“So he gave him a free pass!” Mitch cried. “What the fuck? We had a job to do, and this tool---”
“Cool your jets.”
Eric Stiles held court in the back room of the Black Legion clubhouse. His dark, trim beard rested beneath his cold brown eyes, and he folded his arms across his chest as he looked from Jax to Mitch and back again.
“Son?” Eric asked. “You want to say something here or what?”
Jax stayed silent as he rubbed his hands together and grunted something in a garbled voice.
“Oh! So now you’re quiet?” Mitch demanded as he slapped the back of his head. At the feel of Mitch’s palm, Jax left the space of his own thoughts and thrust his fist into Mitch’s face.
“Come on, then!” he challenged. “Think you can take me, old man. I’ll---”
“You piece of fucking shit!”
Mitch leapt from his chair and forced his hand around Jax’s throat. Falling to the floor, Jax managed to slip away and push his knees to the other man’s thighs.
“Just give me another chance!” Jax threatened. “I’ll crush you into the fucking ground.”
Artie hung back as Eric simply surveyed the scene, seemingly just waiting to see what Jax would do next. Mitch almost landed a cheap shot as he kicked his boot between his legs, but Jax got to his feet and dragged Mitch along with him.
“Pussy ass move!” Jax said. “Let’s see you fight like a man.” Pushing Mitch away, Jax lifted his fists and watched him shake his attack off as he tried to assume a fighting stance.
“Little bitch,” Mitch said in a slurred voice. “I’ll take you out any day of the---”
He stared to barrel forward, his limp fist desperate to stick a landing. But Jax was quick enough on his feet to dart away from the impending blow, letting Mitch crash into the wall. As soon as he saw him stunned, Jax took more of the upper head and turned the redhead around to face him.
“You’ll do what I say,” Jax hissed. “And I said that the man’s marker is mine!”
Ready to knock him out cold, Jax’s fist hovered in mid-air when Eric finally stood and clapped his hands together. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I get the picture.”
Feeling triumphant, Jax dropped Mitch to the ground, and he couldn’t resist kicking his shins.
“How you like me now?” Jax said with a smirk.
Mitch growled as Artie sprang back into view to get his friend off the ground before grabbing Mitch by the back of his neck. “Leave it alone,” he cautioned. “Let’s get another drink.”
Even as Mitch glowered, the chance to wet his whistle enticed him to a place where he was able to nod at Artie even as he shot Jax a final glare. “One day you’ll add it all up,” Mitch threatened. “And then… then…you’ll wonder why---”
“Take him out, Artie,” Eric ordered. “I need to talk to the boy.”
Artie obliged with a nod, but Jax stayed tense even after they were gone.
“Rough morning, huh?”
At the feel of Eric’s hand on his back, Jax looked over his shoulders. Eric’s dark eyes still sent something of a shiver of his spine. He’d felt it on that first night when his mother came home on the back of the man’s bike and swore that his father’s, his true father’s, club was destined to stay intact under fresh leadership. And one day, his mom just up and left. She had to so as much to save her own skin. But she left her son, her child, behind. A hard thing to forgive, and Jax let Eric lead him back to his desk and sit him down.
“You need this,” Eric said.
Pouring out two tumblers of scotch, Jax’s desperation to grow numb took over, and he downed the drink in a single swig. As Eric just sipped, Jax asked for another.
And his stepfather obliged.
“So…” Eric started. “Any truth to what he has to say?”
Jax drank again before he spoke. “Like it’s gonna do me any good to lie to you,” he said.
“No good at all,” Eric advised. “You took old Sully’s debt on your shoulders?”
Nodding slowly, Jax looked into his stepfather’s eyes and searched his face for some hint of whatever he might do next. Would he dole out his own special brand of punishment for Jax’s transgression? He could take it; maybe he even deserved it. But for Lena, he would do it again.
“Oh, Jax,” Eric moaned. “You know, sometimes I wonder about you.” Sitting on the edge of his desk, he curled his glass between his fingers and managed a smile. “You’re not suddenly soft on Sully, are you?” he asked. “Man’s always had his problems with the club.”
He knew that firsthand; he knew that from Lena. More times than he could count, she railed against her uncle for betting odds that he did not have on horses that would never place. One time she cried. And, in that moment, Jax could not resist the urge to touch her arms and turn her eyes to his. It’ll be okay, Lena. I’ve always got your back.
“So what?” Jax scoffed as he finished his drink and reached for the bottle again. “She’s my friend.”
“But is she, Jax?”
He stopped mid-sip and glared at Eric as his stepfather held his ground, the corners of his lips curling into a smile. “I mean…I could see that you were always kind of sweet on her,” Eric continued. “But she…didn’t she take off at the first chance.”
“No,” Jax said as he spun out of his seat and drained his glass. “It wasn’t like that.”
What was it like?
One day, without any warning, Lena still accepted his protection as he walked her from one classroom to another. They still shared lunch, but they took their meals in silence. Lena told him she could make her way home on her own. But Jax still followed, watching her like a hawk until she disappeared behind her uncle’s door. Some days, bleeding into nights, he waited on the stoop across the street, and he didn’t make a move until he saw the light dim in her window. Something had shifted, and when he tried to press her, Lena always turned to ice and told him she was just fine. But he knew that was a lie. When she finally told him to stop sniffing around her if he knew what was good for him, Jax honored her cruel request. But he still watched her from afar, saw her graduate even as he was sentenced to summer school sessions that he had no intention of ever attending. And he kept his gaze on her for an entire summer until she slipped away, sitting on the back of a bus. Of course she should go. She had more promise than he could ever hope to know. But why had she turned so cold so fast? Had he done something wrong? As hard as he searched his mind, Jax could not come up with a reason, and he had no choice but to let her go and be left to wonder why.
“Jax?” Eric asked. “Didn’t she get too big for her britches when she got herself that fancy scholarship?”
He could do nothing but nod. Maybe that’s what had changed her. She hadn’t been home in over a year, not even during the last summer. So she had to have forgotten. But Jax was a man of his word. “So what?” he muttered. “If I can’t look out for her, I’ll look out for her people.”
“Person,” Eric said. “Not like she’s got a whole clan holding you back.”
“Holding…holding me…?”
“Enough, Jax!” Eric assumed a threatening tone as he pounded his fist to the desk and glowered. “That little girl used you,” he started. “And as soon as she saw another way out, she tossed you away like some snot she just wiped off with the back of her lying hands.”
Jax blinked back tears as he shook his head. “I…no. You don’t know…”
He had never even kissed her, but when they sat beside the creek and gazed into each other’s eyes, it was something more. Eric gave him a painted whore on his sixteenth birthday, and they kept coming after that. But no moment with any of them rivaled the moments when he simply sat at Lena’s side and just dared to touch her hand. It was real…it had to have been…
“Eric?”
“Yeah, Jax?”
He crumbled in his chair and couldn’t meet the older man’s eyes as he spoke softly. “I…I think I loved her,” Jax whispered. “Thought she loved me, too.”
Eric sighed and tousled his hair. “Women,” he said. “No hope of ever understanding them.”
Their eyes met, and Jax nodded. His own mother left them both. Sure, he had heard the rumors that there was something deeper when it came to her departure, but maybe everything was as simple as Eric said. The female of the species was a fickle beast, and Jax started to tremble with rage as he flung his glass to the floor and let it shatter to the floor.
“Want me to go back?” Jax asked. “I can do it now. I---”
“Maybe you should sit this one out,” Eric said. “I can send Mitch to---”
“No way,” Jax shot back. “I’m doing this. I’m up to the task.”
He started from his chair and promptly fell to the ground. Forming fists, Jax swore he could make it work as Eric forced a cup of black coffee down his throat. The second the caffeine hit his brain, he felt his body starting to sober up, and he met Eric’s eyes, drawing strength from the force of his stare.
“Go get ‘em, boy,” Eric offered. “Take you balls back and then some.”
Nodding and gripping his stepfather’s arm, Jax took off with only one thought flashing across his brain: justice for his people, for the club.