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ⁿᵒʷ ᵖˡᵃʸⁱⁿᵍ
𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐬 & 𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬
𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐲 , 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐫
𝐁𝐲 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 , the rain had stopped, but the quiet didn’t feel clean. It felt loaded.
Like the world had gone still just to see what would happen next.
Jax was already up, pacing near the front door, phone in hand. His eyes were hard again, that same stone-cold look he wore like armor. Maya knew it too well by now. The one he put on whenever he smelled trouble before anyone else did.
“Something’s wrong,” he muttered.
Maya blinked sleep from her eyes. “You’ve been saying that since last night.”
He looked up at her — dark circles under his eyes, shirt wrinkled, bandage soaked faintly red. “That’s because I’m right.”
A car rolled past the house, slow enough to make every muscle in his body tense. Jax moved to the window and peered through the blinds. The car didn’t stop. Didn’t speed up. Just drifted down the block.
Then another followed.
Maya’s stomach dropped. “You think they found us?”
Jax didn’t answer. He holstered his gun and grabbed the duffel from under the couch. The motion was so fluid, it scared her more than if he’d yelled.
“Pack Leo’s things,” he said. “Now.”
“𝐉𝐚𝐱—”
“Now, Maya!” His voice snapped, sharp enough to cut the air in half.
Leo started crying from the noise. Maya flinched, clutching the baby close.
Five minutes later, they were out the back door.
Jax’s car — black SUV, tinted windows, plates he’d switched twice already — waited by the alley. He threw the bags in, opened the passenger door for her, and scanned the street one last time before sliding behind the wheel.
As they pulled out, Maya finally spoke. “You promised we were safe.”
His jaw tightened. “We were. Till someone talked.”
“Who?”
“Don’t matter. They won’t again.”
The way he said it — flat, final — told her everything she didn’t want to know.
They drove for miles, through the edge of the city, past the warehouses and the half-dead strip malls. The silence in the car was unbearable.
Leo fell asleep in his car seat, little chest rising and falling. Maya stared at him, then at Jax’s profile — the clenched jaw, the scar she’d never noticed under his ear, the way his hand gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were white.
“You can’t keep living like this,” she said finally. “Running, hiding, fighting. It’s not a life.”
Jax laughed, but it sounded hollow. “It’s the only one I ever had.”
“You got a son now.”
That hit him. She saw it — a flicker in his eyes, quick but real.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “That’s why I can’t afford to mess up again.”
They reached a deserted rest stop off the highway. Jax parked, scanning every direction before letting his shoulders drop for half a second.
Maya stepped out, stretching, the wind cold against her face. “What happens now?”
Jax leaned against the car, head tilted back, staring at the sky. “I handle it.”
“And if you can’t?”
He turned his head, gaze locking on her. “Then I make sure you and Leo get out clean. Even if I don’t.”
Maya’s chest tightened. “Don’t say that.”
He smirked, tired. “It’s not a threat. It’s a promise.”
Back on the road, Maya watched the rearview mirror. One headlight appeared in the distance, then another.
Her heart kicked into overdrive.
“𝐉𝐚𝐱,” she whispered, “we’re being followed.”
He didn’t look back. He just shifted gears, eyes sharp, every trace of softness gone.
“𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐧.”
The world blurred as the car shot forward, straight into the dark.
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