“Miss Millen?”
“This is she.”
“Ace.” A pause then, “Officer Ace Johnson.”
Finally. He had news. It had to be good news. At this point, any news would be good.
She straightened. “Yes, have you found any—”
“No, Alexa. We haven’t, and it got me thinking. Have you had any issues with your neighbor?”
Her brows drew together. “My neighbor?”
“Yes, Dave Roth.”
“He’s more than my neighbor—”
“Right.” His voice tight. “Have you broken up or taken time apart recently? Have you considered it?”
Where was this coming from? And why was it police business?
She swallowed. “How is this related?”
“After the last vandalism, several neighbors reported seeing a dark sedan driving off, but no license plate, probably because it was dark. Even in a small town like this, there’re hundreds of dark sedans. We’ve gotten nowhere meaning we’ve exhausted our leads. That coupled with the fact that you aren’t someone disliked by anyone leads me to believe Roth could be involved.”
No. No way. All Dodge had done was protect her. All his club had done was protect her.
She shook her head. “That’s ridiculous—”
“It would be if he didn’t have a motive, and only you can answer that. So does he, Alexa?”
No. Dodge didn’t. Before she insisted on this, Officer Johnson spoke again.
“If he’s losing you, he could do something to make you think you need him.”
The breath whooshed out of her.
Even as she thought about it, she knew. Dodge wouldn’t. He loved… No, he’d never said it, but he cared about her a lot. He couldn’t possibly be so callous, couldn’t do something so horrible to her, someone he cared about. Besides, they had an issue, but he’d always been so certain he’d get her back. Why resort to scaring her?
“Alexa, you still there?”
“I-I…yes.” She cleared her throat. “I’m here.”
“Has he ever been with you while you’ve gotten a call?”
“Yes, of course.”
They spent a lot of time together, and the calls came five to six times a day.
“The first time your home was vandalized, did you tell him? Is that how he knew? What about the second time? When we showed, he was already there. Did you call him? He could’ve easily vandalized your house then showed before we did to make himself out to be the hero.”
God, no. No, no, no. She’d seen the look on his face, read the fear. He’d been terrified for her. When she got that threatening phone call, he’d been angry he couldn’t get to her. In the middle of the night, his club searched.
She defended him, but she couldn’t deny the calls hadn’t started until she insisted they go their separate ways. Another fact, she hadn’t called Dodge either time her house had been vandalized. He’d shown. Granted, the second time, the vandal woke the whole neighborhood.
Thinking on this, she remembered something else. Dodge called her moments after getting that threatening call. How had he known? The caller said, “I’ll find a way in.” In where? Into her life?
God, Officer Johnson could be right. Dodge could’ve put this into motion, but why hadn’t he stopped when she’d given in to him completely? There was another thing that bothered her. Since she’d decided to give him another chance, they hadn’t yet had sex. Saturday night, she fell asleep on the couch with Cullen. Sunday, he said he needed to meet with the club. She tried to wait up but eventually fell asleep. Monday and Tuesday, he worked late and arrived after she went to bed. He hadn’t left them alone though. Some of the brothers had been parked outside his house. Before he’d been insatiable and with him, so was she. Why hadn’t he made the time? Was the guilt of what he was doing to her eating at him? Was the man she fell in love with capable of doing this to her?
Her stomach rolled, a painful ache in her chest making it hard to think straight. Then the room went hazy.
“If I were you, Alexa, I’d get as far away from him and his gang as possible. You want protection, I can offer you protection.”
Police could, but he didn’t say police. He said he could, and he said it so casually like he hadn’t just ripped her world apart.
Yet this didn’t change the fact that he could be right.
“You have my number. Call me. Anytime, Alexa.” Then he hung up.
Hand clutching her phone, a sob tore from her throat. She slapped her hand over her mouth as tears streamed down her face. Grabbing her purse from the bottom drawer of her desk, she shoved her phone in it, snatched her keys, and ran out of her classroom.
Only one way to find out if Officer Johnson was right.
****
Dodge’s phone buzzed. He straightened making sure he didn’t slam his head under the hood of the Charger he’d been working on and plucked his cell out of his pocket.
Sparing a glance at the caller ID, he slid his thumb across the screen and brought the phone to his ear. “Blaze.”
“Don’t know what the fuck happened.”
His body locked; heart dropped to the pit of his stomach.
“Must’ve gotten another call. I asked her, but she wouldn’t say. Don’t get it. She’s crying bad, Dodge. Not tears, she’s fuckin’ hysterical. All red like she’d been crying for a while.”
His fingers tightened around the phone as he swallowed the bile rising in the back of his throat.
“She just got in her car and drove off. Skim’s following her.”
He clenched his jaw. “You let her drive like that?”
“Tried to stop her, and she got worse. Brother, don’t think you understand how upset she is.”
He didn’t know but could imagine. Without even laying eyes on her, he felt it, a knot in his stomach rising up his chest, puncturing every organ along the way like he’d taken a bullet or several.
He felt at a loss. All he did was try to find who was messing with her, slacking even as a father to make this shit stop. Luckily, Lex stayed with Cul, and Cul didn’t mind one bit. But Dodge had gotten nowhere. His brothers had gotten nowhere. It meant he couldn’t make it stop. His beautiful, snappy, funny Lex, when would he get her back? When would this shit end?
“Where’s she headed?”
“Thinkin’ if she was home, Skim would’ve let you know already.”
“Fuck.”
He needed to find her, had to comfort her. Where would she go? Last time she’d been upset, she drove to her sister’s. He hoped this time that wouldn’t be the case. She had to know better than drive an hour, had to know she could go to him.
He dropped his head, stared at his boots, and dragged his hand through his hair. The worry making it so he could barely breathe.
“Skim’ll keep an eye out for her.”
Blood rushed to his head. “She doesn’t need Skim. She needs me.”
Hearing a whistle, he snapped his head up. Her car pulled into the lot, Skim riding his bike behind her.
“She’s here. She came to me.” He ended the call, tucked his phone in his back pocket while he sprinted across the garage to the parking lot.
She hadn’t yet gotten out. When he neared, he knew why. She was busy wiping her face. He opened her car door. Her head shot to him.
Shit. Blaze hadn’t lied. She wasn’t hysterical, per se, not then, but her makeup was smeared. Her face was blotchy and red, and that redness ran all the way down her neck to her chest.
She drew the big-rimmed sunglasses resting at the top of her head down to cover her eyes.
He ignored the pain slicing through his chest and reached for her. “Baby…”
She flinched away from him. She’d gone to him, but it looked like she didn’t want him. It killed, and he couldn’t play it off. Gut clenching, heart tightening, he couldn’t do anything but stop in his tracks.
She hadn’t missed his reaction. The next instant, she mumbled a half-assed apology. “I�
�I’m sorry. I…” A pause, then, “We need to talk.”
There it was. He meant to nod, but it was more of a swift jerk. He turned, walking inside the garage into the compound. He wanted to go into the first room he found empty, but he didn’t want them interrupted, and Lex liked her privacy. She wouldn’t want anyone listening or seeing her so torn up, so he went all the way up to the second floor to his room.
Holding the door open for her, she walked in. He closed it behind himself, spun, and met her gaze. She dropped her purse on his bed, lifted her sunglasses, and rested them at the top of her head, pulling her hair back partially and revealing her swollen, red-rimmed eyes. He’d seen them before, and still, he hadn’t been prepared to see them again. Like a kick to the balls.
He swallowed thickly. “You get another call?”
“I n-need you to be honest with me. If you’re never honest w-with me again, fine, but right now, I need you to be h-honest with me.” Her eyes welled. “Whatever you tell me, I’ll believe you b-because I trust you, but you have to understand that once that trust is broken, it’s d-dead and there’re no m-more second chances.”
He shook his head. “I—”
“Did you have anything to do with this mess? The calls, the vandalism, that threatening call?”
His heart came to a stop. He heard her wrong, or he’d hallucinated. No way his woman, his sweet, beautiful Lex would think that.
He reared back. “Come again?”
She shut her eyes tightly and took a ragged breath. After a moment, she parted them. “Did y-you tell anyone to call me? Vandalize my h-house? Threaten me? Did y-you do it yourself?”
“No,” he barked the word immediately.
His head throbbed, pulse spiked. Pissed at himself, at her, at the fucked shit that happened to him. That anger would’ve built and built, but the moment he said it, her shoulders slumped, expression transformed, remorse and relief shining through her teary eyes. He would’ve reached for her except not ten minutes ago she’d flinched away. Not to mention, he had no clue where they stood.
Those tears in her eyes fell and stained her face anew. “I-I’m…” Her voice cracked. Her hands went to her stomach, clutching there. “I’m sorry… It’s just… I s-started thinking, and the first time my house was vandalized, you just showed. I hadn’t told you about it, and then days ago, you called me right a-after I got that call and…” She hiccupped. “H-how did y-you know unless…”
Her hands, against her stomach, trembled. “And you haven’t even tried to touch m-me since… All of it made me think that maybe it was possible you orchestrated this. I’m s-sorry. I just let m-myself—”
Sorry. Yeah, he knew. She believed him, but it didn’t change that she thought him capable of it, proved it by asking. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around how she’d come to that conclusion.
“In all that thinking you did, did you consider I have no reason to want to scare the shit outta you?”
With tears streaming steadily down her face, she swallowed visibly. “Everything started after we b-broke up, so—”
Sock to the stomach, no, to the heart.
He winced. “So you thought this was my big plan to get you back?” he screamed, not because he meant to but because what she said was so ridiculous. Did she not know him at all?
Lex wiped her face. “I’m so s-sorry.” She shook her head. “I know I-I shouldn’t have b-believed it. I should’ve…”
He turned away, took three steps, putting distance between them, and ran his hands through his hair. Right then, he couldn’t stand looking at her. Her tears, her agony, he felt it like it was his own, and it was fucking devastating.
She shouldn’t have believed it? How would his sweet Lex consider it? How had her mind even gone there?
Anything he had in his power to do, he did for her. Move the earth, bring her the moon, turn himself inside out… He thought she knew this because every chance he had, he showed her.
Though he had to keep in mind this wasn’t his Lex, this was scared-out-of-her-mind Lex who’d been fucked with for weeks. Even then, his Lex wouldn’t jump to this conclusion. No, she loved him. She didn’t know she said it, but she had.
He faced her and balled his hands so he wouldn’t touch her. He wanted to, but he didn’t know if she’d cringe again, and he couldn’t take that twice in one day.
Tears continued to flow. “I’ve made such bad choices with m-men that it was e-easy for me to believe I h-had messed up again.”
Again, she used the word “believe,” instead of saying she’d jumped to conclusions. Why?
Then bam.
Just like that.
It hit him.
Livid, scorching anger, so hot, he felt the blood pumping through his veins boil. “Someone told you this. Someone made you think this, planted the seed.”
Her eyes widened. “I…I…”
It’d been a guess, but now he knew.
Eyes narrowing, he took a step toward her. “Who?”
She covered her mouth with her shaking hands and shook her head.
“Who?”
She dropped her hands and wrapped her arms around herself. “I c-can’t. I can’t.”
“Who lied to you? Who fuckin’ made you doubt me?”
“Please. P-please, I’m doing it for you. I don’t want you to—”
“Who the fuck was it?”
“It doesn’t matter. I believe you! I love you!”
He stilled, heart clenching, bursting, searing.
She loved him.
She said it.
Willingly.
To him.
He knew it, but there was something about hearing her admit it when she wasn’t asleep that made it real.
No woman had ever said that to him, not even his mother. Lex was the first.
Amazing, so he stayed there staring at her, eating up that beautiful feeling, and it made him feel like a bastard, feeling so good while Lex kept crying. The tears wouldn’t stop. They flowed and flowed silently like they were part of her face.
He swallowed. “Who told you?”
The light went out of her eyes as if her heart broke through them. Instantly, her tears dried. “I’m not telling you.”
He cocked his head. “Bet I can guess?”
Lifting her chin, she held his gaze.
He made a good guess because he thought it through. Not many people didn’t like him, he stayed out of trouble, but most importantly, he looked after his kid and knowing Cullen’s mother, people admired that about him. Lex wouldn’t believe Lilliam after last time so that left, “Officer Wants-To-Fuck-You?”
She didn’t move, but her eyes changed. That hopelessness though still visible faded enough for something else to shine through—fear.
He turned, took two steps, parted the door, and strode out. She ran after him. He heard her telling him to stop, begging him to. When she clasped his elbow, he spun, tore his arm out of her grasp, turned again, and strode through the compound, through the garage. He then hopped on his bike, revved the engine, and drove away.
Before he knew it, he’d parked in front of the police station. Cutting the engine, he heard the roar of bikes. He ignored that too and strolled inside. Officer Asshole desk was in view of the entrance, their eyes locked.
He didn’t make any sudden movements, didn’t even close the distance between them. He knew cops, knew dickhead cops better. That asshole would construe anything as assault. He didn’t need to end up in the slammer. Lex needed him. Cul needed him.
From the entrance, he said loud enough the asshole forty feet away heard, “She believes me ’cause she knows I’d do anything for her, ’cause she loves me.”
Officer Asshole’s gaze hardened.
Dodge glared right back. The door opened and closed behind him. He ignored it and went on. “So I’m here to let you know you were trying to win her, but all you did was fuck with her. That your way to protect and serve? Making a woman who’s been through a fuck ton of shit the pas
t few weeks lose her shit?”
He shook his head. “It is, you did a fantastic job, officer.”
With those parting words, he turned, ignored Trick, Blaze, and Hash standing by the exit, and stormed off.
Chapter Thirty
Eyes swimming, hands shaking, the world spun. Lex couldn’t see the series of cars parked in the garage, couldn’t see his brothers rushing behind Dodge, but she felt, felt her muscles clench, her stomach roll, her heart ache.
God, oh God, what had she done? What the hell to do now? Wait for him to get arrested? Wait for his call to bail him out? No, that would never happen. That indomitable male pride of his wouldn’t let him ask anything like that of her.
She should’ve known better than to trust that officer. She should’ve trusted herself, what she knew to be true, that Dodge cared about her even if now she knew he didn’t love her.
That hurt the most—blurting something she couldn’t have held in much longer while staring straight at him and seeing nothing. No pride, no relief, no excitement, no smile—nothing, like she’d said the simplest, most mundane thing.
She needed a break from her life. As of late, it’d become too much to handle.
Lex grabbed her keys from her back pocket where she’d tucked them, walked to her car, and hopped in. She heard her name called and ignored it. She didn’t need to be babysat every second of every day, not by the brothers of the man she loved who didn’t love her. That wasn’t fair to him, but at that moment, she didn’t care.
She shoved the key in the ignition, and the engine rumbled to life. Backing out of the parking space, she sped off. Driving out of town, she looked in her rearview mirror. No one had followed. Whether it was because Dodge told them not to or because she lost them, she had no clue.
Lex didn’t care about that either. In fact, she preferred it this way. She needed to be alone. The fact that she’d left her purse and phone in Dodge’s room at the compound meant no one would call. She hadn’t known where she planned to go but somehow ended up at the beach. Taking off her shoes, she walked up and down the shore alone trying not to think about anything. After watching the sun go down, she decided it was time to head home.
Not a minute after entering Wadden, a bike tailed her. At the next light, another joined and then another. She pulled onto her drive with three bikes behind her car.
Riding Hard (Hell Ryders MC Book 4) Page 26
