JAX
He stepped out, though, before Jax could exhale, then came back with his med kit.
Jax rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. "Did you not hear the 'no, thanks' part?"
"Uh-uh, I'd have to care about what you think in order to listen to your say."
Jax sat down at the edge of the bed across from him, the box between them. The faster he was finished, the sooner he'd be out of Jax's face.
In addition to that, Jax did need stitches.
Thanks to that son of a bitch in the HARK's mansion.
He didn't push the knife into the wound, but it's his doing.
Jax's spine snapped straight at the picture of him, and revolting visions passed through his mind.
Fortunately, Stiles's voice cut through them like a knife as he glared at the enormous gaping wound on the side of Jax's hand. "The fuck kind of accident is this?"
"Sew it up or get the hell out of my house."
"Snappier than normal today," he growled with that nearly undetectable squinting of his eyes.
Jax breathed in deeply, because he was getting angry, and he didn't do that.
A groan tore from Jax as he splashed the wound with something that burns after jamming his gloved finger into it. "That fucking hurts."
"Should've thought about that before you got yourself into whatever fuckery you got up to tonight."
Got up to.
Jax didn't like the way he said that word, like he had everything figured out and knew Jax got up to all sorts of crap he wasn't supposed to know about.
"Not in the middle of surgery." He stitched up the sutures at a mind-boggling rate. "My career trajectory has nothing to do with fixing you the fuck up. I got into this just to peek inside people without killing them. Your insides don't satisfy me because of how awful they look."
"Alright."
"Don't alright me. Just don't make me look inside you again and foul my eyes out on the view."
"Is that your idea of being concerned?"
"Not even if you are dead."
Who's going to put up with your pesky personality then?"
"Come to think of it, you're right. Don't die, so I can punch a punching bag all day." Jax curled his lip in a tired grin and looked up. Little shit so easy to be funny.
"Hey, Stiles."
"Mmm?"
"Do you by any chance know if Sofia's into dudes?"
He sat up. "Why?"
"I'm trying to plan a way to bring him down, and I overheard some rumors that I'd like to confirm before I begin plotting."
There was nothing out of the ordinary about what Jax was reporting. Although he worked in the background in the Williams, he was pretty much the brains behind most of their operations. "If you mean Od'en by guys, then yeah. Sofia really wants to fuck him. Or get fucked by him, I don't know."
"Our Od'en?" Jax asked, being truly surprised.
"Is there another Od'en?"
"The New York Tenz Jer'sey Ph'illa's son, Od'en?"
"Again, you don't know another one? You hit your head or something?"
Od'en was the fifth Williams member. One who was missing. He was Stiles's age and simply chose not to turn up on this island or study at this college, choosing to stay in New York. This was his decision, and his alone.
He was staunchly against studying with them no matter how many times Rebecca and Deacon invited him to.
But he still randied at initiations, all in the cause of hunting people.
"That doesn't compute," Jax said. "Od'en's straight. Hasn't he had a girlfriend for years now?"
"The girlfriend Sofia seduced and fucked, then sent Od'en the video of her screaming his name as she rode him? They'll probably break up. That is, if he doesn't kill her. You know how much he doesn't like sharing."
"When did that happen?"
"Last week? The previous week before we returned to school."
"How do you know all this?"
"I overheard it when I just happened to pass by Od'en talking about it with Deacon and how he was going to kill Sofia."
Happened to pass by in Stiles's vocabulary was eavesdropping. He loved finding out the most fucking unexpected things about people. Big or small. He thought it'll open them up to him and allow him to peep inside them. Literally or figuratively.
Jax, though, believed that the majority of individuals were depressingly dull and did not wish to store up any unnecessary knowledge.
Od'en, however, was anything but dull, especially with this recent development.
"What do you think his scheme with Sofia is? He's on the opposite side of the ocean, so he can't do much with him."
His brother shrugged. "Don't know yet, but he's put in a late transfer application to join us next term, and that's playing in Sofia's favor, if you ask me."
"Because Sofia is why Od'en didn't want to study here in the first place," Jax said, not a question, but a definite fact.
The pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
The way that Sofia ever, and by ever, he means ever, only interacts with Stiles, Deacon, or Rebecca in the ring.
They were the only three that he'd ever had any interest in fighting. He also required someone to record. Jax thought it was pride, but this wasn't pride. He'd probably been sending those to Od'en.
His friend, though, had not been wanting to be involved in Sofia's trouble, thus the girlfriend and the living in New York situation.
But he obviously hadn't managed to stay away completely. Jax had always felt it's because they're his friends, since he grew up with them, so he wants to go visit them every now and then, but maybe that isn't the full of it.
"Exactly." Stiles was done and let go of Jax's hand as he grinned. "No idea what kind of foreplay those two are into, but hell will be interesting. The offspring of the leaders of the two most notorious Russian mafia factions? I smell trouble and I'm here for it."
Jax was at a loss for words and booted Stiles out. As he shut the door, he leaned against it and let his lips twist into a smile.
This was a variable that Jax had not seen coming.
The manfucker from tonight was such an idiot. Sofia was obviously fixated on Od'en in some way or another, and that required the man probably a bodyguard to be fighting some type of unrequited love, or rather, love. Jax would feel sorry for him if he knew how.
Jax thought he'd find him and kill him, but now he had a better plan—make him suffer.
In the worst way possible.
Jax would make him wish he'd never met him once in the past.
Not to mention putting hands on him.
"This is so fucking dull." His cousin Rebecca draped an arm around Deacon's shoulders as they walked towards campus. "Give me something, Deacon. A fight, a war, a little toy to play with."
"We have the initiation coming. Try to keep it in till then," Deacon said in a quiet, uncaring voice.
He was the leader of the Williams', the son of the New York Tenz Jer'sey's tactician, and bore quite a number of similarities with his dad. Like Jax, he didn't do anything without strategy, but unlike Jax, he openly became ruthless when necessary.
"It's not piss, Deacon. I can't hold it in," Rebecca whined aloud, and everyone gawked due to his huge stature and the tattoos visible above his T-shirt, full-sleeve ones.
He was Jax's mother's cousin—their mothers identical twin sisters—and the most f-ed-up person Jax ever knew. He was the most hostile of them all and enjoyed crunching other folks' bones, but he was also as unpredictable as fuck.
Though Jax's mother was a Russian mafia princess, she had parted ways with the organization well before Jax was born. Aunt Cai and her husband were among their top leaders, though. That left Rebecca, much like Deacon and Od'en, a legacy to maintain and his parents' footsteps to follow.
Stiles and Jax were along for the ride only. A reawakening of their distant Russian heritage, perhaps. In Jax's case, he needed an outlet for blowing off steam, which he was certain was true of Stiles.
"Just get your dick wet, Rebe," his brother answered, walking beside Rebe's left. "That'll short-circuit the aggression, even if only temporarily."
"Satan's heir, you evil genius." Rebe released Deacon and headlocked his brother.
"Saying the obvious, I see," Stiles snapped back with his usual arrogant attitude that will one day see him killed decapitation style.
Rebe just kept going on about his dick, and Jax breathed a sigh that they weren't near the house or else he'd be a exhibitionist offender.
Jax fell behind to keep up with Deacon's walk. "Od'en's coming to the initiation, isn't he?"
"Is there a reason he won't?"
"Just checking."
Deacon eyed Jax's bandage, then his face. "How about having your hand professionally examined? Stiles said the cut is deep."
"You know he enjoys dramatizing things."
"I saw the blood in the car. Didn't look like an exaggeration."
"Little mishap, Deacon." "I expect Rebe and Stiles to have little mishaps. Hell, even Od'en, but you, Zex?
Deacon stopped and Jax was grudgingly forced to stop too. As the oldest of them, he bothersomely took leadership position seriously.
Too seriously for Jax's taste.
"Never happen again."
From now on, Jax would be the one inflicting pain.
"Better not. You're the only sane person I trust to hold things together."
"Don't worry." As long as Jax was in check, that is.
"You won't tell me what actually happened?"