20. Jax
Jax
“So that’s eighteen grand,” Scott says, laying out the cash that I’ve brought to the club. It’s everything I’ve received from Gray so far, as well as what Seb and Ben have given us.
We’ve been sequestered in my office downstairs for half an hour, the thumping music starting to give me a headache.
Scott is in a bad way, hunched over and in pain, but he still refuses to see a doctor. His eye is an ugly dark purple, the eyelid completely swollen shut. Even our security guards told him to get it checked, and his stubbornness is driving me crazy.
“We’d be better off with 25k,” I say, looking at the pile of cash. “The more we can pay him, the better.”
“Sure, and where are we going to get that kind of money by Sunday?”
“I’ll get it.”
“Jax,” he says, looking up at me, licking his swollen lip. “You’re not doing anything stupid, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“You’re not, like, selling drugs at the club or something.”
I laugh. “You think I want Flynn to kill us both? No. Nothing to do with the club, this is my money.”
“Where is it from?”
“A legit place. I’m not doing anything illegal.”
“I fucking hate this,” Scott says as he leans back in his chair. I flinch, holding back the lecture I want to give him so badly.
Scott is a wonderful brother. Loyal, generous, and kind, but he has a weakness that none of the family recognized until it was too late. He kept his addiction secret for years, and I naively assumed he was past it. Now, I don’t know what to believe, or whether I can ever trust him again.
After Nick Monroe is dealt with, things are going to change around here.
“I need to get back to work. Stay here and don’t move around too much,” I say.
Scott nods, his eyes already closing.
Going to the chair at the side of the room, I snag a blanket I’ve used a few times when I’ve pulled an all-nighter at the club and lay it over him. He squeezes my hand, a tear falling down his cheek as I put a stool under his feet to prop them up.
“I’m sorry I’m such a fuck up,” he says despairingly.
“You’re not a fuck up. We’ll manage this the same way we manage everything else, and then you’re back to the GA meetings. No arguments. You need help.”
He nods, but we both know there is a long road ahead to his recovery.
“I never want to see another card table again,” he says bitterly. “I swear to god.”
“Well, that’s a good start,” I say, giving him a sympathetic smile and leaving him to sleep it off as I go into the club.
I consider putting a discreet message out to the team to see if there’s a doctor in the crowd tonight, but I decide against it.
Not only would it make the entire staff aware of Scott’s situation, but the resulting doctor would likely be drunk.
I decide it’s best to leave him to heal in his own time.
Still, I ask Alex and one of the other staff to keep an eye on him and bring him some bar snacks later in the evening as I head down to the main floor.
The design of the atrium always takes my breath away when I walk onto the main dancefloor, no matter how many times I’ve done it.
There aren’t many venues that look like this, with the lights from the DJ booth ricocheting madly across the ceiling, reflecting off the mirrors on the upper floors, spreading it around like a huge kaleidoscope.
The club is busy but not quite as packed as it has been. The VIP booths are full, though, and there are several parties going on, the staff running around like a hive of bees, flitting between the tables.
The booths are stacked above the main dance floor, all of them with plush velvet seating, which Flynn thought was a good idea at the time but has since been destroyed by alcohol stains.
I’m glad it’s dark so the guests can’t see them, but every time I’m here before the house lights turn off, I grimace at the state of them.
My assistant manager, Aidan, is in the Blue Room tonight, and I envy him being somewhere a little quieter, but my mood lifts as I notice a familiar face ahead of me.
Moving through the grinding bodies around the edge of the floor and high-fiving one of the DJs waiting in line for his set, I make my way to one of our biggest booths on the right-hand side.
Pippa and eight other women are seated inside, with several bottles of alcohol already in the center of the table.
Pippa sees me as I step up to the booth, and she raises her glass.
“Ladies, this is the manager, she gave us the gold card that bought all of this,” she says, grinning a little drunkenly at me. They’re really taking advantage of the free drinks, but I don’t care, as long as she’s happy.
“Anything else you need?” I ask.
“More champagne!” Pippa screams over the music, and I can’t help but laugh at her as she almost falls out of the booth. I beckon over one of the staff, who throws me a thumbs up as he takes another table’s order.
“Thanks for this,” Pippa shouts. “We all needed this, and it’s great that it’s free.”
“My pleasure.”
“You’re not as much of a bitch as I thought you were,” she slurs.
“Likewise,” I shout back, and the rest of the table explodes into hysterics.
They seem like a nice bunch, a lot of them quite a bit older than me, and Pippa is in her element as the hostess.
That’s all I wanted from my offer. I need to keep her happy in case Mr. Asshole chucks me out once he’s done with me.
I turn away from their table, planning to check on Aidan to see if everything in the club is going smoothly, when I come to a halt as I step back onto the dance floor.
A pair of dark eyes is watching me from a booth on the other side of the room.
When Scott told me about Nick Monroe, I googled him to find out what the hell my brother had gotten himself into. Unsurprisingly, there was almost nothing about the man online, just a mugshot. That mugshot is staring right back at me from inside my own damn club.
The fucking nerve of this dipshit when he just beat my brother half to death.
I catch Tyrel’s eye at the entryway, who turns as I approach him and, without a word of explanation, falls into step beside me.
Monroe’s beady eyes are on me all the way across the room. It’s a sleazy look I’ve seen from guys a thousand times, and it makes me want to punch him. If this asshole thinks he’s sitting in my club, while my brother sleeps off the bruises his men gave him, he has another thing coming.
“You must be Jax,” he says as I reach the booth. The cronies on either side of him immediately zero in on me. One of them has a rose tattoo on the side of his neck and a slicked-back hairstyle that emphasizes his receding hairline.
Monroe isn’t drinking, but his men are. I remain very still, watching them, deciding how best to handle this. If I get Tyrel to remove them, it will cause a scene, but I’d like nothing more than to take this guy down a peg or two.
“Nick Monroe, is it?” I ask coldly.
“In the flesh. Lovely to finally meet you. Your brother’s crazy about you.”
His buddies snicker, and I inhale a long breath, tamping down the white-hot rage coursing through me.
“You’re not welcome in this club, Mr. Monroe. I’d like you to leave.”
He nods sagely, as if he were expecting me to say just that.
“Oh, I would, babydoll, but you see, right now, your brother owes me half what this club is worth. With the interest on top, who knows how bad it’ll get if he doesn’t pay me. And I did ask nicely the first time. He brought this on himself.”
Tyrel is quiet beside me. He knows nothing of what happened to Scott, but he saw him when he came through the door tonight, and I can feel the tension rising every second.
Tyrel’s loyalty to my brothers and me is absolute, and if I let him have his way, Nick Monroe will be thrown onto the sidewalk in thirty seconds.
I place a hand gently on Tyrel’s wrist as he looms above them, and he takes a tiny step back. I don’t need this to escalate, not with what this man is capable of.
“Until he gets me the money I’m owed,” Monroe continues. “Me and my boys are gonna come here as often as we like. Is that clear? I don’t enjoy being made a fool of, Miss Jenson, I’m sure you can understand. And I will get what’s owed to me. One way or the other, if you know what I mean.”
I chew on my tongue. The guys on either side of Nick are leering at me now, and the one at the end of the booth is dangerously close to touching me. If he tries, I’ll break his arm.
“You wouldn’t want Flynn finding out about this, would you, babydoll? That wouldn’t be good for business. So you run along now. And while you’re at it, get some more drinks for my friends. I don’t want one of those bimbos to bring them either. You mix them and carry them over here yourself.”
Tyrel takes a menacing step forward, but Nick doesn’t even bat an eye. His gaze is intense and vicious, the kind of look the men my father hung around with used to have.
This man has done what he did to Scott many times in his life, and worse. There’s cruelty there, and I don’t want to provoke him any more than I have. This fight is for another day.
I smile sweetly. “Bourbons all round?”
They nod. The tattooed one looks disappointed that he isn’t getting the fight he wanted. I step back and move off toward the bar, Tyrel hot on my heels.
“Is that fucker the one who hurt Scott?” he asks.
“Yes. Don’t antagonize him.”
“I won’t. I can see why you need to keep him happy. If he didn’t have his muscle on either side of him, he’d be a lot smaller and a lot meeker, believe me. The smug ones are always the biggest cowards.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it. Thanks for the intimidation tactics. I forget how big you are sometimes.”
Tyrel snorts. “If you think I’m leaving you to deliver those drinks alone, you’re sadly mistaken.”
I smile back at him. “Thanks. Keep an eye on him tonight, tell me if he starts any trouble.”
“With pleasure.”