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Chapter Twenty-Five

Jax

“J ackson,” Ronnie cried over the howls of the rain, tugging at my arm. “Wait!”

“We don’t have time, Ronnie.” I sighed, grabbing her wrist and tugging her behind me. She didn’t struggle, but I could hear the weight of her feet splashing through the puddles.

My body halted, whirling to see her heels dug into the ground, boots and jeans covered in more mud than they should have been. Rain fell over her wet cheeks, and the headlights of the car beaming through the rain glinted off her face.

I could hear my heart pulsing loud in my ears, impatience pumping adrenaline through me as I glanced back to the waiting car.

“Come on, Ronnie. We have to get going before my father realizes what’s up!”

“But the farm….”

“Leave it, Ronnie,” I snapped in exasperation. “We’ve already talked about this. There’s no hope here.”

“But Max—”

“We’ll come back and get her when we’re settled elsewhere.” I sighed. I took a step into her space, the damp puddle filling the small hole in my boot as my socks soaked up the muddy water. I reached up my hands to cup her cheeks, bringing her small, oval face up. Her dark lashes collected beads of the rain, and the droplets running down her cheeks only highlighted that childish cuteness. “Ronnie.” I reached forward and pressed a short kiss to her forehead. “This is it. Our only chance to get away from here at long last. What are you waiting for?”

“I….” Her voice faded into a mumble, eyes searching mine. The dark green dulled by the night, and pink lips paled by the cold rain.

“Come on.” My hand trailed back down to her wrist, and with a reassuring smile, I turned back to the van and began to pull her along behind me.

She didn’t move.

My frown deepened, the rain squeezed between the wrinkles of my brow as I looked down at her. Through the blur of the rain, her head had fallen, eyes staring down into the mud. “Ronnie?” I couldn’t hide the waver in my voice. The confusion and concern. “You’re coming, right?”

I gave her another testing tug on her arm, but her feet only dug in deeper. “Jackson…,” she whimpered, head shaking. Her quivering lip mumbled, but the impatient rev of the truck’s engine drowned it out.

“Whatever it is, we can talk about it in the car, Ronnie!” I yelled, readjusting the bag weighing on my shoulders. Full of the bare minimum it would take to get by. Just to get started. We would get more things later. “We gotta go!”

I turned back to the truck and managed to pull her a few steps before I heard the cry of her voice.

“I can’t.”

I froze.

It felt like the rain slowed in the air. The stuttering engine of the truck became a deep tick. My body moved as if it were treading swamp water as I turned to face her.

Green eyes bleached by the truck’s blinding lights, my looming shadow darkened half of her face. “What?”

“I…” Ronnie gasped, her chest stuttering with a struggle for breath, her spare hand tightening around the damp flannel around her collar. “I can’t leave it behind, Jackson.”

“Ronnie….” The word was torn from deep down in my chest. I felt my legs sinking into the mud beneath me, my own breath slow and natural, as if this wasn’t happening at all. As if she hadn’t just said that to me.

“No,” I growled. “You can’t do this to me, Ronnie. Not now.”

“But, Jackson—”

“YOU PROMISED!” The roar bellowed through the rain. It scratched my throat all the way up like liquid acid that exploded into the air. I felt sick to my stomach. A hot burning began to rage inside of me.

“I know, Jackson,” Ronnie cried. “But now we’re here… I can’t give up on it. I can’t give up on the horses. I can fix the farm!” she pleaded, her hand jumping from her shirt to mine, clinging to the limb like she was dangling on the edge of a cliff.

But it was me that was blindsided. It was me that felt like I was hanging on the edge of everything and nothing.

“You can’t fix it! I’ve tried. For years and years, I’ve tried. But my parents can’t be changed!” I screamed, my fist squeezing around hers, as if I was trying to push the thoughts through to her.

Her arm bent, trying to relieve pressure in her arm, but I didn’t care that I was hurting her. I didn’t care if she was in pain. “You need to listen to me, Ronnie. You need to come with me. We can start a new life. We can start up our own farm and let it be everything we want it to be!”

Ronnie shook her head.

“RONNIE!” I cried. My frustration and pain and betrayal crying out alongside me.

Ronnie flinched, as if the sound struck her.

But it didn’t change her mind.

She didn’t hesitate. And with the sob breaking through her lips, her head shook even harder. “I can’t….”

“Ronnie,” I whispered, the bag falling from my defeated shoulders as it slapped against the wet earth. I stepped into her space, my hand coming up to cup her face and turning her to look at me. Her wet skin was warm against the touch of my palm, eyes bleached a paler green against the white light as they flickered up to me.

“If I leave now, I’m not coming back,” I vowed through the broken and defeated ache of my voice. “I will forget about my parents. I’ll forget about this farm. And I’ll forget about you.”

Her sob jerked her face in my hand as she shook her head.

“If you don’t come with me now. That will be it for us. Whatever future you hoped we’d have, whatever love you had for me. Whatever feelings I might have grown to have for you in the future… everything… I’ll leave them behind and I’ll forget about them forever.”

I brushed a fallen strand of hair from her face. “Will you still choose to stay here?”

Her sobs broke into a heavy cry as her head broke loose of my hold, tears falling to the ground as her shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Fine,” I croaked, my vision beginning to wobble. “Goodbye, Ronnie.”

As if I was in concrete, my legs ached in pain as I turned from her, reaching with my hand to pick up the fallen bag and stepping away.

Her hand clung harder to mine as I pulled away. “Jackson!” she cried, tightening her wet grip, as if trying to hold me there. But she couldn’t. If she couldn’t follow me… I couldn’t stay.

“Jackson! Please!” she begged. I didn’t stop.

Not even as I felt her wet fingers slip from mine.

The faint sound of a snapping thread rung in my ears, but it didn’t stop me. Each step didn’t get easier, and as her cries grew louder and louder from me, all I could feel was the empty hole growing in my heart.

I had been betrayed.

I didn’t look back once. Not even as I heard her knees crash into the dirt. Not even as I heard her breath struggle. Not even as I heard her whispering plea for me to come back.

I climbed into the cab, wiped my wet face, and nodded at the driver.

“The girl—”

“She’s not coming.”

I hoped she would never change her mind. I hoped at that moment she would never come for me. I hoped that I would never have to see her again.

Never see the friend who followed me everywhere. The friend who had loved me as long as she’d known me. And the friend who had betrayed me.

Because if I were ever to see her again, if she ever came looking for forgiveness, or to make amends…

I knew I could never forgive her.

* * *

“I ’m an idiot,” I grumbled, kneading my head into the wood of the bar, as if grinding my skull could erase the painful memory.

It had plagued me since I saw her back turn on me and not look back.

The metallic aftertaste of my words sat at the back of my throat as I realized just how bitter karma was.

When I had left eight years ago, I had been so caught up in my own frustrations and selfish desires that I had ignored hers. It wasn’t like I didn’t know. The cautious, weary expression on her face whenever I had talked about getting away from there. The doubt and the worry, hidden behind her small green eyes. I pretended not to see them. I pretended that the only thing she cared about the most was me. That she would abandon every stubborn and prideful part of herself to follow me like any other normal girl. But Ronnie wasn’t normal.

In hindsight, I was able to realize how childish I was.

It was one thing wanting to escape for me. It was what I needed, and seeing where I ended up, I didn’t regret leaving. I found myself at the club and found a place to call home, and people to call my family. Leaving was the right option for me.

But for Ronnie….

I should have known she wouldn’t abandon the horses her mother loved and her father stuck around to protect.

I shouldn’t have pressured her to leave like I had. I shouldn’t have pushed my feelings onto her and forced her to agree to leaving with me. Even though I knew about her feelings for me, it was wrong to use them against her. To leave her with that kind of regret, and to arrogantly never question my own actions. If I had, I would have realized sooner the kind of mistake I had made.

And If I had realized… it made me wonder what I would have done differently.

Would I have gone back for Ronnie? Would she never have gotten married? Would she be happier if I had gone back for her?

I hoped I would have gone back for her.

I hadn’t realized how much it had hurt when Ronnie said she had stopped waiting for me. As if a selfish part of me hoped she would have never given up on me. Never blaming me like I had blamed her.

But she had. And unlike me, she had every right to hate and blame me.

Even if I had to leave, I didn’t have to do it like I had. I didn’t have to hurt her like I did.

“I wish I had a time machine,” I grumbled, rubbing my head even harder into the wood, the friction causing a slight burn, which was pathetic compared to the huge beating I deserved.

“Trust me, the butterfly effect is too much of a hassle.” Anna’s quick quip poked at my side, along with a sharp fingernail.

“Ow.” I jerked up in my seat, glaring at her. My hand cupped the rib she jabbed, knowing it would leave a bruise.

Her little blonde eyebrow cocked at my reaction before it was finished with an eye roll. The pint-sized girl saddled up onto one of the empty stools beside me as she reached over the counter for a cold beer and pulled it up onto the counter.

I waited until she popped the cap on the side of the bar with expert ease before snatching the thing out of her hand and chugging it in one go.

A loud burp escaped my lips before I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and placed the empty bottle in front of her. I fixed her with a glare. “You know better.”

“So your eyes do still work.” She crossed one leg over her knee as she readjusted her tight T-shirt. “I wasn’t going to drink it anyway. It was for Wolf.”

Shit. I opened my mouth—

“I’m telling him you stole his beer, no matter what.”

“Fuck,” I groaned, not needing another person angry at me.

“Not even if I was protecting his pregnant girlfriend from alcohol?” I tried my sweetest smile.

“Not even,” She shook her head as she reached over the counter for another beer. This one, she didn’t uncap and just left it to sit there, the condensation rolling down the side of the glass and collecting on the surface of the bar.

“I will trade you, however,” she said with the most pitiful frown on her lush red lips.

I glared at them; they were like a sweet rose with thorns. The lips of the devil herself.

But Wolf….

“What’s your offer?” I narrowed my eyes on her, my words cautious and thoughtful.

“I won’t tell Wolf if ….” She smirked.

I wasn’t going to like this.

“…you tell me why you’re getting drunk so early in the morning?” She extended out a soft, small palm. “Deal?”

I groaned, looking at the chilled beer one the counter. “Doesn’t Wolf want his beer?”

“He can wait. He’s in my bad books for this anyway.” She pointed to her stomach.

There was no escape. “You can’t resist gossip, can you?”

I took her hand.

With a little too much excitement in her smile, she pulled her stool closer to mine, propping an elbow on the bar and resting her chin on her fist, awaiting the most interesting story of the year.

“Don’t get too excited.” I sighed.

* * *

I t burned.

The hot flaming mark stinging across my cheek was like an iron whip as I stared, stunned at the wooden floor.

Everyone in the club was staring with wide, shocked eyes as the sound of the slap resonated throughout the room. Even a few of the brothers stood to attention, hands close to their weapons in reaction.

My eyes swelled with tears at the sharp pain, but I didn’t let them fall.

Fuck, I’d been hit by so many women before that I had thought my skin had turned to leather.

I swallowed the blood from my cheek before turning back to look at her. If I had thought the slap had hurt, it was nothing compared to the stone-cold expression on Anna’s face.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Anna hissed. “Not just you, but her as well.”

“We’re talking eight years ago—”

“I’m not talking about that,” Anna growled, her booted foot taking a loud, heavy step toward me.

I flinched.

“You should know well enough by now not to leave bad blood.” Anna shook her head, her face not one of anger but disappointment. It hurt more.

Anna’s shoulders dropped. “During times like this, don’t you know how important it is to say what you truly feel rather than getting pissed and leaving her behind like that? You let her walk out, in pain and in tears, and you just left her there.”

“What else was I supposed to do?” I argued, no longer caring that my business was being aired to the whole club. “We were both mad, and she wasn’t listening to anything I said.”

“If you had something to say to her, then it shouldn’t matter if you’re mad. You say that shit.” She pointed a long red nail at my face. “Because you don’t know when you might lose your chance to say it.”

I couldn’t argue with her words. Even the brothers who had been standing on edge, waiting to intervene in our battle, had settled back. The truth setting hard on their faces; those who had seen it happen, and those who had the same thing happen to them. In a life like ours, especially when a danger like the Black Jacks was lurking around the corner meant we couldn’t live our lives like a normal relationship. There was no such thing as hesitating, and there was no such thing as having time. No patience. No backpedaling. No mistakes.

That kind of regret ruined men.

I didn’t want to be that kind of man.

I stared down at the wooden floor. The new boards had replaced the old ones that had been shot to hell only a year earlier. I remembered Wolf and Hunter’s faces when I told them about the attack. Their worst fear had overtaken them in a second. Before I could even tell them the girls were okay, they had been hit by the worst possible reality. No matter what I told them, it meant nothing until they saw for themselves that the women were safe.

If something like that were to happen to Ronnie….

I didn’t even want to imagine it.

I shrugged my shoulders back and took a deep breath, giving a quick nod to Anna. “I’m gonna go.”

My heavy boots moved forward with an ease I didn’t know I would have when facing the hurt and pained Ronnie waiting at home for me. It was time to tell her how I felt. To answer her questions about the past. To apologize for all the wrongs I had committed. And how the truth of her past shouldn’t be ignored.

No more turning a blind eye.

“I’ll see you later,” I tried to say with cool suaveness, but I barely got half the sentence out before I felt the collar of my shirt strangle my throat.

“Shit,” I choked, spinning around to relieve the pressure, as Anna’s little hand jerked me backward, throwing off my balance.

I almost crashed headfirst into her feet before I managed to catch myself, half bent over, facing my almost ultimate doom. “Anna, what the hell?”

“You’ve been drinking, asshole.” She scoffed. “You really think I’m gonna let you go like that?”

“But you just said—”

“I know,” she cut me off, letting go of my shirt. I looked up to see her back as she trotted around the back of the bar. “Let me grab my keys.”

“Mother….” I felt moved, tears in my eyes.

I was met with a sharp smack on the upside of my head. “I wouldn’t give birth to such a dumbass.”

With that, she swung her keys in her hand and walked past me, her loud red boots leading the way. She swung open the door, light glowing behind my hero like a luminescent aura.

“Let’s go get your girl.”

Anna strutted to the door, and with a smirk on my face, I walked on after her.

This woman.

“Hey, wait u—”

The click of the gun might as well have been an explosion.

I didn't even have time to think before my weapon was drawn from my side, cocked and aimed at the man holding his own weapon.

He was so close I could smell the bastard, but that wasn't the sense I was using.

My eyes were pinned to the barrel pressed into Anna's forehead, her blue eyes frozen on my own expression.

"Who the fuck are you?" I growled, low and guttural as I did everything I could not to blast this fucker’s head off just for his audacity. Walking onto our property armed was bad enough. Daring to touch a hair on her head was preparing to be put in the ground.

"You're Anatoli Ivanov," Anna hissed, adjusting her clenched fists by her side.

The tall man covered in scarred skin and tattoos gave a small nod to her before turning to me. "Did you get my message?" He smirked.

"Motherfucker!" I roared, unable to hold the surge of anger as Ronnie's voice telling me about the bastard kissing her replayed in my head.

I heard a loud set of footsteps coming from the club room door. I counted the seconds the loud creak marked the door swinging open. "What the fuck is going on out he—”

Silence.

If I was a brewing storm, Wolf became a fucking apocalypse as the hot air in the yard turned to ice as his presence behind me grew. I could feel the painful pressure of his anger weighed down in my back.

" WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TOUCHING ?" Wolf's roar shook the earth as he took a step near my side.His rage was white-hot, and I saw the fury in his face as his brown eyes fixed on his prey with the glare of an animal, nothing and no one else breaking his line of sight.

The compound shook loudly to life as I heard footsteps and shouts echoing inside the club room. No one came from the door, but I knew there’d be a barrage of weapons pointing out of every window and exit.

Anatoli moved fast, grabbing Anna by the arm and spinning her back into his chest. The gun pressed against the side of the temple, and the woman provided the most powerful shield.

"You're a dead man!" Wolf hissed.

"I heard you guys like the direct method." Anatoli shrugged.

"You think you’re fucking funny?" I growled. "Let's see how funny you are with a bullet your head!"

"You here for revenge? Is that it?" Wolf snapped. "Because I wiped out your friends?"

"Friends?" Anatoli scoffed. "Fuck, no. We were colleagues. Not friends."

"I don't give a shit about your relationships. I want to know why the fuck you're holding a gun to my woman's head!" Wolf bellowed.

"I'm here on business." Anatoli shrugged. "Plain and simple."

I took a small step into his path, blocking, if only slightly, his path to Anatoli. The gesture was enough as Wolf glanced down at me and I knew he got it.

If he was here for business, then that meant he planned to leave here alive. He had money to collect after all. He didn't walk onto a compound full of armed bikers without a plan.

"Business?" Wolf growled.

"Let's trade. You can have the girl back," Anatoli offered.

"In exchange for who?"

Anatoli's murky grey eyes scanned over Wolf in a quick assessment as if he was contemplating it before it abandoned the huge, deadly man ready to bring the earth down on top of him. I could feel Wolf’s presence behind me and I knew he was ready to jump in Anna’s place in a second.

But Anatoli didn’t want Wolf. He wanted someone else. His gaze turned away from the big man and came to rest on a different brother.

Me.

I didn't even think. I couldn't. The word was out of my mouth before I could even consider it.

"Okay."

"Jax," Wolf growled, but he didn't stop me. His gaze flickered to Anna who was glaring daggers hard at me, as if telling me not to do it.

I released the safety on my weapon and raised my hands, my gun dropping loose around my finger. My palms flattened in surrender, and I let my weapon fall to the concrete.

I kicked the weapon, not toward Anatoli or away from our gathering but back toward the club doors, toward Wolf.

"It was custom-made." I shrugged at Anatoli's casual glare.

He rolled his eyes as I took a slow step forward.

"Sorry, babe." I winked at her. "You'll have to make this up to me later."

Anna glared at me, the smallest sign of tears in her eyes before she blinked them away. "You selfish bastard."

I hoped Wolf got my message as my back turned to him and I stepped up, unarmed, into Anatoli's reach. There was a pause as he pressed his gun to Anna's forehead for a moment longer.

We only had a short window. The moment he moved the gun from her head, there was an opportunity. I was sure Mint was perched at a window, a weapon in his hands, and I knew the man was a dead shot. The second he had a gun pointed away from either of us, Mint would have to take the shot, and I hoped to fuck we had enough of a chance to make it back into the club house before the others arrived.

Anatoli release his grip on Anna's arm, his hand going to his side as he began to shift the weapon from her head.

Now—

A second gun clicked at the side of my head and I heard my plan going down the drain.

Fuck.

He held the gun close to my temple, no doubt going to leave a bruise against the skin as he released Anna from his hold.

She didn't move at first, not until she heard the gun click back into the side of Anatoli's holster.

Her steps were short and slow, reluctant to leave me behind. Wolf reached for her, grabbing her and rushing her behind him the moment he got the chance. He took the rushed opportunity to grab my gun from the ground and had it pointed at Anatoli's head.

Anatoli didn't have me pressed against him like he did Anna. He kept me at arm’s length.

"I should let you all know," he said loud and clear, not just to Wolf but to the entire compound. " You can take your shot, but your president will be going down with me if you do."

It was then that I noticed the red dot pointed at Wolf's chest. He must have caught the glimmer of the laser already because he didn't look surprised. His gun was still aimed without hesitation at our intruder.

This must be the other armored Black Jack that Lamb had been tracking. He was right about them working together at least.

"I'm not letting you leave with my brother.”

"I'm afraid you're going to have to. If you go down, they're just going to take out another." Anatoli shrugged over his shoulder in the general direction I assumed where the snipers were hiding.

"Jax," Wolf growled as Anatoli shoved at me with the gun.

I took a step backward, still facing my president as the distance between us grew.

The roar of a car reverberated through the air as a black Jeep came to a halt next to my side.

The door swung open.

"Get in." Anatoli shoved at me.

I took one last look at my club, spotting my brothers’ faces in the windows, contorted with rage and a promise of revenge.

If they all didn't look ugly enough, they did now.

Looked like I'd have to come back and represent the good looks of the club. No matter what....

I'd be back.

For sure.