Page 52 of Save Me

CHAPTER 23

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Isink furtherinto Jax, the warmth of his chest consuming me as I lean my back against him, trying to pay attention to what he’s saying, learning about how exactly the operations at Poison Ivy work.

We’ve been in his office for the majority of the day, and after a while I gave up sitting beside him, instead climbing onto his lap as he talks me through everything I need to know about this part of the business.

“Money gets dropped off once a month here.” Jax points to a laundromat on the maps on his computer. “One of our guys collects it and looks it over, checking to make sure it’s impossible to tell apart from the real thing. A text will come into this phone shortly after the drop has been made.” He points to a simple flip phone. “If everything is good the text will say ‘the forecast looks sunny,’ and if there’s a problem, the message will read ‘the forecast looks rainy.’ You’ll simply respond ‘ok’ to let them know we received the message every time, and you’ll never, ever, use this phone to text anything else. If anything except those two texts ever come through to you, you let us know, and we check to see who has been compromised.”

“I swear I’ve watched this on a TV show before,” I murmur with a smile and Jax chuckles in response.

“It’s a little bit more complicated but I’m sure it’s not far off what Hollywood tries to portray,” he says.

“Except we’dactuallygo to jail if we get caught.” My stomach flutters with nervousness as I say the words out loud.

He shrugs and gives a noncommittal response.

“How much moneyhaveyou printed?” I raise an eyebrow.

I feel him shrug his shoulders. “Enough,” he says.

“Don’t get caught, got it,” I say, ignoring my heart as it starts to pound in my chest.

Strong hands move to my shoulders, rubbing them gently. “Relax, love,” he says. “I will never let you take the fall for any of this, no matter how much you want to be involved, how much youareinvolved, there’ll be no paper trail of you ever having anything to do with this side of my life.”

“I’m not worried about me,” I say quietly.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me,” he whispers in my ear, and I can feel his lips tilt up in a smile.

“What ifyouget caught? What if you end up in jail? What about Ryan?” My chest clenches at the thought of them getting caught, of them no longer being here with me.

He takes a moment before responding, his lips placing kisses on my temple as his hands keep massaging me until my shoulders drop down, finally relaxing.

“We’ve been doing this for a very long time, and while there’s a possibility of getting caught—of going to jail—it’s pretty small now.”

“How is that possible? If you get caught, you’d definitely go to jail. Unless—” I pause, thinking everything over very quickly.

As if hearing the gears turning in my head, Jax leans into me even more.

“You’ve paid off people so you never go to jail again,” I state, as the realization dawns on me.

“Good girl, you’re catching on quick.”

His breath is warm against the back of my neck, and I close my eyes, processing everything he’s just told me.

“It’s a lot you know—what you do…”

“It is,” he agrees. “But if there’s anyone who could thrive doing what I do, doing my work with me, it’s you.”

I blush in response to his words. “I think you’re giving me a bit too much credit, Mr. Turner.”

“Never,” he says. “Now, where were we?”

He explains more about the business, showing me the money that he prints, and teaching me exactly how that process works. It’s intriguing, learning about everything he does, but I can’t help feeling as though I’m doing something wrong. Technically Iamdoing something wrong, and I’ve never been on this side of the law before. In school I learned about the people who did these sorts of things, and now here I am, one of them. I shake my head, trying to clear the thoughts as I hang onto every word that Jax says.

“So, what happens after the money is cleared and looks as real as can be?” I ask, shifting myself forward on his lap so I can reach my glass of water on his desk.

“Well, then we take it to Poison Ivy or one of our other businesses that run primarily on cash.”

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