Page 7 of Jax (The Kansas City Reapers #3)

I exhaled hard, pressing my palms into my thighs, and focused on the rig in front of me.

Niko was easing Maddy down inch by inch, his voice steady and low, like a tether, guiding her back into her body.

Her hair clung damp to her cheek, her skin shining with sweat and serenity. The scene was almost over.

Which meant aftercare was about to begin.

The blankets, the water, and the pack of gummy snacks I kept for blood sugar drops were already gathered and waiting for them.

Anticipating needs before they were spoken had become second nature.

I was good at it. Too good. But I never stuck around for the soft part.

Aftercare was for them. I had my own rituals.

I was at the door before the rope hit the floor.

Niko had Maddy wrapped around him on the aftercare blanket, their bodies tangled in that way only people with complete trust ever managed.

Her skin still glowed from the scene—red where the jute had kissed too tight, gold in the firelight, eyes half-lidded as she sank into whatever dimension she went to when the world got too loud.

Niko held her like a storm in remission.

Whispered to her like she was the secret that made sense of every war he’d fought.

“You’re safe now, baby. You were perfect.” Niko said softly as he knelt beside her, one hand pressed to the center of her back. “You feel where you are?”

Maddie nodded, barely. Her voice came out slurred and honey-slow. “I’m floaty.”

“That’s okay,” he murmured, smiling into her hair. “You just stay right there. I’ve got you.”

She whimpered again, and he wrapped both arms around her carefully, lowering her onto the folded blankets I’d laid out earlier.

He cradled her like she was made of glass.

Her cheek pressed to his shoulder, lips moving in murmured nonsense, something about stars and storms and the way the air buzzed when she let go.

“I love you,” she breathed, so quiet I almost missed it.

“I know,” he whispered back, mouth at her temple. “I love you more.”

I didn’t look back. Some moments aren’t meant to be witnessed.

I padded into the hallway and let the door fall closed behind me. The shift from candlelight to shadow made everything quieter. Heavier. This house carried silence like an old wound; familiar, half-healed, prone to bleeding if you pressed too hard. Tonight, it felt still. A rare kind of still.

My boots didn’t make a sound on the worn carpet runners.

My steps were smooth, practiced. Everything I did in this house was practiced.

I’d memorized how to move around the people I loved without interrupting their healing.

How to stay just useful enough to be kept around, but never so present I became the problem.

When I passed the side window, I stopped.

The moon was out. And beneath it, the garden.

Rayden’s garden.

Four crooked planters shoved up against the back wall of the garage, a mess of mulch, wild soil, and purple petals that didn’t care about symmetry. It wasn’t much, but it was all Bellamy needed, just somewhere to put the grief that wouldn’t come out in words.

She called it his corner . But really, it was hers.

We’d built it for her. Three men with too much muscle and too little finesse.

It was meant from the heart, even if I found it difficult to express it with words.

Watching a civilian go through that level of grief, the kind I’d only shared with brothers-in-arms before, had brought up feelings I hadn’t faced in a long time.

But I couldn’t afford to give those feelings the space they probably deserved. Someone still had to change the air filters, fix the training mats, tighten the bolts on the damn cross in the basement. Someone always needed something. And that someone was never me.

I exhaled and turned toward the kitchen. I didn’t need food; I needed movement. Direction. Something that felt like control.

Instead, I heard a buzz, low, sharp, insistent, from the playroom behind me. Niko’s phone, still crammed into the pocket of his discarded jeans, had come alive, skittering across the floor like it had something urgent to say and no time to say it.

I paused. My pulse didn’t spike, but my focus snapped tight, awareness sharpening like a drawstring. The pattern of buzzes was one I’d memorized long ago without even really trying too, and Niko only used that pattern for one person. And we didn’t ignore Quinn. Ever.

I turned on instinct. “Hey, Niko,” I said softly, keeping my voice low so Maddy wouldn’t stir.

There was a pause. Then the rustle of blankets. The groggy murmur of Maddy’s voice, half a word, maybe his name. Sleepy. Raw.

“Yeah,” Niko called back. His voice sounded far away, like he was still wrapped in her skin. “Just make sure it’s not Quinn blowing something up.”

Classic.

I crossed the threshold in three easy strides, crouched beside the heap of denim near the foot of the rig.

The rope above still swayed slightly, echoing what they’d just come down from.

The air was thick with sweat and candle smoke and the unmistakable charge of afterglow. My fingers found the phone by touch.

My thumb hesitated a beat before turning the screen.

Sure enough, it was Quinn.

Something in my stomach pulled tight, not panic, but something just south of it. A kind of worry that didn’t arrive with a bang, just settled in behind your ribs and waited.

I swiped to answer and brought the phone to my ear, exhaling hard through my nose as I set my spine straight.

Every emotion I’d been drowning in got shoved into a mental drawer and locked, later, maybe.

Or not. Right now, I needed the version of me that wore sarcasm like armor and kept a half-loaded factoid in the chamber to ease the tension.

I cleared my throat, rolled my shoulders back, and slipped into the part of myself that knew how to lead, how to deflect, how to sound fine.

“Reapers, Jax speaking. You'd better not need a body buried tonight. I just washed my jeans.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was thick. Calculating. The kind that meant Quinn was lining up his words like chess pieces, not because he didn’t know what to say, but because he knew exactly how screwed we were once he did.

Then his voice came through, low and rough, like he’d already fought with himself before making the call. “I hate to do this to you guys,” he said, “but I’ve got someone incoming. High-risk. Female. Needs immediate placement. It’s bad.”

The air left my lungs in one long, still stretch—not cold, not panicked. Just... surgical. Focused. The kind of stillness that hits when your brain starts moving faster than your mouth, when five timelines and ten exits snap into place like the click of a trigger.

“How bad?” I asked, already shifting my weight like I needed to be somewhere I didn’t know yet.

His breath filtered through the speaker. Rough, like he hadn’t slept. I could hear movement in the background: a drawer slamming, muffled voices, the shuffle of papers. Then, silence. A door clicked shut. And it was just Quinn. Alone.

“The Dom Krovi kidnapped her, roughed her up for a couple of days, then tucked her safely back in her bed with instructions to sign a deed to some property over to them. An art studio in the Northeast Industrial District, apparently. Thankfully, with some of the intel we got from…” He paused for a moment, and cleared his throat.

I understood why. We were all still recovering from Bellamy’s brother’s death, and Quinn had gotten a front-row seat to the entire disaster.

“With some of the intel from that flash drive we recovered, we now know the names of a few of Borovski’s shell companies.

The company she was signing her property over to flagged the system, so the Recorder of Deeds office called the station, and I went and picked her up.

And now, I need somewhere safe to keep her until we can figure this mess out. ”

Down the hallway, the rope in the playroom still swayed, soft against the quiet. I could hear the slow murmur of Niko’s voice, the soothing rhythm of aftercare blooming like a second heartbeat. The house was calm. Still. But that was about to end.

Because a new stranger was coming.

And she wouldn’t come alone, not really. She’d bring her history. Her ghosts. Whatever monsters had chased her this far off the grid. She’d bring all of it, and it would be ours to manage. To contain. To survive.

I straightened. Looked ahead. My thoughts were already running through all the adjustments that would need to be made, and I said the only thing that came to mind.

“Guess I’ll clear the calendar.”