Jax (Titan #9)(4)

"Seven," Johnny snapped. "What does your sweet ass have to be mad about? Nothing."

She glanced up at the church steeple. "Sorry, Big Guy." Then she slammed the door shut and spun, her finger up and wagging. "Don't you dare play dumb with me, Jonathan Andrew Miller."

Johnny rolled his eyes. "You're mad about the drugs."

"Am I mad about the drugs? Of course I'm mad about the goddmmm drugs." She cringed, not wanting to drop the big GD when she'd just told the Big Guy she was sorry.

He shook his head and turned away. "Surprise, surprise."

"Yeah, I'm ten kinds of mad, and you acting like it's some surprising revelation makes me angrier."

"You only care about Bianca and Nolan."

"That's my job in life," she spit back.

"This is why we never had kids. I knew you'd go nuts."

She pleated her skirt between her fingers. This wasn't the time and place to strangle her ex-husband. "Give me strength."

"What are you mumbling?" he asked.

Seven smoothed her skirt of nonexistent wrinkles. "Have you seen me do blow?"

He couldn't say yes because she'd never snorted coke. Drugs weren't her thing. Piercings and hair dye, those could give Seven a high. But not dope.

"Okay, Mother Teresa." Johnny threw his arm out, waving her away.

She stomped over in high heels that threatened to break her ankles. "You don't get to bring up my kids and not answer. They saw their mother foam at the mouth, twitch on the floor, vomit—"

"They were too damn young to remember, and you know it."

"Neither one of us will ever know what it's like to watch a mom OD with a pops too stoned to notice. That's trauma, you asshole. No matter how young they were."

His eyes searched the parking lot. "You're wrong, Seven."

She knew the guilt was there. It was for all of them, and everyone had been aware of the risks long before one of their own had OD'd. Bianca and Nolan's dad would be in jail for a long time, and somehow, Seven had ended up with the babies. She'd always raise them as though they were her own. But even before they'd come in to her life, the drug game was all kinds of screwed up when it came to Mayhem.

"Are you a cokehead again?" she asked quietly. "Because I can help."

Johnny's face hardened. "Lay off the pious routine because we're at a church."

She shifted her frustration to the man from earlier. The one in the parking lot who she faulted for everything. Seven didn't know who he was or what he did, but he was a problem. "Back at the reception. Any time I see that man, it's like I'm not supposed to know."

Johnny chuckled as if that was the understatement of the night. "No kidding."

"Why can't I know who he is?" she pressed.

"No one does." He crossed his arms. "You're not supposed to know club business. It's that simple."

"I'm not no one." Her voice quieted to a whisper. "Who is he?"

Johnny wouldn't raise his eyes to meet hers, all but confirming what she'd heard a few years ago. There was a mole in Mayhem. What charter did he belong to? Why did he come to their founding charter so often? "Whenever he shows up, things get bad."

Johnny cackled. "Bullshit. They get better."

They had two very different definitions of getting better. "Money does not equate better."

"Equate," he mocked. "I don't know what you're smoking, Seven, but it sure as fuck does."

"You're going to end up just like my father." Disappointment made the night that much colder. "I'm going to go get the kids."

"Just because you're some Mayhem Princess doesn't mean you have a say or a vote," Johnny muttered.

It was her turn to cackle and smirk. "You're not the president, Johnny. The vote's done. Drug days are coming to an end whether you like it or not. It's not the eighties and nineties anymore. Synthetics are made by teenagers in chemistry class. Your profits are cut short, and cartels aren't as powerful as they were. And you know what? I'm good with that, and I don't care what that no-name, bad-news-bearing—"

"Moneymaker who can change the hearts and minds—"

"Yeah. Him. I don't care what he brings to the table or says," Seven said, finishing what she'd started. "It was a vote. You can't overrule it."

His smile was entirely too slick. "Not yet."

"If you want to be alive to take the gavel…" Seven pushed the tongue stud out of her mouth and toyed with it, wondering how much she should say. "If you're going behind Hawke's back like that, especially open in a parking lot, you won't hold that gavel. You won't stay alive. And I say that as a friend."

Johnny pulled on the skullcap that he had let her wear, letting the straps dangle. "Calm your tits and get your kids, woman. I'll do what's best for the club, and you do what's best for you."





CHAPTER THREE


Pillows lined the edge of the bed, and every morning, Seven was fooling herself if she thought there was any way that she would get to hear the news amid the tickles and the giggles. It had become their morning tradition. The kids would come in, and they would start their day with smiles and laughter. Those few moments were perfectly summarized by the Life is Good bumper stickers that she collected every time she passed a store.