Page 38 of The Jaded Notes

He gives me a moment to come back to the here and now.

In the past, before shedding that memory, I’d want to cut and bleed my pain out so Lehlani could be seen. My blood is her blood. And cutting myself lets her out into the world while giving me the release I so desperately crave.

Now, I’m grounded. And tired. Really fucking tired.

The problem is that as I rest in Jax’s hug, I can’t make sense of this strange emotion brewing in my heart. The way I feel is more than physical attraction, more than how I’ve felt about anyone since Callum.

It’s like walking barefoot through fire, thinking it’s water because part of me hopes the burn means this connection I have with Jax is real.

But what if the blisters aren’t proof of anything at all? What if it’s just the same trauma wearing a different face, whispering a new name, pretending it won’t ruin me again?

Chapter Nine

JAXON/JAX

Then

Broken Fighters & Terrifying Firebombs

The one who falls apart in your arms doesn’t save you. She’s the one who makes you need what you swore you’d never want.

“Fuck, Livianna. Why did I let you in?” The words leave me on a breath she can’t hear.

She’s on my chest, sleeping. Not like a woman who’s tired, but like someone who finally stopped running from whatever terror has her by the throat. A ghost that haunts her day in and day out.

And God help me, a dark, twisted part of me wishes that ghost would chase her right back to the States.

Because if it does...maybe she won’t become the person I ruin by holding too near. I can’t have anyone that close to me. It could never work. And then there’s her father.

Damn, I’m in one of the worst binds I’ve ever found myself in. I should run and never look back, but that’s not my nature.

I’m a fighter…a winner, but something deep inside me tells me I won’t win this battle. My insides knot at that thought.

I glance down at her and draw her closer, holding her like she’s something fragile I have no right to touch. A realization hits me.

I’ve destroyed empires more gently than I’m embracing her now. Yet, I don’t want to let her out of my arms, so I bring her in tighter.

Maybe I lied to myself thinking she needed comfort. Maybe I was the one who needed to be held.

As she told her story, flashes of my parents’ clinic being firebombed when I was twelve tore through me. Trauma. It’s nothing but irreversible trauma.

The overwhelming fear of believing I was alone from that point on seemed to be what Livianna experienced. I lost those I loved the most in that tragedy. But what she lost cuts in a way I can barely imagine.

She carries a belief that she’s somehow responsible for losing a twin, a loved one her parents don’t talk about. I know I wasn’t at fault for what happened to my family, and that’s the major difference.

I run my fingers through her hair, not to soothe her, but to convince myself she’s real. That this moment—this sanctum of breath and bones and heartbreak—isn’t another hallucination I engineered to hold myself together.

If we weren’t in this space and I were reliving what Livianna did, I’d be just as much of a mess as Livianna was when I carried her in. I know that kind of panic, and I don’t wish it on anyone.

I replay everything that took place in the last few hours, shocked that I allowed it to occur. Hell, I brought her here. What did I think would happen?

After her disclosure, she sighed once. A little broken thing that nearly took me with it.

She gutted me. Overhearing her mother’s horrific resentmentis the ultimate betrayal. I can’t even imagine how deep that cuts.

I huff a humourless laugh at the thought. It wounds viciously just as Livianna digs and scratches into her skin. She’s been defiant, provocative, and pushed every limit out of desperation.

Who Livianna is finally clicks into place, and I see her in a way I never have. Her defiance isn’t defiance at all.