Page 36 of Finding His Redemption

But he was already reaching for the landline on his nightstand, dialing Shane’s number from memory.

The phone rang four times, each tone stretching longer than the last. Jax almost hung up, almost spared them both the awkwardness that inevitably followed these midnight calls.

But the ghosts were loud tonight, and the silence of his room was even louder.

Shane picked up on the fourth ring, sounding wide awake. “Trevisano.”

Just hearing his former team leader’s voice made Jax’s shoulders tighten. Five years of therapy, and still his body’s first response was to prepare for a fight.

“It’s me,” Jax said, the words scraping his throat like gravel.

Silence stretched between them, nearly twenty years of history compressed into three seconds of dead air.

“Nightmare?” Shane finally asked.

“Yeah.”

“The compound?”

Jax swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

A pause. “You okay?”

No. Not even close. But Jax couldn’t say that. Not to Shane, who’d already sacrificed too much trying to save him from himself.

“I’m managing,” he said instead.

“You taking your meds?” Shane asked.

“Yeah.” Jax rubbed at the space between his eyebrows, trying to ease the tension. “Every day. Like clockwork.”

“Good,” Shane said softly. “That’s good, man.”

A soft cry echoed through the phone—high, thin, unmistakably infant. Jax’s chest constricted, jealousy and regret tangling together like razor wire around his lungs.

“That her?” The question slipped out before he could stop it.

Shane’s silence stretched long enough that Jax could hear his own pulse in his ears. When Shane finally spoke, his voice had gone careful, guarded. “Yeah. That’s Willow.”

Willow. The name hit Jax like a sucker punch. Real now, not just an abstract concept. A person Shane got to hold, to protect, to love without destroying. A person who wouldn’t have existed if Jax had succeeded in killing her mother.

“She sounds...” He trailed off, not sure how to finish.Beautiful? Perfect? Like everything I’ll never deserve to have?

“Jax.” Not guarded now. A warning. “Don’t.”

A woman murmured something in the background.

“How’s Alexis?” He shouldn’t have mentioned her, but the words tumbled out anyway, each one feeling like broken glass on his tongue.

“Jesus Christ.” Shane exhaled, sharp and frustrated. “Listen, you can call if you need to. We can talk through shit. But my wife and daughter are off limits to you.”

Yeah, he deserved that ice-cold tone. Had earned it with interest.

“I know. I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry.”

He hung up before Shane could respond, and the silence that followed was somehow worse than the nightmare that had woken him.

Jax stared at the phone’s dark screen, his reflection distorted in the black glass. Five years clean, five years of therapy, five years of pretending he was getting better. And still, the first thing he did when the demons got loud was reach for the people he’d hurt most. He didn’t know why. Was it because Shane had lived through that night in the desert? Or because he liked torturing himself? Probably a bit of both.