Chapter 4

Jax couldn't shake the image of Ava, the haunted look in her eyes, the way Henderson and his cronies treated her.

He' d heard Henderson' s loud boasts about her "connections" to him. It was disgusting.

Chloe was quiet on the drive home.

"That woman, Ava," Chloe finally said. "She seemed... so sad. And Mr. Henderson is vile."

Jax grunted noncommittally. He didn't want to talk about Ava Rodriguez.

But he couldn't stop thinking. Ava, a sugar baby. It fit the narrative he' d constructed: she was weak, easily corrupted.

The next day, driven by a compulsion he didn' t understand, Jax found himself near the diner Ava reportedly worked at.

He saw her through the window, wiping tables, her movements tired but efficient.

Then he saw a little boy run up to her, dark hair, bright eyes, laughing as Ava swung him into her arms.

The boy looked... familiar.

A few days later, Henderson, trying to curry favor for a new development project, cornered Jax at a business luncheon.

"Young Carter! Good to see you again. That Ava, quite a girl, eh? Shame about her brother, Miguel. Paralyzed, you know. Cost a fortune to keep him going. She does what she has to." Henderson chuckled, oblivious.

Jax felt a cold dread creep up his spine. Miguel. Ava' s brother. Paralyzed.

He remembered the crash, the chaos, but he' d never known the full extent. He' d blocked it out, buried it deep.

"What happened to him?" Jax asked, his voice carefully neutral.

"Some accident years ago, tragic. She' s a saint, that Ava, looking after him and her boy, Mateo." Henderson then leaned in conspiratorially. "I told her, you know Jax Carter, maybe he can put in a good word for my project. But she' s stubborn, won' t ask."

Mateo. The boy from the diner.

Jax felt like he' d been punched in the gut. He excused himself abruptly.

He drove to the public library, his hands shaking as he searched online archives of old local news.

An accident. Vandalism gone wrong. Miguel Rodriguez, paralyzed.

And then, a small notice, months later: Ava Rodriguez, birth of son, Mateo Rodriguez. Father not listed.

The timeline, the boy' s face, Henderson' s careless words.

Mateo was his son.

The son he' d abandoned along with Ava, the son whose uncle he had crippled.

The weight of it, the sheer, crushing enormity of his past actions, hit him with physical force.