Se connecterLENA’S POVAs early as 4am the next morning, Jax woke me up. He threw me the kitted gear. “Time for your training.”I groaned as I put it on and followed him to the shooting range below the estate.The place was totally hidden, reinforced. Built like the people living here expected war at any moment.Honestly, they probably did because ever since I came into this home, the ones who once feared became fearless. The heavy steel doors opened and a sharp scent of gunpowder hit me immediately.My stomach tightened slightly and Jax noticed.“You nervous?”I crossed my arms instantly. “No.”“You are clenching your jaw.”“I hate that you notice things.” I snapped. One corner of his mouth twitched faintly before he walked further inside.The underground range stretched long and dark ahead of us while security lights glowed softly across the concrete walls.The targets waiting at the opposite end were human mannequins. Of course they were. “You need proper weapons training,” Jax said calml
LENA’S POVThat morning when Dante came to my room and said it's time to return home, I didn't know how to feel. To be honest, I've come to enjoy it when it's just me, Jax and Him. There were less guards, less drama, just meetings and fun activities. I guess all that is about to change now. Dante drove us home with the rest of the gang driving their bikes behind us like our bodyguards. The estate we drove into still remained the same. It looked less like a home and more like a military compound.Tall black gates surrounded the property completely while armed guards patrolled every visible corner. Cameras rotated slowly above the walls and thick steel barriers blocked the main entrance like they were preparing for war instead of welcoming family home.Maybe they were.The second our vehicle approached the gates, security lights flooded the driveway and scanners swept across the car.“Comforting,” I muttered.Beside me, Jax did not even glance up from his phone. “You get used to it.”
LENA'S POVWhen I returned to my room, it felt different. It felt very much like someone had been inside my room. I realized it the second I stepped through the door.At first, nothing looked wrong. The bed was perfectly made, the curtains stayed half open and the lamp glowed softly beside the couch. Everything looked exactly the way I had left it but something felt wrong.And lately my instincts have stopped being wrong about things.I closed the door behind me slowly but the silence that settled around the room felt different from usual. Heavier and quiet in a way that meant something had just disturbed it.Then I noticed something else. The drawer beside my bed sat slightly open. I shouldn't even have noticed it but I did because I always shut that drawer completely.My pulse dropped.I crossed the room carefully and pulled the drawer fully open. Everything inside it had been completely thrown upside down like someone had been searching through my space, looking for something and
LENA'S POVKeeping the hoodie was a big mistake which became painfully obvious by the third day.Because right now it was sitting folded carefully on my bed like a physical evidence of my declining mental stability. Every time I looked at it, I thought about Jax carrying me upstairs, his heartbeat against my cheek, the note, and the fact that he apparently noticed that I was cold which was completely unfair.I was supposed to be angry at him, but here I was finding it cute. "You are staring at it again."I nearly jumped out of my skin before spinning toward the doorway.Dante leaned against the frame holding a mug of coffee with the expression of someone who had decided that this was the best part of his morning."Everyone in this estate needs to stop appearing silently in doorways.""You left it open." He stepped inside uninvited, glanced at the hoodie, then looked back at me. His mouth curved slowly."Do not," I warned immediately."I said nothing.""You are emotionally saying som
LENA'S POVThe estate had never felt normal. It was always too guarded, too tense, too filled with dangerous people pretending they were not dangerous.So when Dante announced movie night at dinner, I genuinely thought he had finally lost his mind."A what?" I asked flatly."Movie night," Dante repeated, cutting into his steak with the calm of someone who had not just said something completely insane. "This pack is one emotional breakdown away from collapsing and I refuse to watch that happen."Jax barely looked up from his drink. "I am not participating.""You are," Dante answered without looking away from his plate."I would rather get shot again."Dante pointed his fork toward him with lazy ease that somehow still managed to carry authority. "You say that like it did not already happen twice last week."I nearly choked trying not to laugh and Jax noticed immediately.His eyes shifted toward me slowly and just like always, the air in the room changed without permission. That awarene
JAX'S POVI walked into the underground location with a million dollar suit and the confidence needed to address a room smelling like old money and newer threats.Seven men sat around the table and every single one of them had blood on their hands in one way or another because that was what was required to enter a room like this. No one earned a seat here through goodwill and that was basically the same reason why they requested that I send her file over for the fifth time now yet they still looked at it like someone had dropped a loaded weapon in the center of the table.Renato spoke first. "Is this the same file?"Dante looked at me and I nodded. "Yes.""The same one you've sent four times before?""Yes."He looked up slowly. "But she's still here."I swallowed. "She is contained.""She is a liability." The man to Renato's left, a council elder named Faro who had survived three separate leadership changes in this organization, pushed the file away like the paper itself was contagio







