“Does it look like I’m kidding?” I say, sternly.
“I don’t take orders, Jax.”
“And I don’t take instructions.”
“I swallowed a bug,” Brad says, backing away.
We both shoot him angry glances as if he’s to blame. He raises his hands before he steps out onto the balcony.
“I’m not staying behind and that’s that,” Ella says. “That man might have information about Madison. I’m going to find out what happened to her, Jax. Even if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
“It might be,” I say, immediately regretting the words.
“What?” she says, confused.
“Come on, Ella. This fucking guy could be a killer. I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
“Well, guess what, I wouldn’t want you near him either, but I get that it’s necessary. What’s the big deal anyway? If you’re such a badass that you can see him, then I should be more than safe by your side. It’s not like we’re going after him in a dark alley. It’s a public place. Sort of.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem. The people in this club won’t say shit if anything turns south. I don’t even want him to set his eyes on you,” I yell, weary and knowing this is a battle I cannot win.
She comes to me, throwing her arms around my neck. It’s hard to think when I can smell her skin. “It will be all right,” she says. “I will do exactly as you say at the club. I won’t get in your way.”
“Fine,” I say, still pissed. “You stay right on my hip.”
She actually salutes me, the happy little brat.
Ella’s right about one thing. She’ll always be safe by my side.
—ten—
Ella
“Are you in love with Jaxson?” Brad’s question catches me off guard. For a moment, I think I didn’t hear him right. After all, everything’s louder than fireworks at Peach Corner—the music, the customers and even the bartender who calls out names for drink orders.
“What did you say?” I ask Brad, taking a sip of my beer.
“I said, are you in love with Jaxson?”
Ah, okay, so I heard right. “What is it to you?”
Brad turns his face away, literally twisting his neck, in an attempt to follow two scantily dressed brunettes, who I assume work here, with his gaze. “It’s a simple question,” he says when he turns his attention to me.
I shrug, not feeling generous enough to give him an honest answer. “Jaxson is like a shadow. Can anyone fall in love with a shadow?”
“Avoiding the question,” Brad says, waving at the bartender. “Very reassuring.”
“Why do you care, Brad?”
He shrugs. “I’d like to know if true love exists or it’s just a bunch of bullshit created by greeting card companies.”
I chuckle as the words true love don’t sound right coming from him. “Where’s Jax anyway? What’s taking him so long?”
As if on cue, Jaxson shows up in his jean jacket and pants absolutely slaying it. I don’t know how he does it but he always looks like he just stepped out of the pages of a men’s magazine, even when he’s all casual.
“Did you find a good parking spot?” Brad asks.
Jax ignores Brad, putting an arm around me and planting a kiss on my lips. “I bribed Johnny to let us know if Wolf shows.”
“Not a smart move, JC. Johnny likes Wolf.”
“So? He likes me, too. Relax, B-diddy. We’re here to have fun, remember?”
At least that’s what we want everyone to think. I get a feeling Jax is not one-hundred percent honest with me but then again I’ve grown really suspicious lately.
I’m about to ask what Wolf looks like but I’m interrupted when the lights go out and loud music comes on, much louder than the background music before. The show is about to start.
“Hell, yes,” Brad says when a girl dressed in what looks like a bikini covered in glitter takes the stage, like it’s the first time he’s been here.
I roll my eyes at his excited face but then turn to look at Jax. He returns my glance, taking this opportunity now that the lights have dimmed to squeeze my ass. My man likes public affection, that’s for sure.
The girl on the stage drapes her impossibly long, toned legs around a pole on the stage, swinging around it with her head falling back. She makes pole dancing seem so effortless with her—for the lack of a better term—elegant movements. It’s as if she’s weightless.
Before I know it, I’m totally enthralled and unable to take my eyes off her. There’s something about professional dancers that has always fascinated me, the way they can make their bodies bend to their will and how they feel the beat of the music in their blood.
If there’s another life, I want to be a dancer. It’s so much better than words which are as dangerous as they are exhausting.
I lean back to rest my head on Jax’s shoulder, feeling nothing short of blissful to be his girl, to have finally fallen in love even if the current circumstances are not exactly ideal. Having him at my side is similar to the way very young children feel about their home, so warm and inviting.
As soon as the pole dancing comes to an end and the lights get brighter, I notice an impressive looking young man waving at us to join him at a table.
I pull Jaxson’s shirt who’s talking to the bartender. “Jax,” I say, whispering, “is that Wolf?”
Jax turns to look at where I’m pointing. “No,” he says, waving back at the man, “that’s an old friend, kind of. Nate Henley. We did some underwear modeling together a couple of years back. Haven’t seen him in a while. He just kind of disappeared.”
He waves back at Nate and then shoves Brad who’s been chatting up a blonde girl. “Look who’s here,” Jax says.
“Hey, Nate dog,” Brad speaks up, picking up his drink and blowing a kiss at his new friend as we move over to Nate’s table.
“I didn’t know you were a regular,” Jax says, punching Nate’s shoulder.
“I’m not,” Nate says. “Just a guest, bro.”
“Who’s with you?” Brad says. “Do I know her?”
“Brad thinks he knows every skirt in town,” Jax says.
“When did I say it was a she?” Nate says.
“A guy?” Brad says, eyeing Nate. “I didn’t know you had it in you, man.”
“It’s a friend, you freak,” Nate says as he brings his drink to his lips.
Nate is powerfully built with short brown hair, blue eyes and a ruggedly hot face. He doesn’t have Jaxson’s finesse and poise. There’s some real darkness behind his blue eyes, like something’s on his mind, something unpleasant.
“Career must be good, Jax,” Nate says. “I see your ugly mug on every fucking magazine in the world.”
“Fucking sickening,” Jax says. “My face is going to be like the Macarena. Everyone’s going to be sick of it.”
“I’m already there, bro,” Brad says.
For that, I punch Brad’s shoulder which mostly just hurts my hand.
“I’m just saying,” Brad says. “Nate, can you believe Jax has a serious girlfriend now, lucky son of a bitch. She even hits dudes for him.”
Nate’s eyes focus on me. “Sup?” he says with a nod that gives me a shiver in places, which makes me clear my throat.
“Hey, I’m Ella,” I say, offering my hand.
Nate looks at my hand but doesn’t take it. “Nate. Pleasure.”
Jax takes my lonely hand from the air and pulls me into his chest, officially staking his claim, when a man joins us at the table whom I vaguely recognize.
“What’s up, Johnny?” Jax says.
Ah, the doorman.
“About that thing,” Johnny says. “Wolf’s underground.”
Jax nods at Brad and they both stand up. Jax gives me a fierce look. “Stay here with Nate,” he says.
“I don’t think so,” I begin to say, but Nate’s hand is on my arm already as if the two men have exchanged telepathic signals.
“Ella, I’m not go
ing to argue,” Jax says in a voice harsher than ever before.
I watch helplessly as Jaxson and Brad vanish behind the main stage. I know where they’re going. I’ve been down those stairs, too, when Jaxson took me down to the basement and to the dream chambers.
“Sorry about not taking your hand,” Nate says.
“Whatever,” I say. I glance around the place while I figure out the logistics of my situation. “Not a big deal.”
“I have a rule,” he says. “Leave the good girls alone.”
I allow myself to turn and open my eyes wide so I can roll them clearly for him. “That’s a fucked up rule.”
He laughs. “Jax has good taste,” he says. “And he’s better than the rest of us. Kid’s got a heart.”
“Yeah,” I say. “You might want to look into getting one of those.”
“Cool,” he says. “I’ll put it on my bucket list.”
“Where’s that friend of yours?” I’m hoping I’m not being too obvious about the fact that his friend coming back could give me an escape route.
“Around,” Nate says, vaguely, before he returns to his drink.
Right, I get it, his friend is downstairs where the real action takes place. It makes me wonder why this Nate chose to stay upstairs, by himself.
“So, how did you meet Jaxson?” he says.
I bend my face at him. “Seriously, dude? We’re going to have this conversation that is as interesting to you as a pimple on a monkey’s ass while Jax might be in danger?” Fuck. Not smooth.
“Let me just say that I find monkeys especially interesting and how exactly is Jax in danger?”
I’m not sure how much I should tell him or if I should tell him anything at all but what are my choices? I need to be down there and hear what this Wolf character has to say about my stepsister’s death with my own ears.
The fact that this guy respects Jax decides it for me.
“Madison Starr was my sister. Wolf might know who killed her, except there’s a slight possibility Wolf himself knows too much or maybe even,” I say, stopping cold in mid-sentence when Nate holds up his hand.
“Don’t finish that thought,” he says. “Not in here.” His expression betrays zero surprise. Who are these people? He takes me at my word for everything I have just said like it’s just another night at the Peach Corner.
I nod at Nate. “I don’t know what to do.”
“All right,” Nate says, standing up. “Let’s go take a peek.”
It takes me a second to actually believe that not only is he letting me go but he’s actually going with me. I brush aside the thought he might be misleading me or, worse, setting me up, because I can’t believe Jax would have left me with him if he didn’t trust him.
I follow Nate silently down the steps to the basement, my heart straining to keep up with the adrenaline flood. When we get down to the long hallway, Nate opens the first door on the right and pushes me inside.
“Wait a second,” I begin saying when he turns on the light in the dark room. It’s an office with a wall plastered with monitors.
“We’ll have to find out where they are first,” he says as he sits down at the console that controls all the feeds.
My eyes haze over the unusual scenes on the monitors: a girl performing a private dance for a man whose face is hidden in the dark, another girl bent over someone’s knee getting spanked, a man in chains and a leather outfit sitting on the floor, waiting for someone. I blush a little as Nate brings up the feed from an orgy room but then my eyes catch sight of Jax.
“Bingo,” Nate says, “the Shadow Room.”
“Is that where they are?”
“Yes, we can watch them without being watched.”
He takes us through a door in the back to a narrow hallway that must be parallel to the main one. The doors I see must be backdoors of sorts. Nate opens one of them just a crack and sticks his head in. “Nope,” he says, “wrong rabbit hole.”
“You said you’re a guest but you know your way around. Are you sure that’s all there is to it?”
“Different lifetime,” is all he says as he opens a second door. “That’s it,” he says, “go inside.”
“Ahem, Nate? This is an empty room,” I say as soon as he closes the door but then he turns a switch on and as light floods the room, the back wall is transformed into a window to the Shadow Room.
“This is where customers can sit and watch without being seen,” he says.
“Watch? You mean things like sex?”
Nate grins at me. “Things exactly like sex, yes. Let’s turn the sound on.”
With that he flips a switch and almost instantly, I hear Jax talk. “You know how Lucius does it,” he’s saying. “He protects his own.”
I walk to the window, practically gluing my nose to it. My eyes go from Jax to Brad to the man whose name is Wolf. I hold my breath as I take in the details of his demeanor and size. A good head taller than Jaxson, built like an armored vehicle, steely eyes on a hard, angular face that’s not without its barbarian charms. I get goosebumps thinking that’s the kind of man Maddy preferred to date.
“Lucius can go fuck himself,” Wolf says now, his voice as rigid as the rest of him. “I’m talking to you, flower boy. What are you willing to sacrifice to get to the truth?”
“Nobody has to sacrifice anything,” Brad says. “Take it easy, Wolf.”
Wolf turns to Brad. “You little weasel, you brought him here, didn’t you? You fucking told him about Madison, didn’t you, you fucking cunt?”
My muscles twitch in my abdomen, and sweat beads cover my forehead and palms at his words.
“Wolf, c’mon, man,” Brad says. “It’s a fair question he’s asking.”
“You fucking want to trap me? You got another think coming,” Wolf says, pulling a gun out of his back pocket to put to Brad’s head.
My head spins as Jax pulls a gun out fast as lightning from somewhere, faster than Wolf, faster than anyone alive I would think.
“We have to do something,” I scream.
“Fuck.” Nate says. “I have to get you out of here.”
“Help him,” I shriek, out of control.
Nate puts his arms around me to calm me down. “Quiet, it’ll be all right. Jax can handle this.”
“Stay the fuck out of my way, you fucking cunts,” I hear Wolf’s voice as he’s backing away.
Jax’s gun is still trained on Wolf until he exits the room. I don’t know how to still my frenzied heart, how to make my blood stop buzzing. Jax has been armed this whole time? How? Why didn’t he tell me? He’s like a magician to always keep the gun out of my sight.
Nate hurries me up the stairs and physically places me in my seat. The noise and the sexual music and the glistening dancers and the threatening eyes everywhere in the dark spin in my vision.
I think I might throw up. My stomach pushes against my lungs.
“Just act cool,” Nate says finally, touching his hand to mine.
Act cool. Right. That’s not happening.
—eleven—
Jaxson
The look on her face tells me right away something is wrong. I regard Nate who shrugs with a guilty grin on his face.
“What happened?” I say cautiously, watching as Ella looks away from me, an icy cold taking over my lungs.
“We were downstairs,” Nate begins but Ella interrupts him.
“You carry a gun?” she says with trembling lips. “Since when? Not to mention you sure as hell seem comfortable with it.”
“It’s a gun town,” Nate says, trying to help, but I give him a deathly stare instead. He took her down into the peep huts. I’ll deal with him later.
“You saw that?” I ask Ella, brushing a finger against her cheek.
She nods and I can feel her anger diffuse a little. “We saw and heard everything,” she says. “I can’t believe you. You’re good with the gun but not with the honesty. You suck at that.”
Zero defense for that. Thanks, Nate. “Ba
be, Wolf’s a hot head. I couldn’t go to this meeting unprotected. He’s erratic on a good day.”
“I’m over being mad at you,” she says after a short pause. “I’m just, I don’t know, in shock, I guess. When that psycho pulled that gun, I felt so helpless, so terrified.” Tears well up in her eyes. I hate myself.
I don’t know where to take her tonight. I need to be alone with her as soon as possible, take her in my arms and calm her down and tell her it’s all going to be okay—explain to her why I do the messed up things I do. I don’t want to drive all the way to Ventura for an hour while her thoughts drift off in scary directions.
I turn to Nate. “Where are you crashing these days?”
“Say no more,” he says, handing me his keys and writing down an address. That’s solid. I might not have to throw a beat down his way now.
“Why did you do that?” Ella says, waiting until Nate leaves us alone. “Why not go to my place or yours?”
“Because,” I say. “Trust me. Nate’s place is nearby. We need to talk.”
It’s obvious she has every intention of questioning me further but gives up on the idea as soon as I kiss her lips. She’s becoming resigned, I think to myself and it’s an unbearable thought. Her whole world has been flipped a dozen times since we met.
Nate’s place is a tiny one-bedroom apartment and by the looks of it, he doesn’t spend much time here. The sink is clean, thank God, and so is the bathroom. I guess it’s all that counts. I wouldn’t want Ella to feel I took her to a dumpster of a place when she could be cozy in her own bed.
“I take it Wolf wasn’t all that helpful,” she says, observing the few secondhand books on Nate’s shelves, running her fingers along the spines.
“How much did you hear?”
“You mean besides him calling both Brad and you cunts a hundred times and then trying to shoot Brad?”
“The thing is, Wolf’s pissed at my uncle for some reason. Had I known that, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near him.” The truth is a funny thing. It can sound hollow as you speak it.
She nods, absentmindedly. “All right, let’s hear it. Tell me about the gun. From what I saw, you’re not just an average gun owner. You have skill.”
Scandal: The Complete Series Page 15
