Losing Control : His Madness, His Cure Chapter 179

He made me put on some clothes....sweatpants and one of his hoodies, but he didn’t bother with the same. Now we're standing on the same balcony I picked him up from hours before. He's leaning against the wall like the cold doesn’t touch him.

It’s still dark out. I tuck my hands into the hoodie’s pocket, noticing how much it smells like him. When I turn to face him, he’s watching me, his gaze shadowed and steady. I just wait.

I told him earlier he didn’t have to tell me anything, but he said he did. Said if he didn’t, he never would....and I’d keep waiting until I got tired and gave up.

“You’re not cold?” I ask finally. My voice sounds too soft, almost fragile in the quiet.

He doesn’t answer. Just tips his chin, the faintest movement. “Come here.”

It’s barely a step, the distance between us, but it feels like crossing something invisible. I take it anyway.

When I’m close enough to feel the heat off his skin, he leans forward and presses a kiss to my forehead. It’s slow and lingering, like he’s trying to memorize my warmth....the pulse under my skin. Something in my chest aches so sharply I almost forget to breathe.

Then he exhales against my hair and moves me, turning me around gently until my back meets his chest. His arms slide around me, pulling me in, and his hands slip under the hem of the hoodie, fingers spreading over my abdomen.

His breath grazes the side of my neck, and for a second the world feels like it’s holding still. Like it’s just us and the dark and the weight of everything he hasn’t said yet pressing between every heartbeat.

I brace myself without meaning to. And when Jax finally speaks, I hold my breath again.

“He loved Joe....” he says quietly, like it’s a confession that’s been eating through him. “Talked to him more than anyone else.”

His voice is the kind that drags across bone.

“He was wary around him at first. Didn’t trust easily. But with time, Joe earned it.”

He exhales through his nose, a sound that isn’t quite a laugh. “He’d volunteer to do anything at the restaurant if it meant they'd hang out a little longer. For a while..that sadness he carried around started to pull back.”

The words hang between us, heavy and tender all at once. I don’t move.

He gives a small, broken chuckle. “He was so shy, though. God, you’ve never seen someone like that. He’d flinch if you looked at him too long. Couldn’t even take an order without tripping over the words. But he tried. And the people around him....Nate, his brothers....they got it. They never pushed too hard. They just waited. Gave him space until he felt safe enough to step out of it.”

Jax’s eyes flicker. “And Nate made him laugh...really laugh. Like maybe, for a second, he believed the world didn’t want to hurt him.”

I want to turn and look at him. I want to see his face when he says all this. But he's holding me too tightly, that signature grip that keeps me still even when everything inside me wants to move. His thumb flicks over my skin beneath the hoodie, grounding and undoing all at once. So I stay there. I listen. Because that’s what he wants, and right now, it’s all I can do.

“That was the longest we’d ever stayed anywhere. Felt like we finally had something permanent. Like everyone else had.”

He pauses, his thumb still moving absently over my stomach. “Nate and his brothers had already dropped out of school....refused to go back. And no school within a hundred miles wanted anything to do with them after all the shit they'd pulled. Then Joe asked us if we wanted to go back. And we said okay. Mostly because he looked so damn hopeful about it. Like if we said no, it’d break him.”

He gives a quiet, humorless breath. “School meant less time at the restaurant, though. We didn’t like that. But we didn’t complain.”

He falls quiet again, and for a moment I think he’s done. Then his voice drops lower. “Two months after we started school, we came home...back to the restaurant, and Joe was arguing with Dorian. Nate’s oldest brother.”

Something about the shift in his tone makes my stomach tighten.

“The place was closed for repairs. Dorian was working at The Pit, and Joe found out. Was demanding he quit.”

The name makes me tense before I even realize it, and Jax must feel it too, because he leans in and presses a soft kiss to the side of my neck. His thumb drifts lower, tracing a slow circle around my navel. It feels both tender and devastating.

“It was a bad fight. Worse than any they’d ever had. And they always fought.”

He swallows, the sound heavy in the quiet between us. “I could see An...”

He stops. The silence that follows is too long, too fragile. I almost whisper the name for him, almost...but then he exhales.

“Andrew was getting scared. The shouting..... it always made him jumpy. He didn’t like noise. Didn’t like things that felt like they were about to break.”

Jax’s voice starts to crack, the words uneven now. “So I led him to our room at the back. Told him I’d be right back. That I just needed to calm them down.”

His thumb stills against my skin.

“The fight got worse. Joe wouldn’t back down. So I got Dorian out of the restaurant. Thought if I gave him space, it’d stop.”

He starts again after a long stretch of silence, voice quieter now, like each word costs him something.

“We walked a couple of blocks away. Dorian was still pissed, saying Joe kept trying to run his life like he was still a damn kid.”

Jax’s breath hitches, almost imperceptibly. “Then someone passed by. A guy I’d seen around the area a couple times. Didn’t know his name, but I noticed him. He walked right by us and,” Jax swallows hard. “He looked at me. Just....looked. Locked eyes for maybe a second. But I felt it. Like he already knew something I didn’t.”

I can feel it, the way he’s coming undone one breath at a time, every word a thread snapping loose. My pulse is a frantic drumbeat. My chest hurts. I can’t even see his face, but I can feel him breaking.

“Once Dorian cooled off, he told me he had a fight that night. I tried to talk him out of it. Told him maybe he should just let it go, at least for tonight.”

Jax lets out a shaky breath that sounds almost like a laugh. “He told me not to start on him too. Said he didn’t need another person telling him what to do. Then he walked off.”

He goes quiet again for a moment. Then, softer.... “I walked back to the restaurant.”

The way he says it makes my throat tighten.

“When I got there...that guy, the one who’d just passed by us, was standing at the register with Joe. They both froze when I walked in. The guy looked up at me, his face was covered now.... hood pulled low, bandana over his mouth. But I recognized him. I knew exactly who he was.”