“It saved her life, Avery.”
“I know, mate.” Avery nodded, placatingly. He glanced at the shot of brown liquid that he’d moved and looked thoughtful. “Listen up.” He swung on the stool and picked up the shot, downing its contents himself. Jack watched him with a mixture of interest and irritation. Avery swallowed it with a clenched-teeth expression and then continued. “You and I both know that what you do is dangerous. So dangerous that once you’re in, you’re in forever, or you’re dead.”
Silence. But Jack nodded. Once.
“So, what if I told you that I’d decided I’d rather kill people for a living than walk into another classroom and deliver another lecture to a bunch of rich kids who don’t give a fuck about what happened the day before yesterday, much less two hundred years ago?”
JT narrowed his gaze at his friend. Avery was a professor of British history at Oxford University.
Being a Hell’s Angel was sometimes a little like being Batman. One mask for the day. One for night.
At work, Avery wore a long-sleeved button-up shirt that hid his ink. To his students, he was Professor Avery Valentine. None of his pupils would know who he was if they saw him in that bar, at that moment, dressed in black leathers, an earring in his ear, and having a private conversation with a paid assassin.
He took another swig of his beer, as if to chase the aftertaste of the shot and then asked, “What would you tell me?”
Jack was distracted enough by Avery’s proposal to give that thought for a moment. Avery was a capable man and in good shape. Jack had never personally seen him chase after anyone or pull a gun and shoot, but he knew that Avery kept himself up and had no compunctions about panning someone’s head in. And he was fairly good at that, at least.
“I’d tell you to get some training,” he said, his tone flat, his words soft. “And I’d think about it.”
Avery smiled, cocking his head to one side. “Really?” He narrowed his own amber gaze. “And you don’t even know whether I can shoot, mate.” He lowered his voice and leaned in a little. “Who’s the safer bet, JT? Me? Or Annabelle Drake?”
Jack blinked. The alcohol was beginning to buzz through his blood stream now; the world fuzzing a little around the edges. It had been twenty years since alcohol had made it past his tongue, and it was hitting him hard. But he wasn’t so far gone that Avery’s words didn’t hit him where it counted.
“You want me to induct the woman I love into the Business?” Jack asked softly. Right now, all he wanted to do with the woman he loved was have her brain washed until she loved him again and then fuck her brains out for the remainder of his life.
He’d never been so unreasonably furious as he had been in the last two days. Never, in his life. Not even when Adam Night had led him into the catacombs in France and allowed him to get lost for a full day and night before sending someone to the rescue. Not even then, had he felt the rage in him that he had felt for the past forty-eight hours.
He was so out of it that he’d been handed Godrick Osborne’s file, assigned him as a mark, and he didn’t give a whit. He only cared about Annabelle.
“Nah, JT.” Avery shook his head. “I’m not telling you to induct her. She’s already been inducted, hasn’t she?” Avery said, making the sign of a gun and shooting it three times at an invisible foe.
Jack knew he was referring to the men Annabelle had killed in the tunnels under Columbia, and he wondered how his fellow Hell’s Angel had come by that information, as well.
“Besides,” Avery shrugged gently. “She was involved the moment you decided you were going to invite her into your life, mate. The only way out of this mess now is to give her what she needs to be able to protect herself.” He paused, for effect and to let the information sink in. “You’re pissing in the wind if you think she’s going to just let this go with enough time, JT.” Avery shook his head, his look serious and sad at once. “Your only hope is to arm her well and call off your guard. Allow her the solitude she needs.”
Jack thought about that for a moment. Why hadn’t he ever considered it before? Annabelle was fast and strong and a better shot, even, than he was. She was a natural – uncanny with a gun of any kind. Of the first ten rounds she’d ever shot under Jack’s supervision, five of them had hit the target’s center. And it had been moving at the time.
So, why had the idea of her being an assassin completely escaped him until this moment?
Because it hadn’t escaped him. He had thought of it. He’d just ignored the idea. Because he didn’t want to lose her. He couldn’t lose her.
“I know you think you can’t live without her, JT. And I believe you.” Avery told him. “But you’ll have to, anyway, if you don’t make some changes soon. Like yesterday.”
Jack turned back to the bar and ran a hand through his hair. He was feeling light headed. Christ, he thought. I’ve become a god damned light weight.
“She has no job, she has no way of determining her own future. Women don’t stay happy very long under those conditions.” Avery finished off his beer and set it down with a satisfied clunk. “It’s a better plan than keeping her under lock and key, is it not?”
Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “How the hell do you know so much, Avery?”
“Word gets ‘round, mate,” Avery said, pushing his empty mug toward the edge of the counter so that the bar tender could pick it up. “And I’m married.” Avery smiled a telling smile.
Jack turned to his friend and studied him closely. It had been a few years since he’d last seen him, but he hadn’t changed any. The man didn’t age.
“Thanks, mate.” Jack stood then, clapped his friend on the back, and headed toward the door of the bar. It took some effort to walk steadily.
“By the way, JT,” Avery called after him. “Stella says ‘hi’.”
Jack turned around.
“She says to give Clara and Ian a hug for her and asked me to tell you to stay out of trouble,” Avery chuckled softly. “I’m fairly sure that last bit was her idea of a joke.”
Jack finally smiled. Stella was Avery’s wife. Jack had been best man at their wedding. He nodded a goodbye, then, and left the bar, his alcohol-fevered brain trying its best to formulate a plan as he stepped out into the Essex night.
Alex knocked gently on the door to Annabelle’s rooms. “Miss Drake?”
“Come in, Alex.”
He opened the door and stepped inside. Annabelle was seated at the window, reclined in a large plush chair, sipping on a cup of tea. Alex crossed the room to stand beside her. “How you doing?” He asked softly.
She looked up at him. There were dark circles under her eyes. He cringed when he saw them. Jack wouldn’t be happy that she wasn’t sleeping. Hell, Jack wasn’t happy at all these days.
Annabelle didn’t answer. She just smiled gently.
“Can I get you anything?” He asked then, suddenly simply wanting to ease the pain he saw in her light brown eyes.
“No, thank you.”
“Mr. Thane has given me permission to get you anything you desire, Miss Drake,” he said as he knelt on one knee beside the chair. “I have a laptop. You can go online.”
Annabelle’s gaze narrowed at that. She put her cup of tea down on the table beside her and turned to face Alex. “Oh?” She asked softly. “I’m sorry, Alex, but for some reason, I have a hard time believing that Jack would just give me permission to check my email or join an online forum at this juncture.” She shook her head. Electronic signatures were too easily traced. It was a dangerous world, and their immediate quarrel with one another aside, Annabelle and Jack would probably agree on the fact that there was still a bad guy out there somewhere to contend with.