Page 12 of Jax

Once I’m in his peripheral, he does a double take. His cutting eyes slice through me. “What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be gone by now?”

An explosion goes off on the TV, so he moves his attention back to the screen where their first-person shooter game is in full effect. Psycho thinks himself a gangster like he’s in one of these games, but he isn’t. He’s terrifying in his own right. You don’t have to carry weapons to be scary.

I eye him up as he stares at the screen like I’m already gone. I refrain from sighing, and instead, say, “I had an idea, and it involves you and the guys.” My heart pings almost painfully like a pinball machine, scattering around in my chest. I’ve decided this is the route to take, but I’m almost hoping he tells me to fuck off.

He pauses the game, and stares at me, eyebrows raised. “Go on.”

“I was thinking...” My stomach squeezes but I cover it up with my best attempt at an evil smirk. “...what if you and the other fighters go with me to the Ring tonight. You could cause some trouble, make them look bad. You—”

He rolls his eyes, picking up his controller again as if he’s about to shut me down without hearing me all the way out. “That’s the exact opposite of what we want, Sade.”

I grit my teeth. He’s so focused on getting their businesses, or at least scheming them out of shittons of money, that he can’t see anything but the outcome. “You know how you’re always telling me that everyone is different? You have to find their weakness and exploit it? Jax already hates me, so what if we actually work that angle? We roll up into the Ring like we’re his greatest competition. He’ll be furious.” That much is true. He’ll fucking lose his shit, and I know it because I knowhim.

“You want us to go to the Ring?”

The guys around Psycho smile. Secretly, I’m aware of a few who have gone before. Even Psycho has watched fights there when he has the money. That’s where this con of his hatched in his diabolical mind. Even now, I can tell the wheels in his head are turning, trying to figure out if this will be to his advantage or not.

One of the bigger guys on the floor grins, showing a mouth of missing teeth. “I’ve been dying to fight one of their guys.”

Someone else asks, “How do you get on the ticket?”

Holy shit. Of course it would be this easy to persuade them. “One of you will challenge one of them,” I tell Psycho confidently.

A grin splits his lips. “If they don’t accept, they’ll look like pussies.” He reaches out, grabs my hand, and pulls me onto his lap. He breathes into my ear making sickening goosebumps wash over my arms. “You’re going to get a reward for this,” he whispers. I swallow without looking at him. The only reward I want is to be left alone, and if this goes through, I’ll be one step closer. He slides his fingers around my ear and asks, “Are we going to have you play the peacemaker? Or....?”

It’s always strategy with him. I learned from the best. I haven’t quite figured out the best way to go but I have a feeling that after we do this, everything else will unfold. “Whoever you choose to fight will have to win,” I caution, trying to take Psycho’s mind off the question he just asked me only because I’m not sure how to answer. “If they don’t win, we look like assholes.”

Psycho peers around at the guys surrounding us. They look like they’re salivating, and I know damn well they perform well in their pitbullesque fight ring. They challenge each other to fights all the time in the Flats. Winning bets and house cuts is another avenue of how we make money, but it’s nothing like what Jax and Finn have in the Heights. They actually have a professional fighting circuit, and their guys have a chance of moving up to fight in the UFC. When you account for that, of course Psycho is jealous.

This idea is a risk but if I’m going to play the player, I have to figure out exactly what he wants from the two brothers. Is it the money the businesses bring in? Or is it their prestige? This one plays on the idea that he values their fame and reputation.

“Knuckles, you in?” Psycho eventually asks, finally cluing me in to the fact that he’s all in with this.

The guy who originally spoke up throws his head back and laughs. The teeth left in his mouth are stained yellow and grimy. “This is going to be fun.”

I’m not sure if he’s Knuckles or if it’s someone else, but I do trust that Psycho will pick out the best guy to challenge them. He has a lot at stake in this.

And now, it’s not only me.

Psycho pushes me back so he can stand. Nonchalantly, he throws a tattooed arm around my shoulders. The bar in his septum gleams as he looks back at the ragtag group he’s acquired. “Be ready in ten. All of you,” he growls. Like a punctuation mark, he slaps my ass, and then gently leads me by the arm to our room. Shutting the door behind us, I can tell he’s in full on planning mode as he goes through his clothes on the floor, searching for the most appropriate outfit. He eventually decides on a white shirt with a plaid flannel to pull over it. His jeans hang low, kept on with a belt made of bullets that’s his pride and joy. After he slips on a baseball cap, he looks a lot like the guy I first met. Back when I thought he was good. Back when I believed he was my savior in a lot of ways. Now, I know that all that was a facade meant to draw me in and make me trust him.

“I see this going one of two ways, Sadie girl.” His smooth voice fills the room as I rub my arms. “The way I think it’s going to go is you end up being the liaison between two factions. When Knuckles beats one of their guys, everyone in the audience is going to see that we’re the superior fight club. Hell, I’ll make sure they know it. From what you’ve told me about them, that’s going to piss them off, isn’t it?”

He has no fucking idea. It would piss off most but Jax and Finn take such pride in their work. “Oh yeah,” I say, imagining their faces while already feeling awful about what’s to come. One thing that might throw Psycho off is that they won’t respond negatively if their guy gets beaten. They have too much of the warrior respect in them. A fight is a fight, and if they lose, they lose. That’ll be the end of it. I lick my lips. “Knuckles will have to play up the disrespect thing if you want to really get a rise out of them.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I have that part handled.”

The look in his eyes tells me I don’t want to know what his plans are. I tip my chin down and smile like I can’t wait for all of this to go down when in fact, when in reality, it feels like every part of our discussion is slowly killing me. Here I am, siding against Jax again.

I don’t want to but I’ve long since learned that we have to do everything we can to make it through. This is one of those times.

“I need you talking him up, Sade,” Psycho instructs, moving up to me and grabbing my hand. He holds it like he used to. If my guards were down, it might feel comforting. “You were once in his good graces, and you can get in there again.”

“I will,” I tell Psycho. “Trust me, I got that part. But....if you guys make a name for yourselves with their audience, we might not even need the Ring. You can build something for yourself here.”

His guarded eyes narrow as he takes in my thoughts. I can practically see the wheels in there grinding away. Psycho’s not about difficult money. He wants easy money. He wants to rob the elderly grandmother walking across the street with a walker, her handbag held too loosely. He won’t try that shit with someone who looks like they can hold their own. It probably never even crosses his mind that he could do what Jax and Finn have.

Maybe there’s a reason for that. I honestly don’t think Psycho has that something in his brain that tells him he could do it for himself.

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