Chapter 31 Kratos #2
If only it weren’t her blood, but even with it…Fuck, Jade is dangerous and not just because she’s a skilled killer.
With two huge steps, I eat up the distance between us until I stand in front of her once again. She looks at me through her lashes as she bats them at me. She can try and act innocent all she wants, but we both know that's a load of shit.
I grab her jaw in my hand, forcing her head back so our eyes meet. I try to be gentle, but when she tries to resist, I can't stop the growl it pulls from somewhere deep inside of me. Her smile lets me know she’s more than okay with the rough treatment.
Jesus Christ, this girl will be the death of us all.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I ask her, pushing down the desire I feel for her in favor of getting answers.
Desire can wait.
“I have no idea what you mean,” she tells me, her voice sugar-sweet.
I hear someone chuckle from further in the room, and I snap my head in attention to them.
Jamerson.
I look around the room more and discover that Ant’s also here. It makes sense, considering they are the boys' usual pick when they need lower ranks, but I still don’t like it.
Jamerson has a shit-eating grin on his face, while Ant looks uncomfortable and won’t meet my eyes. Apparently, Ant is the only one with some sense.
“Something funny to you?” I ask, my hold still firmly on Jade’s jaw but my full attention now on Jamerson.
His smile falters a bit before he seems to realize he’s gained my attention. Nobody likes to be the center of my focus if they can help it—nobody but Jade, but I think she likes the rush of danger. He quickly shakes his head before muttering a ‘No, sir’ and looking at the ground.
I watch him for a moment longer before turning my attention back to Jade.
“Jade,” I say her name with force, letting her know I’m not messing around, but it doesn’t do a fucking lick of good.
“Kratos,” she says back, mocking my tone in a way that would get anyone else put in an early grave. Instead, I have to bite back a smile. Not at her snark, though that’s also entertaining. It’s the use of my name and the way it rolls off her tongue that gets me.
I huff before I drop my hand from her jaw and rub a hand down my face in frustration.
“Just tell me,” I say, my earlier anger replaced with exhaustion at this whole damn situation. She must hear it too because she decides to take pity on me.
“Fine, if you must know, I was curious, okay?” She shrugs as if it’s no big deal when we both know it is. It’s a huge deal, but I don’t want to fight with her. Not after thinking she was gone, not with her leg still dripping blood all over the place, and definitely not while we have an audience.
“Is that a crime?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest in irritation.
“It is when you end up bleeding in a room meant for torture surrounded by idiots!” I snap at her as I gesture around the room, full of weapons and her blood.
She rolls her eyes but doesn’t respond.
“Hold on, what do you mean you were curious?” Rick asks, taking a step towards us. Leave it to Rick to pick apart our conversation.
I glare at her, but she says nothing.
“Jade let Spencer take her because she was curious,” I tell him.
“What?” Spencer snaps. I hear him rustling around as he finally gets to his feet. “No, she didn’t,” he says as he walks over to join us, outrage clear in his voice at the mere suggestion that he wasn’t the one in control here.
“Um, yes, actually I did,” she tells him with a pointed look.
He opens his mouth to argue, but she cuts him off before he can.
“I saw you around the corner even before Rick had pulled away. I could have easily broken your arm when you stabbed me with that fucking needle, not to mention all the other ways I could have stopped you. And I easily got out of that chair. I could have done that any time.” She ticks each thing off on her finger as she goes, giving him a list.
I watch as Spencer digests what she just said, seeing the moment he realizes the truth in her words.
“Wh... Why would you do that?” Spencer asks with a perplexed look on his face.
“I wanted to know what you wanted and what you were up to,” she tells him with a shrug.
“You wanted to know what I was up to enough that you let me drug you and put you in the trunk, taking you somewhere unknown, to do god knows what with you?” he asks, his voice raising in volume until he’s shouting at her as he waves his hands around in a frustrated manner.
Jade simply nods.
“Okay, enough,” Rick says as he walks between them, ending their stare-down and argument all at once.
“Jade, you need to get that leg looked at. You're still bleeding,” he tells her in a voice much softer than I've ever heard.
She looks down at her leg, and the rest of us do as well.
Fuck, I forgot she was bleeding.
“Take your ass to my office and get that taken care of while I handle this,” I tell her in a no-nonsense tone that usually has people falling in line.
Not Jade, though. She just waves me off as though it’s no big deal.
Does she ever take anything seriously?
“Jade, so help me, if you don’t go handle it. I will throw you over my shoulder and do it myself,” I tell her, hoping to force her to cooperate.
It does the opposite. Instead, she cocks an eyebrow at me, her lips turning up in a smirk as if this is a game. “Don’t threaten me with a good time, Daddy,” she says, her voice low and suggestive in a way that goes straight to my cock.
Fuck.
“Was it worth it?” Zander’s cold tone draws our attention back to him before I can respond.
Spencer at least has the decency to look ashamed, but he doesn’t look away from Zander’s stern gaze.
“No.” He offers no further explanation, but I hear the truth in that one word. For a minute, we're all quiet, and I wait for Zander to demand more, but he doesn’t.
“What happened to your leg, Jade?” Rick finally asks the question I’m sure is on everyone's mind.
Spencer said he didn’t hurt her, and it didn’t seem like he was lying, but what happened if he didn’t do it?
She doesn’t answer, and neither does Spencer.
“She fucking stabbed herself,” Jamerson finally speaks up, reminding us he’s still there, and once again, I find myself glaring at her.
“I was proving a point. Don’t look at me like that. He,” she points at Spencer, but my eyes stay fixed on her, “needed to know that he couldn’t just threaten me into telling him whatever his little heart desired.”
“And stabbing yourself was the best way to get him to understand that?” Zander asks in outrage.
She shrugs. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Besides, it worked.”
“Do you hear yourself right now, Jade?” Zander asks as he tugs at his hair in frustration.
“Of course I do,” she answered in a bewildered tone, clearly not understanding the rhetorical question.
“And you.” Zander turns to Spencer when he realizes he won't be getting through to Jade. “What made you think this was a good idea? How can you just be okay with throwing all our hard work away?”
“I thought it was a good idea because I was trying to look out for us. We all know that Jade is dangerous, and if today taught me anything, it was that she’s even more dangerous than I originally thought.”
“Who cares if she’s dangerous? We're all dangerous, and she hasn’t done a thing against us. Even though she’s had more than enough opportunities to.”
“I know that!” Spencer screams. “Fuck! I know, okay? I realized I fucked this up and was going to let her go. I was so focused on figuring her out that I missed some shit, but when I thought of hurting her, I couldn’t bring myself to do it,” he sighs, his shoulders sag in defeat, but he keeps going.
“I couldn’t do it because I knew she wasn't really the monster in all of this. Yes, she's dangerous and drives me crazy with the mystery and the secrecy, but she’s a product of her environment. She had to be that way to survive, and everything she's done was for the benefit of innocents.” He looks at Jade, and I can see in his eyes that he’s telling the truth.
Just yesterday at our meeting, his eyes were guarded and hard whenever he looked at her, but now they’re all but pleading with her to understand.
“Before I could let her go, she snapped and stabbed herself,” he tells us, his voice hard and his eyes hardening to match it.
“Hey, I didn’t just snap. You guys started it with your threats and bullshit!”
We all ignore her.
Spencer turns back to Zander as if Jade hadn’t spoken.
“And as for throwing everything away, you should know I would never do that. I would have continued to lose my fucking mind and look into every dead end before I did that. I got permission. I reached out to Froggie a few days ago, and he gave me the okay to look into it. His exact words were ‘by any means necessary.’ So clearly, I wasn’t the only one with concerns. ”
“Oh, did he?” I ask, and Spencer nods.
Well, this is news to me and just made things a whole lot more complicated.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
“Alright, enough of this bullshit. It’s time for a meeting,” I tell them before turning back to Jade.
“Go handle your fucking leg while we clean this shit up.” This time, she doesn’t fight me, instead giving me a nod. I’m glad she decided to listen; her face is becoming paler by the minute, and I’m sure she knows just as well as I do that she’ll pass out soon if she doesn't get it to stop bleeding.
She makes it to the door before I speak, causing her to pause in the doorway.
“When you're done, stay put. It’s time we sat down and handled this all together because clearly, this isn’t working.” I say the last part to everyone, and I’m met with nods of agreement.
Her lip quirks up in a barely there smile as she passes into the hall and out of my sight, but I see it, and that’s all I need to know I’m making the right call.
“Jamerson, Ant. You two are going to report to me later. I want every detail of what happened here today.” I don’t wait to hear their response before I turn to the table of weapons. If they want to continue breathing, they will be there.
“So, do you really think he gave permission?” Zander asks me in a low voice, as if he doesn’t want the others to overhear him.
“I think it's possible, and if that’s the case, we're going to have a problem,” I tell him without going into it. We clean up and head out. The door is, in fact, broken, which is made apparent when it fails to shut.
“Let’s go, boys,” I tell them without checking to see if they follow. I know they will.
We walk back to the club. Jamerson and Ant head down to the main floor to do whatever they like until they have to report back later, and we take the stairs up to the offices.
Blood litters the floor every couple of steps, but I try to block it out. I tell myself she’s okay; after all, she’s not lying on the floor here, and the trail continues up.
We make it to the top floor, where Dom stands off to the side of the stairs, and I make my way to him with instructions to have someone clean it up.
I don’t mind blood. It’s just a part of the job most days, but something about it being Jade’s makes me want it gone.
I don’t need any more reminders that she was hurt on my watch, whether she did it to herself or not.
He assures me it will be handled, and I turn back to find the guys standing outside of my office.
Nobody talks. Hell, if I didn’t know them better, I would think these guys hated one another with the way they stand around, glaring at each other as they wait.
Well, I guess Trent is the odd one out, so it makes sense with them, but the other three are usually a lot better with their issues.
They refuse to show weakness in public, something that I’ve always appreciated.
It only reinforces how much of a problem this whole thing is that they are this torn about it.
I look back at Trent and contemplate making him leave. This is technically Vengeance business, and not only is he not a part of us, but he’s also a cop—a cop who usually wants to do the right thing.
He's a good guy, and we’re not, at least not like him.
One look at his face lets me know he won’t go without a fight, though.
As much as he likes to live by the rules, I also saw the way he looks at Jade.
The fact that he was willing to put aside his differences with Zander and the guys to rush in and help tells me much more about him than being a cop does.
I step up to Froggie's door, which they all passed by, and stop. They turn their attention to me. I can see the varying levels of shock take over each of their expressions as they realize this meeting won't be just with me. I nod towards the door as a way of calling them over.
“No way, Kratos,” Zander says, raising his hands and taking a step back, fear evident in his voice.
It would almost be funny to see him cower if this was any other day, but right now, my patience is too thin to appreciate it.
“It wasn’t a question. The boss wants to see all of you,” I tell them before I open the door and let myself in. Leaving it open behind me for them to follow suit. “I wouldn’t keep 'em waiting if I were you,” I call back over my shoulder.
I hear them moving in the hall to follow me a moment later.
Nobody meets the boss.
It’s an unspoken rule that everyone in the city knows.
Those who do get to take Froggie's identity to the grave with them.
I can understand their hesitation, but this is different. If nothing else, I can guarantee that they will be the first to walk away.