“And stabbing yourself was the best way to get him to understand that?” Zander asks in outrage.
She shrugs. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Besides, it worked.”
“Do you hear yourself right now, Jade?” Zander asks as he tugs at his hair in frustration.
“Of course I do.” She answered in a bewildered tone, clearly not understanding the rhetorical question.
“And you.” Zander turns to Spencer when he realizes he won't be getting through to Jade. “What made you think this was a good idea? How can you just be okay with throwing all our hard work away?”
“I thought it was a good idea because I was trying to look out for us. We all know that Jade is dangerous, and if today taught me anything, it was that she’s even more dangerous than I originally thought.”
“Who cares if she’s dangerous? We're all dangerous, and she hasn’t done a thing against us. Even though she’s had more than enough opportunities to.”
“I know that!” Spencer screams. “Fuck! I know, okay? I realized that I fucked this up and was going to let her go. I was so focused on figuring her out that I missed some shit, but when I thought of hurting her, I couldn’t do it.” He sighs, his shoulders sag in defeat, but he keeps going.
“I couldn’t do it because I knew she wasn't really the monster in all of this. Yes, she's dangerous, and she drives me crazy with the mystery and the secrecy, but she’s a product of her environment. She had to be that way to survive, and everything she's done was for the benefit of innocents.” He looks at Jade while he talks, and I can see in his eyes that he’s telling the truth. Just yesterday at our meeting, his eyes were guarded and hard whenever he looked at her, but now they’re all but pleading with her to understand.
“Before I could let her go, she snapped and stabbed herself.” He tells us, his voice hard and his eyes hardening to match it.
“Hey, I didn’t just snap. You guys started it with your threats and bullshit!”
We all ignore her.
Spencer turns back to Zander as if Jade hadn’t spoken. “And as for throwing everything away, you should know I would never do that. I would have continued to lose my fucking mind and look into every dead end before I did that. I got permission. I reached out to Froggie a few days ago, and he gave me the okay to look into it. His exact words were ‘by any means necessary.’ So clearly, I wasn’t the only one with concerns.”
“Oh, did he?” I ask, and Spencer nods.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
“Alright, enough of this bullshit. It’s time for a meeting.” I tell them before turning back to Jade.
“Go handle your fucking leg while we clean this shit up.” This time she doesn’t fight me, instead giving me a slight nod. I’m glad she decided to listen, her face is becoming paler by the minute, and I’m sure she knows just as well as I do that she will pass out soon if she doesn't get it to stop bleeding.
She makes it to the door before I speak, causing her to pause inside the doorway.
“When you're done, stay put. It’s time we sat down and handled this all together because clearly, this isn’t working.” I say the last part to everyone, and I’m met with nods of agreement.
Her lip quirks up in a barely there smile as she passes through the doorway and into the hall out of my sight, but I see it, and that’s all I need to know I’m making the right call.
“Jamerson, Ant. You two are going to report to me later. I want every detail of what happened here today.” I don’t wait to hear their response before I turn to the table of weapons. If they want to continue breathing, they will be there.
“So, do you really think he gave permission?” Zander asks me in a low voice as if he doesn’t want the others to overhear him.
“I think it's possible, and if that’s the case, we're going to have a problem.” I tell him without going into it. We clean up and head out. The door is, in fact, broken, which is made apparent when it fails to shut.
“Let’s go, boys.” I tell them without checking to see if they follow. I know they will.
We walk back to the club. Jamerson and Ant head down to the main floor to do whatever until they have to report back later, and we take the stairs up to the offices.
Blood litters the floor every couple of steps, but I try to block it out. She’s not laying on the floor here, and the trail continues up, so she’s okay, I tell myself.
We make it to the top floor, Dom stands off to the side of the stairs, and I make my way to him with instructions to have someone clean up. I don’t mind blood, it’s just a part of the job most days, but something about it being Jade’s makes me want it gone. I don’t need any more reminders that she was hurt on our watch, whether she did it to herself or not.
He assures me it will be handled, and I turn back to find the guys standing outside of my office. Nobody talks. Hell, if I didn’t know them better, I would think these guys hated one another with how they stand around, glaring at each other as they wait. Well, I guess Trent is the odd one out, so it makes sense with them, but the other three are usually a lot better with their issues. They refuse to show weakness in public, something that I’ve always appreciated. It only reinforces how much of a problem this whole thing is that they are this torn about it.
I look back at Trent and contemplate making him leave. This is technically Vengeance's business, and not only is he not a part of us, but he’s also a cop, a cop who usually wants to do the right thing.
One look at his face lets me know he won’t go without a fight, though. For as much as he likes to live by the rules, I also saw the way he looked at Jade, and the fact that he was willing to put aside his differences with Zander and the guys to rush in and help with Jade tells me a lot more about him than him being a cop does.