25. Cash
Cash
I needed to get to Jax. If I could just talk to him, everything would be all right.
It had to be. It certainly couldn’t be worse, because the whole world was a dark swirling cloud of agony.
Beyond it there were voices, but nothing they said made any damn sense.
And then . . .
And then there was white all around me. Above me.
A painted ceiling reflecting the sun.
I frowned.
That wasn’t right. Going into the light was supposed to be, like, a journey. This was a flat surface, and I was pretty sure I’d died, so what the fuck?
“Hey.”
There was a soft voice beside me, and I turned to see Jax Fyse there, the stubble on his chin perfectly trimmed, his dark hair combed so every strand laid just right.
I breathed in, but I didn’t smell Evie. She wasn’t there.
If she’d found them, she would’ve been at my side. I knew that more than I’d ever known anything in my life, and my heart twisted so hard it almost split in half.
Maybe she’d gotten away. I had to believe that she had.
I sighed. “Hey.”
There was so much I needed to say to him, and right then, I was glued to the bed, trapped in horror, pretty damn sure that I couldn’t come up with a whole sentence.
Awkwardness hung in the air around Jax, but I couldn’t feel it. I half wished he were like one of the alphas I was used to, that he’d yell and berate me and hurt me and just . . . put all this back in a context I knew how to handle instead of waiting patiently like he was.
How fucked was that?
Instead, he asked, ever-so gently, “How are you feeling?”
Like I’m dead. Like I failed at everything that ever mattered. Like if I really am here, I wish I fucking weren’t.
I shook my head, trying to clear it of all the spiraling darkness. Jax frowned at me and waited.
I took a breath, and it sent such a stab of pain through me when I breathed in deep that my stomach clenched and the flow of air staggered.
I wished that I could tell him I was fine, but that was so far from the truth that when I rolled my eyes his way, all I had was honesty, and it came out in a choked whisper. “We fucked up.”
He scowled. “What are you talking about?”
I tried to breathe again, and the inhale croaked through me. But I needed to tell him. Whatever I could do from here with the time I had left, it was all predicated on me telling Jax what was going on. Getting him on my side. “Things’ve been bad, Jax. Real bad. And Grant—”
He jerked. “Grant? Reeve’s little brother, Grant?”
He didn’t know. He had no idea that Grant killed his own brother and took control.
Fuck, it’d be nice if there were someone else there to explain it, because every breath and every word made me want to crawl into the fucking dirt.
What the fuck ever. The how didn’t matter. I nodded. It was Grant.
I wanted to trust Jax and believe that keeping Evie safe would be enough for him to help me, but she wasn’t pack to him. She wasn’t his family.
Even if Jax were the best alpha who’d ever led a pack, I couldn’t risk not putting this in terms that mattered to him. His duty was to look after his pack, and if Evie was ever going to be safe, that meant taking Grant down.
“He saw an article—some deal you were making. Or, you know, the company? Big deal. So fucking stupid, Jax—” I took another shaky breath, and my head rolled on the pillow.
It was so hard to hold it up. “He wants—he said you took from the pack when you left. Wants to collect on the debt. I think he’s gonna—think he might . . . take it back.”
“What the fuck right does Grant have—”
I grimaced. There it was, the anger I’d expected.
But Jax caught himself, steadied his temper.
“Reeve’s dead, Jax,” I whispered.
He turned toward someone past me.
Ah, there was Maia. Still pretty. Maia.
She didn’t look scared, even with her alpha looking at her like that, even when he demanded, “How long?”
“Since just a year after we left,” she whispered.
Good, there was someone there to explain all the shit I didn’t have the words for.
And Jax knew that Grant had come to challenge him. He’d be ready.
I was pretty sure he had the nicest house I’d ever been in, even just looking at the smooth ceiling. The bed sure was comfortable, all things considered.
“So what does this mean?” another person asked. I looked over at Jax’s mate. He had his mark. He was a young man with tan skin and dark eyes. Definitely Asian, though I’d never met enough Asian people to guess exactly where he was from.
He was handsome though. The witchwolf.
What did that even mean? Could he actually do magic?
“Some guy from Idaho is going to lay siege to the Crescent Building?” Jax’s mate went on. “This isn’t Die Hard, Jax. We have a whole pack. Even if he does too—”
“Pack code,” I struggled to say. The pretty man met my eye, so I tried my best to explain. “Grant found a loophole. Because he took the pack from Reeve, he can rechallenge anyone who broke away to get control back.”
“Surely he’d have had to do that years ago for it to be valid,” an older woman said.
Fuck if I knew the details. The room had gone hazy again, and my eyes slipped shut. I listened to them talk, but only got the gist of what they were saying.
Yeah, Grant could stretch the code to try and stake a claim here. Yes, it was mostly bullshit. Jax maybe felt guilty about something? I couldn’t tell, but join the club, buddy.
As I drifted, I wondered where Evie was. She was good at hiding. Even if she was right under Grant’s nose, those assholes weren’t smart enough to find her.
Maybe she’d gone to the Crescent building and she’d be here soon.
That’d be nice.
Yeah, Jax had just come straight to me, so they’d missed each other. But she’d be here soon, and safe, and until then, I was going to stay in Jax’s perfect guest bed and hope the world forgot me.