Chapter 7
1319 Words
Layla
Jax didn’t let me stand there for long.
“Come inside,” he said. His voice was low and steady.
I shook my head and stared out at the desert. The sun was going down, making everything look orange and red. It was pretty in a way that made me a little nervous. “I’m fine out here. I like the view. We can talk for a minute.”
He came closer. I could feel him nearby, even before I saw him.
“Layla,” he said, slower. “This is the Nevada desert. You know what lives out here?”
I shrugged. “Snakes. Bugs. Stuff like that.”
He didn’t smile. “Mountain lions. Coyotes. Wild dogs. All sorts of things just waiting to jump you if you’re not careful.”
That did it.
I got chills. I’d heard stories as a kid. Folks wandering off the road, or campers who never came back. Sometimes they were found days later, all messed up. Sometimes not at all.
I crossed my arms. “You didn’t have to make it sound so scary.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m being real.”
The wind picked up and blew sand around my feet. Suddenly, the open space didn’t feel nice. It felt like I was out in the open, with nothing to hide behind.
“Fine,” I muttered. “But only because I don’t want something out here to eat me.”
“That’s a good reason,” he said.
I followed him back to the warehouse.
We didn’t talk as we walked. Gravel crunched under our boots. He walked steady, like he always knew where he was going—even if life was crazy.
Me, I didn’t.
My mind spun, trying to find what to say. There were a lot of things I wanted to ask. About my dad. About Viper. About all the lost years.
About him too.
We got close to the warehouse door, the metal shining from the day’s heat. Before we got there, I spoke up.
“Jax?”
He slowed down but didn’t look at me. “Yeah?”
“Did you ever date anyone after we broke up?”
He stopped walking.
He really stopped.
He turned to me, looking surprised, like he didn’t expect that question. Like it hit him where he wasn’t ready.
We were close now. I noticed a scar on his jaw that I didn’t remember from before.
“No,” he said.
Just one word.
I blinked. “No?”
“No,” he said again. “Didn’t have time.”
I waited, thinking he’d say more, but he didn’t.
“You didn’t want to?” I asked, careful.
He breathed out, almost a laugh. “Wanting things isn’t really part of my life, Layla.”
“That wasn’t always true,” I said.
His jaw tightened. “Things change.”
I looked at his face. His eyes turned away from mine. His shoulders got stiff.
Something clicked in my chest.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want anyone.
It was that he didn’t let himself want anyone.
“And before?” I asked. “Anyone serious?”
“No.”
I swallowed. “Why not?”
He looked at me, really looked at me. For a second, it was like he dropped his guard.
“I was busy,” he said. “Running my club. Trying to build something. Keeping people safe.”
“That’s not really an answer,” I said.
“It’s the only one you’ll get,” he said.
I nodded, but my heart thumped hard.
Because I felt it.
The reason he never said out loud.
It wasn’t just business.
It was me.
I didn’t call him out. I wasn’t brave enough.
Instead, I changed the subject.
“You keep saying ‘business,’” I said as we got to the door. “What does that mean? Guns? Drugs? Fights? What do you even do?”
His hand froze on the handle.
“That’s not your world,” he said.
“You made it my world when you dragged me into it.”
He opened the door and stepped inside. “I didn’t drag you. I pulled you out of a grave.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t get to ask questions.”
He turned, eyes sharp. “And that doesn’t mean I have to answer.”
I clenched my fists. “You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Decide what I can handle.”
He leaned in close, voice low. “Because I know what this life does to people like you.”
“People like me?”
“Good people,” he said. “People who still feel things.”
That hurt more than if he’d yelled.
We went inside.
The warehouse felt smaller now. Darker. The generator hummed. Shadows stretched across the floor. He locked the door behind us, metal clicking loud in the quiet.
We sat across from each other, both on opposite couches like we were afraid to sit too close.
I wasn’t afraid.
I was just trying not to break.
He rested his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. I watched his hands. They were scarred. Rough. Hands that had done violent things.
Hands that once held mine like I was fragile.
“You look tired,” I said.
“I am.”
“From today?”
“From life.”
I snorted. “Join the club.”
That earned me a small smile. Barely there, but real.
We sat in silence again, eyes flicking to each other and away. It felt like being teenagers again, sitting in his truck outside my old apartment, scared to say the thing that mattered.
“Why’d you really leave?” I asked suddenly.
He went still.
“Layla—”
“No,” I said. “I need to hear it. Not some half-answer. Not ‘to protect you.’ The real reason.”
He leaned back, staring at the ceiling like it might save him.
“Because if I stayed,” he said slowly, “you would’ve died.”
I felt my throat tighten. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“Because of your enemies?”
“Because of your father.”
The words landed heavy.
“My dad?” I whispered.
“He made a deal,” Jax said. “With people worse than me. Worse than Viper.”
I shook my head. “He wouldn’t—”
“He did,” Jax said quietly. “He gave them names. Routes. Locations.”
I stared at the floor, chest burning.
“And you?” I asked. “Why did that mean you had to leave me?”
“Because they asked for leverage,” he said. “And you were the leverage.”
I felt sick.
“If I walked away,” he continued, “you were useless to them. If I stayed… you were dead.”
Tears blurred my vision. “So you broke me instead.”
“Yes.”
The honesty in his voice hurt more than the truth.
“I loved you,” he said. “Enough to let you hate me.”
I covered my mouth, breathing hard.
We sat there like that, two people surrounded by silence and bad choices and too much history.
Finally, I whispered, “I don’t know how to forgive that.”
He nodded once. “I’m not asking you to.”
Our eyes met again.
This time, neither of us looked away.
Outside, the desert wind howled. Somewhere far off, something screamed—an animal, wild and lonely.
And for the first time since all of this started, I realized something terrifying.
I wasn’t just scared of this world.
I was scared of how much I still cared about the man sitting across from me.
- Writer
