Chapter 277 - 0277: You’re Not A Monster

Chapter 277: Chapter 0277: You’re Not A Monster

Jaxx’s Point Of View

I felt the tension radiate through her palm before I even heard her breath hitch. Elena’s fingers tightened around mine, her nails digging slightly into the meat of my hand, and for a split second, I sensed her take a half-step back, trying to vanish into the shadows of the doorway. I understood the impulse. I’d felt it myself once, long ago, before I’d learned that running only ever delayed the inevitable.

There was a time when I, too, had wanted to disappear into walls, to become invisible rather than face the judgment waiting on the other side of a threshold. I recognized that particular flavor of fear because I’d swallowed it whole more times than I cared to admit.

Her pulse hammered against my wrist where our skin touched... a frantic, trapped bird desperate for escape. The rhythm was erratic, panicked, and it sent a jolt of something fierce and protective straight through me. I could feel each beat like a small distress signal, and something in me answered it without permission, some ancient, unnamed thing waking up after years of dormancy.

I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

The protective instinct that roared to life in my chest was primal, immediate, and entirely foreign to me. I’d spent years building walls, cultivating distance, making sure no one got close enough to matter. I had perfected the art of indifference, had worn it like armor through boardrooms and back alleys alike, and I’d never once questioned whether that armor cost me something in return.

Now, standing beside her trembling frame, I began to wonder if the cost had been higher than I’d realized, if somewhere along the way I’d traded away pieces of myself I hadn’t known were missing until this very moment.

Yet here she was, trembling beside me, and every instinct I possessed screamed at me to shield her from whatever had put that fear in her veins. I hadn’t asked for this feeling. I certainly hadn’t invited it. But it had arrived anyway, uninvited and immovable, settling into my bones like it intended to stay, like it had already signed a lease on some room inside me I didn’t know existed.

The air in the ballroom hung thick with the scent of lilies, expensive champagne, and the suffocating stench of judgment. Every head in the room had pivoted with a synchronized, predatory grace, as though some silent alarm had passed between them the moment we’d crossed the threshold. The chandeliers overhead threw down a merciless light, the kind that left nowhere to hide, the kind designed to expose rather than flatter.

I could practically hear their mental arithmetic, their vicious assessments. Each glance felt like a scalpel, cutting and probing for weakness, searching for the one flaw they could later dissect over cocktails and gossip. I’d grown up in rooms exactly like this one, had learned the particular cruelty of people dressed in silk and diamonds who smiled with their mouths while their eyes calculated your worth down to the last cent.

A low, dangerous growl vibrated deep in my chest. I shifted my weight, deliberately stepping a few inches in front of her, acting as a human shield against the weight of a thousand prying eyes. My body became her fortress, and I intended to hold that ground for as long as she needed me to, for as long as it took these vultures to understand that she was no longer an easy target.

I leveled my gaze at the crowd, my eyes turning cold and flat... the look that usually meant people started making their peace with God. I stared them down, one by one, row by row, daring any single one of them to hold my gaze. Not one of them did. They never did. Years of cultivating that particular brand of menace had taught me exactly how long to hold a stare before it became unbearable, exactly how much stillness it took to make grown men forget their own names.

I wanted them to see exactly what they were dealing with. I wanted them to understand that she was under my protection, and crossing that line would cost them more than they could afford.

Every second of silence I held was a warning shot, fired without a single word spoken.

They knew what I was capable of. And when they saw the dark, jagged edge of my glare, they did the only thing sensible people do when faced with a shark: they looked away.

Their eyes dropped to their champagne flutes, to the floor, to anywhere but us. A few of the older women clutched their pearls as if the jewelry could protect them from my wrath. The men suddenly found their shoes fascinating. It was almost comical, watching grown men and women who ruled empires of their own shrink into themselves rather than meet my eyes. I’d seen kings beg for their lives with less fear in their faces than these socialites wore simply standing in my orbit.

"Stay close," I murmured, my voice a low vibration intended only for her. I didn’t look back, but I squeezed her hand, reminding her that I was her anchor in this storm. I felt the faintest tremor in her fingers ease, just slightly, as though my words alone had loosened some of the fear coiled inside her. That small release, that fraction of relaxation, did something to me I couldn’t quite name, some quiet unraveling I hadn’t expected and wasn’t sure I wanted to stop.

"Don’t give them a single inch, Elena. You’re the only thing in this room worth looking at, and they know it." I meant every word. In a sea of artificial smiles and designer masks, she was the only genuine thing here, and that truth settled over me with an intensity I hadn’t expected.

Everyone else in this room had spent years perfecting the art of performance, but she stood there raw and real, fear and all, and somehow that made her more powerful than any of them.

I could hear the soft rustle of her dress as she moved closer to my back. The warmth of her presence settled against my spine, and I felt her breathing begin to steady, matching the rhythm of mine. Something about that small synchronization undid me more than I cared to admit, some quiet proof that she trusted my body to keep her safe even when her mind hadn’t caught up yet.

Good. She was learning to trust me, even when everything in her screamed to run. Even when the rational part of her brain probably told her I was the most dangerous person in this room.

And she wouldn’t be wrong, but I’d never turn that danger on her. I would burn this entire ballroom to the ground before I let anyone touch her. I would tear apart everything I’d built with my bare hands before I let a single one of these vipers lay a finger on her.

I’d never done this. In all my years of navigating the jagged politics of my family and the business that came with it, I had never brought a woman to an event. Not a date, not a "friend," not even a high-class escort to play the part. I didn’t do "plus ones."

The idea alone used to make my skin crawl, an unnecessary complication in a life built on control. I’d watched other men in my position parade women through events like accessories, and I’d always thought it a foolish vulnerability, handing your enemies a weapon with a face and a heartbeat.

Relationships were liabilities. Attachments were weaknesses. I’d learned that lesson young and learned it well, carved into me by a father who taught by absence and a world that rewarded ruthlessness over tenderness. But tonight was different. Tonight was the beginning of a very long, very loud statement.

Tonight, I was rewriting the rules that had governed my life for decades. And if that terrified me almost as much as it exhilarated me, well, that was something I’d examine later, in the privacy of my own thoughts, far from prying eyes that would mistake vulnerability for weakness. For now, I simply let myself feel it, that strange cocktail of fear and fierce pride, without trying to dissect it to pieces.

I was just getting started.

As I led her through the parting sea of tuxedos and evening gowns, a dark satisfaction curled in my gut like smoke. I knew the rumors were already flying toward the exits like wildfire, spreading through the crowd faster than any formal announcement could. I could practically taste the gossip forming on their tongues, ready to be served at a dozen dinner tables by morning, garnished with speculation and envy in equal measure.

I hoped the word traveled fast. I hoped it reached my darling brother’s ears before the night was through, that it would burn like acid in his throat. Nothing would please me more than imagining his expression the moment he learned exactly who I’d chosen to stand beside me. I could already picture the way his jaw would tighten, the way he’d try to mask his fury with that practiced, oily smile he wore like a second skin.

And if he didn’t hear it... which I doubted, given the amount of rats he kept on his payroll, I’d make sure he saw it. I’d show up with Elena in my arms, right in the center of his world, and let him watch her stand exactly where she belonged. By my side.

The thought filled me with a savage, almost childish glee, the kind I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in years, the kind that made me feel, for just a moment, like the boy I’d been before the world taught me to stop smiling.

"Jaxx," she whispered, her voice a little unsteady, trembling at the edges like a candle flame in the wind. "Everyone is still whispering. I can hear them."

Her vulnerability in that moment made something in my chest constrict painfully. I’d faced down armed men without flinching, negotiated deals worth millions without breaking a sweat, but the tremor in her voice nearly undid me. It was strange, how something so small could cut so much deeper than a blade ever could, how a whisper could leave a wound that bullets never managed to inflict.

She was trying so hard to be brave, to wear the armor I’d dressed her in, but underneath it all, she was still the woman who’d been hurt, who’d been betrayed, who had every reason to fear rooms like this and people like them. I wanted to carry that fear for her, to absorb it into myself so she’d never have to feel its weight again, to take every ounce of her pain and bury it somewhere it could never touch her again.

"Let them whisper," I said, my stride never faltering, my hand steady around hers. I kept my voice calm, reassuring, even as fury simmered beneath the surface. "They’re just trying to figure out how a girl like you ended up with a monster like me. It keeps their boring lives interesting."

I wanted to turn around and silence every single one of them permanently, but that wouldn’t help her. What she needed now was my strength, not my rage, and so I swallowed the anger and let it smolder quietly where she couldn’t see it, banking it like coals for later, when I might actually need it.

"You’re not a monster," she muttered, and even in her nerves, there was that sharp, stubborn edge of hers that I loved.

The words hit me harder than they should have. No one had ever defended me before, not like this, not when I hadn’t asked for it. My family saw me as a weapon. My enemies saw me as a threat. The world saw me as exactly what I’d cultivated: something cold, calculating, and dangerous.

And yet here was this woman, trembling and terrified, still finding the courage to argue otherwise. Something about her stubbornness in that moment felt like a gift I hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve, yet found myself desperate to keep anyway.

"Keep telling yourself that, Bambina," I teased, though my eyes remained locked on the figure at the far end of the hall, and something warm and unfamiliar bloomed beneath my ribs. It felt dangerously close to hope, and I wasn’t sure I knew what to do with that. Hope had never been a language I spoke fluently.

There, seated in a high-backed chair that looked more like a throne than a piece of furniture, was my grandfather. The old man looked every bit the part of a retired king, surrounded by a small circle of sycophants who scattered like dust the moment they saw me approaching. Even now, decades into his supposed retirement, the room arranged itself around him like he still held every string. Power like his didn’t fade with age; it simply grew quieter, more patient, more absolute.

When his eyes landed on me, they widened, the deep-set wrinkles around them shifting in shock.

"Jaxx..." his voice carried across the space, rich and heavy. "You’re actually here."

I let a genuine smile touch my lips... a rare thing in a room like this. I walked up to him and pulled the old man into a brief, firm hug, feeling the familiar strength in his frame despite the years that had softened it. Even now, there was something reassuring about the solidity of him, as though some part of me still believed he could hold back the entire world if he needed to.

My grandfather was the head of the underground, a man who had commanded armies and moved mountains with a single word, but with me, he had always been the doting grandfather I needed. There was no one else alive who could make me feel like a boy again with just a look. In his presence, I could set down, if only for a moment, the heavy mantle of everything I’d become.

He was the one who had reached out and pulled me from the wreckage after my father abandoned me. He’d raised me, hardened me, and molded me into the man who eventually took over his empire. I would never, as long as I lived, take that for granted. Every ounce of power I now commanded, I owed to the man standing before me, and every scar that had come with it, I’d gladly carry again if it meant earning his pride.

"I wouldn’t miss it, Pops," I said, pulling back. "You’re too stubborn to die, so I figured I’d come see if you’d finally turned to stone."

He chuckled, a dry, rasping sound, then his attention shifted. He didn’t even look at me anymore. His eyes... sharp and perceptive as ever, landed on Elena. He squinted, his head tilting to the side as he took her in, his gaze moving from the diamonds to her face, searching for something, the way he’d once taught me to search for the truth hidden beneath a liar’s smile.

I watched him work, the same way I’d watched him a hundred times before, dismantling a

person with nothing but careful observation.

The silence stretched. Elena stood perfectly still, her chin lifted just enough to show she wasn’t cowed, even if her heart was probably racing at a hundred miles an hour. I admired her for that small, defiant tilt of her chin more than she would ever know. It took a particular kind of courage to stand unflinching beneath my grandfather’s scrutiny, a courage I’d seen grown men fail to summon.

My grandfather looked at me, a slow, knowing glint appearing in his eyes. "Son," he said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial hum. "Is she the one? The one I’ve been hearing words about? The girl who has been making my grandson act like a human being again?"

I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t even blink. I pulled Elena closer, my arm finding its permanent home around her waist, claiming her in front of the man who had taught me everything I knew.

Whatever doubts I might have carried into this ballroom evaporated in that instant, burned away by the simple certainty of her beside me.

I nodded, feeling the weight and the relief of that single gesture settle over me like a vow.

"Yes, Pops... meet Elena."