Jax’s POV
The click of that lock behind me sounded final. Like a coffin lid.
I stood for half a second in the sudden gloom of the shop hallway, my hand still on the doorknob. On the other side of that metal was Layla. Scared. Confused. Trapped. Because of me. Again.
I shut it down. Shut her down. Pushed the image of her wide green eyes out of my head. Right now, she was a problem to be solved. A package to be secured. Thinking of her as anything else—as the girl whose laugh used to be my favorite sound, as the woman who made my hands shake even now—that was a luxury I couldn’t afford. Not with Viper’s poison breathing down our necks.
The main shop was a different world from the panic of five minutes ago. The chaos had crystallized into a cold, quiet order. It was almost peaceful, if y
