Chapter 24 – JINX
JINX
"If you put your dick in her pussy or her ass, I will kill you."
Kade's voice crackles through the phone and I roll my eyes even though he can't see me. "She's in her room, traumatized because you just shot a guy in front of her. What part of this situation makes you think fucking is on the table?"
"I know exactly what your idea of comfort is," he says because he's a complete douchebag.
Correct, but a douchebag nonetheless.
"Does that mean everything else is fair game?"
The silence on the other end is damning. I can practically hear his internal monologue, analyzing how many ways he can make me suffer if I cross this particular line.
"I said what I said," he finally growls. "And there are cameras everywhere, Jinx. Everywhere. I'll know."
I glance up at the corner where I know Cyrus has one of his little spy toys hidden and wave at it like I'm greeting an old friend.
Or telling him to fuck off. Same thing. "Yeah, well, you can enjoy the show then.
If our new pet decides she happens to want eight inches of comfort administered orally. "
"Jinx—"
"Try not to kill anyone else," I interrupt, because I can already hear the lecture building. "The cleanup crew's been working overtime. Pretty sure Jackal is about to ask for hazard pay."
Kade's dark laugh makes the hair on my arms stand up. "No promises. They're paid well."
I wait a beat, trying to talk myself into leaving well enough alone. "You know, you could have waited until she was out of the room."
"I covered her eyes, didn't I?"
"Yeah, yeah. You're a real fucking gentleman. Go intimidate Carson or whatever the fuck you're doing. I've got princess-sitting duty."
He hangs up without another word. The fuck off is unspoken but understood. I toss the phone onto the coffee table and stretch until my bones pop, every muscle in my body still aching from this morning's chase through the woods.
The way she ran from me…
Like a rabbit with wolves nipping at her heels, full of panic and adrenaline and that sweet, sweet fear. And when I caught her, when she went all soft and pliant beneath me, grinding up like she wanted me to forget every rule Kade ever made—
My cock twitches at the memory, already half-hard from replaying those moments. The way her pupils dilated when I pinned her wrists. How her thighs clenched around my hips like she was trying to keep me there.
That breathy challenge in her voice when she asked what I was going to do with her.
Fuck.
I need to check on her. Make sure she's not having a complete breakdown after watching Kade execute a man for making a crude comment.
But my feet carry me to Cyrus's door instead, knuckles rapping against the wood in our old pattern. Three taps, pause, two taps.
"What?" His voice is muffled through the door, but grumpy as ever.
I push the door open without waiting for an invitation.
Cyrus sits at his desk, surrounded by monitors that cast his face in blue light.
His glasses reflect code scrolling faster than I can track like he's absorbed in the fucking Matrix and there's an energy drink graveyard forming beside his keyboard.
"When's the last time you slept?" I ask, leaning against the doorframe.
"Define sleep."
"Closing your eyes for more than thirty seconds."
His eyes flick to the clock on the wall. "Approximately forty-four hours ago."
"Cy—"
"I'm fine." He waves me off with one hand while the other types out commands in a black box on his screen that make the text fly by even faster in a rainbow of neon colors. "What do you want, Jinx?"
"Come check on Ellie with me."
That gets his attention. His fingers pause on the keyboard, and he turns to look at me properly. "Why?"
"Because she just watched Kade blow someone's brains out?" I push off the doorframe, moving into his tech cave. "Maybe she's traumatized? Ring any bells?"
"So you think your dick will fix that?"
My eye twitches. Am I really that fucking predictable?
I wasn't even going to fuck her. Probably. Not unless she does somehow share the same fucked up coping mechanisms as me.
"My dick is magic, FYI." I grin at him, aiming for levity even though worry gnaws at my chest. "But seriously. She's been in her room for hours. No noise, no movement. That's not like her."
Cyrus studies me for a long moment, those green eyes dissecting my motives like he's running diagnostics on my soul. "You're actually worried about her."
"We all should be." I shrug. "She's our responsibility now. Can't break her this early on."
"Kade might disagree."
"Yeah, well, Kade's busy playing mob boss downtown."
"Has it ever occurred to you that some people need to process things in silence?" he asks flatly. "Alone?"
I pretend to consider it for a second before answering, "Nope!
" I grab Cyrus's wrist, tugging him toward the door.
All I succeed in doing is swiveling his chair in the right direction.
"Come on. Worst case scenario, she's fine and we look like idiots.
Best case? We prevent a complete mental breakdown. "
He finally lets me pull him up, which is progress. Cyrus doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, so if he's coming with me, some part of him is worried too.
Even if he'd rather eat glass than admit it.
Even if pretending like he hates her is easier for him than admitting he still loves the girl who was our sun once upon a time.
We climb the stairs to the second floor, and I'm acutely aware of how quiet the house is. Tank's still AWOL. Even more than usual. He's as bad as Cyrus, even if his avoidance of Ellie isn't born out of hate. Not at all.
More like obsession.
The big guy is actually marginally more in touch with his emotions than the other two idiots, maybe even me, but that doesn't mean he knows what to do with them.
We all handled Ellie's absence differently.
Kade poured himself into the "business," like if he amassed enough of an empire made out of blood money and bone, he could convince our princess she made the wrong choice.
Cyrus convinced himself he never really gave a shit to begin with.
That if he turned his heart to stone, it would make the pieces she left behind any less broken.
But Tank retreated into himself even more. I'm pretty sure he blames himself, somehow. And sometimes I don't know if the self-loathing intensified when she left, or if he finally just gave into it because she was the only thing holding it back.
And me…
Well, I have my own fucked up little methods of coping, don't I? I couldn't have the girl I love, so I became her.
And every time Cyrus's hands are around my throat, I picture it's me holding onto her the way I never had the guts to do in real life.
We're a motley little crew of personality disorders and self-destructive coping mechanisms. Can't really blame her for telling us to fuck off, I guess.
Her door's closed. I knock this time, because unlike Kade, I actually remember what manners are.
"Ellie? You decent?" I call.
No answer.
I exchange a look with Cyrus and see my own concern reflected in his expression. It's buried, but it's there. "I'm coming in."
I push the door open to reveal her sitting hunched in the window seat, backlit by the setting sun that turns her pink streaks into fire.
She's changed into soft clothes. Gray sweatpants—my sweatpants, I notice with no small amount of possessive glee—and a tank top that shows the delicate curve of her neck where the collar sits like it was made for her.
Which it was.
But it's her face that guts me. Blank. Completely fucking blank, like someone reached inside and scooped out everything that made her her.
"Hey." I keep my voice as gentle as I can, moving into the room slowly. "You okay?"
She turns to look at me, or maybe past me. "Fine," she says, but the word has no life in it.
"Liar." I move closer, and Cyrus follows, closing the door behind us. "You're not fine. You just watched someone die."
"I watched Kade protecting his reputation. Technically, I didn't see the killing part."
"Ellie—"
"I'm fine," she repeats, turning back to the window. "You can go. I'm sure you have better things to do than babysit me."
I literally have no priorities or obligations in life I wouldn't immediately discard just because she wanted to spit on me. But I decide not to volunteer that information.
"We're not leaving you alone," I say firmly. I don't give a shit what Cyrus says, he's fucking wrong. We've all been dealing with shit alone for the last four years, and where has that gotten us?
Fucking nowhere.
"Why not?" She doesn't look at us. "I'm property now, remember? Just another asset to manage."
The bitterness in her voice is a knife between my ribs. But I deserve it. We all do.
"Okay. New plan." I move to the bed, patting the space beside me. "Come sit. We're going to talk."
"I don't want to talk."
"Too bad. Sit."
She turns, and I see the flash of defiance in her eyes. There it is. There's my girl. "You can't order me around. Only Kade can do that."
"Actually," Cyrus says, "the contract states all four of us have equal authority over you. Kade just likes to pretend he's in charge."
"He shot a man in the face."
"Yeah, Kade's dramatic like that." I pat the bed again. "Sit, Ellie. Please."
The 'please' does it.
She moves toward the bed like her legs are made of lead, sinking onto the mattress beside me. Up close, I can see the exhaustion around her eyes, the way her hands shake slightly before she folds them in her lap.
One, two, three, four, five.
Her fingers tap against her thigh, and my heart fucking breaks.
"Talk to us," I say softly. "What's going on in that pretty head?"
"You want me to talk about watching a man get executed?" She laughs, but it sounds wrong. Broken. "What's there to say? You're all killers. I knew that coming in. I just... didn't expect to see it up close with zero warning, I guess."