Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
ANDIE
I’ve been pacing the floor of my room like a caged animal for hours. That’s pretty much what I am right now.
The silent snick of a lock precedes the door opening, and I stop my pacing when Jax enters, a plate of food in one hand and two beers clutched between his inked fingers in the other. I watch him warily, my muscles taut and poised to fight if he makes any sudden moves.
Without a word, he walks over to the nightstand and puts the plate down, then twists the caps off both bottles and holds one out to me. I eye the drink like it’s poison being offered by Lucifer himself.
When I don’t take it, he sets it down next to the food. Casually sipping his beer, he leans a shoulder against a massive, spiraled column of the four-poster bed. Scrutinizing green eyes watch me through black-rimmed glasses.
“What?” Yeah, I’m acting like a petulant ten-year-old.
“Where’d you learn how to fight like that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snipe, wanting him gone.
He dips his chin, and I stand motionless as his gaze scans me from head to toe.
“I know Krav Maga training when I see it.”
I knew my knee-jerk reaction in the kitchen was going to come back and bite me.
“Fuck you.”
Putting the bottle down, Jax moves so fast, I react on instinct, going under his arm and twisting around his body until I have a chokehold on him, while also wrenching his arm back and out to the side. He laughs, knowing I just proved his point. Goddamnit . I forgot how sneaky he could be.
Releasing my hold and propelling him away from me, I school my features and snatch the plate of food off the nightstand. Hopefully, he’ll leave me alone to eat. Should have known better.
“You’re a puzzle, Andie. And you know how much I love puzzles.”
Out of the three of them, Jax is the one I need to be most careful around. His suspicions could ruin everything.
“I’m nothing,” I mumble between bites of mashed potato.
It’s really good. There’s diced onion, garlic, and fresh parsley mixed in.
“You made this?”
He had been the one cooking in the kitchen when Rafe and I walked in earlier today.
Jax shrugs in answer, sliding his knife out of his back pocket and turning it over and over in his hand. I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it. Jax has carried that same knife with him as long as I can remember. It’s scarlet red in color. The irony isn’t lost on me. How many times has he used that knife? How much blood coats both the blade and his soul? It would be so easy for him to kill me with just a flick of the wrist.
I’m not stupid. My father knows I’m here. I’ve lived the past five years constantly looking over my shoulder, expecting him to turn up and drag me back. Not believing for a second that he would give me up so easily and let me leave. But he never came. He never dragged me back home. I don’t know whether to be relieved or terrified at that. Because now I’m here, I know he’ll deliver punishment. Who better to dish that out than the man standing in my room?
I take one last bite of food before putting the plate to the side, not feeling hungry anymore.
“Why am I here, Jax?” I ask, wanting to get it over with.
I’m stuck in a purgatory of limbo, wanting revenge, but also wanting to die so I don’t have to struggle and fight anymore. Don’t I deserve some goddamn peace for once, after everything I’ve survived?
“Why are you ?” Jax says, turning my question back around on me. I know he means why did I suddenly return home after being gone for five years, but I play dumb.
I roll my eyes. “You brought me here against my will. That much should be obvious.”
Jax slips the knife inside his pocket and walks over to the dresser. He picks up the framed photo of Kellan I had turned over, and I dig my nails into the soft flesh of my palms to stop from tearing it out of his hands.
“Why weren’t you there?”
Well, that just deflated my sails, as the saying goes. Not the question, but by the pain I hear steeped in each of his words. The double entendre of what he asked almost makes me laugh. Because I was there. Maybe not at the funeral, but on the night Kellan died. What would he say or do if he knew that I heard everything, including my brother’s last breath? Kellan is dead because of them. What is the old German proverb? Better an honest enemy, than a false friend. I can be both.
“My father wouldn’t let me,” I truthfully tell him. The honest enemy . “I was packing to leave and board the plane when one of his men called me and relayed a message from my father. I was told the consequences I would receive if I showed up to Kellan’s funeral. The threat of a bullet to the head was received loud and clear. Seeing as he knows I’m here, I don’t expect to live much longer. Is that why you’re in my room, Jax?”
Again, he moves like lightning before I know what’s happening. I’m spun around and pulled back against his chest, my arms secured to my sides. One of his hands tangles in my ponytail, and I hiss when he tugs it sharply, wrenching my head back. His hot breath fans across my cheek and some dormant, dark part of me that is buried down deep, comes to life at his rough touch. My skin breaks out in gooseflesh and licks of arousal cloud my mind.
“Is that what you want, Andie? Did you come back to die?”
My breaths become choppy; my body leans back into him. His heat scorches me like a brand and in that moment, I would give anything to be burned by it. What the hell is wrong with me?
“Yes,” I answer, and he goes rigid at my declaration.
“Fuck you, Andie. I’m not your goddamn reaper.” He lets me go, and for some reason, the loss of his touch leaves me bereft.
Because my legs feel a little shaky, I sit down on the bed, tucking them underneath me. Jax’s gaze follows the movement.
“Max has a tracker on you. That’s how he found out you were here, and where you were being held.”
“What?” If Jax had taken his knife and stabbed me in the heart, it would have been less painful than the betrayal I’m feeling right now. “Why would he… How? How long?”
“A while. Years.”
“Why would he do that?”
My father hasn’t cared one iota about me my entire life. If I fell off the face of the earth, never to be seen again, he wouldn’t give two shits. I knew in the back of my mind he was probably keeping tabs on me, maybe having me followed. Having those suspicions, I was always so careful when I went off campus.
“You knew?” I accuse him. Jax is the tech genius of my father’s organization.
He gives me an almost imperceptible turn of the head indicating no, he didn’t. “I wanted to know how Max knew you were here and why he knew where to send us to find you, so I did some digging.”
I’d already been suspicious about that. When the guys found me in the room, they appeared confused and clearly not expecting me to be there.
“And?”
Not answering me, Jax cautiously approaches. I tense up but hold my ground, not allowing myself to cower in front of him. He grips and lifts my arm, pulling it from the sleeve of the hoodie. I reach behind me and tug it the rest of the way off, leaving me in only my old, dirty tank top I’d been wearing yesterday and no bra. Jax’s eyes slide down my chest, lingering a second where my erect nipples are pressing against the fabric of the top, before moving to the discarded clothing.
“This used to be Kellan’s,” he murmurs, touching the hoodie.
He pushes it to the side and out of the way, then drags his index finger up my now bare forearm. He trails a soft touch around the apple of my shoulder and stops. With the pad of his thumb, he presses down.
“There.”
I reach around and Jax takes my hand, guiding my fingers over the area. I gasp when I feel it. A tiny, hard bump, like a grain of sand embedded under the skin.
“Take it out. I want it out of me. Now, Jax.”
I’m about to dig into my flesh with my fingernails and do it myself. The betrayal I felt seconds ago turns into rage. My father has been stalking me, spying on me, tracking my every movement. Even when I thought I was free from him, I wasn’t. It was all an illusion. The flicker of hope that still exists inside of me that one day I would finally be free, dies a quick and brutal death.
“Please, Jax. Get it out!”
Whether it’s because he hears the plea in my voice or because of something else, he nods his assent, slowly taking out his knife from his back pocket. But before he can do anything, there’s a knock on the door and Keane’s voice on the other side.
“Mr. Rossi just arrived.”
Jax’s attention comes back to me, and he sees my protective walls go up. I shut down and become numb.
He’s here .
Let the games begin.