Daddy's Home #2

25. Eye of a Monster #2

She looked at him, surprised. “You sound like some civil rights motivational speaker. You need a girl to entertain you for the evening? Or… bring home?”

Jax looked at her, perplexed. “I’m not sure how you got that impression, but thank you…

I suppose,” he said, pulling out his wallet.

“I actually have a wife and daughter. But thank you for the intel,” he said, handing her a few hundred-dollar bills.

She looked at the bills and smiled before stuffing them into her bra and walking past him.

Jax waited for the elevator until the doors opened and several women with clients stood inside. Entering the lift, he stood at the center, watching the elevator numbers change. Gradually, more people left the higher up he went.

This place reminded him so much of his childhood.

The dark rooms. The dim lights. The hazy air was thick with the stench of liquor, perfume, and smoke.

The beautiful scantily-clad women wearing fake smiles to entertain the greedy men who happily abandoned their families to indulge in their most sinful desires.

He checked his watch. Time was running out. Deja would understand soon enough that everything he did… was for her…

“You said you were gonna meet me after practice…”

“I know, babe, I’m sorry. I just got caught up doing some stuff for my father. But I promise I’ll make it up to you,” Jax said, turning the steering wheel.

“Oh, yeah? And how you gonna do that, Jax ‘I’m Way Too Busy For My Girlfriend’ Donovan?” said the voice from the car speaker.

Jax chuckled. “Open your window and check under the rock.”

“What?”

“Just do it, Amelia.” Jax turned another corner, listening to her rustle on the speaker phone.

“Jax! It’s so pretty! I love it! When did you even-”

“I can’t give away all my secrets,” he grinned.

Amelia chuckled. “Yeah, well, it’s gonna take a little more than jewelry to get on my good side.”

“Oh, yeah…? I’ll be on your doorstep in 15 minutes.”

“Wait, really? You got out of practice early? I thought Coach needed you for the full hour?”

“I told him my girlfriend needed me or she’d rip my head off,” Jax teased.

“Shut up. No, you didn’t,” she laughed.

Jax snickered. “Go put on something nice. I’m taking you out.”

“Okay, babe. I’ll just let my parents know! See you in a few!”

Jax hung up the car phone and focused on driving when he immediately got another call from Ian. “Yeah?” he answered.

“Keith never came home from school.”

“He’s probably out with his friends.”

“Keith doesn’t have friends.”

Jax snorted. “Ian.”

Ian sighed. “I’m just… worried. Especially after that argument we had last night, and those bloody marks we found on his-”

“I already dealt with that. Don’t worry about it,” Jax reassured him. But Ian remained silent. “I’ll call him, okay?”

“...sure.”

Ian hung up before Jax could respond. Jax sighed with a shake of his head.

All he ever did was worry about his brothers.

His cousins. The family business. Executing his duties as a Reaper.

For once, he just wanted to focus on himself and what made him happy.

And that was Amelia… his first girlfriend.

He pulled into the driveway outside her house, grabbed a bouquet, and hopped out of the car. Jax jogged up the porch stairs to knock on the door when he paused… The door was ajar. Almost… forced open.

Pushing the door open, Jax saw a trail of blood leading inside.

His heart raced as he entered the house.

Holding his breath, he looked into the living room and saw Amelia’s parents sitting on the bloodstained couch.

Their throats had been slashed so severely that their heads dangled from their necks.

Jax immediately panicked. “Amelia!” He raced around the house looking for her and shouting her name. Stopping in the kitchen, he heard a machine engine in the backyard and looked out the window. Jax’s eyes widened before running out the back door.

“ Amelia !”

“There he is.”

Jax stopped in his tracks. His blood ran cold as he slowly turned his head and spotted his father in a crisp, navy-blue suit with his hands behind his back. “So this is where you spend all of your time, instead of working…”

Jax swallowed hard as he looked from Amelia, who was crying hysterically as she sat on a chair in the grass inches in front of her father’s plow, to Keith, who was sitting silently with his head down, facing a weed-whacker next to his face.

“...A-Ath-thair…” Jax stammered.

“Oh… Now it’s father,” he hummed. “I thought I was just some random stranger consuming too much of your time.”

Jax looked at his father with desperate, bloodshot eyes. “P-please. Please, don’t-”

“I tried giving you the benefit of the doubt. That perhaps you were just overwhelmed with schoolwork. I allow you to play sports and to engage in school-related activities because education is important.” He glared at Amelia. “This is not a school-related activity.”

“I… I’m sorry,” Jax begged breathlessly. “Tha mi duilich, Athair ? * - P-please. I’m s-so sorry. I didn’t- I didn’t mean t-to-”

“I strictly forbade you and your brothers from entertaining women. I remind you constantly to stay away from them because of what you are.”

“And I’ll never do it again. I promise,” Jax pleaded.

“Oh, I know you won’t,” his father said, folding his hands behind his back.

“But as much as I hate this type of collateral damage when it comes to your discipline… I need this lesson to stick. You seem incapable of controlling your sinful and lustful desires for those you should not touch. But I fear you’ve already tainted her.

Thus, I need to ensure where your loyalties are.

So now you will choose which distraction to remove from your life,” he said, holding a remote control.

“Please,” Jax begged. “Please, don’t do this- I promise I’ve learned my lesson, and I will not-”

His father sighed. “I don’t have time for this. 5…” he started to count down.

Amelia screamed hysterically, shaking in her chair. “Jax! Jax, please!”

Jax panicked as he looked between Amelia and his brother.

“4… 3…”

“Jax, help me! Please!” she begged. “I don’t want to die!”

“2…”

Tears streamed down Jax’s face as he immediately ran for Keith. Using his blade, he cut the rope from around his brother, yanking him off the chair just as the weed-wacker started to whirl.

Amelia’s screams were silenced by the sound of the plow whirring and the grotesque squelching of her body being torn to pieces as blood and chunks of flesh flew in the air, splattering Jax and Keith.

Jax clutched Keith’s body to his chest, heaving breathlessly.

His father casually approached them until Jax looked up at him from the ground.

“ I choose with whom and where you spend your time. Not you. Me . Your focus is on your family… and your family alone . Control your selfish ways and do not let me find you with another woman again…”

Jax’s father didn’t wait for a response before re-entering the house. “Make sure to clean this up,” he said, as the door closed. Jax stared blankly at the bloodstained necklace he had gifted Amelia as it lay on the ground with a chunk of her skin.

“...you didn’t have to choose me…”

Jax looked at Keith, who was staring back at him with confusion in his eyes. “...I’m not worth it, Jax…”

Jax’s face flushed as he wrapped his arms around Keith and sobbed into his shoulder. Keith blinked, startled, before wrapping his arms around his older brother. “I’m sorry…” Keith muttered.

“Welcome to the Penthouse Suite!”

Jax blinked out of his memory as the elevator doors opened to a dimly lit crescent-shaped room. Red velvet couches, men seated, bordered the walls. They sat across eight stripper pole stands, each occupied by a naked woman.

Jax had always been a prominent figurehead in the Society. A Good Boy who abided by the rules set forth by those who came before him. Inherited his father’s empire and far surpassed all his expectations. He was among the most highly respected… and the most feared…

Jax Donovan was perfection personified.

He assumed that respect would follow him into death. But while on his deathbed, fighting for his life, he was disturbed to learn that the Society he had dedicated his life to had targeted his main reason to live.

His shoes clacked against the wooden floorboards as he entered the room, his long black coat flowing behind him. The women looked his way and were immediately enthralled by his commanding presence that shifted the mood in the room as the men ceased speaking.

“...holy fucking shit…”

With a cigar hanging out of his mouth, Cioffi nearly choked on his whiskey when he spotted Jax. “Donovan? Is that… Is that you?”

Jax recognized several members of the Society before his eyes settled on Cioffi. “...in the flesh…”

Putting his drink down, Cioffi apprehensively stood to his feet. “Shit… I heard you died, man. We mourned you.”

Jax tilted his head curiously. “...Did you…?”

Cioffi looked at Jax and noticed something distinctly different about his eyes. They were cold. Distant. Remorseless.

“But you’re here now. Moladh Roselyn! It’s a fucking miracle!

” Cioffi smiled, opening his arms wide to hug him.

“Boys, you know Jax Donovan! A fucking legend in the Society!” Jax stood stiffly as Cioffi hugged him.

“Join us! Toots, grab my boy Jax a glass of scotch,” Cioffi ordered a topless waitress.

“Right away, sir,” she nodded.

“I’m not here to socialize,” Jax said.

“Nonsense, Jax. You’re alive. We need to celebrate,” Cioffi said, handing him a cigar.

“I’m not here to celebrate either. I’m here to find out who put a hit on Deja Louis.”

Cioffi froze, startled, and looked at Jax. “I, uh, I’m not sure whatchu… whatchu me-”

“Deja Louis,” Jax said firmly. “Highly decorated environmental scientist. World-renowned for her work on economic sustainability. You might have seen her on the news being harassed by tabloids.”

Cioffi hummed pensively. “Oh, right, right! The smart broad. She, uh… got herself into some trouble, didn’t she?”

“She was targeted by Reapers,” Jax said. “I was told you would know who made that order.”

Cioffi swallowed hard. “You know they don’t- They don’t tell me nothing no more.”

“And yet your division has expanded and your status elevated in my absence,” Jax said coldly.

Cioffi snorted. “Come on, Jax. I know we’re competitors, but you really think I’d stoop so low as to target some chick you were fuckin’? She’s hardly that important.”

“She’s important to me,” Jax said lowly.

“She’s basic, Jax. Now, you ! You are fucking Jax Donovan !

You can have any woman you want. Look,” Cioffi said, pointing to the strippers.

“We have them for the whole evening. Take the Black broad since that seems to be your taste. Ay, Bunny!” Cioffi whistled at the naked, dark-skinned stripper sensually dancing on the fifth pole. “Come ova here.”

The beautiful, young dancer stepped off the pole and looked at Jax with apprehension. Something about the look in his eyes unsettled her.

“Here. Something to get your mind off of basic bitches who only wantcha for ya money, yeah?” Cioffi smiled as he handed Jax the cigar cutter. “Kick back and relax, man. No work tonight.”

Jax’s jaw twitched before he looked at Bunny, who seemed nervous to touch him. She swallowed anxiously. “...Wh-what… what would y-you like… s-sir?”

Jax eyed her. “...hide,” he muttered before turning back to Cioffi, who was talking to his men. “Cioffi.”

Cioffi turned around as Jax shook his hand. “Taking me up on my offer, I see,” Cioffi grinned.

Jax smiled his signature Donovan smile as he clutched Cioffi’s hand. “...Deja Louis-”

“Oh come on, Jax,” Cioffi rolled his eyes.

“Is my wife,” Jax finished.

Cioffi suddenly blinked at him, startled. “...your… what?”

“And the mother of my child,” Jax added.

Cioffi panicked before shouting in pain as Jax chopped off his finger with the cigar cutter and smashed his forehead against his face, breaking his nose.

Cioffi fell to his knees as his men grabbed their knives in panic.

But Jax's glare paralyzed them with fear.

Something about the way Jax moved looked… inhuman…

“Here’s how this is gonna go,” Jax said calmly, chopping another finger with the cigar cutter as Cioffi screamed.

“...I will rip every man in this room apart. Paint the walls with their blood until the floorboards are seeping with the organs I will tear from their bodies.” He chopped another finger.

“Then… and only then… will I peel the skin from your face…” Cioffi screamed as he lost another finger.

“Pluck the eyes from your sockets and tear your tongues out until you tell me who the fuck targeted my woman!” Jax snarled.

Pulling out his hammer, he violently smashed Cioffi in the head.

Crouched in the corner of the room with her knees to her chest, Bunny’s eyes widened with terror as she watched the tall, stranger in the long black coat descend upon the men like the ghost of death.

She knew from the moment he stalked into the room like the devil himself that something was off about him. Her heart had tightened in her chest when his cold blue eyes stared at her. Something had told her to leave… but she needed the money. And now… she was witness to a bloodbath.

Blood sprayed like geysers. Screams vibrated the floorboards.

Bunny’s hand slapped across her mouth as a dismembered arm skidded towards her.

Tears streamed down her face as another man crawled on the ground towards her, begging for help before the blue-eyed demon shoved the claw of his hammer through his skull, ripping his scalp off and exposing his brain.

She tried to wipe blood off her face. But it was everywhere.

So much blood. Everywhere .

It took only a few minutes before the silence of the dead thickened the once lively room. She saw the other women hiding in the corners of the suite.

The ominous clack of his heels against the floorboard nearly stopped her heart as she watched Jax crouch down in front of Cioffi, who was bleeding out on the ground, struggling to breathe.

She couldn’t hear what they were saying before Cioffi screamed as what looked like his skin flew in the air.

She jumped in horror as Jax violently slammed his hammer into Cioffi’s head several times.

The sound of bones breaking, of Cioffi’s body twitching on the floor as his blood spread around him, would haunt her.

Standing to his feet, covered in blood, Jax approached Bunny. She hid her face, terrified he would hurt her as he grabbed her hand and felt him place something in it. Opening her eyes, she looked at the bloody golden necklace and rings in her palm before she looked at Jax.

“Don’t sell it for less than 9.3 million…” Jax muttered before standing to his feet. She stared at him, puzzled as he left.

* ? “I’m sorry, Father.”