ecca bumped my shoulder as we pulled into a parking spot at the Docks, over-eager party-goers already flooding the entire area.
“Come on, girl,” she said. “Let’s go get you a drink.”
I grumbled wordlessly in reply, sighing as I followed her from the Rover, the guys exiting along with us.
The music rose into the night, echoing across Spirit Lake and back to us as scantily clad bodies sauntered up the long dock to the twinkle-light covered pier.
Inside the wide opening, people were already dancing.
White and purple light twisted and flickered over the floor in time with the beat.
This was positively the last fucking place I wanted to be right now, though I understood the need to be here.
Beneath the layers of graffiti painted all over the once green warehouse, you could still see the sharp spike at the top of a spade shape.
The strong triangular form of a red ‘A’ since covered over with a glowy looking Saint tag.
If the Saints didn’t hold the location, the Aces could make a play for it, though I doubted they were strong enough to do that now.
I also fucking doubted something as idiotic as a pier mattered to them.
Though the guys had told me when the Aces controlled the Docks the place was a fucking shit show.
Young girls getting roofied. Dirty drugs causing overdoses.
Less than willing participants guided, stumbling, to the Red Room.
That wasn’t how they ran this place, and it showed. Teens and younger adults alike congregated here, wary of my Crows, but respectful of their authority. They knew exactly what would happen if they broke one of the rules. If they stepped a toe out of line. So they didn’t. Mostly.
Apparently, Rook once tossed a guy over the railing out back for trying to sell blow laced with dirty fentanyl. The guy lived but barely.
As we made our way up the dock, Corvus accepted a small bag from a skinny twenty-something with messy black hair and dipped his pinkie finger in.
It came out white, and he touched it to his tongue, tasting the cocaine.
He nodded, indicating the larger bag the smaller one had come from, checking its contents.
He lifted out a Ziplock with about thirty single pills in smaller baggies inside.
“We don’t allow these here,” he told the guy, tucking the bag into the inside pocket of his jacket.
“You can collect them at the end of the night.”
“But—”
“Problem?” Rook hissed at the guy, and he shook his head, pulling the drawstring on his drug bag tight.
“No. Not at all. Thanks, man.”
No one sold drugs here that didn’t first pass through inspection from the Crows. And not without them getting their cut at the end of the night.
The dealer scampered off after the crowd, slyly making inquiries as he passed through couples and groups of friends bound to split by the time the night was through.
I sighed, hearing heavy booted footsteps behind me and turning to see Axel, Crowley, and Derrik coming up the dock behind us, each carrying a heavy duffle.
One of which I recognized. I lifted a brow at the badly concealed heavy artillery.
“Really?” I asked Axel, indicating the sniper rifle. “Is that necessary?”
The guys and I were already armed with our regular load-outs, theirs buffed only with additional magazines. The gear the other Saints were carrying seemed hella fucking overkill to me.
Though no one else seemed to notice or care.
Axel fell into step beside me. “Orders,” he said with a shrug. “Grey knows how to use it.”
I smirked. Grey wasn’t the only one who knew how to use it anymore, but Axel didn’t need to know that. There was a quiet sort of satisfaction in keeping that fact to myself.
“So,” Axel said, dragging out the ‘o,’ his gaze sweeping up to Becca walking a few paces ahead next to Grey, the pair of them chatting while they walked. “Your friend, is she?—”
“Touch her, and I’ll cut your balls off.”
Axel coughed, his eyes going wide as he stared down at his feet instead of at her ass. “Cool. Noted.”
Even if he wasn’t a healthy ten years older than her, I didn’t want Becca getting any more ingrained in this life with these people than she already had to be.
With any luck, we’d get the Ace problem and my stalker dilemma resolved in the next few days and she could go back to her normal life without having to look over her shoulder, worried someone might want her dead.
Something inside of me crumpled at the realization that the only way she’d ever be truly free—really out of danger—would be for me to put distance between us, too. I was a Saint now. Like it or not and regardless of the tentative truce between Diesel and me, I doubted he was going to let me go.
Truthfully, I didn’t think I wanted to be let go. Not if it meant being separated from my Crows.
“Well, I’m going to go stuff this shit in the back office,” Axel said awkwardly, hefting the sniper bag higher on his shoulder as he took off into the pier, the other Saints following closely behind him.
“What’d you say to him?” Rook asked, rushing to catch up, tossing his finished cigarette into a sand pail by the entrance as we stepped inside.
I pursed my lips. “Not much. Just that I’d cut his balls off if he touched Becca.”
Rook tipped his head to one side. “Can’t blame the guy for trying,” Rook said with a mischievous grin, his gaze tracking to Becca, who was drawing a little mickey of Crown Royal whiskey from her black purse, her hair falling over her face like a shimmering curtain.
No. I really couldn’t.
Becca was hot as fuck.
If I swung that way…
“ Ava Jade ,” Rook said, and I hadn’t heard him say my real name in so long that I startled at the sound of it leaving his lips, my stomach flipping. “Do I need to be worried?”
He glanced between Becca and me, speaking just loud enough for me to hear him over the music.
I snorted, shaking my head as I swatted him. “No. But just because I don’t order from that menu doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the options.”
“Hey,” I grabbed his chin hard, tugging his gaze back to me. “ I can read the menu. Not you.”
His lips split wide, teeth grazing over the ridge of his lip ring as he looked down on me.
“Aves!” Becca shouted, and instinctively, I bent at the knees, hand reaching for a blade.
“What are you doing?” she asked, holding out the small bottle of whiskey to me with a raised brow.
Fuck. I needed to relax. Just a little.
I shook my head, accepting the bottle to take a small sip, just enough to wet my tongue and feel a burn down the back of my throat. Tonight wasn’t the night to lose control, no matter how much I’d have liked to. I still couldn’t fucking believe Diesel’s nerve.
That jacket was nine hundred bones. The most I’d ever spent on an article of clothing, like, ever.
The only reason I’d spent the money was because it was gang income.
Money I’d earned from the diner hold-up and my winnings from fight night.
With the Crows covering literally all of my other living expenses and now with a free ride at Briar Hall, what the fuck else was I going to spend it on?
A girlish voice whispered beneath the hard shell formed in my mind… shoes. Bras. Those pretty lacy panties I’d seen in Becca’s laundry. I wondered how much a pair of those cost.
I handed the whiskey back to Becca and shivered as Grey ran a fingertip down the back of my arm, slipping his hand into mine, our fingers twining. He grinned at me before leaning over to say something in Rook’s ear that I didn’t catch. Rook grinned eagerly, his black eyes flashing on me.
“Come on,” Corvus shouted, leading the way to the raised stage at the back of the space, his body a long, rigid line.
I grabbed Becca and towed her along with us as we weaved through the crowd, Rook pushing ahead to catch up to Corvus.
Around us, I saw how everyone stared.
At all of us, but mostly at Corvus.
It was easy to tell if they were staring because they knew him as The Bone Man, their eyes bright and expressions filled with a devout sort of admiration. Or… if they were staring because they now knew him as the sole survivor of the Lennox Cult Murders.
Some of those looked on with pity, others with disdain. I released Becca, flashing my blade at the latter with a warning in my stare that had them turning their heads real fucking fast.
Corvus stepped up onto the stage, looking down on Rook with his brows lowered like he didn’t particularly like something he’d just said. Axel and the others returned from their office drop off, settling onto the sofa atop the dais.
“Hey,” Grey said, leaning forward to talk to Becca on my other side. “You good chilling here with Axel and the others for a minute?”
Her face screwed up, and she cocked her head at him. “I mean, I guess so, why, what’s?—”
“We need to talk to AJ real quick. Won’t be too long.”
Becca’s lips popped open in a little ‘o’ and clearly she was catching on to something I wasn’t. “Ah,” she said after a second. “ Talk . I got you.”
She brushed against my shoulder. “Have a wonderful conversation,” she said in my ear, giving me a knowing look as she sauntered up the two steps onto the dais and plopped herself down on the sofa between Axel and Crowley.
Axel’s eyes flicked up to meet mine for a second before he shifted a few inches away from Becca.
“So, what exactly do we need to talk about?” I asked Grey, catching sight of Corvus and Rook over his shoulder a few feet away at the edge of the raised stage, arguing about something.
“You’ll see.”
“What’s going on?”
“Trust,” he said simply, lifting our joined hands to press a warm kiss to the back of my palm. The sly gleam in his eyes gave me goosebumps, and I thought maybe I knew what they wanted to talk about.
Grey grinned, tugging me toward the door to the Red Room.