13. The Box
thirteen
The Box
Jax
"Come inside."
The two words have me doing a slight double take.
I expected a slammed door. I expected to be left standing on the damp wood of her back porch, staring at the peeling white paint, listening to the deadbolt slide into place.
Instead, she turns her back to me and walks down the narrow hallway, leaving me to either gape after her or follow.
I step over the threshold. The screen door whines on its hinges before snapping shut behind me. The house smells like lemon oil, old paper, and the faint, sweet trace of vanilla that seems to hang in the air wherever she goes.
My boots feel too heavy for the worn floral runner rug, and I feel too large for this space. The ceiling feels low, the walls closing in, but my mind isn't on the architecture. It's stuck on a loop of the King's Grocery.
I have spent my entire life around iron. I know what it sounds like when metal shears under pressure. I know the exact pitch of an engine tearing itself apart. But I had no idea what it sounded like when a human being shattered until an hour ago.
When she crashed into my chest outside those sliding glass doors, she was vibrating. Her body emitted a high-frequency tremor of pure, unfiltered terror. Seeing her cry, seeing those blue eyes entirely submerged in a blind panic, sent a spike of adrenaline straight into my marrow.
I had stood in that parking lot with her empty plastic basket in my fist, a wild, feral urge clawing at the inside of my ribs. I wanted to hunt. I wanted to find whatever had put that look on her face and break its neck.
Even as she leads me into the small living room, the urge doesn't dwindle in the slightest.
She doesn't offer me a seat or sit down herself. She immediately starts pacing. The gray cardigan is pulled tight across her chest, her arms crossed as if she's trying to hold herself together physically. Her boots click against the hardwood as she goes back and forth.
"I know him," she says.
I stop near the edge of the sofa, keeping my distance. "You mean Stanley Hargrove?"
"Yes." She keeps her head down, looking at the floorboards, tracking a scuff mark with her eyes. "We went to the same university. In Houston. We both studied architecture."
My jaw tightens, and a low, dull ache starts at the base of my skull.
"Houston is also where Whitfield Development is headquartered," she continues, her pacing speeding up by a fraction. "His father's empire. The glass towers. The money. All of it sits in Houston."
"So, why is he here?" I ask.
She stops pacing. Her shoulders drop, and she finally looks at me. I can see the defensive armor she usually wears cracking right down the middle.
"Beats me. I didn't think for a single minute they would target Moonrise," she whispers, her voice fraying at the edges. "I never imagined Stanley would come after this particular stretch of land. I thought I left that world completely behind."
"Huh?"
"When he asked for a meeting," she says, her fingers digging into the wool of her sleeves. "It was out of nowhere, and I was shocked when he sat across from me and laid out an offer for the land."
I cross my arms, planting my boots into the floor. "What kind of offer?"
She lets out a short, hollow laugh that holds absolutely zero humor. "He offered me money. And when I turned that down, he bypassed me entirely. He came to my father today. While I was at the store."
I look at her sharply. "Your father?" I repeat.
"You know my father is sick, Jax," she says, her eyes flashing with a sudden, brilliant fury that burns away the tears.
"The medical bills are suffocating. Stanley sent two suits to this house today.
They offered to pay for his experimental treatments, the private nursing, the specialists. All of it."
"In exchange for the land?"
"Yes."
Piece of shit. The two words land flat in my skull and stay there.
I press my tongue hard against the roof of my mouth, trying to keep the violent surge of anger in check. Targeting a dying man and using a father's failing health as leverage to steal a deed is a kind of corporate evil that makes my trigger finger itch.
"I guess your father didn't sign," I state. I know the old man's reputation.
"No. He threw them out." She takes a shaky breath. "But the problem is that I know Stanley won't stop there."
I uncross my arms, stepping one pace closer to the center of the room. "Rafe dug into the company records. Whitfield Development has a whole floor of acquisitions guys. But Stanley volunteered to handle the Moonrise corridor himself."
Nora's breath hitches.
"Is he doing this because of you?" I continue, holding her gaze. "They're building a four-hundred-million-dollar resort. They could have picked fifty different miles of coastline between here and Galveston. Did he steer this ship here to box you in?"
She shakes her head slowly, her eyes wide and haunted. "I can't answer that for certain."
"But?"
"But you need to understand how Stanley operates," she says, her voice dropping into a desperate, hushed tone. "If there is one absolute truth about him, it's that he never gives up on what he wants. Ever. He is a man who doesn't even comprehend the word 'no'."
"Everyone understands 'no' when it's said loud enough," I grunt.
"Not him," she fires back, stepping toward me. "His father's Houston lawyers have managed every single mess he has ever made. He believes consequences happen to other people. People without his last name."
Her voice lowers even more. "If I have to make a guess, Jax? He will do anything, legal or illegal, moral or corrupt, to get this land. And he will do it without ever physically raising a hand himself. He pays people to do his bleeding."
"Let him send his suits to my yard," I say, the gravel thick in my throat. "I've got a chain hoist and a deep river."
"You don't understand," Nora says, her voice breaking. She closes the distance between us, stopping just a foot away.
She looks up at me, entirely desperate. "At the moment, Stanley thinks the land I'm trying to buy from you actually belongs to my family. He thinks the eastern parcel is mine to sell. He's squeezing me because he thinks I hold the keys."
I stare down at her. "So, he hasn't pulled the records."
"Not yet. But sooner or later, his lawyers will find the discrepancy. They will find out the deed belongs to Jackson Rowe."
"And?"
"And then he will turn the pressure onto you," she pleads, reaching out. Her fingers brush the leather of my cut-off vest, a feather-light touch that burns right through the heavy material.
She's not trying to do this to me. That's the problem.
"He will find a way to pressurize you. He will threaten your business. He will threaten your people. Jax, please."
"Nora…"
"Sell me the land," she begs. "Sell it to me. I will pay whatever you ask. I will set up a payment plan. Just put the title in my name."
I stare at her, the sheer gravity of her desperation pulling me in. "You think you can fight him better than I can?"
"I know I can promise you one thing," she says, her blue eyes burning with conviction. "If I buy that land, Stanley Hargrove will never get it. I will protect it with my last breath. He will have to kill me to pave over that dirt. Just sell it to me."
"I'm not…"
A sudden, violent crack of thunder shatters the quiet of the cottage.
The sound vibrates through the floorboards, rattling the old glass in the windowpanes. The barometric pressure in the room plummets instantly. I can feel the heavy, wet shift in the air. A Gulf storm is rolling in and turning the sky black in a matter of minutes.
Nora gasps, her head snapping toward the front windows.
"The wind," she breathes. "My plans. I left the architectural boards on the drafting table on the side porch."
She doesn't wait for my response. She turns and sprints toward the back of the house.
I follow her immediately, and we hit the side porch just as the sky opens up. The raindrops fall in sheets, a heavy, blinding deluge of water driven by a sudden, wicked wind.
Nora is already at the wooden table, frantically grabbing large, flat sheets of vellum and thick cardboard presentation boards. The wind catches the edge of a blueprint, snapping the paper loudly.
I step past her, my broad shoulders blocking the worst of the wind.
"Grab the tubes," I shout over the roar of the rain hitting the tin roof. "I've got the boards."
She nods, her wet hair plastering to her cheek. She scoops up the cylindrical plastic tubes holding her rolled blueprints.
I reach down with both hands, my fingers easily spanning the width of the heavy presentation boards. I stack them together, gripping them tight against my chest to keep the wind from tearing them away.
The rain instantly soaks my t-shirt, sticking the thin black cotton to my skin. Water runs down my face, stinging my eyes.
"Inside!" I yell, nodding toward the screen door.
She pulls the door open, her arms full of tubes, and guides me back into the house, down a short, dim hallway, and into a back room I haven't seen before.
I soon realize the small, square room smelling heavily of graphite, eraser dust, and coffee is her studio. A large, slanted drafting table dominates the center of the space.
"Put them right there," she says, her chest heaving as she drops her tubes onto a side desk. She points to the drafting table.
I step forward, the water dripping from my jeans onto the hardwood. I carefully lay the large presentation boards down on the slanted wood, making sure the edges are perfectly aligned so they don't crease.
Nora turns to me. She is soaked; her cardigan is dark gray with rainwater, clinging to her shoulders. She looks at my dripping shirt.
"You're soaked," she says softly. "Wait here. I'll get you a towel."
She slips out of the room before I can refuse.
I stand alone in the quiet of the studio. The rain hammers against the single windowpane, a relentless, deafening drumming. I wipe a hand across my face, clearing the water from my eyes.