Hunter would probably tell you how much he wants to photograph her beauty, while Jax would—or probably already has—written poems about her. Me? I’m not an artist by any means. What I can offer, though, is protection. So, that’s what I’m going to do.

“Everyone just needs to chill the hell out,” I say, slanting forward and resting my arms on my legs. “Porter is a minor thorn in our asses. That bloody raven out there was all for show. We’ve known him forever, and we know the dude is weak as fuck, especially when he’s not around his little friends.”

Hunter, who’s playing with Raven’s hair, something that I’m not even going to begin to decipher yet because I already have way too much other shit to worry about, glances at me. “So, you want to what?” he asks in a challenging tone, obviously irritated with me, too. “Retaliate against his retaliation? Because all I see that doing is us getting into a retaliation war. And we also have this stupid game to worry about. Plus, figuring out who actually pushed her off the bridge.” He frowns at that. “Plus, we have this club to check out—”

“I can check that out on my own,” Raven cuts him off. “I already said that.”

“And I already said I’d come with you.” Jax sinks down onto the chair beside her, putting the three of them wedged into it side by side.

I can already see the relationship forming, them all getting close. If she is Willow, I’m not surprised. It was exactly how our friendship started back then. The three of them bonded almost instantly, whereas it took me a while to soften up to her. Once I did, though, she owned me. She was the only person who ever has, besides my father, but that was in a completely different way. I didn’t mind Willow owning me. In fact, I kind of liked it. It gave me a purpose. And it gives me one now, if she is her.

The thing is, I don’t see this going down the way it did in our past. We’re all older, and the friendship vibe between the three of them is already intense. It’s what I meant when I said the beginning. I can see this as being the beginning of a huge changing point in our lives, like we reached some sort of fork in the road that we’ve been cruising down. They’re either going to hit their brakes and back up or take off and speed into the unknown, all three of them together, like they did when they were kids. Only, they’re not kids anymore. I’ll just have to wait and fucking see what they do. Then I will decide if I want to go with them or bail out of the damn car.

12

RAVEN

I’m trying not to freak out over the fact that I have a group of mafia dudes coming after me. It helps a bit that I have some of my own mafia friends. Still, it’s a little unnerving that all these people seem to be coming after me.