Page 58 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

Stella

“Tell them.”

Jax’s voice didn’t shake or rise or soothe. It cut through the air like a ritual blade meant for sacrifice. And I was what he laid on the altar.

The kitchen air was thick, like breathing through molasses.

The refrigerator hummed behind me, a low, relentless drone underscoring the silence.

Wood creaked under boots I wouldn’t look at.

Someone cracked their knuckles, probably Niko, pacing slow and sharp, like a soldier circling ground he no longer trusted.

I sat frozen, hands folded in my lap, fingers pressing into my thighs deep enough to bruise. I didn’t look up. Not yet. Because if I did, I’d break. And if I broke, I might not come back.

Jax was beside me, his posture unreadable. Not loose or tense. Just there. Heat at my side. He didn’t shield or speak, or make excuses. He simply stayed, and that stillness, his weight, his quiet, was the only reason I hadn’t fled.

They were all here. Carrick stood with his arms crossed, his shoulders tight with a storm that hadn’t chosen whether or not to break yet.

Sully leaned against the far counter, trying for ease, but his eyes were sharp.

Deacon didn’t move at all, ancient and unmoving in his silence.

Niko shifted like friction personified, boots whispering as he circled the hardwood.

Bellamy stood near the doorway with arms crossed in front of her chest, a fortress drawn in flesh and fabric.

Maddy was beside her, wide-eyed and unsure.

Every person in that room had trusted me, and I had lied to them all. Now they were waiting for a story I had never wanted to tell.

I pulled a breath into my chest, shallow, cracking at the edges, and finally let the words out.

“There was a voice,” I said, and the sound of it felt rusted, corroded from the inside.

“At the station. Not someone I could see. Just a voice, through the intercom. It felt like they’d been waiting for me. ”

No one spoke, but I saw Jax’s hand twitch against his thigh.

“Quinn put me in this room,” I went on, my fingers curling tighter.

“Nothing but white walls. A bolted table. Fluorescents that buzzed like hornets. He had to leave to process some paperwork or something. Then the voice came. Clear. In control. Like this wasn’t their first time.

They told me… they told me that they’d kidnapped my sister, and I had to do whatever they wanted if I wanted to see her alive again. ”

Still, no one interrupted, but the shift was clear. Deacon leaned in slightly, his eyes sharpening. Niko stopped walking. Sully’s jaw tensed.

“They told me exactly what was going to happen, and what I was supposed to do. That I’d be brought here.

That the police were housing witnesses off the record.

That the location was classified, and the people they were holding there were important to the Dom Krovi.

They said that if I could find it, escape, and report back, they’d let my sister go. ”

That word, sister, hit harder than anything else. The room froze around it. Even Jax went somehow more still beside me, and I hadn’t thought that was possible.

“Her name is Violet,” I said. “She is a few years younger than I am, and my best friend. She helps me with anything I need, keeps me organized, and sort of runs my studio. Or at least, she did. Before… before all of this.”

Carrick’s voice came, hard and immediate.

“You sat at our table. Ate our food. Slept under our roof. And you didn’t think to mention there was another goddamn target out there?”

My spine jolted with the hit, but I didn’t shrink. I couldn’t afford to.

“I didn’t know who to trust,” I said tightly. “You think I walked in here with a checklist of allies? One of the men who took me wore a badge. A uniform . You tell me how I’m supposed to know who’s real and who’s just wearing the right costume.”

Niko turned toward me, voice low and cold.

“You had actionable intelligence. Something that could’ve saved us days of blind digging. We’ve been following whispers, trying to trace the Dom Krovi’s moves, and you were sitting on a thread that could’ve connected the whole damn web.”

“I was trying to keep her alive ,” I said, louder now. “Not play informant. Not throw darts at a wall hoping they wouldn’t bounce back and hit me. I was trying to keep my only goddamn sister breathing.”

Sully’s voice broke through next, softer, but heavy. “Easy, guys. She’s not wrong. She didn’t know who we were. Hell, half the time I forget who we are.”

Deacon didn’t say anything yet, just studied me like I was a problem to solve. Like he wasn’t sure if I was the key to the puzzle, or the part that would blow it apart.

I stared at the table, jaw clenched, eyes burning with shame I didn’t want them to see.

Then Jax spoke. Not softly. Not cruelly. Just truth, stripped bare.

“She didn’t know who to trust,” he said, heat simmering beneath the words. “Her captor wore a badge. That warps your compass. It doesn’t matter what’s in our files, or how safe we think we are. To her, we could’ve been just more wolves dressed like sheep.”

He glanced at me, brief but weighted. A flash of calculation, pain, pride, and loyalty. The twitch of his jaw said the rest. Then he turned back to them.

“She told us not because she had to. Because she couldn’t carry it alone anymore. That’s not betrayal. That’s courage. Cornered, bleeding, and still choosing to speak.”

The room didn’t lighten, but something shifted. The weight redistributed, settling across shoulders that knew the difference between silence and sabotage.

Bellamy stepped forward, arms no longer folded like a shield.

Her voice was cool, but not cold. “You were right to be scared. After everything that happened with Rayden, trust me when I say I understand. But if you’re going to truly be a part of this family now, you have to stop rationing the truth.

The guys can’t protect what we don’t know exists. ”

I nodded, small but sharp. “I’m trying.”

And I was. Not just to survive, but to belong. Maybe this was the cost, bleeding truth in front of people who might never unsee the wound.

Silence settled next. Not angry. Just heavy. A room full of men recalibrating everything they thought they knew, with me in the middle of it.

Jax finally broke it. “There are still good cops. Just not enough. And not where it counts.”

He didn’t raise his voice or try to soften the blow. He let the words land solid, like puzzle pieces snapping into place after weeks of chaos.

“Quinn’s one of the good ones, you know.

Not because of the badge. Because he stopped trusting it years ago.

He’s been tracking internal corruption for over two years, quiet, methodical, the right way.

He knows what happens when you burn a system from the outside.

The fire spreads. You have to start from the rot and work outward. ”

I shifted, tension still riding high across my shoulders. “That’s a long time to be alone in it.”

“He’s not,” Jax said. “The Chief’s clean too. Retired spec ops. Lost two close friends in a Dom Krovi op back in ’09. He doesn’t blink when you say the name. He might not trust the city anymore, but he trusts Quinn. And Quinn trusts us.”

His voice stayed tight, every word coiled with intent. “But that’s where it stops. Beyond them, we’re blind. And what you’ve told us confirms what we feared. The leak isn’t some careless detective. It’s someone high-ranking. Strategic. Probably embedded in Organized Crime or Internal Affairs.”

The room shifted. Not with noise. With pressure. The air itself felt heavier now. Because this wasn’t just about me. Or Violet. This was about rot in the foundation, corruption wearing the face of law, bleeding trust from the walls meant to hold it.

Jax’s gaze cut to mine. Not cruel. Not warm. Just sharp and specific, like he was reading data etched into my skin.

“You weren’t just kidnapped,” he said. “You were conditioned to doubt every version of safety the rest of us still take for granted. So when you got here, your instincts screamed to lie, to watch, to guard. That wasn’t a failure. That was survival.”

Carrick’s jaw tightened, but he stayed quiet. Sully didn’t shift. Even Deacon looked like he was rethinking everything he thought he knew.

“The Dom Krovi doesn’t operate like a gang,” Jax went on. “They move like a corporation, with lots of resources and no conscience. They don’t have to shoot us. They can pay someone with a badge to walk us into the fire. They don’t hack the system. They are the system.”

That was it. The dread I hadn’t been able to name. The slow realization that corruption in uniform couldn’t be outmatched with reason. It had to be outlived. Outlasted.

“And that’s why your intel matters,” he said, leaning forward, both hands braced against the table. “You gave us more than leads. You gave us a pattern. Facts we can use. We don’t have to wonder anymore.”

His voice dropped, not louder, just deeper. Like the truth had weight, and he was speaking it directly into the bones of the room.

“We follow the thread. Cut the infection. When we hit back, it won’t be blind.”

It didn’t need repeating. I already knew where it began.

With me.

Carrick’s voice came low, measured. “If they’ve got cops, we plan for betrayal.”

Niko gave a curt nod. “And loyalty better be earned in blood.”

Deacon stepped forward, arms crossed, voice even. “We’ve had a dozen puzzles missing the corner. Maybe now we see the edge.”

Around us, the atmosphere shifted. A collective recalibration, as if my truth had rebalanced the air itself.

I didn’t move. Just sat there, locked in place, trying to absorb the magnitude of what I’d done to this room.

Jax returned to the seat beside me, his hand finding mine beneath the table.

And somewhere in the wreckage, beneath fear, guilt, and the ache of confession, hope took hold.

Not soft. Not sweet. But forged. Sharp. Clean.