‘It’s okay, babe,’ Nikki said as she rubbed his back. ‘It’s not your fault. None of it. You shouldn’t even be here. You didn’t do it. Come on. Deep down, you know it too.’

Then she stopped rubbing. ‘Why didn’t you fight?’ she asked, a sudden anger in her voice. ‘You know you didn’t do it. Why did you let them do this to you?’ She freed herself from the embrace and looked at him, her eyes wild. ‘Why? Why didn’t you fight? Why didn’t you fight . . . for us?’ She pushed him away roughly.

Nikki’s sudden breakdown snapped Jax out of his. He grabbed her and pulled her back in close, wrapped his arms around her. She resisted him, pounding his chest with her fists before, spent, she collapsed into him and sobbed.

‘I’ll fix this,’ he said into her ear, and kissed the top of her head. ‘I’ll fix this. It’s over. I promise.’

CHAPTER 19

Long Bay Correctional Complex, Sydney, NSW, Australia

IT TOOK Jax the best part of a week to sort out Nikki’s new accommodation and new car. On the Monday after her visit, when the buy-up sheet had arrived, Jax had ordered the weekly limit of $100 worth of items, including $60 of phone credit – enough to make the calls he needed to while Nikki did the rest on the outside. The rest was food, which he would trade for info if he could. This time, he’d been allowed to keep what he’d ordered – Marsh seemed to have lost interest in him, at least for now. Someone else had been his pet project that week, it seemed.

Marsh had told Jax he was safe after Jax had sifted through his own faeces to retrieve the balls of heroin then handed them over to him. But as Jax had sat naked on his seatless stainless-steel toilet fighting cramps and his thoughts waiting to pass the packages, something had changed in him. Something deep within him had snapped.

When he’d handed the drugs over, Jax had also agreed to pay Marsh the $400 a week for the protection he’d previously refused. Not for himself, though. He only agreed to pay Marsh to keep Nikki safe. Marsh promised she would be, at least as long as Jax continued to pay.

Jax knew he would run of money sooner or later. That did not matter. He’d only needed a week to help Nikki move on. And he didn’t care what happened after that.

With Nikki’s move sorted and Marsh’s henchmen completely backed off, Jax even started to think that maybe he wasn’t going to be killed in his sleep. But then he got the word that he was required to attend Marsh’s weekly gang meeting.