Page 42 of Jax

Finn and Jax wait for us on the living room couch. One look, and their solemn faces pull me even further under. It’s as if this very moment is going to burst the hope-filled bubble I tried like hell not to cultivate.

“What is it?” Leenie asks. She grips the keys to her car so tightly as she watches Finn.

“It’s Clive,” Finn murmurs.

My heart skips a beat. My gaze travels to Jax but his stare stays fixed ahead, looking anywhere but at me.

Finn runs a hand over his jaw. “He’s in the ER. He got roughed up pretty badly last night. His blood alcohol percentage was off the charts. He was barely coherent when they took him in. They found him on the boundary between the Flats and the Heights.” When Finny says this last part, his gaze flicks toward me.

My feet are rooted in the spot but my arms fall. The bags full of clothes Jax bought me hit the floor. Max jumps off the couch to sniff them but my mind is already working on what this means. Is it some sort of message for me? For the guys? Did they just want to fuck around with this kid?

With Psycho, there’s no telling, and I’m certainly not privy to his thought process while I’m here living out a fantasy, apparently. But it’s as I always thought. Whatever happens, this doesn’t end well for me. I’ve been speeding toward a disastrous finish line the whole time, but I didn’t want to see it.

Psycho grooming someone else.

He gave me this impossible task and didn’t listen when I said I couldn’t do it.

Did he know I couldn’t? Is he playing this out so I force his hand to do something to me?

Leenie reaches out to touch my arm. “Sadie. Are you okay?”

I shake my head. “I should go.”

Jax stands from the couch. “You’re not fucking going.”

His words nearly topple me off my feet.

“He’s obviously unhinged,” Jax clarifies as if he can’t believe his outburst himself. “For your safety, that’s not a good idea.”

Finn’s jaw hardens. “Sadie, we care about this kid. Tell us more about these guys you’re with. I don’t want them doing that to any more of our fight family.”

“I’m notwiththem,” I protest.

Jax makes a sound of disagreement but Leenie beckons me forward. She makes Jax move to the other part of the sectional while she sits next to me. An anchor pulls on my chest, threatening to take me out. Once Jax knows what I’ve done, he’ll never forgive me. And saying it out loud—here of all places—will undo me.

“I don’t think I can.”

“He won’t hurt you here,” Leenie reassures me.

I shake my head. “That’s not it.” I bite my lower lip. “I—fuck.” I blow out a breath in an attempt to fill my lungs with a fucking backbone.

“Just start small,” Finn urges. “Why don’t you tell us about the guy who was at the Ring last night?”

“Tiron,” I tell them. Tiron’s not a threat to me. He’s as imprisoned as I am. The only difference between us is that he fools himself into thinking that he likes it that way, and I’m smarter than that. “I told you he’s one of Psycho’s lackeys. Checking in on me.” We’re super close to the truth now, and I want to tell him why I’m really here once and for all. I want to come clean and not care what the hell happens next. If I tell Jax why I was sent here for a job, he’ll either kick me out or— Well, I’m not sure if there is an alternative because I’m pretty sure he’ll kick my ass out. “He trains with Psycho and the other guys in their shoddy, underground fighting nonsense. The real reason he came was most likely to leave you guys that note on the car that informed you of your fighter jumping ship. Psycho gets off on that kind of shit.”

Jax gives me a scathing look that curdles my stomach. “So, this was your boyfriend’s plan this whole time? If he couldn’t buy the Ring from us, he thought he’d get everyone to leave by winning against one of our guys? Is that it?”

Nerves skitter all over my body, and my foot jumps up and down. It was my idea to have the fight at the Ring. So, Clive ending up hurt is my fault. It’s not the worst thing I’ve done in Psycho’s name but I’m not proud of it. “I’m sorry,” I tell them, my voice breaking. I swallow my fear of telling the truth and zero in on Jax sitting to my left. “Psycho thinks he’s a bigshot fighter, but he’s really a con man. One of the best, actually. He preys on the unfortunate, and he uses his followers to do it. He shepherds us in with lies about family and acceptance, and then pretty soon, we’re all working the business for him. Once we’re in deep, we can’t get out. He makes sure we can’t get out. Any one of us could take him down with what we know, but we’d also be implicating ourselves in the process.”

He holds a breath in his chest and lets it out. “What are you mixed up in, Sadie?”

In a lot of ways, Psycho is far worse than K. At least K treated his girls nice. He would shower us with presents as long as we respected him back. Psycho isn’t like that. He’s morphed into the devil, and I never saw the transformation until it was too late. “So much shit,” I say, voice shaking. “I’ve done some truly horrible things. I’m in it too far to turn back.”

“Why didn’t you just leave?” Jax accuses.

“And go where? Live on the streets again? Wait for someone to come by and assault me because I’m all by myself? You know what it’s like on the streets.”

Derision rolls off him in waves. “I forgot who I was talking to. Little Miss Survive At All Costs. I guess that’s the plan even if you’re hurting someone else in the process.”

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