9. Jax
nine
Jax
T he Capital Grille's private room feels like a fucking tribunal, and I haven't even been accused of anything yet.
Crystal chandeliers cast tiny rainbows across mahogany and leather while my leg bounces against the floor in a rhythm I can't control. My keys spin around my finger—once, twice, three times—catch and repeat. The metal burns against my palm, slick with sweat.
Five days. Five fucking days since she walked into that bar and rewired my entire nervous system. Six days since I've come.
Cole paces behind his chair instead of sitting—never a good sign. The muscle in his jaw ticks with each pass. Asher's got his tablet out, fingers moving across the screen with precision. Remy leans against the wall near the door like he's blocking my escape route.
"We need to talk." Cole finally stops pacing.
"Is this about the salt in your coffee? Because that was an accident—"
"This is about your complete loss of operational control." Asher doesn't look up from his tablet. "You've been compromised."
My keys spin faster. The weight of them familiar, grounding, not enough.
"My performance—"
"Your performance is suffering." Cole pulls out a chair, the scrape of wood on wood making me flinch. "You disappeared for three hours yesterday."
"I was conducting surveillance—"
"You were sitting outside the CPG office." Asher turns his tablet toward me. Security footage. Me in my car, staring at nothing, lost in thought. "For three hours. Twenty-seven minutes."
Heat crawls up my neck. "I was thinking through the mission—"
"You were touching yourself." Remy's voice is clinical, detached. "The entire time."
Fuck.
"I wasn't—" But I was. My hand had been on my cock for three hours, edging myself while thinking about her. "That's not—"
"Your search history," Asher interrupts, pulling up another screen. "How to survive extended arousal. Can blue balls cause permanent damage? Is it normal to leak precum for days—"
"Jesus, is nothing private?"
"Not when it affects the team." Cole leans forward, elbows on the table. "You groaned during yesterday's briefing."
"I was clearing my throat—"
"You groaned when Kade mentioned surveillance operations." Remy pushes off the wall, starts his own pacing pattern that intersects with Cole's abandoned path. "Because surveillance made you think of her."
My keys slip, clattering against the table. The sound echoes in the private room.
"We need to talk about the woman from the bar," Cole states.
Right. He was there. He saw me lose my mind over her in real time.
"The cemetery incident," Asher continues. "Three bodies. Car chase through half of LA. Property damage."
They know about last night.
"She was in danger—"
"She IS danger," Cole corrects. "Whoever's hunting her found you both."
"The gambling's getting worse," Remy adds. "Your betting apps show increased activity. European soccer. Baseball. Anything with odds."
"The Bratva noticed," Asher says. "There's been chatter."
That gets my attention. "Bratva? Why would—"
"Your new friend has connections." Cole's jaw tightens. "Dangerous ones."
The door opens. Our server appears with water and bread. I drain half the glass before realizing my hand's shaking so badly that drops splatter across my shirt. The server's eyes widen slightly at my state—flushed, sweating, obviously hard.
"We'll need a few more minutes," Cole tells him.
The door closes. The silence stretches.
"It's been five days," Asher points out. "You've known her five days."
"Five days, seven hours, thirty-two minutes." It escapes before I can stop it. "Since she walked into that bar and I realized I'd been dead my whole life."
Remy actually stops mid-step. "Fuck."
"You think you're in love with her," Cole states flatly.
"Love?" I laugh, but it comes out broken.
"Love's too small a word. She's under my skin.
In my blood. I can taste her when I breathe.
I can feel her when she's not even there.
It's like—" My hands shake as I try to find words.
"Like she reached inside and rewired me.
Like I was broken and she's the only thing that makes me work now. "
"That's addiction," Remy says quietly. "Not love."
"What's the difference?" The question comes out desperate. "Either way, I need her."
"You don't even know her real name," Asher points out.
"I know what matters. How she moves. How she thinks. How she looks at me like she's deciding whether to fuck me or kill me."
"She's dangerous," Cole states.
"So am I." My keys start spinning again, faster now. "That's what makes it perfect."
"This has to stop." Cole's using his team leader voice. "Whatever this is, it ends now."
"No."
The word hangs between us like a loaded gun.
"That wasn't a request." Cole's eyes narrow.
"And my answer isn't negotiable." I meet his eyes. "You want me to choose? Fine. But you won't like my answer."
"Choose," Cole says simply. "Her or the team."
My phone buzzes. I don't have to look to know it's her. I can feel it, like the charge in the air before lightning strikes.
Unknown number: Your guard dogs are barking loud enough to hear from the lobby. Should I come up? -M
She's here. She's in the fucking building.
"Both," I say, standing so fast my chair rolls backward. "I choose both."
"That's not—"
The door opens.
Mira is in the doorway like something out of a fever dream. Black dress that pours over her body like liquid shadow. The fabric clings in a way that makes it obvious she's not wearing anything under it.
Her hair's pulled back severely, exposing the elegant line of her neck. Diamond earrings catch the light when she turns her head, surveying the room like a queen examining peasants.
The temperature shifts. Every man goes rigid—not attraction, but recognition of another apex predator entering their territory.
"Gentlemen." Her voice is silk wrapped around a blade. "Discussing my influence on your operative?"
"You weren't invited," Cole states, though his hand drifts toward his concealed carry.
"No?" She glides into the room, fingers trailing along the back of an empty chair. "Strange. Jax told me eight o'clock."
I did. Last night, after everything. Needed her to know where I'd be.
"Though the way he phrased it was considerably less formal." Her eyes find mine, and I see amusement there. "Something about showing me what his team thinks of our... situation."
Heat burns up my neck. The team's eyes bore into me.
"Sit," Cole commands.
"I prefer to stand." She moves to the window, studying the street below. "Sitting suggests I'm participating in this intervention. I'm not."
"You're compromising an operative," Asher states flatly.
"Compromising?" She turns, elegant as a dancer. "That implies he had defenses to begin with."
"Look at him," Remy gestures toward me. "He's completely—"
"Focused?" Mira suggests. "Alert? Primed?"
They all turn to look at me. I know what they see—dilated pupils, shaking hands, obvious tent in my jeans, sweat beading at my temples despite the air conditioning.
"He eliminated three threats last night," she continues, moving closer to the table. "While protecting me. His reaction time has actually improved. The sexual tension is clarifying his violence."
"That's not—" Cole starts.
"His performance metrics would suggest otherwise." She traces a finger along the wood grain of the table. "Your operative has become remarkably efficient since meeting me."
"He can't even think straight," Asher argues.
"Thinking is overrated." She looks directly at me. "Instinct is more reliable. And his instincts are perfectly calibrated now. To me."
I jerk visibly. Everyone notices.
"This is manipulation," Remy states.
"This is unfortunate chemistry." She shrugs, elegant and dismissive. "I had other plans. He's complicating them."
Plans. She has plans that don't include me.
"But here we are." She moves toward the door, then pauses. "He was already self-destructing when he begged me to meet him at the cemetery. Compromised over someone you're all grieving but won't name. Gambling himself into dangerous debts."
She's using what I told her last night. Everything I spilled about Roman.
"At least now his destruction has direction," she adds.
"Which is?" Cole demands.
"Me." Simple. Honest. Terrifying.
"You're using him," Asher states.
"We're using each other." No denial, but not quite admission either. "Though it's become... complicated."
"Complicated how?" Remy asks.
She considers this, head tilting slightly. "Your operative has developed an inconvenient significance."
My breath catches. She just admitted I matter.
"Which makes him a target," Cole says slowly.
"We're already targets." For the first time since she entered the room, something flickers across her face—annoyance? Concern? "The cemetery wasn't random. There are people watching me. Now they're watching him too."
"Who?" Cole leans forward.
"People with excellent aim and flexible morals." She examines her nails. "But that's my situation to manage."
"Not if it endangers our operative."
"Your operative was already endangered. By himself." She moves toward the door again. "The gambling debts. The survivor's guilt. The complete inability to process whatever loss has you all walking around like specters."
She's at the door now, hand on the handle.
"This ends badly," Cole warns.
"Everything interesting does." She opens the door, then looks back at me. "Parking garage. Level three. Five minutes."
The door closes behind her with a soft click that might as well be a gunshot.
Silence stretches for about three seconds.
"She's being hunted," Asher states the obvious.
"By the same people who came after you both at the cemetery," Cole adds.
"Which means she needs protection," Remy says, surprising everyone.
"She won't accept protection," I say automatically. "She doesn't accept help."
"Then we make it about the mission." Cole's already thinking tactically. "She has intel. Connections. Knowledge about the Bratva operations."
"You want to bring her to the safehouse?" Asher sounds skeptical.
"I want to keep our operative alive," Cole corrects. "And if she's the reason he's being targeted, we need her where we can monitor the situation."
"She'll never agree to—"
"Then convince her." Cole's eyes bore into mine. "Make it operational necessity, not protection. She seems to respond to logic over emotion."
"RPV is secure," Remy adds. "Isolated enough for her paranoia, close enough to coordinate."
"This is insane," Asher mutters. "We're talking about bringing an assassin into our safehouse."
"We're talking about controlling the variables," Cole counters. "Right now she's a wild card. At the safehouse, she's contained."
My phone buzzes.
Her: Three minutes. Don't make me wait.
"I have to go," I say, already moving toward the door.
"Tell her about the safehouse," Cole orders. "Operational necessity. Intel sharing. Whatever works."
"And if she says no?"
"Then we reassess." Cole's jaw tightens. "But Jax? One way or another, we need her where we can protect you both. Before whoever's hunting her decides to go through us to get to her."
I nod, already out the door, already running toward the parking garage.