“What the hell are you doing here?” Trinity said, crossing her arms.
Grim and troubled was Jax’s resting face, and tonight he certainly had reason to be wary. For a moment, though, he smiled, and it reminded her how much his grin made him look like a little boy.
Jax stepped toward her.
“Not yet,” Oleg rasped, pointing his gun at Jax’s chest.
Kirill aimed at Jax’s back. The others stayed where they were, ready for any attack from the parking lot.
“What’s this gift you have for us?” Kirill asked.
Jax’s eyes went cold, his features hard. “Outside in the truck. I’ve got two of my guys with me. I rode the motorcycle—they came in the truck with the present.”
Kirill pressed the gun against Jax’s back.
“That’s enough,” Trinity said, knowing her own eyes had gone cold, her features hard. They had not grown up together, but there were many things she and Jax had in common—chief among them, an unforgiving nature.
Jax gave a single shake of his head, letting her know not to make a fuss.
“You must be Oleg,” Jax said, glancing from Trinity to her lover. “I’m gonna guess the guy making demands behind me is Kirill Sokolov. You’ll be happy to know, Kirill, that your buddy Lagoshin’s down two more men. One of them, Ustin, is dead on an old ranch road about fifteen minutes’ drive from here. The other one, Luka, is alive. He’s out in the truck. I’d have wrapped him up in shiny paper and put a blue ribbon on his cock, but the stores are closed this late at night.”
Trinity wanted to laugh, but she was too confused.
“What are you doing here, Jax?” she asked again.
“Needed to see you.”
Understanding dawned on her. “My mother called you. Told you I was in the States.”
Jax nodded toward Oleg. “Told me about your new guy. Congratulations, by the way. You two make a cute couple.”
She thought Oleg might say something, but when she glanced at him, she saw only suspicion and anger in his eyes.
“Jax,” Kirill ventured. He gave Jax a little shove with the nose of his pistol. “Take off your shirt so I can see you wear no wire.”
Jax hesitated. Trinity could see the request worried him, and she didn’t know why. No. Don’t tell me you could be that stupid.
“Do you not want Luka?” Jax asked. “I figure he can tell you where to find Lagoshin and you guys can end this little standoff.”
“How do we know you didn’t bring them here? That Lagoshin and his men are not out there right now?” Kirill demanded.
Jax shook his head, scoffed a little. “If Lagoshin was here, you’d all be playing out the Alamo together, and I’d be on the inside. You think he’d have waited while you fetched my little sister before he started shooting?”
Kirill slapped the back of his head. Jax bared his teeth, started to lower his hands.
“Shirt off!” Kirill snapped.
With a sigh, Jax slid out of his vest. “Trouble is, when I take my shirt off, we’re gonna have a lot more to talk about. Maybe we ought to talk about it now?”
Kirill slapped him again. Jax froze, muscles bunching, fighting the urge to slap him back. The many guns in the room apparently persuaded him this would have been unwise, because after a few seconds he exhaled and stripped off his shirt.
Trinity saw the way Kirill stared at her brother’s back, and it baffled her, and then she had an epiphany. She’d never told Oleg about her brother or her father, never said who they were. Now she wished she’d warned them.
“You’re Jax Teller,” Kirill said.
“SAMCRO,” Jax confirmed. He locked his gaze on Oleg’s now, ignoring Kirill and Trinity alike. “My club’s had a long history with the Bratva, some good, some bad. A few days ago, one side of this conflict you’re in tried to kill me, and the other side saved my ass. I figure you’ll understand when I ask which one of those sides you’re on.”
Trinity felt a sick tightening in her gut. She’d tried to avoid the politics, the ugliness, and now it had crept up on her in the dark and wrapped its hands around her throat. She and her brother both waited for an answer.
Kirill narrowed his eyes. He stared at Jax for what seemed like an eternity. Then he gestured with his gun.
“Put your shirt back on, Mr. Teller. Let’s see what your little Christmas present out there can tell us,” Kirill said. “Then we’ll all get to decide whose side we’re on.”
Oh, shit, Trinity thought, glancing at Oleg, who refused to meet her eyes.
That was not an answer.
* * *
Opie stood beside the truck, trying to calm the thunder in his heart. The pickup’s passenger door hung open, but they’d smashed the dome light inside, an excess of caution. The weight of his gun dragged at his hand, whispering to him that it would be much lighter if he fired some of its bullets. Just nerves, he knew. Nerves and exhaustion and blood loss.
He managed a calm front, and most of the time that reflected an inner resolution and acceptance of whatever might come. Tonight, though, they had stuck their hands in a hornet’s nest. Jax’s plan of action had been the most direct, but it sure as hell wasn’t the wisest or most cautious approach. If Kirill Sokolov and his men were the Bratva faction that had tried to murder Jax and Opie on the way back from the cabin, things were headed down a dark road. Opie exhaled, stretched the fingers that clutched his gun, and waited.
“What do ya see in there, brother?” Chibs called from the cab of the pickup.
“Same thing as you,” Opie said. “Jax just put his shirt back on.”
“Sounds like we’re gettin’ somewhere,” Chibs said.
Maybe, Opie thought. Times like this, dealing with professional liars and killers, there was no way to know. Professional liars and killers. What does that make us?
Up in the truck, Luka tried to cuss them out from behind the gag in his mouth. Chibs took a fistful of his hair and slammed his face into the dashboard, not for the first time. When Luka glanced dazedly around, fresh blood dripping from his nostrils, his eyes had the desperation of a coyote with its leg caught in a trap. Opie figured if Luka could have gotten away by gnawing his leg off the way a coyote sometimes would, he’d have done it—and he’d have been smart to make the attempt. The rest of his life could be measured in the number of breaths it would take for him to tell Kirill Sokolov what he wanted to know about Lagoshin. Luka had to know that.
“Here he comes,” Chibs said.
Spotlighted in the truck’s headlights, Jax strode from the hotel and crossed the parking lot toward them. As always, he moved as if he carried a dreadful weight on his shoulders. One of the Russians came behind him, a thin, bony man with sunken eyes and sharp cheekbones.
“Bring him out,” Jax called.
Opie gestured toward the open passenger door. Chibs gave Luka a shove, and the bleeding captive slid to the edge of the seat. He slid out. The moment his feet hit the ground he lunged at Opie, hands tied behind his back as he tried to turn himself into a battering ram. Opie tightened his grip on the gun, but he didn’t shoot the fool, just sidestepped and gave Luka a push. Luka lost his footing and went down on the pavement, twisting so that he landed on his shoulder, scraping flesh from his arm and smacking his head on the ground with a satisfying crack.
Luka rolled on his back and sat up, staring at the Russian who’d come out of the hotel, someone he probably knew. Not long ago, the two warring Bratva factions had been one. They might as well have been SAMCRO going to war with SAMTAC or SAMNOV. Brothers weren’t supposed to try killing each other, but whenever there was a power vacuum, the potential for bloodshed was like the electric crackle in the air right before a thunderstorm hit.