Page 117 of Jax
I pulled the sheet of paper out of my pocket and handed it to him as I took the offered seat. “I’ve already started doing that, sort of. I tried to remember any random things I could, and I wrote them down. Does that help?”
He took the paper and looked it over, nodding to himself. He glanced up at me with a smile. “This is an excellent start, for sure. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Please ask me anything. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start, and questions help with that.”
We sat for almost an hour, going over the information in granular detail. He asked a thousand questions, and I answered as best I could. He took pages of notes, all collated and bullet-pointed and organized five different ways.
Eventually, the topic of conversation got around to Violet and our relationship. His questions here were less interrogation and more genuine interest. It made it easier to talk about.
“She was the only one who ever made me feel like I wasn’t wrong,” I said softly in answer to his most recent question. “Like I wasn’t already broken before I even began.”
His jaw tensed, the shift slight but clear. “When someone hears they’re wrong long enough, the brain adjusts. Shame becomes reflex. Apology becomes posture. But you didn’t collapse. You adapted. You rewired. You turned what should’ve broken you into armor.” He stepped closer, slow and certain, until the air between us pulled tight with weight.
“You didn’t fail,” he said. “You evolved.”
Something cracked inside me. Not from weakness, but recognition. He didn’t see me as broken or brave, he saw someone who had learned to survive, even when faced with an impossible choice.
His hand reached out and took mine, and he gave me an understanding smile. “This is where we start the process. Not with rage or grief. With intel. What you gave me tonight, we map it, we build from it, and when we move, we don’t just find her. We dismantle the machine that took her.”
I nodded. Jax turned without waiting, already back at the table, already moving with that brutal focus that made chaosinto order. His hands didn’t shake. His breath stayed even. He flipped through the pages of assorted reports like they were weapons, every one another plate in the armor he was building to hold the world off. It wasn’t his gentleness that steadied me, it was the precision with which he carried pain, and the way he never pretended it wasn’t there.
I crossed to the doorway, heat still clinging behind me like breath on glass. My fingers grazed the frame. One more step, and I’d vanish into whatever silence the house required, until his voice caught me mid-thought.
“Stella.”
He didn’t look up. Just kept working, steady and sure, like saying my name was enough to keep me exactly where he needed me.
“This only works if you trust me completely.”
And I realized that I did. Not because he’d been gentle. Not because he’d held me like I mattered. But because he’d seen every crack, every reason to run, and still stood at my side without flinching. Jax didn’t deal in hope. He dealt in facts. And when a man like that asks you to believe, it isn’t faith he’s offering, it’s certainty.
I’d take that certainty into hell without hesitation, as long as he left the door open behind us.
27
Jax
The list saton the table like a relic, creased, smudged, thrumming with the kind of tension that demanded distance. I hadn’t touched it since she handed it over, not out of doubt, but reverence. I believed every word in her rushed, spiky hand, each scrape of ink, every smear of fury. But some truths don’t ask to be read. They wait. For stillness. For silence. Like whispered prayers in a war zone.
So I didn’t read. I turned to ritual. Rope. Five-millimeter jute, dry from storage, stiff at the bend. I worked by feel, softening the fibers, folding, drawing tension into the coil the way I had a hundred times before. The familiar scent rose: earth, weight, order. Rope never panicked. Never lied or manipulated. It obeyed. And tonight, I needed something that obeyed physics instead of the fractured logic of grief.
Her knock came late.
The door eased open, her silhouette carved in low light and velocity. Not urgency - momentum. Like her body had already crossed the threshold before her mind could catch up. She didn’t wait for permission. Just entered. Boots scuffed. Breath unsteady.
“She’s still out there,” she said, pacing. “And we’re here. Just here.”
She didn’t look at me. Just kept moving, palms twitching, eyes raking corners like they might reveal something hidden. “Every minute we wait, every second, is a chance they’re moving her. Or hurting her. Or…”
The word caught in her throat. Died there. Didn’t need to land.
I didn’t rise. Didn’t reach for calm I hadn’t earned. Stella’s panic wasn’t chaos. It was the logical product of weeks of worrying about something you had exactly zero control over.
“You’re vibrating,” I said. “Can I help you calm down?”
She stilled. Not from fear, but from the gravity of my voice. Her breath snagged. Shoulders curled like she was bracing for something she didn’t want but already expected.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I think I need that.”
