Chapter 24 Spencer #3
“I did,” Rick nods, and as collected as he may seem, I see the cracks. His jaw is tight, and his words are clipped. Rick hardly ever loses control, but I can tell he’s close right now.
“But I can also see how upset he is about this. It's not a choice he would have made,” he tells Zander, nodding to Kratos. Zander looks back at Kratos, and I do, too—Rick’s right. We watched him all but force those words out; this isn't something he's happy about either.
Jade sits silently, looking straight ahead at nothing, as if we're not discussing the possibility of her returning to the rings she so recently escaped.
“You decided this, didn't you?” I ask her before I can stop myself. She looks up at Kratos before she turns to look at me, and even before she answers, I know I’m right. I can see it in her eyes.
“I did,” she replies, offering no further explanation.
My brain goes over every detail I know about her, and it makes sense. Honestly, we probably would have seen this coming if we’d been paying attention.
“The girls,” I say, working it out in my head. I hadn't intended to say it aloud, but now that I have, I'm almost positive that's the answer. My voice comes out in little more than a whisper, but I know she hears me when she gives a stiff nod.
She hates this idea; I can see it written all over her.
Her face may be blank, but her hands are balled up into tight fists, her posture stiff, and her jaw clenched.
She hates everything about it, but she’ll do it anyway, no matter what it costs her, and it has nothing to do with her or her need for revenge.
It’s all about saving the girls who are just like she used to be.
Scared and alone.
“You don’t have to go back in for us to take them down,” Zander says, damn near pleading with her.
She doesn’t look up at him, but she shakes her head.
“If we can't find a way to shut them down, it will be the only option,” she tells him, her voice quiet but firm. It’s clear she’s already made her choice here. Nothing we say will change it.
“No!” Zander roars, slamming his fists on the table, but Jade doesn’t so much as flinch.
“I won’t let you put yourself back into that shit, Jade.
” He stands beside her, chest heaving, hands balled into fists.
She looks up at him, and I can see the emotions in her eyes, seeing how this affects Zander.
Maybe she really does have feelings for him.
“I wasn’t asking,” she tells him, her words soft, almost sounding like an apology.
Zander groans loudly, raking his hands through his hair in frustration before he turns away from her to address Kratos again.
“There has to be another way!” he demands as his emotions get the best of him. Zander has always had an unhealthy fear of Kratos, but he seems to have forgotten that right now.
I expect Kratos to put him back in his place, but he doesn't. Instead, he shakes his head, his eyes returning to Jade as he once again defaults to her. She meets his eyes before looking back down at the table.
“The only way we can ensure she doesn’t go is if we handle this before then,” he takes a deep breath to collect himself before pressing on, sounding almost steady again.
“Which means we need to do just that. I expect business to run as usual, but this is your top priority in your downtime, and it will be mine as well.”
It’s not a solution, not even close. We have been after this ring for the last few years and haven’t gotten anything worth a damn. But it’s enough to pull Zander back from the edge, for now.
He grips up his chair, setting it back down with far too much force before collapsing into it again, his earlier happy mood long gone.
A knock at the door has all of our heads turning. Kratos calls out for whoever is there to enter, and a second later, Dom pops his head in.
“The food is here, boss,” he says, holding up bags of takeout. Kratos nods to the table for him to bring them in.
Dom looks around at each of us before setting down the food and exiting just as quickly as he came in.
Dom is one of our higher-ups and has been around for a while.
Usually, he would stick around to talk or even just say hi, but not today, and I can’t say I blame him.
The tension in the room is almost suffocating right now.
Jade opens up the bags and starts passing food around to everyone.
The tension doesn’t go away, but as we eat, we discuss other orders of business, and it at least distracts from it.
We go over all our monthly drop-offs, what's working and what's not, and even the profit margin on the two lower clubs we manage along with the garage.
Overall, everything appears to be running smoothly.
By the end of the meeting, the tension has dissolved for the most part.
While nobody seems to be happy exactly, nobody looks as upset either.
Instead, there's a determination that has settled over all of us. Hell, even I want this shit done. None of us want her to go back there. I may not like her, but I’m not a fucking monster. Not to mention, orders are orders.
Jade packs up everyone’s food and cleans up the mess as we finish our meeting.
She hasn’t said a word since she told Zander she wasn’t asking permission.
She might not have been around long, but over the last week, she’s been a part of most of our days, and having her so quiet is kind of off-putting.
Jade is the type to speak her mind, and I almost wish she would with this, too.
“Before we head out, I want everyone down at the range. Rick mentioned that Jade's never used a gun. That needs to be rectified, so after we assess her basic skills, we can set up a training schedule,” he says before we leave.
We head out towards the stairs to one of the lower floors of the club with the shooting range.
Rick and Zander walk with Jade a few steps behind them.
I’m almost shocked Zander isn’t plastered to her side for a second, but when I catch a glimpse of his face, it makes sense.
He’s inside his head now and probably isn’t even fully aware that he’s headed down to the range, simply following Rick on autopilot.
Everyone always thinks Zander’s a slacker or the pretty face of the group, and while they aren’t wrong, that’s not all he is.
Zander is great with details. I’ll be shocked if he hasn’t gone over everything we’ve learned about the Sin ring in the last year in his head at least three times in hopes of seeing something he missed.
When we first started, he was a bit obsessive with missions.
As we got more comfortable in our roles, he calmed down a bit, no longer feeling like he had to work so hard to prove his worth.
However, this mission has him right back to those old ways.
Let's just hope it doesn't push him over the edge.
Before I hit the steps, I realize Jade’s no longer in front of me. I stop dead, looking around. I don’t think she’s in danger here with all of us, but between the threat that could be after her and the unsettling feeling she gives me, I would rather not have her unattended.
It only takes me a moment to find her, standing with her face all but pushed up against the glass, watching the party down below.
She has a look of wonder on her face that's so genuine it has a frown pulling at my lips. She’s probably never seen a party like this.
She went to that one last week with us, but this is different.
Hoppers has lights and a DJ with an actual dance floor.
This is a proper club with a bar, servers, the whole nine yards, not just some house with people crammed in it.
Kratos walks up behind her, and I watch as he gently steers her toward the stairs with a hand on her lower back.
She shoots him a smile before she nods and starts moving again.
Her smile is sad, and I feel like I can almost hear her thoughts, curious about what it would be like to be down there, to be normal.
With her accounted for, I turn away, heading down the steps quicker than necessary in order to put some distance between us.
Kratos can watch her just fine, and I can’t stand to see her look like that.
It makes her seem vulnerable, sad, and oh-so-normal.
If I think of her like that for too long, I might lose sight of the fact that she could be here to tear us all apart.
Jade’s a quick study. Down in the range, she watches Kratos shoot twice before she tries and does a fuck ton better than any of us did the first time.
I half expected her to hit a bullseye on her first try; she didn’t, but she did hit the target.
It took Zander almost three full sessions before he could do that.
He gives Kratos a look of horror when he shares that bit of information with Jade.
By the end of her first magazine, she does, in fact, hit the bullseye. Doing that ridiculous happy jump shit she did with Rick after she made the egg.
It’s not cute.
Okay, it might be, but who fucking cares.
“Well, I guess she doesn’t need as much training as I thought she might, which is good. It gives us more time to work on other things,” Kratos tells us after she’s fired off a whole mag right into the bullseye with less than thirty minutes of holding a gun for the first time.
“Someone can work with her once a week here or at the actual range.
I want to see how she does with other calibers and work on caring for and disabling the most common guns.
We can take turns, or whoever is available is fine, but she needs to know how to handle a gun completely before Christmas.
" His unspoken, just in case, lingers in the air, but we all nod in understanding.
Jade might be a badass, but if she ends up back on the inside, this could be the difference between life and death, and she deserves to have every advantage.
“Want to try out throwing those pretty new blades, Doll?” Zander asks Jade after Kratos heads out for the night.
I’m helping Rick clean the two guns they used, and I can’t help but listen more intensely at the mention of her blades.
“I would love to, but I don’t have them,” she tells him with a laugh.
“What?” Zander cries in outrage. “Why wouldn’t you have them? Who leaves the house without knives?” he asks, and while his question seems strange to most, I know he’s completely serious.
I walk past them to put the gun up as she gives him a shrug.
“I fit them to my boots, so no boots, no knives,” she tells him, gesturing to the sneakers she’s wearing and smiling at his dramatics.
“But,” she draws the word out as she moves past him, “I can show you my throwing skills with your knife.” She flips his knife open and throws it down the range into the wooden target that’s set up just for those types of weapons. She hits the target, a perfect bullseye, without even trying.
Zander’s mouth falls open, and his brows pinch as he looks at the target.
“How did you do that?” he asks, looking between her, the target, and his holster. I'm not sure if he's asking about her throwing abilities or how she took his knife from him so easily; both are impressive.
Jade simply laughs, “Sorry, can’t give away all my secrets,” she says with a wink before she walks to the door.
“Bullshit!” he yells after her without any real bite, but she keeps going as if he didn’t say anything. “That’s the second time you’ve jacked my knife, Jade!”
She stops at the door and gives him a teasing smile before she puts her finger to her chin, tapping it as if deep in thought.
Zander watches her with a crazed look in his eye, but there's a smile on his face that lets me know he’s not actually mad. No, if anything, I would say he’s probably enjoying this far too much.
“Only the second? I guess I’ll have to step my game up,” she tells him, pushing the door open.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Zander yells, taking off after her.
She lets out a little squeak of surprise and disappears out the door before it swings shut, both their laughs echoing down the hall.
Rick shakes his head at them but doesn’t say anything, and for once, I don’t either. I have my suspicions, but until I know more, I’ll keep them to myself, as hard as that may be.
When we get to the lot, Zander’s bike is gone, and I don’t miss the fact that Kratos’ bike now has only one helmet.