Thirty-Three
JENNA
Circus stands at the tree line, arm held out beside him to keep Kathy and me from walking into view.
I glimpse the sign-writing on the side of the sheriff’s car, the man himself partially obscured by Fang as he talks to Chaos.
My pulse beats a drum inside my ears, skin prickling with nervous energy.
Why is he here? And why isn’t Maisie, the peace officer, with him?
“What do you think he wants?” Kathy whispers to Circus.
He shrugs, eyes sharp as they track the movements of the men across the yard. Chaos heads back indoors, Fang exchanging a few extra words with the sheriff before they part ways. Our minder waits until the patrol car reaches the end of the driveway before allowing us out of the tree-line.
“I don’t like this,” Kathy muses. “I hate not knowing who I can trust.”
My stomach knots.
Circus spins to look down at her, a frown twisting the lettering on his brow.
“Apart from you.” She reaches out and gently touches her hand to his.
I duck around the pair and head for the clubhouse, once again feeling as though I interrupt something I’m not supposed to see. If he makes her feel good, then I love that for her. I just can’t say the same about all of these men.
Especially one.
Fang’s voice drifts out of Chaos’s office when I enter the house, the men in soft discussion. I glare at Loki as he crosses my path, the guy lifting his eyebrows as though confused why I’m annoyed with him.
I’m mad because no matter which way I lean in this situation, I anger someone.
Stay loyal to my father? Make myself enemy of the state for the Kings of Anarchy.
Help the Kings of Anarchy? Put a target on my back from my father and likely the Devil’s Breed.
Be honest about how badly I fucked up? May as well walk my ass into the Blood Eagles compound and hand them the loaded gun.
I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what to do. I hate feeling like this—unmoored, without guidance. Lost and confused on which way to go when all the horizon lines look the same: bleak, dark, and foreboding.
Holding on to safety in a place that has me on edge.
“Jenna!” Molly launches off the floor of the parlor when she spots me and grabs me by the hand.
I flinch a little. Why would she want to be so familiar with me? Why does she trust me?
“Come watch the movie with us.” Molly tugs me across to where pillows are piled on the floor, a blanket nestled in between with a giant bowl of popcorn half-consumed already. Somebody’s set a TV on top of a side table, turning the cozy corner into a mini media room.
“Hey.” Jezabel lounges on one side, The Kid resting against her legs. “It’s their pick,” she explains. “I’m here for the nostalgia.”
I still can’t wrap my head around calling The Kid Anna. It changes everything about her. Gives her personality, a backstory, substance. Everything that doesn’t fit with the quiet kid watching cartoons dance across the screen.
“Come join us if you don’t have anything else to do.” Jezabel pats the pillows. “We can make more popcorn if you’re hungry.”
“I’m not hungry right now. Thanks, though.” I settle where Molly leaves me, tugging a giant blue cushion onto my lap and hugging it to my chest.
I can’t pick the movie they have on. It’s old—maybe mid-nineties—and appears to be Disney.
How fucking sad is that? This film would have been released when I was a baby, and yet, I’ve never seen it.
Come to think of it, I hardly watched anything like this growing up.
Mom didn’t have enough money for cable, and we sure as hell never went to the movie theater.
I didn’t feel as though I missed out on anything at the time; I had nothing to compare it to, barely any friends to base my opinions off.
But now? Fuck. Now it makes the back of my eyes sting to realize how many other basic rites of passage I may have also missed.
First dances. Sports group. Summer camp. After-school clubs.
I was isolated by my social class. By the conditions of my conception.
I never had a hope.
“You okay?” Jezabel frowns, head tilted back to peer up at me.
“Yeah.” I hug the cushion tighter. “A lot of head noise, is all.”
“I get that.” She smiles softly and then does the most unexpected thing. The woman shuffles along the floor to rest her head on my knee while she watches the movie.
The Kid readjusts to lie on her stomach, chin propped on her hands.
I’m not used to contact so freely given.
My mom loved me—beyond doubt. But she didn’t often show physical affection.
No hugs. No gentle touches to my face. Whether that was a conditioning of her upbringing or a result of her role at the Devil’s Breed, I don’t know.
All I do know is that she passed that cool detachment on to me.
And now, all it’s taken is a hand-hold from Kathy, the same from Molly, and now a friendly touch from Jezabel to absolutely unravel me.
I focus on the characters sweeping around a timber cabin on the screen, frown hard, and really do my best to take in every detail as they narrate the story.
But the prickling intensifies and, to my horror, a single tear escapes.
I smoosh my chin down into the cushion. Hopefully, if nobody sees, I can contain the riot of emotion wanting to break free.
Damn it. I thought I got this out of my system yesterday. I thought my epic meltdown in front of Fang would have been enough.
But shit, if I can be wrong about everything else in my life, then why not be wrong about this too, huh?
Loki enters the room and drops heavily into the chair by the front window. I study the man in my periphery while he thumbs through his phone, shoulders tense and one heel tapping the floor, knee bouncing.
Jezabel tilts her head to glance his way as well. “You’re distracting.”
He lifts his gaze and seemingly takes in the scene before him as though he hadn’t even realized we were here. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Of course you would,” she mutters, returning to the movie.
Chaos strides past the open doorway, exiting onto the porch.
I tense, senses on high alert while I wait for any indication of where Fang heads next.
Laughter bubbles from the movie, a sigh escaping Loki.
My heart rate picks up, and I swallow hard.
Why does it matter where Fang is? He’s an asshole.
A hypocritical asshole who wants me to submit to his will so he can get what he wants from me.
He doesn’t genuinely care about my situation—fuck no.
He was tasked with monitoring me, shadowing me, and reporting his findings to his president.
So, why then have you not seen him until now? Where has he been all day?
I sense his eyes on me before I see him, subtly entering the room from the kitchen/dining room behind us.
I catch a glimpse of his boot, a slash of his dark denim jeans.
The hairs on my nape prickle. I can’t fully look at the man without twisting my body around, and I think he knows it.
Why else circumvent the room to enter from the far side?
Painful minutes pass, the bunch of us either genuinely intrigued with the movie playing on the screen, or doing our damndest to pretend we are.
Jezabel shifts, lifting her head off my leg to then move forward and offer Anna a pillow to save craning her neck.
I take the opportunity to move myself sideways to where I can lean against the front of a chair, turning slightly so I can see Fang.
He watches me, stoic and unwavering.
Maybe we weren’t all watching the TV, after all.
“What?” I mouth.
He draws a deep breath, shoulders rising and a muscle feathering along his jaw.
I look away. But it doesn’t matter how chaotic the story on the screen is; I can’t get it to hold my focus.
I glance toward Fang.
His gaze grows lazy, clearly shifting over me before he pushes off the doorframe and disappears toward the kitchen.
I sneak a sideways glance at Loki and find him gone.
Jesus, Jenna. Distracted by the darkly handsome biker, much?
Jezabel has repositioned herself between the girls, all three of them on their stomachs with their backs to me.
I take a deep breath, check the empty doorway, and then rise to my feet.
What are you doing, dipshit? Something that surely promises trouble.
As I suspected, Fang loiters in the kitchen when I enter the adjacent room, almost as though he expected me to follow.
“You do it yet?” he asks.
I eye the way he casually leans his ass against the counter, the nonchalant way his legs are crossed at the ankle. His arms are folded, yet he fidgets with something in his right hand, obscured by his left arm overtop.
“If you mean call my father, then yes, I did.”
“What did he say?”
“That Chaos can stick his invite up his ass.”
I catch the faint twitch of a smile, yet he dismisses it with a sweep of his right hand before resuming his previous stance. “You’re gonna need to try harder, then.”
“Yeah, thanks, Captain Obvious.” I drag my gaze the length of the man. At first glance, he seems angry and detached, yet there’s a lingering exhaustion to the way he holds himself. To the slight delay in his words when he answers. “Where have you been?”
Fang’s focus snaps to my face. “Miss me?”
“Thought you were supposed to watch over me, is all. You don’t seem as though you’re very good at your job.”
“Maybe I’m too good. Maybe I was there all along, but you didn’t see me.”
“Nice try,” I sass, moving to emulate his position on an adjacent stretch of counter space. “You’re sneaky. But not in that way.”
“And just what way am I sneaky, Jenna?”
I swallow, itching to touch my face and distribute the heat in my cheeks, but reluctant for him to see how easily affected I am. “In your intentions. You know, if you’d just said from the start that you were playing nice to get info from me, I might have told you anyway without all the games.”
He smirks. “No, you wouldn’t.”
I grin, ducking my chin. “No. I wouldn’t have.”
Silence falls between us, yet for once, it’s almost comfortable. Expected.
He breaks the ceasefire first. “What comes next for you?”
I look up. “How do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I said.” Fang sets the fidget down on the counter—an empty protein bar wrapper. “What do you do after all of this is settled? When your old man’s sorted, when the debt’s gone, what comes next for you?”
I glance around the room—anywhere but at his face.
“I don’t know. I guess it depends on the options given to me by the actions of others.
” He tilts his head a little, so I explain.
“I could make plans, Nibbles. Easy. But what’s the point when I don’t know if I’m going to end up behind bars or six feet under?
I’d merely be giving myself false hope.”
“Some hope is better than none.”
I stare at the floorboards, afraid of what I’ll find if I look at his face.
“You aren’t the first person to find themselves in a shitty situation, you know.”
My neck bristles, muscles tense. How dare he start this victim mentality shit again? Fang holds up a hand, stalling my bubbling rage.
“But it’s the first time you’ve found yourself in it. Am I right?”
I nod. “Didn’t exactly graduate with the intent to follow in my father’s footsteps.
No.” His curt reaction earlier flits through my mind.
“If the only reason you’re getting me to call him is that you think it’ll make getting him here easier, then I think you guys need a new plan.
” I swallow, steeling my jaw before adding, “Because he doesn’t give a shit what I say. ”
I catch a glimpse of the pity in Fang’s eyes and look back to the floor.
Fuck him and his changeable moods toward me.
One minute he’s cool and detached, and then he’s offering me his bed.
Then he’s calling me difficult and stubborn, bullying me into a meltdown before talking me through it like a trusted friend.
I can’t get a gauge on what the guy actually wants, and I think that’s what puts me on edge with him.
Why am I still drawn to his orbit when all he promises is turbulence?
Where the fuck does this ingrained need to self-destruct come from?
“Give him one more call, Jenna,” Fang urges. “And this time, don’t hold any punches. Your aim isn’t to please. It’s to get him to fucking do what you want.”
“And how the hell do I do that, exactly?”
He smirks. “By calling his bluff. Tell the asshole you’ll take everything you’ve learned about the Devil’s Breed and his involvement to the cops if he doesn’t play ball.”
I frown. “I’m no rat, Nibbles.”
He shrugs. “He doesn’t know that.”