Chapter 9 Jinx
Jinx
By the time the night finishes, a few things go down.
The first, Blaze Walker, the president of Crimson Road, is killed at the hands of Judge.
The second, despite no fatalities, Ace got grazed by a bullet, and Warden took one too to his gut. Neither is bad enough to put them in early graves, but the road captain is in rough shape.
Then, the most startling thing. I forget what I’m doing everything for, why I joined the club. Why I agreed to watch over Raven.
Twenty-four hours later, and I’m still in shock.
“Dude.” Kansas shoves his elbow into my side. “You’re supposed to throw the drink back, not stare at it.”
Surrounding us, a party erupts. Not just because we’ve taken down a club, claiming the spot as our own, but because so much change is about to take place.
A large number of the prospects have earned their patches after everything that’s gone down. Sure, we’ve got to wait for Diesel to get around to getting our patches attached, but this is the moment I’ve been waiting for.
I’m finally a part of something. I’m finally someone.
Grabbing the shot glass, I throw back the contents and cringe at the burn. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do what I need it to. What I need is a… distraction. Something that will get my mind off the one thing haunting me.
When a bottle appears to refill the glass, it’s not the woman I want to be on the other end. As sweet as Penelope is, it’s not her green eyes I want to look into. She doesn’t snarl and insult me, giving off only politeness and sweetness.
She’s not Raven.
God, what in the hell is wrong with me?
Further down the bar, the woman who’s been haunting me frowns and huffs, using her hands as she speaks. When I see her now, I barely even see the anger burning in her gaze. No, all I hear are her moans and the sound she makes when she’s said my name over and over.
Now that’s something I know she’s never given a man before. Is that why I’m so worked up about it?
To think she was a virgin… Even now, I’m struggling to wrap my mind around it.
I get she can be threatening at times, but that doesn’t mean she’s not tempting. Are there really guys here who just don’t see her the way I do? The real question to ask is, how do I see her?
Like a magnet, my eyes are dragged back to her.
“What in the hell do you want me to do about it?” Raven thrusts an empty bottle toward Ripper’s grinning face. “Out means out. Stop drinking it all so quickly, and we’ll have enough to serve through the rest of the night.”
She’s heated up, just as she always is. Has her skin always flushed a pale pink whenever she gets worked up, or have I only now noticed it?
The VP laughs, enjoying her rage. As I watch the scene play out, it isn’t until my jaw is aching that I realize my teeth are clenched.
What is this sensation rolling around in my chest? I don’t like how it consumes me in one swallow.
Tearing my eyes away, I swallow down my next shot and enjoy the way my thoughts cloud over. Hard to think about complicated stuff while I’m drunk.
I’ve got to be like the rest of the guys and actually celebrate. There are two things I need. One, I’ve already got coursing through my system. The other…
It must be perfect timing that my beautiful blonde definition of fun is approaching with that tempting smile on her lips. It’s that curve that gets men in trouble. The very same curve I entertain anytime I get an itch to let loose.
Sweet Rosie. My beautiful Rosie.
Yes.
This is the antidote. This is what I need to reset the static in my head.
“Hey there, gorgeous.” I force my most practiced smile, abandoning my glass to spin on my stool.
She steps neatly into the space between my knees, a move we’ve perfected over time.
My hands come up to hover at her hips—a brief, inexplicable freeze—before I finally settle them against the familiar curve of her waist.
“You look lonely by yourself,” she purrs, her brown eyes, warm as spiked cocoa, crinkling as she drinks me in. “Tell me you’re free. You’ve been so busy lately.” Her fingers trail up my chest. “I want to dance, and no one can keep up with me like you can.”
As her hands rise to cup my face, her breath a sweet, predictable warmth against my lips, I feel it. A pressure. A weight so heavy, it surpasses mere gravity’s pull. I don’t need to look to confirm.
Raven’s watching.
It hits me like a bucket of ice water—a sudden, clenching wave of guilt, sharp and utterly nonsensical. I haven’t done anything wrong. This is what I do. So why do I feel like I’ve just been caught in a lie?
Before Rosie can close the distance, my head turns of its own volition, a puppet on a string I didn’t know I was attached to.
I’m right. Raven isn’t looking at me, but her profile is a hard line of disapproval.
She’s scowling at a bottle label like it personally offended her before dropping it in the trash hard enough to hear glass crack.
I’ve seen her angry, but this… this is a quiet, simmering storm.
Not even the VP gets under her skin like that.
“Come hang out with us, Jinx. It’s boring over here,” Rosie draws out every syllable, letting them curl around my ear just the way she knows I like it. It’s a siren’s call designed for the old me.
The old me would have said yes in a heartbeat. Maybe I still would, if I weren’t utterly transfixed by the scowling bartender.
Raven snatches a bottle of top-shelf tequila and pours a shot, neat. In one reckless motion, she throws it back. Does she even drink? I’ve seen her taste-test ingredients, a thoughtful nibble here and there, but I’ve never seen her inhale liquor with that kind of practiced, angry ease.
“Oh, fuck yeah! Come take a break!” Ripper slurs, reaching for her arm, way too handsy when he’s drunk. “Haven loves you! Let’s party. We can play pool. Let’s kick Hammer’s ass.”
Or, he could go back to his old lady and give her all his attention as he has been for the last damn week.
Raven pours another shot, ignoring him until her shoulders settle into a rigid line. “Go enjoy yourself,” she says, her voice flat. “I’m busy.”
When Ripper leans in, lowering his voice to say something only she can hear, my jaw tightens. I see it—a faint, betraying flush blooms high on her cheekbones. What is he saying to her? The question is a barbed hook in my throat.
“Jinx.” Rosie’s voice is a petulant pull, turning my face back to her with gentle fingers. She pouts, impatient. By now, my tongue should be down her throat. By now, I should be forgetting my own name.
“I—” The word stumbles out, clumsy. I’m pulling back before I even think, cradling her wrists to gently put space between us.
I force another smile, but it feels brittle on my face.
“I think I’m gonna call it early, actually.
Why don’t you give some love to Smoke or Ace? You know they love the attention.”
She purses her lips, confusion clouding her pretty features. Her eyes sweep over me, looking for a crack, a sign. Can she see the civil war raging in my skull? It feels like a battlefield, smoke and chaos, and no clear side winning.
With a graceful shrug, Rosie just places a chaste, almost pitying kiss on my cheek. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.”
I watch her drift away, a beacon of easy pleasure moving toward other, less complicated men. I should feel a pull. A flicker of regret for a promised good time.
Instead, I feel… empty.
The sensation is a hollow, echoing space that cheap thrills and warm bodies can’t seem to touch any longer. It’s a hunger I don’t know how to name, and it’s staring at a bottle of tequila on the other side of the bar.
* * *
Days drift by, but nothing truly feels like it changes.
Everyone’s back to having a good time. Most of my time feels like it’s at the clubhouse. We’re getting nice weather back to back, and instead of taking my bike out, I’m here, stuck by an invisible pair of shackles.
We’ve got a pair of ex-Crimson Road members hanging about, but I can’t even use them as an excuse as to why I feel the need to stick around.
Raven won’t look at me. Rather, instead of picking fights with me, she outright acts like I don’t exist. This shift that’s happened between us, one that was created out of my control, is not one I can easily fix. Not when we’re back to square one.
Every time I think about how I spend my nights alone on a bed that kills my back, I find myself wondering if I’m torturing myself for a reason.
I need to go back home to grab some razors. My face is starting to itch.
For the past five days, I haven’t woken with the rise of the sun. Instead, I miss breakfast, but always walk in on lunch being served. All to keep up with her schedule.
If it weren’t for all these women offering to help feed us beasts, I’d be worried poison would end up on my plate.
My afternoons are spent at the bar, and my evenings end up downstairs. Wherever I go, there’s always a common factor.
The beauty who hates me.
Tonight, she has barely even looked my way. She’s not punching her bag or taking out her anger on any of the equipment this time around. I guess she spars once a week. Now here I am, watching her take on her second opponent.
None of these assholes volunteered to babysit her, but when it comes to wanting to knock her down a peg, they’re happy to jump up for the opportunity.
Thwack!
“Fuck…” Muttering the curse, I watch as she flips Killer onto his back with a hard slam. “She was going easy on me.”
Sitting away from all these fools, I’m not entirely alone. Kansas is smart not to put himself with her future opponents. That, or he’s already gotten his own taste once upon a time.
He cocks a brow, confused. He remains that way because there’s no way in hell I’m going to announce that I got my ass kicked by her happily. Nobody does. I mean, I didn’t know about these sparring matches because no one talks about them.
Keeping my eyes on her is a compulsion. I don’t blink. The violent flush on her skin, the panting rhythm of her breath—my own lungs seem to sync to it. She’s coiled, then fluid, a spring unspooling as she waits for her opponent to rise. Every movement is a lesson in controlled fury.
Watching her has a different kind of impact. Taking her punches was a blunt, personal thrill. But this—seeing the artistry of her violence, the way she calculates and strikes—it does something else to me. Something deeper, in my marrow.
I want to be the one in that ring. Not to trade blows, but to dismantle that focus until it’s only on me.
I wouldn’t play defense. I’d go straight for the tackle, feel the breath leave her in a rush as we hit the mat.
I’d pin her, not to win, but to still that magnificent, furious motion. To have her under me.
My gut tightens, a low, hot pull. Fuck. It’s not a fight I’m imagining. It’s the aftermath. The weight of her, the heat. Getting myself between her thighs again, where the friction isn’t from fists, but from—
A groan escapes me before I can cage it.
I drag my hands over my face, as if I could scrub the image away.
My body is a traitor, humming with a relentless, single-minded current I don’t understand.
It’s not just hunger clawing at me. It’s not anger.
It’s a hollow, howling thing in the center of me that only her shape seems to fit.
Next to me, Kansas cuts a sidelong glance. He sees the tension in my shoulders, the clenched jaw. Thankfully, he’s blind to the rest—to the ache that has nothing to do with any wound I’ve ever earned, and everything to do with the distance she’s forced between us.
We watch for a few minutes until Killer is tapping out before he sighs next to me, somehow bored.
We’re watching the same thing, right?
“Let’s get out of here, man. How long has it been since we just went somewhere?” Kansas moves to stand, dusting the back of his jeans with his hands. “Let’s go to Lacey’s.”
My gaze isn’t on him. It’s locked on Raven as she stretches, a slow, feline arch of her back. Her head rolls, a hand coming up to cup the curve of her shoulder. A faint wince tightens the corner of her mouth. Is she hurt? Did she strain something? A list of concerns starts blaring in my mind.
A swift kick comes to my thigh for my silence. My upper lip curls into a snarl. “I don’t want to go to the fucking strip club, okay?”
The words are out, jagged and too loud, before I can sand them down. Kansas lifts his hands, eyes wide. Fuck, I am too. The sharp edge in my own voice surprises me. This isn’t me.
Raven looks over, utterly unimpressed. Our eyes meet—the first time in what, two days?
—before she dismisses me entirely. She turns to Killer, helping him to his feet.
Her fingers work at the straps of his gloves, a careful, intimate familiarity in the motion.
Then her hand settles on his bare arm, right where she’d kicked him earlier. Checking. Soothing.
Killer smiles down at her, nodding at something she says, and something in my gut wrenches.
There’s a sharp pain inside of my body caused by something less physical. Jealousy? The word feels foreign, like trying on someone else’s skin. I don’t do jealousy. I take what I want, or I walk away. Simple.
I tell myself it’s just a dry spell. That the memory of her that night by the lake—her giving me a side of her I’m sure no one has seen before—has just messed with my head.
She messed with it badly.
I’m not even sure I’d be able to get it up for any of the women floating around the club at night. That’s how fucked I am.
Watching her touch another man twists something inside of me. It makes it hard to believe I’m just lusting for another round with her. Sex wouldn’t fix this. Sex would make it worse. I can’t handle worse. I’m already at my wits’ end.
“Dude.” Kansas shifts his weight, reading the emotions coiling on my face. “We could… I don’t know, go for a ride. You just… You seem like you’ve got a stick up your ass lately. Let’s enjoy the freedom we have now.”
He’s right. I force my eyes away from them, from the easy way her thumb strokes Killer’s arm. The movement is casual, but I’m going to be wondering if he’s going to try anything out of misunderstanding.
She’s not yours to begin with, asshole. Killer can try if he wants.
“Sorry. Yeah,” I mutter, pushing to my feet. Shaking my head, I try to find a happy middle so I can calm down. “Just… fresh air.”
What I really need is distance. Enough to get away from the woman who has become a constant, frustrating contradiction in my head.