25. Jax
Jax
I’m not quite as catatonic after the sex as I was the last time we were together, but it’s damn close. Every thought in my head evaporates when this man touches me.
I take forever to catch my breath. By the time I do, he’s moving off me, lifting up on his arms, and pulling gently out of my body.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
I nod, and he maneuvers off the bed and pulls on his pants. He has impressive abs and a beautiful torso, lean like a Grecian warrior.
I must look as debauched as I feel. When he glances at me, he snorts and tugs on his sweater.
“Let me go get you something to clean up with,” he says, and tiptoes out the door. I can hear shouts of excitement from downstairs and hope the game of Uno served as a decent distraction for everyone. If his mother heard us, I might die of shame.
Once he’s out of the room, I sit up, staring down at the bills all over my body. I have no idea why I enjoy seeing them so much during sex, but after the act, they make me feel dirty. I scoop them into a stack, swinging my legs over the left-hand side of the bed to count them.
The meeting with Monroe is looming, and although with today’s money we’ve raised over twenty-five grand, I’m still nervous that it won’t be enough.
There’s a thousand dollars here alone, and every little bit helps.
When I finish counting, I rise, turning around to grab my clothes, and freeze when I see Gray standing silently in the doorway with a hand towel. His eyes are fixed on the money in my hand.
Did he see me counting it? And if he did, why do I suddenly feel a wave of guilt?
He closes the door behind him again and locks it, walking over to me with the towel held out.
“I thought you might want some warm water on it,” he says, but his tone is off, his fingers clutching the towel so tightly it’s hard for me to get it from him.
I pull it free, unsure what to do with the money I’m still holding, and end up placing it awkwardly on the window ledge behind me as he smooths out the comforter on the bed.
Once I’m dressed, I look over at him, but his eyes are on the floor as he fusses with the cuff of his sweater.
I shove the money into the narrow pocket of my skirt, trying to make it as flat as possible, and hand back the clip that he had it stashed in.
He takes it without a word and walks to the door.
What the hell? Is he seriously not going to say anything to me?
Mutely, I follow him downstairs, uncertain what he expects me to do.
“Are we going to join the game?” I ask.
“I hate Uno. Let’s just leave.”
I blink at him as he goes into the room ahead of me. There’s a chorus of female voices, and I hear his sisters berating him for deciding to go home. I follow him, putting on a bright smile, checking over my appearance to ensure that nothing will give away what we’ve been doing.
Still, Donna looks me up and down in a way that seems assessing, and when I say goodbye to them all, I feel like his sisters’ hugs are genuine, but Donna is stiff in my arms.
Gray says nothing to me as we leave the house, waving goodbye and descending the steps.
“I can drop you back at your place,” he says. I should refuse, given the awkwardness between us, but my feet are killing me, and I shrug.
“Sure, thanks.”
He walks around to the driver’s side and doesn’t wait for me to get in, barely allowing me time to shut the door before he’s driving off at breakneck speed.
The journey to Irving is painful, with wall-to-wall traffic and zero conversation.
I know I should be focused on thawing the frigid air between us or trying to strike up a conversation, but now that lunch is over, my mind is fixed on what’s going to happen tonight.
This could be dangerous. If Monroe isn’t happy with what we pay him, what will he do? Is it likely that he’ll seek retribution, and if so, how? I can’t allow my brother to be hurt again. I’ll find somewhere safe for him to hole up if it comes to that.
But what if Monroe just kills him on the spot? Does that kind of thing really happen?
“Jacqueline?” I look up, amazed to find that we’re outside my apartment. “We’re here,” he says coldly, and I open the door.
“Uh, thanks for the ride,” I say, looking back at him. His jaw is clenched, his mouth set in a hard line, and his fingers have a tight grip on the wheel.
“Thanks for coming with me today. It’ll keep them off my back for a little while.”
“Sure. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“The cash for today is in the trunk.”
My stomach flips at the coldness in his tone, and I shut the door, nausea rising in my throat as I walk to the back of the car and he opens the trunk from inside. There’s a small black bag inside, and I take it out.
As soon as the trunk is shut, the tires screech as he pulls away.
“What in the actual fuck?” I say under my breath as I turn, walking toward the steps of the house. Is he really that pissed off just because I was counting the money? Or did something else happen that I don’t know about?
I don’t have time to psychoanalyze Gray Jones right now. I have to make sure my brothers are prepared for what could happen tonight, and that we have an accurate count of the money we’re handing over.
I just pray that it’s enough.
Monroe has arranged to meet Scott in the club's upper rooms, where the game night took place.
It’s the sort of room I can imagine someone like Monroe would thrive in. The ceiling is low, the walls are black, and there’s a makeshift table and bar at the back that was set up a long time ago when we were just starting out.
I’m tense as Monroe and his boys come into the room. There are two other men with him today, the same guy with the rose tattoo and a greasy-looking dude who I would bet is his ‘man of business’ as my dad would have called him. The guy who counts the dirty money.
Scott stands in the center of the room, and Seb and Ben are at the bar. My younger brothers are under strict instructions to say nothing, no matter how unpleasant Monroe may get. I don’t need them to start a street war.
The final tally is thirty grand, and Scott has the bag at his feet, zipped up tight—it’s more money than any of us has ever had in cash before.
Scott is standing upright, but I can tell it’s an effort. His ribs still hurt like hell, and the bruising on his face is stark and unpleasant.
Monroe stops in the center of the room opposite Scott and steeples his hands like some kind of mafia gangster. This whole setup is ridiculous to me, as are all the men involved. If this were being dealt with by women, there would be far less dick swinging and posturing going on.
They’re such man babies.
“Nice to see you again, Scott. You fall down some steps or something?”
My fingers curl slowly into a fist. “Just a little altercation with some friends,” Scott says slowly, keeping his voice low and even. “Nothing to worry about.”
Nick smiles a creepy, Joker-like smile and nods. “You said you have something for me?”
Scott picks up the bag and hands it to the greasy man to Nick’s right.
“Thirty grand. The first installment.”
There’s an ominous silence as the guy takes it, unzipping it without much enthusiasm and then closing it again and dropping it at Monroe’s feet with a little shrug. My entire body tenses up.
“Hmm. That’s disappointing, Scott,” Nick says. “You owe me a lot more than thirty grand, and with the interest accrued in the time it’s taken to pay that much, you’re basically back at zero now.”
That fucker.
I can see the sweat on the back of Scott’s neck. There’s a creak behind me as Seb and Ben shift.
Easy boys.
Nick’s eyes move to my younger brothers. The look he gives them isn’t entirely dismissive, but they clearly don’t worry him. He puts his hands in front of him, rocking onto the balls of his feet.
“Listen, I don’t want any nasty business between us. I said that before. You’re a nice guy. We want to work together, right? And put this behind us.”
I glance at Scott, but he says nothing in response to that.
“Thirty grand is a good start, but it’s nowhere near what you owe me, and we both know that you don’t have the rest. I’ll bet you’ve scraped this together from a few places, am I right? I hope you haven’t skimmed out of your brother’s safe again.”
Without meaning to, I take a step forward, and finally Nick’s eyes land on me. They run down my body and up again, as do the eyes of the two men beside him, and I stop.
“Of course,” he says predictably. “This doesn’t just have to be about money. We could negotiate other terms.”
He’s baiting me, I know he is, but I can’t stop myself from grimacing. He chuckles lightly as I sense rather than see Seb and Ben move closer behind me.
Scott doesn’t even look at us; his eyes focused only on Monroe.
“I’ll get the money, Nick. You don’t have to worry about that. Every week. We’ll meet here, and I’ll get your money.”
I keep my face blank, but my chest tightens. Thirty grand is an insane sum, more than we could usually hope to pull together in two months, let alone every week.
“It goes up 10% every time you delay, Scott. And if I don’t get my money every Sunday, I’m gonna have to start taking it in other ways.” His eyes flick to me and back. “I don’t want this to get messy. Neither do you.” He bows theatrically.
He tips an imaginary hat at me before he turns. “Jax. You’re looking lovely as ever.”
Then he and his boys walk out, and I wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole. He’s trapped us in a never-ending spiral, and we all know it.
How the fuck are we going to get out of it?