Chapter 45 THE SHARKS' DEN

Chapter 45 THE SHARKS' DEN
"That’s what you are wearing to meet him?" Jax asked as he walked into my loft, his voice low. 
He stood by the door with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes burning with a dark, possessive intensity I had never seen before.
I rolled my eyes and looked away from him. 
“Why are you all here watching me like I am a mannequin or something?” I grumbled under my breath, adjusting the strap of my dress.
“Isn’t it better if you wear something less… sexy?” He commented, ignoring my complaints. 
I gave him a teasing smirk through the full length mirror that Mina had brought up to my room. “You think I look sexy?” 
He averted his eyes, scratching the back of his head. “I meant something more appropriate.” 
I caught Mina and Leo exchanging silent looks behind me.
“I told her,” Mina said as she walked up behind me and started brushing my hair. “Si,” she groaned. “At least let me cover the tattoos.”
"Very good idea," Jax said, his voice tight. "Cover the ink on her back. I don’t like the way she looks like a target."
"I am a target, Jax," I drawled nonchalantly. "I am not covering a single line. Kanan wants the Siren. If I show up looking like a debutante, the game is over before I even walk through the door."
“But…” He started.
“Nope.” I cut him off with a flourish. 
Mina threw her hands into the air dramatically before dropping the hairbrush and picking up a makeup sponge. “You are going to a high-end club on the invitation of Kanan freaking Maddox. You cannot show up looking like the devil’s tattooed mistress. It’s not as if you are going to go seduce someone.”
I looked at the dress I had bought for tonight. It was a short, wine colored, backless, sleeveless silk dinner dress. And the design of the dress allowed the tattoos across my shoulders, between my bosom, and on my back to be on full display.
Exactly the way I wanted them.
“Wait,” Leo said from his perch on my bed, squinting at me suspiciously. “You are not planning to seduce someone, right?” 
They all turned to me, waiting for my response. 
“I love the way I look like the devil’s tattooed mistress,” I said instead, admiring my face in the mirror once Mina was done.
“Well fuck,” Mina commented, and she and Leo burst into laughter. 
Jax didn’t join them, though. His eyes slid up my body with a look that made heat crawl across my skin.
His eyes met mine. “Are you carrying?” he asked flatly.
I lifted the bottom of the dress slightly, revealing the small, slim blade strapped to my thigh. “Obviously.”
“That tiny thing won’t help if things take a left turn,” he groused.
“If this goes bad,” I replied, sliding into my strappy heels and grabbing my clutch, “a bigger knife won’t save me either.”
“Hmm, Si,” Leo said, cutting the tension between us. “It’s 6:45 already. Isn’t the meeting time 7 pm?”
I shrugged nonchalantly. “I am not rushing for him,” I said, picking up my clutch and rechecking its contents to make sure I had all I needed. “He shouldn’t have wasted my time and energy that day.”
"I don’t like this," Jax grumbled, walking after me as I descended the stairs to the ground floor. "It’s not safe. Let me drive you. I’ll wait in the car till you’re done.” 
“No.” 
I walked toward the workbench and picked up my keys before turning back toward him. “You hovering outside the club looking like an angry attack dog defeats the purpose of this entire thing.”
“You think I care?” he mumbled, looking like he wanted to reach out and pull me back into the safety of the garage. “What if this was a trap?”
I paused, the rawness in his voice almost softening me.
"Trust me. I’ll be fine,” I reassured him softly. “If by some miracle, Kanan had found out we were behind the attacks, we’d be dead and at the bottom of the river by now instead of having a meeting at his favourite club. That man doesn’t play games. He goes straight for the throat. This is business, Jax. Stop worrying".
A strange look crossed Jax’s face.
Like he was trying to figure out how I knew that so confidently.
I quickly headed outside before he could ask questions. “I’ll be fine,” I said, unlocking the Acura TLX I had recently purchased with some of my award money.
“You don’t know that,” I called out.
Neither did I, but I refused to let fear win now.
Because if I couldn’t stand in front of Kanan Maddox without breaking apart, then everything I’d built as Sienna meant nothing.
I slid into my car and forced myself to give him a faint smile despite the hornets buzzing around in the pit of my stomach. 
“Relax, Jax. Worst-case scenario?” I shrugged lightly. “I stab him and run.”
——
The drive to La Caverna felt like heading toward my own execution. With my palms slick with nervous moisture against the steering wheel, the entire way.
The city blurred around me in rivers of gold light while my pulse hammered so violently I could feel it in my throat.
You wanted this. I repeated over and over inside my head. You wanted to make him vulnerable, get access, then get revenge.
So why did it feel like I was walking willingly back into a grave?
Look him in the eye, I told myself. He is just a man. A devil, but a man.
The valet took my keys with a bow, and as I stepped out of the car, a suited man with a wired earpiece immediately approached me. 
“Miss Sienna?” he asked. 
 Arched a brow at him. “That depends on who’s asking.”
He smiled and gave me a slight bow. “I’m part of Mr Maddox’s security team,” he explained, steering me past the queue at the main entrance to a different, more discreet door. “He has been expecting you.” 
The bouncers at the VIP entrance opened the doors for us, and we stepped into a foyer that was different from the one I had passed through the last time I had been here. 
It was more expensively and classily decorated, unlike the flashy deco of the main entrance. 
He quietly escorted me to a more muted area of the club where the ultra private VIP rooms were tucked.
His eyes unconsciously slid down to my exposed bosom, the tattoos between them making them more eyecatching before he quickly averted his eyes and opened the door. “He’s waiting for you here, ma’am.”
I gave him a polite smile and stepped into a room that smelled of cedar and tobacco. And the familiar perfume.
Kanan sat on the leather couch with one arm stretched lazily across the backrest. He was wearing a dark button-down shirt with the top two buttons undone, revealing the edge of the tattoo at the base of his neck and a gold necklace. 
My throat went dry as my eyes unconsciously followed the chain as it disappeared beneath the shirt, teasing the edge of the tattoo curling up his neck. 
He looked devastating.
Suddenly, it was as if I could feel the muscled body beneath the fabric, and heat rose in me.
In the dim, intimate light, he looked ten times more dangerous than he ever had as my husband. 
Older than the last time I saw him. Harder too. Like life had carved all the softness out of his face and left behind cold, chiselled granite.
His gray eyes slowly slid from my feet up my body till they got to my eyes. 
The room suddenly felt smaller and hotter.
“Miss Sienna," he said finally; his voice was a deep baritone that was raspier than I remembered. "You're late."