to play Porter tonight.”
“Or maybe you just don’t want her to be ready?” Jax challenges.
“I really don’t think she is, either,” I say, stuffing my hands into my back pockets.
Hunter gives me a suspicious, knowing look, to which I respond with a dirty glare.
“Yeah, you might be right,” Jax caves.
“What?” Hunter exaggeratedly widens his eyes. “Did you just say I’m right?”
Jax completely ignores him. “She’s very innocent. At first, I thought it was an act, but I don’t think it is now, and now I’m wondering if she’s going to be able to pull this thing off with Porter at all.”
“You still think that after what Hunter and her did?” My irritation shows in my voice, and it pisses me off.
“I do,” Jax tells me then glides his gaze to Hunter. “But he probably knows better than I do.”
We both look at Hunter for conformation. The fucker drags his hand across his mouth, I think to conceal a smile.
“That was definitely her first real kiss,” he says after lowering his hand. “Not that it was a bad kiss … It was just so …” He presses his lips together. “New. For her, anyway … She tasted damn good, though.”
My jaw ticks while Jax stares at him with an indecipherable look on his face. I expect him to chew Hunter out for that little remark, but he surprisingly doesn’t.
“Guess it’s probably a good thing you think that,” Jax finally says. “Because you have about eight hours to teach her how to seduce Porter enough to convince him to fuck her.”
Hunter’s eyes widen. So do mine.
“What?” we both say.
“She’s not going to be able to do that, man,” Hunter says with a huge amount of confidence.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Jax picks up his drink and down it in three gulps before setting the glass back down. “It doesn’t really matter. We don’t really need her to fuck Porter. He just needs to believe she will so she can get him into a bedroom and drug him.”
“You want Raven to drug Porter? That’s your brilliant plan to get information from him?” Hunter questions flatly. “And if she gets caught drugging him, the Aversonlys will destroy her.” As Jax’s lips part, Hunter holds up his hands. “And before you start in on your whole I-don’t-really-give-a-shit speech, let me remind you that Raven’s part of our group now, so we owe her protection, something I’ve stressed to you several times. Plus, if she is the girl from our past, then …” He pauses a beat to take an uneven breath. “Well, we owe her more than protection.”
“We don’t know if she’s the girl yet. We need to look into that more. But you’re right about her being part of our group, which is why we’re gonna use this when she drugs him.” Jax walks over to remove one of the portraits hanging on the wall. Behind it is where one of our many safes are hidden. But out of all the safes, this one contains some of my least favorite stuff.
“Goddammit,” I grumble. “Do we have to do it this way?”
“We do if you wanna make sure Porter doesn’t remember anything about what Raven—or us—do to him,” he says as he spins the combination to the safe. “And we do if we want to meet our deadline with getting the info to our bosses.”
I’m conflicted, which is a new feeling for me. On the one hand, I know we need to do this in order to get the info so we can keep up on our end of the deal and be able to leave this hellhole when we graduate. On the other hand, guilt prickles under my skin. It pisses me off. Well, mostly. Honestly, it kind of confuses the hell out of me.
Jax reaches into the safe and removes a glass vial filled with a clear, almost crystal-like liquid, and then another that’s filled with Sleeping Kiss.
“You wanna use the Forget Me Not and Sleeping Kiss?” I question. “If we mess up the dosage even a little bit, we could end up killing him.”
“We have to use both—one to knock him out, and the other to erase his memory of what we’re going to do to him.” Jax wraps his fingers around the vial. “And if he dies, technically, Raven will be the one responsible for his death.”
“You’re such an asshole.” Shaking his head, Hunter strides for the door.
“Where are you going?” Jax calls out after him.
He grips the doorknob. “I’m going to go