Page 155 of Jax
Quinn moved to meet him. “She’s in the SUV,” he said. “Stable. Nothing critical.”
The Chief didn’t slow. “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
Relief moved through the team in its own quiet way. Carrick stopped pacing. Sully shifted against the van. Even Niko’s shoulders eased by a fraction. The Chief wasn’t a man you had to doubt. He was the man you wanted showing up when the dust settled.
At the open SUV door, he finally paused. Violet lifted her gaze, sluggish but aware, exhaustion pulling heavy at her features. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t recoil. Just watched him with the wariness of someone too used to being moved like a piece on a board.
“Glad to see you’re alive and well, young lady.” He said, voice steady. Then, to Quinn and the team, “We’ll take her from here.”
Deacon, crouched at her side, didn’t bristle. He just set his hand against the blanket draped over her knees, a quiet anchor that spoke louder than protest. “She needs rest,” he said calmly. “Food. Fluids. You push her too fast, she’ll fold.”
“She’ll get what she needs,” the Chief assured. “We’ll see to it.”
And we believed him. Every one of us.
Violet stirred, her eyes drifting past Deacon and Sully until they found me. The connection lasted less than a second, but it landed hard. Not pleading. Not fear. Just the smallest question.
I stepped closer, voice low, words chosen with care. “They’re moving you now,” I told her. “Let them. You made it through the worst of it. That matters.”
Her nod was faint, more reflex than conviction. She rose slowly, step by step, her body remembering how even when her mind lagged behind. Sully adjusted the blanket around her shoulders with quiet care, and Deacon followed, steady as a shadow.
The Chief was a man of deadlines, of orders carried through, but not one of us doubted Violet was safe now. She’d be at our compound before nightfall, guarded, tended, and alive. And Stella would have her sister back.
I stayed where I was, rifle across my chest, watching her disappear into the vehicle. It wasn’t defeat. It wasn’t a loss. It was the price of the job, letting go when the mission was done, trusting the chain that came after.
And for once, I didn’t question it.
Eddie stayed off to the side, arms folded, jaw tight, his gaze moving without landing, cataloging everything without committing to a single frame. No one spoke. There was nothing left to say that wouldn’t make it worse.
He didn’t ask for permission before stepping away. He moved like someone who’d spent his life working the seams of broken systems, close enough to power to survive, far enough to keep his doubts intact. Still, his approach wasn’t reckless. It was measured. A balancing act between duty and doubt.
He drifted toward the Chief, his pace slow enough to imply respect, steady enough to challenge if necessary.
“If you need me in this, just say the word,” he said, voice low but steady. “Whatever you’ve got going on, I can take a piece of it off your shoulders. But I need to know what I’m stepping into first. Quinn said these guys are outside help you brought in off the books. What can you tell me about them?”
The Chief didn’t slow. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even glance back as far as I could tell. He just kept walking. “If I wanted you to have that information,” the Chief said, voice smooth with practiced indifference, “you’d already have it.” It wasn’t a threat. It didn’t need to be. Some men controlled rooms with volume; he did it by not caring if you walked out. Power, on him, was lacquered and subtle, already settled.
Eddie didn’t answer. He let the moment stretch just long enough to lodge his disapproval like a splinter. Then he gave a tight nod, something between acknowledgment and warning, and stepped back, jaw flexing as he scanned the lot again, slower this time, like he was redrawing the map with new, unwanted variables.
Sully held his ground by the SUV where they’d placed Violet, still tethered to her with one hand braced and the other curled loose, like he thought his presence alone might offer her some peace. Blood marked his cuff. Dirt streaked his jaw. But he didn’t move. Carrick still stood near the warehouse, arms folded, the quiet edge of his stance more fatigue than peace. Tension coiled beneath him like a storm waiting for an excuse.
Niko lounged against the SUV, boot resting casually on the running board, but the calm was camouflage. His eyes tracked Eddie without flickering, every movement sorted and catalogued. A silent predator running calculus under the surface. Deacon lingered near Sully and Violet, posture indistinct, expression unreadable, but nothing about him was idle. He watched like he always did. Fully. Quietly. Permanently aware.
Then Eddie’s gaze reached me and held there. Not hostile. Not probing. Just a pause weighted with unspoken assessment. He didn’t know where we fit, and that made him uneasy. Not cops. Not military. Not civilians either. Just a group of unknowns with guns and no ID.
I didn’t nod. Didn’t shift. Let the moment breathe. Long enough for him to decide I wasn’t worth interrogating. Not yet. He turned.
He wasn’t dismissing us. He was working a crime scene, marking positions, and calculating probabilities. He didn’t like unknowns; that much was obvious. Didn’t like teams that moved faster than his squad, or answered to names not listed on rosters. The kind of variable that wasn’t assigned a rank or department made his systems itch.
He walked off loose-limbed, like none of it mattered. But his breath had shifted. Slight hitch. Slight lift. Not panic—preparation. Like his mind was rewinding, dissecting every image for missing context.
He didn’t trust us. I didn’t need him to say it. A man like Eddie worked in a world of process. Chain of command. Verified paperwork and clean conclusions. We didn’t fit. We weren’t meant to. And the fact that Quinn had brought us in without clearance, without protocol, without even names he could trace, made us a violation he couldn’t report.
He wouldn’t argue. Wouldn’t shout. He’d watch. He’d wait. And when things fell apart, he’d be there with a notepad and a question that sounded like hindsight. A man like him didn’t need to chase trouble. He just needed to know where to find it when the dust cleared.
He walked over to Quinn with a kind of calm that looked casual, but wasn’t. There was weight in it, the careful patience of a man who had learned the hard way not to rush. I caught their reflections in the SUV’s side panel—soft light, wet pavement, two outlines cut from the same history but bent in different directions. Both cops. Both seasoned. Quinn still looked inward, tethered to something he believed could be fixed. Eddie carried himself like someone already counting the cost if it couldn’t.
“Where are they taking her?” he asked, voice pitched low. Not hostile. Not gentle. Just steady, the question of a man who wanted an answer he could use.
