Losing Control : His Madness, His Cure Chapter 150

XANDER'S POV

There's that sense again...the one that’s been gnawing at me, growing like a slow, relentless tide.

Protectiveness.

It’s been there for a while, but tonight it coils in my chest so tight it feels like armor. I look at Jax, and he’s trembling in ways he doesn’t even realize, like his body is begging to bolt, to shut down, to vanish into the silence he always hides behind. But he doesn’t. He stays. He fights it, and that fight pulls something fierce and immovable out of me. Whatever this man needs...whatever it takes, I’ll burn for it.

I’ll bleed for it.

I’ll carry it for him.

When his voice comes, it’s shredded around the edges like broken glass. I don’t dare say a word. I just hold his hand tighter, making sure he knows I’m here...that I heard him say he loves me and I won’t let him forget it. His palm is clammy in mine, but I clutch it like it’s sacred, like if I let go I’ll lose him to the ghosts he’s trying to drag into the light.

He starts halting, circling edges of memories, and my chest turns to stone. Their foster mother....her asshole boyfriend.... I hear Jax’s words but it’s his eyes that gut me. They're haunted and cornered, carrying the kind of fear that never fades. I can almost see it, the scene bleeding through him, and it makes me want to tear the world apart for ever letting him live through it.

I want to tell him to stop, to breathe, but I can’t strip him of this moment, of his truth. So I stay silent, swallowing every piece, letting it cut into me instead.

Then the words come. The words that rip the ground out from under me, “I killed him.”

The air vanishes from my lungs, but my hand never leaves his. My pulse hammers in my throat, grief and fury and something unbearably tender colliding inside me. He’s shaking with confession and all I feel is this violent rush of love and devastation. I want to wrap myself around him, bury him in my arms, shield him from the memory, from himself, from everything. But I don't move.

I just look at him, and in this moment, the vow crystallizes inside me like a brand...I will not let him drown in this.

His hand rakes through his hair, strands sticking out like a crown of ruin, his head bent as though the weight of what he’s holding might split him apart. Then he says it again, clearer this time, his voice so sharp it pierces straight through me.

“I killed him....There was a skillet on the counter, and I just—” his hand twitches, like muscle memory, “...I reached for it, and I hit him. Again. And again. I knew he was dead at some point, but I couldn’t stop. There was blood...so much fucking blood.”

My mind betrays me with images. Jax at fourteen, cornered and terrified, swinging with desperation in his veins. And Andrew....God, what could have been going through his head as that man bore down on him. What could have been going through Jax’s, knowing it was up to him to do something about it?

“That’s why you ran,” I murmur, voice hoarse.

He gives a curt nod. Then his eyes lift, unguarded, and he turns the knife. “You asked Adam where we met.” His lips barely move. “...We met in prison.”

For a moment, I just look at him with narrowed eyes. A confused expression on my face. Adam? Prim, proper and polished Adam Crest? Prison doesn’t fit the man I know. My brain stumbles over the pieces, but it’s not Adam who matters to me. It’s Jax....always Jax.

“They found you? For....for killing him?” The words taste like dirt as I force them out. Jax's gaze doesn’t waver. He blinks once, then shakes his head, small and precise. “No. They arrested me for.... something else. Something equally bad.”

My stomach twists, because I can see the weight in his eyes.There’s more. Just like there was more behind his foster mom’s boyfriend, more behind every scar he wears in silence. And it kills me that he thinks he has to walk through this alone.

“I told you,” he whispers, voice cracking. “I’ve done some awful things.”

I cut him off, firmer than I feel. “The first one was self-defense, Jax. You didn’t have a choice.”

But he’s already shaking his head, stubborn, breaking. “I could’ve stopped. At any point before he died....I could’ve stopped. But I didn’t.”

“Because you were scared,” I fire back, my chest splitting. “Because adrenaline was running you into the ground and all you knew was to fight. That doesn’t make you some cold-blooded killer.” I lean forward, voice heavy with conviction. “It makes you human. Claiming otherwise....it’s a lie you’ve swallowed too long.”

His throat works, his shoulders rigid, and I can’t stop myself. “You know what my mum asked me once? She asked if you were a good person. This was before anything between us. And I told her yes. I didn’t even know you well enough then to say it with reason, but I said it anyway. Because I knew, I knew you were.”

His eyes flicker, searching me. “You’re not even gonna ask why I was in prison ?”

I hold his hand tighter. “Do you want to tell me?”

He shakes his head, gaze darting away, jaw locking.

“Then that’s okay,” I whisper. “We’ll have time for that too. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here.”

His voice comes broken, wrecking me. “How can you be so okay with this? If you were smart, you’d be running as far from me as you can.”

And God help me, all I feel in this moment is the opposite. This brutal tether, this vow in my blood, that there’s nowhere I’ll ever run.

I lift my head, force him to meet my eyes, even as his own beg me not to. My chest is on fire, my pulse a war drum, but my voice comes out like truth itself.

“Jax, you still don't get it?” I shake my head. “There isn’t a place far enough, or safe enough, or clean enough that could ever make me want to be without you. You could tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done, and it would still never touch what I feel for you. So don’t ask me to run. Because the only thing that terrifies me more than your past...” I swallow, my grip on his hand tightening, “...is a future where you’re not in mine.”

His silence cuts sharper than words ever could. The blankness in his eyes is the kind that tells me he’s somewhere else...somewhere I can’t follow, but I’d burn myself alive trying. I shift closer and before I even finish the movement, he’s leaning into me, head finding the crook of my neck. I wrap my arm around him, protective, claiming, and it doesn’t take long before his arms are around me too.

Like he’s holding on for dear life.