Chapter 7 - The Bloodline Recognized
Jax stared down at the eight-year-old child standing in the fluorescent glare of the diner. He didn't speak immediately; thirty years on the road had taught him that sudden reactions brought trouble. But when his eyes traveled from the boy's messy light brown hair down to his hazel eyes, an electric current of familiarity rippled through his spine.
""Who are you, kid?"" Jax’s voice was a low, gravelly rumble, surprisingly gentle beneath its rough exterior. ""Where are your folks?""
Leo didn't answer with words. With slow, determined hands, he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the faded photograph, and set it flat onto the laminate counter between them.
Jax’s hand froze.
The photograph showed two men twenty years younger standing before a garage—Jax himself, laughing with a cigarette tucked behind his ear, and Julian, barely twenty, holding Jax’s newborn infant daughter before the tragedy that had shattered the family decades ago. It was an image that only three people in the entire world possessed.
""My mom said this is you,"" Leo whispered, his gaze unwavering.
Jax’s fingers slowly hovered over the faded paper, trembling with a microscopic tremor that only a trained eye could catch. He hadn't seen this print since the day he walked out of Eleanor Sterling’s mansion, cutting all ties with the blood money that had destroyed his own youth.
""Jax… what is that photo?"" the waitress asked from behind the counter, her eyes narrowing with sudden suspicion as she wiped a rag across the stainless steel.
Jax quickly slapped his broad, scarred palm over the photo, forcing a cold, indifferent calm onto his features. ""Nothing, Brenda. Mind the grill.""
He turned back to the boy, leaning down until his eyes were level with Leo’s. ""Who gave this to you, boy? What's your mother’s name?""
Leo reached back into his jacket and pulled out the small, folded piece of paper Clara had pressed into his palm. Deep emotional tension filled the quiet pocket of air between them.
""Mom said you left before I was born,"" Leo whispered, extending the folded note. ""She said Julian left us too. But she told me you were the only one who didn't lie.""
Jax took the folded paper. His knuckles were white. He unfolded it slowly to read four short lines written in elegant, sharp cursive:
Eleanor’s hounds are twenty miles out. They want the boy to salvage the inheritance before the bankruptcy ruins the name. I am sitting in the blue truck outside. Julian is broken, but Eleanor is deadly. Protect your nephew.
May you like
Jax’s breath caught in his throat. He slowly looked past the boy, through the rain-streaked front window of the diner, where a battered blue pickup truck sat idling in the dark.
Outside, headlights suddenly swept across the parking lot as two unmarked black sedans pulled in behind Clara's truck, boxing it in completely.
