Chapter 292 - 0292: We’ll Be Leaving Tomorrow

Chapter 292: Chapter 0292: We’ll Be Leaving Tomorrow

Elena’s Point Of View

"What the fuck?!!"

I was still crouching on the gravel, my ears ringing with the violent crack of those gunshots, when I forced myself to look up. My hands trembled against the rough stones, knees aching from the impact of my fall, the sharp sting of torn skin barely registering through the fog of adrenaline.

I expected to see a security guard or some estate patrol... anyone official, anyone who made sense in this moment. Instead, my heart did a frantic, sickening leap into my throat.

Jaxx was standing there.

He didn’t look like the man who had tucked me into bed with gentle hands or the man who had teased me over dinner with that infuriating smirk. He looked like something carved out of cold, jagged granite... all hard edges and deadly intent. His eyes were dark, flat, and terrifyingly calm, like the surface of a frozen lake concealing unfathomable depths. And in his hand, gripped with a terrifyingly familiar ease, was a black handgun that gleamed dully in the morning light.

A scream, much louder and more jagged than the first, ripped out of my throat. I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t contain the terror that clawed its way up from my chest. The world felt like it was tilting on its axis, reality fracturing into something unrecognizable. Jaxx... cocky, arrogant, billionaire Jaxx who wore designer suits and made boardroom deals, was standing in a garden holding a weapon like he’d been born with it attached to his palm, like violence was as natural to him as breathing.

Every image I’d built of him in my mind over the past weeks crumbled in an instant, replaced by something I couldn’t name, something that frightened me more than the gun itself.

He didn’t even flinch at my scream. He moved toward me with a predatory grace, his boots crunching on the gravel with measured, purposeful steps. He didn’t look at the blonde girl bleeding on the ground, didn’t spare her even a glance of concern; he only looked at me. His focus was absolute, unwavering. He reached down, his free hand gripping my shoulder with surprising gentleness to pull me up, the contrast between his tender touch and the weapon in his other hand making my head spin.

"Are you fine? Elena, look at me," he commanded, his voice low, vibrating with a tension that felt like it could snap the trees in half. His fingers tightened slightly on my shoulder. "Did she touch you?"

My mouth hung open in a silent, pathetic gasp. Words tangled in my throat, refusing to form coherent thoughts. I stared at him, then at the gun, then back at his face, trying to reconcile the two versions of this man battling for dominance in my mind. My pulse hammered so loudly I wondered if he could hear it too.

"Am I fine? Jaxx, I’m... I’m not! You literally just shot someone! You shot a person! In a garden!" My voice climbed higher with each word, hysteria creeping in at the edges. "And why... why the hell do you have a gun? Who carries a gun to a family estate?"

Jaxx didn’t answer me. He didn’t even blink. It was like he’d tuned me out the second he confirmed I wasn’t bleeding, his attention already shifting to the threat he’d neutralized. The dismissal stung, even through my shock, a small, bitter thing lodged beneath the larger terror. He turned his head toward the "Barbie" girl, who was now sobbing, clutching her mangled, bloody hand against her ruined pink tweed. Blood seeped between her fingers, dripping onto the pristine gravel.

"Are you out of your mind?" Jaxx’s voice dropped an octave, turning into something so cold it made the morning air feel like mid-winter, frost crystallizing in every syllable. "How dare you put a gun to my woman? Do you have a death wish, Tiffany? Is that what this is? A very elaborate suicide attempt?"

The girl’s eyes widened, her tears freezing on her cheeks as comprehension dawned. "Your... your woman?"

I felt a jolt of shock go through me, electric and disorienting. My woman. He said it so easily, so possessively, in front of this bleeding stranger and the entire sprawling estate, claiming me like I was territory he’d marked. It should have made me swoon, or at least feel something romantic, the kind of declaration every girl supposedly dreams of. Instead, a strange, guilty warmth curled in my chest even as horror gripped the rest of me, two feelings I couldn’t reconcile fighting for the same space.

But right now I was too busy wondering if I was with a secret vigilante or a psychopath, too busy trying to understand who this man really was beneath the charming facade.

Tiffany scrambled backward, her knees hitting the gravel as she literally knelt before him like a supplicant before a king. Blood smeared across the white stones. "I’m sorry, Jaxx! I was jealous! I saw the news, I saw her with you, and I thought... I thought you were just playing!" Her words tumbled out in a desperate rush, each one tripping over the last. "I didn’t think she was... I didn’t know she was yours! I didn’t know she was that important to you!"

"Shut up," Jaxx barked.

The sound was so sharp it made me flinch, made my shoulders jerk involuntarily. "You left your place, drove to my grandfather’s home, and tried to hurt her? On my territory?" Each question landed like a physical blow. He took a step closer to her, and I watched her shrink back in terror, her whole body folding in on itself. "Hang on, remind me... what family are you from again? Which name am I going to have to erase because you couldn’t control your tantrums?"

Tiffany’s face went from magenta to a ghostly, translucent white, all the blood draining away as if her body was preparing for the worst. Pure, unadulterated fear radiated off her in waves so strong I could almost taste it. I didn’t understand it, couldn’t grasp why she looked like she was staring at her own executioner.

Why was she so scared? He’d shot her hand, sure, but she was talking like he was about to end her entire lineage, like he had that kind of power. Like he was something far more dangerous than just a wealthy businessman with a gun. A cold thread of unease wound through me, separate from the fear I already carried, as I realized I had no idea what world I’d stumbled into.

"Please!" she wailed, her voice splintering. "I was foolish! I was delusional! It was me, Jaxx, just me! Please don’t hurt my family. They didn’t know I came here. My father will kill me himself if he knows I offended you. Please!"

I stood there, my head spinning, trying to process what I was hearing. Don’t hurt my family? What was she saying? Was Jaxx that powerful? I knew he was rich, I knew he was influential, but this felt like something ripped from a dark, twisted thriller. The air around us seemed to thicken with unspoken threats, every word between them a brick added to a wall I didn’t understand.

My hand trembled as I grabbed his forearm and turned to look at him. "What is going on here, Jaxx?" My voice came out higher than I intended. "Why is she talking like you’re a monster? And why are you still holding that thing?" I gestured wildly at the gun, my heart hammering against my ribs.

He glanced down at me, and for just a second, the ice in his eyes flickered with something softer before hardening again. He tucked the weapon into the small of his back, hidden by his jacket. "It’s nothing to worry your pretty head about, Bambina," he said, his tone maddeningly calm, as though we were discussing nothing more than a spilled drink at dinner. "Just some old family drama and a girl who doesn’t know when a door is closed."

"She’s bleeding!" The words burst from me, my anger finally bubbling over the shock that had momentarily paralyzed me. "Jaxx, she needs a hospital! You can’t just leave her here like this."

Jaxx looked at Tiffany with utter disgust, his lip curling. "She’s not fragile. She can handle a few grazes." His voice was cold, detached, as if he were discussing the weather rather than a wounded woman. "She should be glad I have good aim; otherwise, she wouldn’t be breathing right now."

I hit his arm... hard. The impact stung my palm, but I didn’t care. "Jaxx! Stop it! She’s a human being!"

He let out a sharp, annoyed breath and looked at me, his jaw tightening. Something in my expression must have gotten through to him because he glanced back at the sobbing girl, a long beat of silence stretching between us before he finally relented. "Fine," he said after a long moment. "It’s her lucky day." He stepped toward Tiffany, who flinched so violently she nearly toppled over. "This will be your last warning. If I ever see your face again... if I even hear a whisper of you being in the same zip code as Elena, I won’t be aiming for your hand. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind."

She didn’t need to be told twice. Tiffany practically flew out of there, stumbling over her own heels, clutching her wounded arm as she sprinted toward the driveway. I watched her go, my stomach churning with a mixture of relief and horror, the adrenaline slowly draining out of me and leaving something hollow and shaky in its place.

I turned to Jaxx, my mind a whirlpool of a million questions, each one clamoring for attention. I wanted to ask about the gun. I wanted to ask why she was so terrified of him, why her fear seemed to go bone-deep. I wanted to ask what he meant by "my woman," and why those words had sent such a confusing thrill through me despite everything.

But before I could even open my mouth to demand an explanation, he stepped into my space, closing the distance between us. His hands came up to cup my face, his thumbs brushing over my flushed cheeks with a tenderness that didn’t match the absolute violence of the last five minutes. The contrast was jarring, utterly disorienting, and I hated how my body responded to his touch even as my mind screamed at me to pull away.

"I told you to be good, didn’t I?" he murmured, a faint, dark smirk touching his lips.

"Jaxx, don’t you dare try to charm your way out of this." My voice shook, betraying the hurricane of emotions warring inside me. "You have a lot of explaining to do. A lot. Like, starting with the ballistic weapons and the death threats..."

He didn’t let me finish. His patience snapped, and before I could draw another breath, his big, heavy hand snared the back of my head, tangling thick fingers in my hair, while his other arm locked around my waist like a vice. He yanked me flush against the hard, unyielding wall of his chest, hauling my body so tightly against his that every contour of him pressed into me, taking full, possessive ownership of my space.

Then his mouth slammed down on mine.

It wasn’t a sweet kiss; it was raw, hard, and ravenous - a brutal, intoxicating collision that tasted like pure adrenaline, heat, and a dark, dangerous promise. He claimed my lips with a ruthless intensity, bruising, demanding, and completely unsparing. A low, helpless moan broke from the back of my throat, vibrating against his tongue as the sheer force of his possession sent a white-hot wave of electricity rushing straight down my spine.

"Jaxx..." I gasped out, the sound melting directly into his mouth as my hands flew up, desperately knotting into the fabric of his shirt, twisting the expensive cotton tightly before sliding upward to curl tightly around the nape of his neck, clinging to him like he was the only anchor in a collapsing world.

He let out a deep, guttural groan into my mouth, the sound vibrating through his chest against mine, wild and primal. His grip tightened, pulling me up onto my toes as his mouth devoured mine harder, deeper, turning my brain to complete mush as his scent... cedar, gunpowder, and pure, intoxicating male, overwhelmed every single one of my senses until it was impossible to think, breathe, or remember where we were.

When he finally pulled back just a fraction, leaving my lips swollen, wet, and thoroughly claimed, we were both breathless. He looked down at me, his gaze dark, heavy, and hooded with a dangerous hunger before his expression slowly shifted toward the house, his guard slamming firmly back into place, the walls rebuilding themselves brick by brick behind his eyes.

"We’ll talk later, princess. But not here." He tucked a stray hair behind my ear, his thumb tracing the sharp line of my jaw as his gaze lingered on my face, checking for cracks, searching for any sign that I might shatter under his grip. "Pack your things tonight. We’ll be leaving tomorrow."