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I sink further into Jax, the warmth of his chest consuming me as I lean my back against him, trying to pay attention to what he’s saying, learning about how exactly the operations at Poison Ivy work.

We’ve been in his office for the majority of the day, and after a while I gave up sitting beside him, instead climbing onto his lap as he talks me through everything I need to know about this part of the business.

“Money gets dropped off once a month here.” Jax points to a laundromat on the maps on his computer. “One of our guys collects it and looks it over, checking to make sure it’s impossible to tell apart from the real thing. A text will come into this phone shortly after the drop has been made.” He points to a simple flip phone. “If everything is good the text will say ‘the forecast looks sunny,’ and if there’s a problem, the message will read ‘the forecast looks rainy.’ You’ll simply respond ‘ok’ to let them know we received the message every time, and you’ll never, ever, use this phone to text anything else. If anything except those two texts ever come through to you, you let us know, and we check to see who has been compromised.”

“I swear I’ve watched this on a TV show before,” I murmur with a smile and Jax chuckles in response.

“It’s a little bit more complicated but I’m sure it’s not far off what Hollywood tries to portray,” he says.

“Except we’d actually go to jail if we get caught.” My stomach flutters with nervousness as I say the words out loud.

He shrugs and gives a noncommittal response.

“How much money have you printed?” I raise an eyebrow.

I feel him shrug his shoulders. “Enough,” he says.

“Don’t get caught, got it,” I say, ignoring my heart as it starts to pound in my chest.

Strong hands move to my shoulders, rubbing them gently. “Relax, love,” he says. “I will never let you take the fall for any of this, no matter how much you want to be involved, how much you are involved, there’ll be no paper trail of you ever having anything to do with this side of my life.”

“I’m not worried about me,” I say quietly.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me,” he whispers in my ear, and I can feel his lips tilt up in a smile.

“What if you get caught? What if you end up in jail? What about Ryan?” My chest clenches at the thought of them getting caught, of them no longer being here with me.

He takes a moment before responding, his lips placing kisses on my temple as his hands keep massaging me until my shoulders drop down, finally relaxing.

“We’ve been doing this for a very long time, and while there’s a possibility of getting caught—of going to jail—it’s pretty small now.”

“How is that possible? If you get caught, you’d definitely go to jail. Unless—” I pause, thinking everything over very quickly.

As if hearing the gears turning in my head, Jax leans into me even more.

“You’ve paid off people so you never go to jail again,” I state, as the realization dawns on me.

“Good girl, you’re catching on quick.”

His breath is warm against the back of my neck, and I close my eyes, processing everything he’s just told me.

“It’s a lot you know—what you do…”

“It is,” he agrees. “But if there’s anyone who could thrive doing what I do, doing my work with me, it’s you.”

I blush in response to his words. “I think you’re giving me a bit too much credit, Mr. Turner.”

“Never,” he says. “Now, where were we?”

He explains more about the business, showing me the money that he prints, and teaching me exactly how that process works. It’s intriguing, learning about everything he does, but I can’t help feeling as though I’m doing something wrong. Technically I am doing something wrong, and I’ve never been on this side of the law before. In school I learned about the people who did these sorts of things, and now here I am, one of them. I shake my head, trying to clear the thoughts as I hang onto every word that Jax says.

“So, what happens after the money is cleared and looks as real as can be?” I ask, shifting myself forward on his lap so I can reach my glass of water on his desk.

“Well, then we take it to Poison Ivy or one of our other businesses that run primarily on cash.”

“What does Poison Ivy have to do with it?”

“We need to wash the money.”

I bring my glass to my lips, taking a few sips of the cool water before placing it back down on the desk and repositioning myself in his lap.

“How do you do that?”

Jax leans back in the chair, his hands never leaving my waist, as he makes himself comfortable.

“The guy who helps us with the money will make it look a little used—make it wrinkled, and then it’s dropped at Poison Ivy, where we integrate it with real money,” he explains. “Clients will often want smaller bills to tip dancers with, so we get their larger bills in exchange for ours. We use it in every aspect of the business—paying suppliers, filling our cash registers. You get the idea.”

“So, you drop off the money at the beginning of the month to hide the fact it was printed and not actually profits from Poison Ivy?”

“Correct, and that way when we go to use it ourselves, it doesn’t raise any red flags.”

“So, when you came into Poison Ivy—”

“I was picking up my money.”

“And everyone there is in on this with you?”

“Not at all.” He smiles. “Mike is the only one who knows exactly what we do. Everyone else knows I’m involved… in a management-type capacity. But they don’t know what I do is illegal. They might have their suspicions, but it’s never been confirmed, nor will it ever be.”

I nod. “So will I have to go there? To pick up the money?”

“Only if you want to,” he says casually. “If you want to do all your work from here, you’re more than welcome to. If you’d rather have an office, let me know and I can make Mike’s yours. Just say the word.”

“I think I need to go back at some point,” I muse quietly. “You know, so it’s not just a place where that happened to me,” I say, silently referencing the night Tanner and Bryce took me.

“There’s no rush for you to do that,” Jax says. “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be right beside you.”

“When is the next money pick-up scheduled for?”

“We can go any day this week.”

“Might as well rip that Band-Aid off then, or however the saying goes.”

“I’ll be with you the whole time,” he reassures me.

*

The roar of his motorcycle drowns out the thoughts in my head, and I focus on the wind blowing through my hair as we ride through the city streets. I could do this every day, ride on the back of his bike with him, holding onto his waist and pressing against him as he navigates the roads at breakneck speeds. No matter how fast we go I never feel anything but secure, trusting his ability to get us where we’re going safely, my mind blissfully blank. That is until we pull into a familiar gravel parking lot.

Picking up the money from Poison Ivy with him has been the only thing on my mind. It’s something I’d have to do eventually and, until this very second, I thought I was ready. A surge of anxiety starts to vibrate within me as the motorcycle starts to slow down. The parking lot is empty except for one car, and I’m thankful that we’re here well before open and I won’t have to face the girls—or their questions—just yet. The bike comes to a stop just outside the club entrance, and I take a moment to breathe before I let him help me down. The gravel crunches beneath my shoes and I try not to think about that sound, and how the last time I heard it I was trying to claw free from Tanner and Bryce.

“Easy, love,” Jax says, presumably picking up on the anxiety building within me.

I take a deep breath, forcing myself to be calm, to prove to myself that I am okay, that I’m moving on and not letting what happened define who I am and what I can do.

“We don’t have to be here if you’re not ready,” he says, never letting go of my hand as we walk towards the entrance.

I swallow the bile that’s building in my throat as he opens the heavy front door.

“I’m fine, I’m ready for this,” I say, hoping my voice comes across as somewhat confident.

He holds the door open for me and I walk inside the dimly lit foyer, his steps close behind me as we walk towards the main room. The club always looks different with the lights on, and the lack of music and dancers makes it feel like a regular bar, except, of course, for the metal poles decorating the room.

Jax pulls out a chair for me and I sit at the bar, remembering the first time I was here, interviewing for a bartending position.

“Mr. Turner.” Mike’s boisterous voice echoes throughout the space. “So good to see you again. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble to get here today,” he says as he wobbles towards us, using a cane for assistance. He sounds nervous, as though Jax’s presence alone sets him on edge, though he tries to hide it by talking even more.

“And Evi, so good to see you!” he says with a wide smile. “We’ve missed you around here. We were all sad to hear you needed some time off—but totally understandable, of course. I’m just so glad you’re feeling better,” he says quickly, and I freeze, wondering what exactly he knows about my time away from work.

Jax squeezes my hand gently, and it’s only then that I remember he made up a vague story of me being sick and needing time away from work while I recovered.

“But so good to see you back and working in this new… role,” Mike says, looking between Jax and myself as if trying to figure out the exact dynamic going on.

I give him a brief smile. “Thanks, I’ve missed being here,” I lie as I breathe slowly, trying to calm my racing heartbeat.

“Mike, Evi will no longer be bartending here,” Jax says, his tone leaving no room for debate, and I shift nervously as I wait for Mike to respond.

“Oh, okay, no problem. Was there a different position you want, Evi? We’re hiring a few new dancers—”

“Her role will be strictly administrative from here on out,” Jax says, cutting him off. “You’ll hear from her about our business endeavors, and she’ll be coordinating our visits. Of course, if you need to get in touch with me, you have my number, but Evi will be taking on this role for me,” Jax explains briefly.

“Oh, umm, yeah, of course. That works for me,” Mike says, stumbling over his words as he pieces everything together.

“We really don’t have all day to be here,” Jax says, a gentle reminder that we’re here on business.

“Oh right. Let me go get the bag.” Mike turns and hobbles back towards his office. Jax looks at me and I give him a quick nod, and he follows Mike.

I look around the room, trying to remind myself that I’m safe, and I’m okay; that the events that happened here had nothing to do with the place itself, and this is just a building. I steady my breathing and force myself to look at the bar in front of me, focusing on the deep color as I make myself continue to take slow, even, breaths. I know exactly why I’m staring at the bar, exactly why I won’t let my eyes stray and look towards the other side of the room. I don’t want to give myself the opportunity to see the back door, to remember everything that happened after I pushed it open to take the garbage out that night.

“Time to go, love.”

I jump at the sound of Jax’s voice so close behind me.

“Jesus Christ, you scared me,” I say, clutching my chest. “Where’s Mike?”

“Sorry.” He presses a kiss on my forehead. “I told him to stay in the office and rest his leg. Are you okay?”

“I will be once I get my heart rate back down.” I scoff, shoving everything I was thinking about aside.

He gives me an assessing stare.

“I’m fine, truly,” I say. “There might be some bad memories here, but no one that’s here right now was responsible for what happened to me. So, I’m fine. This is just a place I worked at,” I say, summoning all the false bravado I can muster.

“You are the bravest person I know,” he says as he takes my hand, his other now carrying a duffel bag. “Now let’s get going.”

I follow him back out the front door, and a wave of relief washes over me once we’re outside, as if I couldn’t actually relax the whole time I was inside the building, the memories too recent to hold at bay for much longer. I need a distraction, need something to stop the flood of emotions from spilling over.

“Mike seemed to take the news well,” I say, my voice coming out higher than anticipated.

Jax smiles at me as he holds my hand, rubbing his thumb reassuringly over my skin. “He doesn’t really have a choice, but regardless I’m glad he was amicable.”

“He did mention there was another position open though. But you didn’t let him finish telling me about it.” I nudge him.

“If you want to be a stripper, then by all means, just let me know and I’ll have a pole installed in our room by tonight,” he says as his hand moves around the back of my neck, pulling me in for a kiss.

I relish the taste of him as our mouths meet, letting myself be pulled under by the surge of euphoria he seems to be able to provide instantly.

I pull away slightly and look up into deep green eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re too jealous to let me dance in front of other men, Mr. Turner.”

“When it comes to you, there isn’t a way to describe just how jealous I’d be,” he says softly, his mouth meeting mine again briefly. “Now, let’s get going home.”

He helps me up on the bike and I relish the time I’ll get to spend pressed up against him as we make our way home, even though this time around I can feel the looming presence of panic pressing in on me as memories from that dark night in the gravel parking lot resurface again.