27. JAX
JAX
Istood before the cockpit door.
Hands clenched at my sides, my head a dangerous, hollow place. Madoc stood to my right. Nate to my left. We didn’t speak. We just looked. We burned.
“Fuck,” Nate said after a minute. “This is a super fucked up situation.”
That about summed it up.
There was blood streaked on the door. We’d moved the body, but the scene was grim. The whole situation was grim.
My knuckles throbbed as I clenched my fists. We’d been so fucking close. The buyer was waiting. We had the prototype. The Vipers were dead. Olivia was on board with the take-down-Preacher-plan.
The universe had granted me a taste of freedom. Just a single moment of pure, fucking bliss.
Then the rug had been yanked out from under me. The second I’d seen Olivia stumbling toward me, bloody and screaming, the truth became undeniable: People like us don’t get happy endings.
The injustice burned hot. The anger, hotter. I could taste the iron on my tongue, the hunger for violence. There was the risk it would cloud my judgment.
I had to calm down. I couldn’t think.
It was a good thing I had my brain trust. Madoc, not Nate.
Nate was a fucking idiot.
“So, what, we just wait here until the fucker has to take a piss?” Nate kicked at the door for good measure. Reinforced metal. No way in. No way out.
Grim.
Madoc turned suddenly and walked away without a word. I didn’t follow.
“Where’s he going?”
“He’ll be back,” I said.
Sure enough, Madoc returned a few minutes later, Olivia’s ID badge in his hand.
Nate scoffed. “You think he’s just going to swipe us in?”
“No,” Madoc drawled. “I’m knocking on the door.”
He scanned the badge. The light remained a harsh, unwavering red. Denied.
But a moment later, the phone by the door rang.
Madoc smirked at me. “It’s for you.”
I stepped forward and answered it, nearly snapping the cord in my anger. My voice was steel. “So, what the fuck do you want?”
Silence.
It wasn’t a shocked silence, but a calculated one. A silence before detonation, before the bomb went off. If I’d learned one thing since boarding this plane, it was that the Vipers were a dramatic bunch of assholes. They loved the production of death.
“You know what I want, Jax.”
The prototype. Naturally.
I should’ve known the Vipers would have a backup plan.
The snake laughed at my silence. The phone creaked in my fist. I didn’t realize I was crushing it until cold fingers brushed across my knuckles.
My eyes flicked to Madoc. I unclenched.
“Is that it?” I bit out. “I give you the prototype, and you fly us straight into the ground?”
“Not at all.” He sounded amused. “This is a negotiation, Jax. We can both get what we want.”
“And what do you think I want?”
“To live—” He paused, then, as if out of breath. I listened, focusing on the sound. Inhale. Exhale. It sounded wet. Too wet.
A barbaric grin spread across my face. “You’re hurt.”
He sucked in a measured breath. “Just a flesh wound. No need to worry about me.”
He was lying. Olivia said the gun went off twice. We’d assumed it was a misfire, or the captain took the hit. Madoc had mentioned the man was ex-military. He was probably skilled enough to wrestle a gun and turn it around, but not enough to fully combat a trained assassin.
“But since you mentioned it,” he went on, his voice tight. “A first aid kit wouldn’t go astray. Bring me one.”
Got him.
I leaned into the wall. “Yeah? What’s in it for me?”
“Your crew lives to see another day.”
I barked a humorless laugh. “They’re not the ones currently bleeding out.”
“Not yet.” His voice dropped low. “That could change in a moment, Jax. It takes nothing to go nose down. Are you willing to risk them?”
I stared at Madoc. Visions of him dead flashed through my mind like a grim projector—him, and Ryle, and even Nate, lost in a wreckage of twisted metal and fire.
We’d been in bad situations before. We’d been up against the wall. But my crew didn’t bend over. Not then, and definitely not fucking now.
We wouldn’t leave unscathed. But at least if we died, it wasn’t because we gave up fighting.
“You know you’re the last Viper standing,” I said, my voice even. Unbroken. “You could’ve landed the plane and slithered away undetected.”
“That changed the moment I saw her.”
I grimaced, familiar with the feeling. Olivia was a wrecking ball. She changed everything.
“You can still walk away,” I said. “Give it up. We won’t touch you.”
He chuckled, then rasped: “I’m not the one who is giving up. I’m the one flying the plane. I’m the one holding a gun to the captain’s temple.”
My jaw clenched. At least the captain was still alive. “If you kill him,” I warned, “all bets are off.”
There was a beeping sound. Then a harsh, muffled thump. “Funny thing about planes,” the snake mused. “They can cruise on autopilot, but they can’t land on it. Just one of those fun facts I learned a few weeks ago.”
My anger surged. I swallowed it back.
“Just so we’re clear.” He added, coughing. “I need the prototype. And I need the girl. I need both, or I’m a dead man walking. Like you.”
I fought the urge to rip the phone clean from the wall. His ragged breathing echoed in my head. I knew the sound of a man dying. I’d heard it more times than I cared to admit.
“There’s blood in your chest,” I pointed out. Madoc’s eyes sharpened on me, his smile a deadly thing. I angled toward him, then made a shooting motion with my hand. Madoc clutched his own chest in understanding. “How long do you think you have before you bleed out?”
“Not long,” the snake finally admitted. “Which is why you’re going to get me that kit. You have ten minutes, or we all go down.”
He hung up.
“Fuck,” I spat and smashed the phone back into the bracket. Both Madoc and Nate watched me silently. I braced my hands on the wall, thinking.
Thinking.
Ten minutes. A loaded gun. A half-billion-dollar weapon. A girl who complicated everything.
Typically, Nate’s patience ran out first. “So, uh, am I ramming the door yet or what?”
“No,” I bit out. I pushed off the wall and faced them. “He has to be bluffing.”
“Which part?” Nate asked.
“The part where he’ll crash the plane.”
Nate’s mouth made a comical ‘O’ shape. Madoc’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“You’re right,” Madoc said softly. “He’s bluffing.”
The pressure eased from my chest. If Madoc agreed, I was onto something. “He wants to live, or he wouldn’t ask for the kit,” I said.
Madoc smiled and touched his temple.
My shoulders dropped. “He still has the fucking advantage, though.”
Nate fussed with his shirt, smoothing down the wrinkles.
That was a new tic. He’d become more compulsive since rehab, especially during high-pressure situations.
“It goes both ways, right?” Nate said. “I mean, we can’t get in, but he can’t get out.
He sealed himself inside the vault. Can’t we just wait for him to bleed out and die? Problem solved.”
“Dying men do desperate things,” I said, thinking of my old man, who’d clutched my shirt and told me he loved me for the first time right before he died. Crazy shit. “If he wants to live, he’ll come to the table.”
Madoc hummed. “He needs to patch up his boo-boos first.” He tapped his finger over his bottom thoughtfully. Usually, he’d be running his tongue piercing over his lip, which used to distract the hell out of me.
Nate looked at me. “Is the captain still alive?”
“Supposedly,” I grunted. “No confirmation.”
“He’s alive,” Madoc said with certainty.
“How do you know?” Nate asked.
Madoc glanced at him, and Nate backed up a few steps. The two of them had never been best buds, but I was surprised by Nate’s reaction. As far as I knew, Madoc was indifferent to him, like he was with most people.
Madoc proved it by turning his head dismissively. He spoke to me instead. “His uniform is brand new. He’s never flown a plane like this. He won’t know all the fun buttons to push.”
I considered that and nodded. “He needs him.”
“He needs him,” Madoc agreed.
Nate shivered and fussed with his sleeves like he was about to walk on stage and present his findings. I wondered if he was on a slippery slope back to a relapse. I told myself I didn’t care.
I did.
I always fucking cared.
I reached out and slapped his hands. “Stop tweaking. Just take a breath.”
Nate nodded, jerkily. “Cool. Yeah. Breathing. Good idea, boss man.”
Madoc rolled his eyes. He turned back to Nate, who stilled at the attention. “How do we reduce the weight of the plane before landing?”
Nate blinked, dumbstruck. “Um…?”
Madoc shoved him with his hand, causing him to stumble over himself. “Go. Figure it out.”
Nate nodded and nodded, then walked away, already taking his phone out to dial Zola.
I leaned against the wall, allowing my head to thump back. A moment later, Madoc slid up beside me, our elbows brushing.
“We’re calling his bluff,” I said.
“We are. Handing over the kit only gives him more time to scheme. Let him hurt and feel what he has to lose.”
I rubbed my eyes, warding off the migraine that threatened to explode.
Without opening my eyes, I asked: “How do we reduce the weight of the plane before landing?”
Madoc’s elbow knocked me again. It wasn’t by accident. Nothing he did was by accident.
“You dump the fuel.”
I snorted. Knowing Nate, he’d be arguing with Zola for the next half hour, thoroughly distracted. Which was exactly Madoc’s intention.
“Distract the kids,” I said, unable to mask my grin. “So the parents can think.”
Madoc rolled his eyes, not a fan of being called out.
My chest hummed. That stupid muscle twinged again.
Ten minutes to call his bluff. If we were wrong, we crashed.
Man, I hoped we were right.