Page 14 of The Hardest Hit
“Hipster, yes. Vegan, no,” she said, dropping into the seat opposite him. “Why are we meeting?”
“Why do you think?” he asked.
“Grandma?”
“Of course, but it’s not a thing, so don’t stress. I just want to strategize. This is going to cost more than my rent used to, isn’t it?” he asked, pulling the menu toward him.
“Your rent used to be covered by the state. I don’t think that’s a fair comparison.”
Jackson grinned and picked up the stiff sheet of paper that constituted the menu. Then, keeping an eye on Dominique, he used one hand to cover up the price column. She snorted and perused the menu herself.
Until five years ago, Jackson Deveraux had been Jackson Zane. He’d been an orphan, a thief, and an inmate. And then his grandmother Eleanor had found him, plucked him out of prison, and brought him into the Deveraux fold with the express intention that he should look after his cousins. He didn’t mind. He’d always wanted a family, and now he had one. And he’d thought that looking after some spoiled rich kids would probably be easy. He’d been wrong on both points—his cousins were neither spoiled nor easy.
“Pickled... What the fuck, Nika? We can’t just go somewhere that makes omelets?”
“They make omelets. It’s the third one down.”
“It comes with a compote. I don’t know what compote is, but it sounds offensive.”
Dominique giggled, and Jackson shook his head. When the waiter finally took their order, Jackson took a chance on the compote but thought he might be stopping for a burger later.
When Jackson had first come to live with the Deveraux, the reactions from his cousins had been mixed. Their parents, including Jackson’s father, had all died in a plane crash, leaving Evan, Aiden, and Dominique in the care of their grandmother Eleanor. Most people had taken the plane crash as a mixed blessing. Genevieve Deveraux and Jack Casella were sweet, honest people whom everyone loved. But Owen and Randall Deveraux had been described, at best, as cold-hearted, abusive bastards.
Evan, Owen’s son and the oldest of the cousins, had accepted Jackson easily. But then Evan had a drug problem and probably would have accepted just about anyone. Aiden, Dominique’s brother, had been resistant. Aiden was territorial and protective of his sister and he wasn’t particularly interested in having another potentially violent relative around. Dominique, on the other hand,hadbeen interested. Interested in what Jackson could do. Interested in what Jackson wanted to do. Simply interested in Jackson. Interested in the intensely focused way that Jackson had come to identify as a Deveraux trait. She had been his first ally in the family. Aiden had taken a bit longer, but now that Jackson knew his secret—illegal MMA fighting—he and Jackson were finally on the same page. It was Evan who had drifted away in the last year, even as his sobriety and stability had increased. Jackson wasn’t sure what to make of that.
“So,” he said when the waiter left. “The new shitty job. How is it?”
“Slightly less shitty than the last one. You know, I was pissed when those stupid mercenaries attacked me and blew my cover at work, but it has turned out to be a good thing!”
“A good thing?” asked Jackson with a laugh.
“It totally threw off my timeline—so inconvenient. I was not planning on making some of the job switches I have made so fast. But I feel like it forced me to step up. I’m now managing five people and only two of them are idiots. And I’ve officially got Marketing Director on my business card. So that’s nice. Although, of course, fuck Absolex and J.P. Granger, and I hope they all go down in a flaming ball.”
“Naturally,” said Jackson.
Some people might have characterized being attacked by mercenaries as a bit more thaninconvenient, but Dominique recovered from shocks easily. She also cherished her string of anonymous shitty jobs and was hell-bent on pulling herself up by her bootstraps. Never mind that she was already up. She wanted to work her way to the top and then probably rule with an iron fist.
“Actually, wherearewe on the Absolex situation?” Dominique asked, frowning.
“We’ll have to check in with Evan at Sunday dinner,” said Jackson and Dominique accepted that with a half-shrug and a nod.
When Eleanor Deveraux had pushed for a senate investigation and hearing on the subject of why the PTSD drug that Absolex had developed and sold to the VA seemed to causemoresuicides in veterans, someone at Absolex had hired mercenaries to attack the Deveraux family. An investigation had pointed toward the CEO J.P. Granger, but after being charged, Homeland Security had blocked access to the mercenaries that attacked the Deveraux family, which meant those charges couldn’t be pursued. All that was left were some financial indictments, which were ongoing and annoying for Granger, but they weren’t the punishment the Deveraux had been hoping for.
“What about you?” she asked. “Anything good this week?”
“More situational awareness seminars,” he said.
“What the hell is that?”
“Most of it was stuff I’m already doing. Knowing what’s going on in my surroundings, blah, blah, blah. I think the minions, as you call them, got some good stuff out of it though.”
“No, seriously,” she said, “what is it?”
“Keeping an eye on exits, not burying your head in a phone, and you know, being aware that there’s a photographer outside taking our picture,” said Jackson.
“Is there really?” asked Dominique without looking around and Jackson smiled at her. She’d once given him a twenty-minute lecture on how to get good paparazzi photos. Apparently, suddenly turning toward an unexpected photographer led to awkward photos and the blogs and mags always seemed to run the worst photos on purpose.
“Yeah, at least since you got here.”
