Jax (Titan #9)(11)
"Why bring this to me?"
Her gaze dropped. "Let's leave the whys of what Mayhem does out of it. Do you do what they're talking about? Contract negotiation with the scum of the earth?"
"Usually, we're negotiating at the behest of a government. But we do work between organizations that"—Jax extended his hand as if a non-offensive explanation might fall from his fingertips, but none arrived, and she waited in silence for him to continue—"could end up in a bloodbath."
"Right." Seven clearly seemed to understand the stakes.
Her poker face was solid, and that was worth remembering. Jax picked up his smoothie and stirred the concoction with the straw, deciding on the best explanation. The formality was unexpected, and Jax had to give credit where credit was due. Mayhem was trying to avoid chaos in the drug world. Anytime there was a significant shift in the way cartels did business, a bloody fallout followed. "Back to you. Why did Mayhem send you to have this conversation with me?"
"Because they trust Victoria. Victoria trusts Titan. Since she's not available, and this is time sensitive…" Seven shrugged. "I'm her best friend, very close to them, and I obviously have a few of my own connections."
He thought back to last night and wondered who all from Mayhem had taken notice of them. "It can't wait, huh?"
She shrugged. "Sometimes I just do what I'm told."
He chuckled and took a long drink of the smoothie. "Call me doubtful."
A seriousness shadowed her gaze. "I want this to happen, Jax. For Mayhem to pull out of distribution and drugs, and I would think you'd tell me the truth."
Her sincerity sliced through the room like a razor. "I'll always tell you the truth. I promise."
"Can Titan be a neutral negotiator? Can you make it happen?" She paused. "For me?"
Flashbacks from the previous night, including seeing Deacon Lanes in the parking lot, were the only things that kept Jax from reassuring her they could. Deacon was a domestic chaos puppet master. He coordinated the permissions and power struggles between gang leaderships through their government-sanctioned distribution of narcotics. These were the types of deals that funded black ops all over the globe. "How deep are you still in with Mayhem?"
"Still?" Her back straightened. "You sound like you think you know."
Years ago, Jax had first met Seven when Victoria had been abducted. Seven was an intel source on all things Mayhem. But before they'd trusted her word, Titan's IT maverick, Parker Black, had done a background check. The file hadn't been shared with the whole team, but the gist had been.
Seven was the daughter of incarcerated Cullen Blackburn, notorious founder and first president of Mayhem. Sweet Hills authorities had confirmed that she was friendly with Mayhem but not in the MC life. That was all Jax knew.
"Tell me what I should know," he said.
Seven sighed. "Before my father left my mom, I thought he was the whole world. He let me wear his cut when no one would dare touch it. He had this tough-guy beard. Man, I thought he was so badass. And me?" She laughed sadly, shaking her head. "On the back of his bike, I thought I was coolest."
He didn't want to say much about the man who'd founded Mayhem, but Jax hated how distant she sounded. "Look, if you don't want to—"
She shook her head. Disappointment skewed the soft dreaminess that he expected to see when she told a story. "But I realized he had another lover, another family, and they were more important. They were his reason to wake and sleep. Hell, even to breathe."
Mayhem. "I'm sorry."
"My mom never had a chance and loved him so much." Seven flinched. "My dad banged a lot of pussy, and my mom either turned a blind eye or didn't care. Right or wrong, there was an expectation for what to put up with as an old lady. But it was the MC that finally broke her heart. He loved Mayhem more than us. Mom never totally let go, but she was eventually done."
Jax didn't know what to say, but he could almost relate to her mom's loss in the oddest of ways. The government had broken his heart, but still he served for the greater good, despite what they'd done to his life. Different, though somehow the same.
"When you ask how I'm wrapped up in Mayhem, you should know that I'm theirs," Seven whispered. "They can't get rid of me, and I don't want them to. I can't stand them, and they know that too. I'll forever be their twisted royalty. They call me their princess. They've fucked my life. It's a strange, complicated, fucked-up dichotomy. I struggle with that, and that's cool because that's how family is."
His worries about Deacon Lanes subsided. If anything, he'd learned more about Seven in the past ten minutes than he had in two years. He found that her strength and raw honesty added layers of respect to what he'd already had for her.
She pressed her lips together as stress lines etched across her forehead. "Will you help get Mayhem out of the drug game? Can you bring this to Jared?"
The answer was an easy yes until he thought about how Deacon might be involved. Jax had gone years without telling Jared about his past that a CIA sweep team erased from existence.
CHAPTER SIX
It depends. But that was hard to say, and Jax wanted the truth. Could anyone who worked with Deacon do such a thing? Or should he assume Seven's every word was a lie?