Jax (Titan #9)(83)

Sugar's eyes narrowed to slits. "Where?"

Jax mocked her one-word snappy tone. "Desk."

After her quick inspection, Sugar shook her head. "Goddamn it. What'd they do to get that written?"

"That's what I would like to know. But everybody is acting like they have an AK shoved up their asshole."

Sugar all but hissed at him, and Jax turned, not wanting to engage with his boss's wife, when the trash can caught his eye. Two crumbled pieces of paper lay in the waste pail, and Jax's heart jumped. He had no idea what Seven's deal with folding was. They hadn't talked about it, but he noticed there was a definite thing there. Crumpled definitely wasn't folded.

He strode over, grabbed the pail, and dumped it onto the desk next to Sugar. Then he flattened the two pieces of notepaper on the desk. Sugar moved next to him, and they stared at the three pieces together.

Nothing. There was nothing there, only two notes on which she had clearly screwed up what they had told her to say before starting over.

Still, the discarded notes struck him as important, but he didn't know how. Something was, though.

Sugar stared at him more than the papers. "Okay, Detective. She gets nervous writing under orders."

There was no way that Seven, the woman who folded everything, had crumbled up two pieces of paper and tossed them away. She was neurotic about the way things were folded. "There's something here. I don't know what it is."

"Too bad we can't ask Deacon, isn't it?" Sugar pursed her lips together, antagonizing him with the one name that was like bamboo shoots under his fingernails.

Jax wasn't going to justify the job and ignored her. The wording looked the same…

The door shook with the pounding of a knock. Jared's bad attitude obviously hadn't gone away, and Jax turned to answer the door. Boss Man brushed by him as coldly as Sugar had but didn't do the same sweep. Instead, he sat down on the edge of the couch.

It had taken him longer to get to the room than Jax had expected, but dealing with Mayhem was a pain in the ass.

"Parker reviewed the hotel's security footage, the security cams from neighboring hotels."

"Yeah, and?" Jax asked, sensing the hesitation.

"Seven walked out by herself. What's her note say?"

Damn it to hell. "That she needs time to think and leave her alone."

"I have a bigger problem on my hands right now."

Jax's eyes bugged. "Than Seven going missing? I'm doing everything I can to clear those problems out of the way. What possible problem can you have that doesn't have to do with bringing home those kids and my woman?"

"Deacon Lanes."

Jax roared, throwing his arms out. "Deacon Lanes. Deacon motherfucking Lanes. Nothing about him has to do with her. We have what we need from him. He doesn't matter anymore. If I never hear his name again, I'd be okay. Everybody's on my ass for years—why do I have an attitude, why don't I play well with others? Deacon. Fucking. Lanes. But now I don't care anymore. Titan's supposed to take care of each other. Right? That's what I've been hearing the entire time I've worked for you. Hell, since before I worked for you. You know our history, and I guess now it's time for you to choose. Who's it going to be? Have I done everything to be Titan loyal and Titan strong? Because I sure have fuck tried. Maybe not with a smile on my face every goddamn time. But I dare you to find a time that I didn't support every man and woman I worked with, push them to be better. So you have a problem with me dealing with Deacon Lanes? Ground me. Take me off the team."

Jared's jaw ticked back and forth. "You're grounded." He turned around and left, not saying another word.

Jax's world came crashing down. He'd never questioned how much Titan had become who he was. He didn't know that he could feel pain until recently. He knew anger lived inside him. But it wasn't until Bianca and Nolan had gone missing that he knew he could fear. Then came this very moment when he realized he had just lost the only way he knew to go get Seven and bring her home.

"What just happened?" he numbly muttered, walking toward the couch, hearing every footstep as it echoed in his ears.

Sugar laughed—and Jax snapped to face her, having forgotten that anybody else was there.

"That's what happens when you murder somebody and don't loop in the boss." Sugar pushed away from the desk, sauntering out of the room, as Jax connected the dots between his raging speech and what he thought he'd just learned.

"Deacon's dead…"

Sugar paused briefly, glancing over her shoulder, then walked out, letting the door slam behind her. Someone had finished the job he'd always fantasized about doing but never did. An odd sense of relief and a smile came over Jax. He wasn't Deacon. He'd never wanted to be the cold-blooded killer that took a life without orders to do so. Avenging personal pain seemed so different than protecting his country and those he believed were innocents. Though still blown away to be feeling anything like fear and pain, he was even more confused to feel joy for a brief moment because the devil was dead.





CHAPTER FORTY-THREE


What was that reaction that had crossed Jax's face? Sugar wanted to assume that the guy was playing her for a fool. But her gut instincts didn't lead her astray often, and rarely did they screech to a halt with a loud what the fuck like they had just done.