Chapter Two: The Devil's Bargain

 

Jax led her to a back room that served as his office, though it bore little resemblance to any legitimate business. The massive oak desk was scarred and stained, cluttered with cash, guns, and what looked suspiciously like bags of white powder. Maps of the city covered one wall, marked with pins and colored lines that likely represented territory, drug routes, and enemy positions. The air was thick with the scent of gun oil and old leather.

He closed the door behind them, the sound cutting through the noise from the main bar like a blade. The sudden quiet was almost oppressive, broken only by the distant thump of bass and her own heartbeat thundering in her ears. Jax moved with predatory grace, each step calculated, as he gestured to a worn leather couch against the wall.

"Sit."

It wasn't a request. Raven sat, crossing her legs and trying to project a confidence she didn't entirely feel. She kept Cade's face in her mind—not the broken, tortured corpse she'd identified at the morgue, but the laughing young man from the photographs in her apartment. The lie she'd built around their relationship had to feel real, had to carry the weight of genuine grief and rage.

Jax remained standing, arms crossed over his broad chest. The club vest he wore revealed arms covered in tattoos—intricate designs that told stories of violence, loyalty, and survival. A large knife hung at his hip, and she had no doubt there were other weapons concealed on his person. This was a man who had killed, who would kill again without hesitation if threatened.

"Start talking," he commanded, voice like gravel. "And make it good. I don't like surprises, especially when they come in the form of a woman who looks like she should be teaching kindergarten instead of walking into my bar."

If only he knew how close to the truth that was. Raven almost smiled at the irony—she had been a teacher, in another life, before Rachel Sinclair's world had collapsed in scandal and crime. But that was buried now, erased as completely as she could manage.

"Three years ago," she began, her voice steady despite the lies, "someone I cared about got mixed up with the Diamondbacks. He was young, stupid, thought he could make easy money running drugs for them." She let pain flicker across her face—not entirely fabricated, because the grief was real, even if its source was different than she claimed. "He wanted out when he realized what he'd gotten into. They killed him for it."

"Name?" Jax's eyes never left her face, searching for tells, for cracks in her story.

"Michael Chen. They called him Spike." Another carefully constructed lie. Michael Chen had been real—a low-level dealer who'd been found floating in the harbor two years ago. His death had made the papers, been forgotten within a week. Perfect cover for her fabricated grief.

"Don't know him," Jax said, but something in his expression suggested he was filing the information away. "What makes you think the Diamondbacks killed him?"

Raven reached slowly into her jacket, aware of how Jax tensed, his hand drifting toward his knife. She pulled out a thick folder, setting it carefully on the scarred coffee table between them. "Because I've spent the last three years learning everything I can about them. Watching. Waiting. Preparing."

The folder was her masterpiece—six weeks of intensive surveillance and research, but presented as three years of patient investigation. It contained photographs of Diamondback hangouts, license plates cross-referenced with criminal records, organizational charts drawn from court documents and newspaper articles. Information gathered from bartenders who'd grown loose-tongued after a few drinks, from prostitutes who worked the clubs, from street dealers willing to talk for the right price.

She'd used her skills from her previous life—the legitimate one, before Rachel Sinclair's fall from grace. Database searches, public records, the kind of methodical investigation that her social work background had trained her for. The police might have ignored one dead dealer, but Raven had followed every thread, traced every connection.

"Impressive," Jax admitted, flipping through the photos and documents. His expression was unreadable, but she caught the slight widening of his eyes when he saw certain faces, certain locations. "This is good intelligence. Current."

"I know you've been at war with them," Raven continued, pressing her advantage. "Three of your drug shipments intercepted in the last month. Two of your businesses burned out. Your territory shrinking." She leaned forward, letting desperation creep into her voice. "I can help you change that."

Jax set the folder aside, his gaze intense. "And what exactly do you want in return? Revenge doesn't pay the bills."

"I want them destroyed," she said simply, letting the truth ring in her voice. "I want to watch their empire burn. I want them to know that someone they dismissed, someone they thought was too weak to matter, brought them down." She met his stare without flinching. "And yes, I want enough money to disappear when it's done. To start over somewhere they can't find me."

"You think it's that easy? Walk in here, hand me some photos, and I'll wage your war for you?"

"I think you're already waging that war," Raven countered. "I'm offering to help you win it. The question is whether your pride is worth more than victory."

A dangerous smile curved Jax's lips. "Careful, princess. Men have died for less disrespect."

"Then I guess I'd better be useful enough to keep breathing."

The silence stretched between them, thick with tension and possibility. Finally, Jax nodded slowly. "Alright, Raven Steele. You want to play with the big boys? Then you'd better be ready for what that means. This isn't a game, and there's no walking away once you're in."

"I'm already in," she replied, sealing her fate with four simple words. "The Diamondbacks made sure of that when they killed someone I loved."

Another lie built on a foundation of truth. Because while Michael Chen had never been her lover, while her connection to the Diamondbacks was manufactured, her hatred was real. They represented everything wrong with a world that had chewed her up and spit her out. If she could use them to rebuild herself, to find some measure of justice in an unjust world, then she would embrace whatever darkness that required.

Even if it meant becoming someone she might not recognize when it was over.