Chapter 10
JAX
T he first thing I registered was warmth.
Not the sticky Florida humidity that clung to your skin and made the sheets feel damp by morning, but the softer kind that radiated from the woman pressed against me like she’d been made to fit there.
Lark was still asleep, curled against me.
My hand curved over her hip, thumb brushing the dip of her waist where the sheet had slipped low in the night.
The room was dim, lit only by the faint bleed of sunrise through the blinds. I didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to breathe too loud. Or do anything that risked breaking the fragile calm that came from having her here, under my roof and in my arms.
My chest went tight in that way I didn’t let it do often. She looked fragile like this. Breakable. The kind of vulnerability that made my instincts mean, because if anything tried to touch her, I’d burn it down first.
I’d kept her up too late again—couldn’t help it. Every time I told myself I’d let her rest, she’d look at me a certain way, or sigh against my mouth, and my body forgot what the word restraint meant.
Now she was out cold, tangled in my sheets with my scent all over her. And inside her.
I’d never been the kind of man who wanted to share a bed. I liked my space. But with her Lark, waking up like this felt…right. Too right. Almost as good as what I’d had last night—her wrapped around my cock, tight and slick, her head tipped back against the pillows as she came apart for me.
The image hit hard enough to make me grit my teeth. Fuck, I could still feel it—the clutch of her body gripping me like she’d never let go, the shudder that ran through her when my name tore out of her throat. My real name. Not Jax. Not Bishop. Jaxton .
Nobody but my sister called me that. Not even Kane, unless he was trying to make a point.
But hearing it on her lips when she shattered?
That had wrecked me. Made the ground tilt in a way I hadn’t expected.
Her gasping my name, clinging to me like I was the only thing tethering her to the world—it buried deep. Made me want more.
I shifted slightly, careful not to wake her, but she murmured in her sleep, pressing back against me.
My cock twitched, predictably, and I let my forehead rest against the back of her neck for a long moment, breathing her in.
Warm skin, with a faint trace of soap and something softer that was all her.
The phone on the nightstand blinked once, a sharp blue light that pierced the dimness. I reached for it and recognized a message from a number I knew but rarely saw. Highly encrypted. The kind of number you didn’t save under a name, because the name could get you burned.
That number didn’t text unless it mattered.
I reluctantly slid my hand off Lark’s hip and eased out of bed. She stirred but didn’t wake, murmuring as she curled into the warm spot I left behind. Dammit. That sound could wreck me if I let it.
I paused at the side of the bed, looking back at her. Her hair had come loose in the night, fanned across my pillow, her lips parted as she breathed slow and deep. Peaceful. As though she was unaware that the world beyond this room had teeth and claws aimed straight at her.
I dragged on my jeans, shoved my feet into my boots, and palmed the phone before slipping out into the hall.
The clubhouse was quiet at this hour, the silence broken only by the hum of the air system and the faint creak of wood as the building settled.
I ducked into the side corridor and thumbed the encrypted call back.
The line clicked, then a voice I hadn’t heard in over a year came through, low and tight. “Bishop.”
“Henley.” I leaned against the wall, keeping my tone flat. “You don’t text unless you’ve got something heavy.”
“You always were quick,” she muttered as papers rustled on her end.
Special Agent Henley Roebel, DOJ cyber division—though not officially.
She and I had done work together back when I was still half in the system, half out.
We’d run parallel tunnels: me as a “civilian contractor” doing jobs the government didn’t want their names on, her as the woman who made sure my invoices didn’t vanish in red tape.
Off-the-books, plausible deniability, all that shit.
Eventually, she’d gone straight. I hadn’t.
“Listen. I saw a log this morning that made me sit up. You’ve been busy.”
I ground my teeth. “Define busy.”
“Don’t play, Jax. A week ago, someone dug deep into Carly Nolan’s sealed file. Not the alias—the real one. That dig wasn’t just a shadow trace. It left a fingerprint. Yours.”
Cold slid through my gut. I kept my voice steady anyway. “What the fuck?”
“Look, there are probably only a handful of people in the world who would recognize it, but I’ve seen your work for years.
The thing is, you’re not the only one who noticed.
The marshals aren’t the problem anymore.
” Her voice dropped. “The door you opened, I think someone else walked through behind you.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. Look, I’ve been trying to scrub traces, but this was a wide net. And someone was watching it.”
For a second, silence crowded in. Just the fan hum in the hall and the muted sound of somebody clattering pans in the kitchen down the hall. My jaw clenched until my teeth ached.
I shoved my free hand through my hair, pressing hard at the back of my skull. “You saying I drew a map straight to her?”
“I’m saying whoever still has a hard-on for that testimony she gave might have caught your scent. If they’ve been monitoring for irregular access, then yeah—Bishop, you might’ve led them right to her doorstep.”
For a beat, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe past the ice in my chest. The exact fear I’d shoved down a dozen times stood in front of me now.
“You’re not certain,” I finally said.
“No. But here’s my advice—keep your fucking head down.
Don’t go digging again. And for the love of all that is holy, if you care about this woman, move her somewhere tighter than wherever she is right now.
Because if they don’t already have her location, they will.
” Henley exhaled into the line. “Don’t leave her alone. Not now.”
The call ended with a sharp click.
I stared at the black screen, my reflection faint in the glass. My jaw locked, and my fist tightened. The silent hall seemed smaller, the weight pressing in from all sides.
I’d been right. The itch in my gut. The nagging thought that it hadn’t just been marshals who’d noticed me poking around. I’d done exactly what I swore I’d never do—put her in more danger.
Son of a bitch!
Forcing myself to breathe slow and steady, I turned and headed back into my room.
Lark was still asleep, curled small under the sheets, hair tangled, one arm stretched across where I’d been. My chest pinched tight. She looked so fucking breakable like that. Too innocent for the shit aimed at her.
I sent a text to Kane, telling him we needed to meet, then I grabbed a pad off the desk and scrawled a note.
Club business. Back soon. Stay here. —J.
Then I set the paper on the nightstand where she’d see it first thing, before standing there longer than I should’ve, just looking at her.
Finally, I tore myself away and left.
Kane’s door was closed, but the light under it carved a bright line across the hall. I didn’t bother with polite. Two quick knocks, then I pushed in.
Despite being the butt crack of dawn, I wasn’t all that surprised to see him already in his office.
Sunlight cut through the blinds in sharp stripes, catching on the grain of the heavy walnut desk he was already seated behind.
As I entered, he looked up, read everything on my face, and didn’t waste breath on a preamble.
“You look like hell.”
“Feel worse.” I shoved the door shut with my boot and dragged a hand down my face. “Got a bigger problem than I thought.”
His chair creaked as he leaned back. “Tell me.”
“Henley pinged me. Off the books.”
Kane’s eyes narrowed a hair. “Your DOJ contact?”
“The one who still has the sense most of them never fucking got.” I laid it out fast and clean.
“My dig into Lark’s real file a week ago?
Wasn’t just the marshals who sniffed it.
Somebody else had a net set for anomalous access.
Private channels are buzzing. Bastards who shouldn’t know her name are suddenly sniffing around it.
” My voice was flat because sugarcoating wasn’t my nature.
“Could be one of the surviving partners or someone who wants to earn a bonus. Either way—door’s open. Might've walked them straight to her.”
Silence. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “They know where she is?”
“If they don’t, they will soon.” The words tasted like battery acid.
“We tighten the box.” He hit the desk phone, speed-dialed the inner line. “Church in five. My office. Nitro, Edge, Drift, Piston, Fury. Now.” He hung up and looked at me again. “You told her?”
“Not yet.”
“Good.” He rounded the desk and came to stand beside me, shoulder to shoulder, the way he had when I was seventeen and shaking off a life that didn’t fit. “We keep her breathing. We keep her calm. You keep your head.”
I dragged in a breath. “We need to get her out.”
“Eventually,” Kane countered, voice sharp. “Not until we know what’s coming. Panic moves get people killed. You know that.”
My gut twisted. “I won’t lie to her.”
“You won’t have to, brother. Just keep her in the dark long enough to know which way the fucking bullets are coming from.”
I clenched my jaw, fighting down the burn in my chest. “Fine. But when she finds out, it’s coming from me.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything else.”