29. Jax
29
JAX
J ax adjusted his expensive velvet jacket that he just received as a present from his wife, Chika.
She had been waiting in the wings behind him as he tried it on. “A perfect fit, just as I thought.”
Jax was distracted by her dazzling smile and the reflection of the mirror. He turned and held out his arms toward her. “It’s dashing. Thank you so much for this gift, darling.”
She rushed into his arms and relished the embrace.
“Pa! There’s already so many people downstairs. Should I tell them you’ll be a while longer?” A little girl around the age of ten years old barged in, paying no mind to Jax and Chika’s embrace. She had the soft locks and gentle features of Chika and the ambitious spunk of Jax.
Jax still couldn’t believe how beautiful his daughter was. He never thought himself to be a family man, but the moment she was born, everything changed.
“Diamond, don’t you see that your mother and I are having a moment?” He laughed more than reprimanded her.
She rolled her eyes and threw herself face-first into the chaise at the front of the room. “Ugh, but all the guests are here. You guys can hug later .”
“She gets that attitude from you, you know?” Jax nudged Chika, making her throw her head back and chuckle.
“And I’m sure you’re just an angel, huh?” She poked his chest with her manicured nails.
He grabbed Chika’s hand and kissed her lips quickly before Diamond could see. “You can let them know that I will be making my announcement momentarily.”
Diamond wasted no time jumping up from the chaise and running out of the room. “My father will be out momentarily!”
She shouted so loud that it echoed through the first and second stories of their house.
Jax grabbed the bubbling glass of champagne and drank its contents in a few gulps.
“Dear, don’t you think you should slow down?” Chika frowned at him simply out of concern.
“You don’t have to worry about me. Everything is going to be looking up from here on out.” He pinched her cheek adoringly before walking out of the room. He reached the wooden banister of the stairwell and peered over at the crowds of people in his home.
“All these people are here to see me,” Jax thought to himself, feeling on top of the world.
He descended the stairs and everyone began cheering and greeting him.
“What’s this important announcement you have?” Mr. Elfin, his potion producer, was the first person at the bottom of the stairs to stop him.
Jax sneered at him but managed to recover with a smile. “It’s great. You’re gonna love it.”
Jax then cleared his throat and clinged his champagne glass with his wedding ring. “Attention everyone! Thank you all so much for showing up today. It means a lot that I have so much support in the community. It is because of the support that I would like to share with you an amazing achievement. I will be opening my own potion production company at the end of the year!”
Jax’s eyes glanced at Mr. Elfin who looked utterly confused. Then his face scrunched into a scowl.
“I look forward to doing business with you all. Please feel free to reach out to me or one of my assistants if you have any questions,” Jax finished his announcement and immersed himself in the crowd of cheering supporters. When he looked again, Mr. Elfin had already left.
“I’m sure I’ll get some backlash for announcing it that way, but if I had told him first, he would just try to stop me. Now that my contract is finally ending with him, I am ready to move out from under his thumb.”
Once Jax had made it through the crowd of supporters, he had reached the line of reporters that were kept out by his guards. Still on an ego high from his announcement and a little buzz from the champagne, he was happy to take questions from the reporters. “Yes, you heard right. I’m opening my own potion business.”
“Do you think it’s going to be successful considering the last few potions you’ve put out haven’t sold well?”
“What do you say to those that have reported your potions being ineffective?”
“Are you going to rectify the situation with your last potion where many of your clients have lost their hair?”
“Some say that you’ve lost your spark, considering none of your potions are as good as the ones you put out in your first five years. What do you say to those people?”
The questions from the reporters kept firing too fast for him to answer… Not that he wanted to answer any of them anyway.
“The first five years… That was how long Lea’s potion book lasted me.”
His good mood had been killed stone dead by the memory of Lea. As much as he did his best not to think about her, she still invaded his mind.
“This must be penance for what I did.” He backed away from the crowd of reporters and ordered his guards to get them out of there. He stumbled back into the crowd of his supporters, but he could no longer hear what they were saying.
There was a ringing in his ear that wouldn’t go away.
“Lea. Why do you haunt me?”
“Jax? What is it, darling? You don’t look all right.” Chika found him in the crowd. “Come on. Let’s get you some fresh air.”
She ushered him onto their balcony where no one else was allowed.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” she asked.
“It’s nothing. I don’t want you to have anything to worry about.” He gathered her hand and kissed her knuckles.
“I’m still willing to worry, Jax. You can’t protect me from everything. Besides, I’m supposed to be your partner. I can’t have your back if I don’t know what we are up against.” Her eyes glistened as she gasped her chest. “Trust me.”
“I remember reading somewhere in school all those years ago that if a potionist is inexperienced, they can relay their anxiety and lack of confidence into their recipes. I thought it was a ridiculous notion… It isn’t so ridiculous now.”
Jax turned away from his wife and marched in from the balcony to the bottle of Brandy displayed in the sitting room.
Chika sighed. “I’ll send everyone home. We can talk later about what’s happening.”
Jax ignored her and poured himself a glass.
C hika cleared the house of their party guests and gave Jax an hour before returning. She hoped by then he would have had a clear mind. She knocked on the door three times before opening it to see Jax slumped in one of their fine chairs with the empty bottle of Brandy in his hand. “There you are. Fetch me another bottle. This one seemed to have run dry.”
He picked up the bottle and looked through it, watching Chika move through the frosted glass.
“Not before we talk.” She sat on the chair opposite him, her hands folded delicately in her lap. She rifled through her mind, trying to find the best way to talk to him. “I know that your potions have been struggling, but is it really that bad? You seemed to get upset when they mentioned the first potion that you released. Was it because it was Lea’s?”
Her eyes snapped up as the sound of shattering glass hitting a wall frightened her. She looked around for the source and found the Brandy bottle that Jax had been holding now sitting on the floor in pieces on the other side of the room.
Her whole body tensed at the same time.
A lump developed in her throat, disallowing her from saying another word.
“It’s not Lea’s potion. My name is on it. That was my hard work. My skill! I don’t need that bitch’s help!” He jumped out from his chair and stood over Chika as he berated her.
“You’re right, it was our hard work. Lea served her purpose, and now she’s gone. So why does her presence still bother you? Look at the life we’ve created without her.” Chika tried to calm him down, but there was no easing his drunken rage.
“She’s not gone. She’s always there. In my head. Torturing me. She will never let me rest until the day I die.” He ran his fingers through his Raven hair. The touches of silver shined through as he moved his curls. “She’s like a ghost… Clinging to me. I wish I could just?—”
He raised his head suddenly. Then without warning, he bolted out of the room, and Chika followed close behind as he entered the bedroom. His fingers shifted into the claws of his werewolf as he shredded the floorboards near their bed.
“Jax!” Chika tried to stop him, but it was best to leave him to his own devices when he was on a tirade.
He reached in under the floorboards and pulled out Lea’s old potion book.
“You kept that all this time?” Chika questioned out of breath.
“Perhaps it’s this she clings to, and if I destroy it—” He ripped the book with his bare hands.
The book itself ripped so easily, but Jax seemed to struggle with it as if he didn’t want to let her go in some capacity.
Chika hated that small fraction of Jax’s soul that was still owned by Lea.
She occupied some part of him that Chika didn’t understand.
In truth, Chika wanted to burn Lea as well. She turned to the fireplace and threw a fire potion in setting it ablaze immediately. “Let’s get rid of her once and for all.”
Jax walked up to the fireplace and threw the two pieces of the potion book in. His shoulders dropped, and his claws became fingers once more. The notion relaxed him, but was Lea truly ever going to be gone?