Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 134(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 134(@200wpm)___ 107(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
He sighed. “About that…” His voice trailed off. My shoulders stiffened again, and I sat up straighter, my jaw tightening. “The group home I’m in is… It fucking sucks, Jax.” His words went quieter, like he was trying not to be overheard. “It’s so bad here, the state has been in and out in the past couple of weeks. There are talks of it being shut down. I think the parents are about to face charges.”
“Jesus Christ,” I swore, jerking to my feet. I pinched the bridge of my nose before smacking my hand against my thigh. “Where the hell are you going to go?”
“I don’t know,” Ace quietly told me. “Another home, I guess?” Fuck, that could be anywhere in the state of Washington. “I age out soon.”
A few months. That wasn’t soon enough for me. He needed out now. Like yesterday. He’d gone through enough without the rest of us there to protect him. Now, I was out. I was here. I could do something.
It just would require a really tough phone call… and asking for favors that I would eventually have to pay back.
You just couldn’t pull the streets out of the man, apparently.
“Hang in there, Babe,” I told him. It was something we’d called him since the moment he got dumped into a group home with us. He’d been afraid of being touched and always ready to bite someone’s head off if they came at him wrong. He was our baby—the one who needed protection the most. “I’m going to pull some strings.”
“Jax…” Worry filtered into his tone. “Don’t get yourself back in trouble,” he snapped, that attitude he was known for coming forward. I had to bite back a smile. As long as Ace kept that fight in his soul, he’d make it. He would be alright. “I can’t lose you again.”
“You won’t,” I promised him. And he knew I didn’t break my promises. “Just give me a couple of days, alright?”
He sighed. “I swear to God…” he muttered. “Fine. Two days, Jax.”
I hung up the phone and took off on foot to where I knew I could get some help. Help that would have to be paid back, but no cost was too high when it came to protecting Ace.
I would do anything in the world for him.
I just hoped Konrad and Shaw would, too.
“This is a call I was never expecting,” Konrad drawled over the line. I sighed. Yeah, it wasn’t one I was ever expecting to make either. They’d kept their word and got the hell out of town and cut ties with me, just as I asked. Now, I was back in a hole I’d worked hard to keep myself out of. Had I kept my contacts? Fuck yes, especially since some of them had me do discreet hits in prison. It gave me the opportunity to have cash in my pocket when I got out.
“I didn’t expect to make it, either,” I told him honestly. I sank onto the motel room bed, cringing at the squeaky mattress. Fuck, this place was a dump. “Ace needs help.”
“Ace?” Konrad asked incredulously. I heard Shaw in the background, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. “What the fuck is going on with Ace, Jax?”
“Group home is about to get shut down. He’s going to get shuffled to another home when it does, and it could be anywhere, Konrad. I don’t want him to age out too far away from anyone who can help him.”
“Fuck,” Konrad swore. He relayed what was going on to Shaw. “Look… Shaw and I were about to re-up, but we won’t. We’ll come home, and we’ll figure out a way to gain guardianship of Ace… But on one condition.”
Oh, fucking boy.
“Can’t wait to hear what this condition is,” I grumbled.
“You have to come home with us. We’re family, Jax, and it’s about time we started fucking acting like it.”
“The four of us aren’t the only ones,” I weakly argued. “That’s a big family to be trying to take care of.”
A light shuffle happened, the phone making a sort of staticky noise, and then Shaw came on the line. “I don’t give a fuck if we were a whole goddamn army, Jax,” he growled. “If we come home, you have to stick with us. We’ll handle Arlo and Cameron. But this separation shit? No more.”
“Who died and made you boss?” I snapped, getting irritated. I wasn’t the kind of man they wanted around. Their lives were on the straight and narrow. Wasn’t a damn thing a felon like me could offer them.
“I made myself boss,” he retorted. “Keep this number and stay the fuck out of trouble. We’ll be in touch.”
The line went dead. I brought the flip phone down from my ear and stared at it, blinking.
What the fuck had just happened?