Dance for Me

by Kay Elle Parker

  “Bodie’s clock is still ticking, Braun.”

  He said nothing. As the minutes passed by, the room shrouded in silence punctuated only by the sounds of life outside the open doorway, he wondered how much time she had left before that damned clock wound down.

  *

  Two more hours passed before the doctor graced them with her presence.

  Exhaustion weighed heavy on Braun, and he was half-asleep in an upright position when Connie gently roused him with a shake of his arm. He blinked himself awake, squinting at the woman crouched in front of him in bloodied green scrubs.

  She looked as tired as he felt.

  “Mr. Fitzpatrick, I’m Doctor Faraday. We met earlier.”

  Braun cleared his throat, barely stopped himself from scrubbing his hands over his face. “Yes, I remember. I...Bodie?”

  “The surgeons are just finishing up. Boadicea gave us some trouble during surgery, but she’s alive. We’ve had to give her several blood transfusions, and she’s got a rough road ahead of her, but we’re satisfied she’d heading in the right direction for the moment. The internal bleeding posed an issue, but that’s now under control.” Her lips pursed, then she sighed. “Our team of orthopedic surgeons have been working on the injuries to her legs and arm. She’ll be wearing a cast on her arm and left leg for a few weeks.”

  Ice shot down his spine. “The right leg?”

  Her expression was grim. “The break was more severe than anticipated. We’ve had to piece it back together with several pins and a metal plate. Your friend’s quick actions in the field undoubtedly saved her foot. Boadicea may require further surgeries in the future to keep the leg functioning, but we’re confident she’ll have close to a full range of normal movement.”

  Pins and plates, Braun thought and let it seep in. “But she’s a dancer. She loves to dance. It’s not just her job, it’s her escape from reality.”

  Regret flickered in hazel eyes. Faraday laid her hand on his, squeezed gently. “I’m afraid her reality is changing. The severity of the break has left the bone weakened. While the pins and plates will hold her weight for non-strenuous activities such as walking, I’m sorry to say the odds of her dancing again are little to none.”

  Connie squeaked in distress.

  Braun just stared at the doctor, sickness churning his belly. “Physio?”

  “Physical therapy is something she’ll need. The team will come by in a few days and sit down with her, discuss her options and what needs to be done in order to make her recovery easier.”

  “When...when can I see her?”

  “We’ll take her to the ICU when she’s out of surgery. I wouldn’t imagine you’ll be able to visit her before morning. My advice would be to go home and get some sleep, but from previous experience, I know you’re not going to take it. I’ve got to get back, but I’ll ask the nurses to keep you updated through the night.” Faraday pushed to her feet. “If you have any questions, ask one of the nurses. If they can’t answer, they’ll get in touch with me and I’ll do my best to respond quickly. You have an extraordinarily strong woman, Mr. Fitzpatrick. This will shock her, but she’ll bounce back.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” he murmured.

  Jesus fucking Christ. The prospect of losing her lightened, fluttered away to hover in the back of his mind. He didn’t think it would ever leave him now he’d almost suffered the loss, but it wasn’t the sole weight on his shoulders now. It was replaced by the haunting sense of grief for her talent, for her passion.

  How the hell was he supposed to tell her she’d never flow with the music again? That her father had not only come close to ending her life, but had succeeded in crushing her dreams of dancing?

  He’d rather bite his tongue off.

  Abraham.

  Braun shoved to his feet. The furnace of his temper was roaring, prodded into life once more, and the fires of vengeance were burning too hot to extinguish. He faced his friends, the Masters of Avalon, and their faces mirrored his fury, his devastation.

  “Atticus, we have a job to do.” His voice was low, hoarse.

  “Braun, this is the wrong time to consider doing anything stupid.” Connie gripped his arm, her eyes intent on his, but there was no stopping him now. “Bodie needs you here more than she needs you running around out there trying to right a wrong you had no control over.”

  He shook her off, as carefully as he could manage. “I’d say this is the perfect time to do something. He damn near killed her, Connie. We were a hair’s breadth away from burying her six feet under the fucking ground. Now she’s left with a ruined leg and months of pain ahead of her. Where I come from, an eye for an eye isn’t just a quote from the New Testament; we fucking live by it. I’ve not lived in the country of my birth for a long time, but that’s something I find astonishingly apt right now.”

  Atticus stepped up beside him, phone in hand. “You can’t win this one, Connie. I’m standing by Braun on this. The fucker hurt our little girl, and it’s not the first time he’s beaten a woman to death.” He waggled the phone. “I did some digging via some contacts of mine. Abraham McGee is the scum of the earth, and his wife’s just as bad. We’ll be doing the world a favor.”

  “For fuck’s sake.” Connie yanked on her hair. “With that reputation, how the hell do the two of you think you’re going to do this? You’re Doms. Not assassins.”

  “Three.” Jasper spoke up from behind them. “Three of us, and we’ll do whatever it takes to make this nightmare come to an end. It’s not happening again. They don’t get another chance to do this to Bodie a second time, or to anyone else.” Still seated, Jasper patted Anarchy's head. “Close your ears, little girl.”

  Anarchy’s eyes were fierce when she gazed up at him. “Let me help.”

  “See? Now we’re dragging innocents into unscrupulous activities!” Connie threw her hands in the air. “I love you guys, but you’re not white knights galloping across a barren wasteland to avenge the damsel in distress. You may think your cocks are swords, but they’re not. All you’ll end up doing is rotting in an unmarked grave somewhere!”

  Loki rose from his chair, Liam right beside him. “Five against one ought to even the odds.”

  Braun shook his head. Liam wasn’t in the right frame of mind to tie his own goddamn shoelaces. The boy was wrecked, shaken down to the soul, and Braun appreciated that. His best friend, a woman he’d known and loved for years, had almost died—loving her for weeks and nearly losing her had fucked with Braun’s head, so he dreaded to think what it had done to Liam.

  “Liam’s staying here. He’s too well known to the family, and if there’s any backlash off this shit, it’s not coming down on him or his family. No arguments, boy,” he snapped when Liam tried to object. “You’re in no fit state for this. I want you here in case Bodie wakes up.”

  Incensed, Connie puffed herself up to her full height. “If Liam’s staying, I’m going. No, don’t you argue, mister,” she snarled, jabbing Braun in the chest. “Someone who isn’t jacked up on testosterone and revenge needs to make sure you don’t pull some insane shit and end up spending the next twenty-five years of your life in a prison cell with a hardass named Bruce.”

  Braun laughed. “And what exactly do you intend to do? Glare him into surrendering to the cops?”

  She bared her teeth. “Ways and means, Braun. I can have any one of you on your knees, crying like a bitch and begging for your mother, in thirty seconds.”

  Dominance rammed headfirst against dominance as they went nose to nose. An impressive standoff by anyone’s standards, Braun mused, but one Connie wouldn’t win. He had righteous fury at his back, a need for blood he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

  “Stay. Here.” He ordered, thickening the words.

  “No. You want to leave me and drive off on your macho boys' adventure, go right ahead. I came here in my own car and you can bet your last cent I’m fucking capable of tailing you. I go where you go—think of me as the angel on your shoulder, whaling on
the devil telling you to act like selfish, irresponsible fuckwits.”

  Time was wasting, and Braun wasn’t going to let Abraham live a moment longer than he had to. The man couldn’t be allowed to breathe the same air as his Bodie. “Fine, you want to come, keep up.”

  Jasper stood, tracing a line around Anarchy’s jaw. “Go home, kitten. Forget this ever happened.” His fingers brushed her lips and she patted them for him. “Thank you for coming. I don’t know how you knew, but I appreciate it.”

  She blushed brilliant red. “I was waiting for you at the club when Mistress Connie got the call. I know it’s closed on Mondays but I was hoping you’d be there so we could talk. When she said your name, I followed her, thinking maybe you wouldn’t mind me being here.” Her fingers twisted nervously. “I know it was wrong, but I hung around in the hall for a while before I got the courage up to see if you were in here.”

  “Stalking and eavesdropping,” he said sternly. “We’ll definitely be having words about that. Later. Now, make sure you get home safe.”

  She looked insanely happy at the prospect of having words. “Would you mind if I stay for a while and keep Master Liam company? It doesn’t feel right, leaving him on his own.”

  Jasper frowned. “Liam? Would you like some company?”

  Exhausted and resigned to the fact he’d effectively been sidelined, Liam sank into a chair. “Yeah, sure I guess. Company might be nice. I’ll look after your subbie for you, J.”

  Braun noted with interest that Jasper didn’t refute the your subbie. “Well then, now that everyone’s taken care of, let’s move. I want to be back here before Bodie wakes up. Atticus, can you use your friends, get an address?”

  “Already taken care of. Twenty minutes from here.”

  “Oh, that’s not going to look suspicious to the cops,” Connie muttered in exasperation. “The asshole ends up dead, and the prime suspects are twenty minutes away, with no alibi. Yeah, we’re all about to end up in orange jumpsuits, trying not to get shivved by the top dogs in the exercise pen.”

  “Look on the bright side, Con,” Loki said cheerfully as they filed out of the room. “Maybe the dedicated and hardworking individuals who run our police department will have abandoned their donuts and arrested the bastard already.”

  She sighed in disgust. “Orange really isn’t my color.”

  *

  Half an hour later, Braun’s plans of vengeance stuttered to a screaming halt. He peered through the windshield from his shotgun position at the patrol cars parked haphazardly over the street, blue lights flashing. Three of them, which told him something bad was going down.

  “We sure this is the right place?” he demanded of Atticus.

  “That’s the house. My sources don’t fuck things up.”

  Connie piped up from where she was sulking in the backseat. “What the hell do you do, Atticus?”

  “All manner of bad and sinful things, Connie. You don’t want to know. Shit, they’re cordoning off the place. That’s not just the cops arresting him; someone’s dead in there.” A blue sedan cruised passed the truck, pulled up behind one of the marked units. “Bet your ass that’s a homicide detective.”

  Sincerely pissed, Braun ground his teeth as two men exited the vehicle in plain clothes. Both middle-aged. One with a neatly trimmed beard, the other smooth-shaven. “What the fuck? This can’t be a coincidence.”

  Atticus tapped his finger on the steering wheel. “Want me to go find out?”

  Connie snorted. “Like they’ll tell you anything about an active homicide, if that’s what it is. They’re legally bound not to discuss these things. Maybe we should just be grateful they’re not here to investigate us.”

  Atticus glanced over his shoulder. “There’s legally bound and then there’s professional courtesy. Wait here, I won’t be long.” Moving far too fast for a beast of a man, he slipped out of the truck and strolled, bold as brass, down the sidewalk.

  “Professional courtesy? I didn’t know he was a cop!” Connie spluttered.

  “He’s not,” Loki said easily, kicking back as best he could in his seat. “Atticus is a jack of all trades, has his fingers in every pie imaginable. You need information or someone to kick the shit out of a bad guy, that’s your man. All on the side of the good and righteous, Connie, before you get your G-string in a knot.” He snickered. “Guess you could call him a white knight, galloping across a barren wasteland with his cock swinging like a sword.”

  Braun choked on a laugh despite the knowledge slowly sinking into reality. The noises the Mistress made were akin to an old tea kettle left too long on a stove top. “Careful, lad, you’re confined in a very small space with a woman who tortures cocks and balls for fun.”

  “I’ll die a happy man, remembering this look on her face.”

  “Stop it, all three of you.” Stuck between the bickering pair, Jasper glowered at both Loki and Connie. “You’re Dominants, for God’s sake. Anyone would think you’ve just been released from kindergarten.”

  On the sidewalk, Atticus had caught up with the two men, hailing them with a friendly lift of his tree trunk arm. They turned, assessed him, then the bearded one grinned in recognition. “Goddamn it, does he know everyone?”

  “Told you,” Loki replied with a grin and a wink for Connie. “Atticus is the Wikipedia of people.”

  As Connie snarked back at him, Braun narrowed his eyes and wondered if it was too late to learn how to lip read. Bearded cop was engaged in serious conversation now, while the smooth-faced detective had carried on walking and had reached the uniformed officers unravelling tape around the front of the two-story house.

  It didn’t appear to be a bad neighborhood. It certainly wasn’t what Braun had expected in a crime boss's choice of home. They weren’t quite on the outskirts of the city, but far enough the rurality was beginning to creep in.

  This particular street consisted of eight large properties, all double-story, with a good expanse of garden. Plenty of trees, bushes, greenery to give it the illusion of rural living.

  The big difference between here and Bodie’s apartment was the people. Even now, lights were flicking on behind closed curtains, and people came out of their houses in their robes or, in the case of one or two men, just jeans. Drawn to the blue lights swirling patterns over their windows, sucking them in like moths.

  No one had even bothered to twitch a curtain at Bodie’s complex.

  It sat like acid in Braun’s stomach. Thick, bitter acid burning through his guts. Surely someone had heard her car window smash. Someone should have heard the fight, heard her cry out, through those pathetically thin walls.

  Yet no one had called the cops.

  No one had gone to her aid.

  They’d left her to die, just as brutally as her father had.

  Fear was no excuse. It would only have taken a minute to call the police with an anonymous tip. Maybe if someone had done so, his girl would be facing a future with dance and music in it.

  And if you’d gone with her, if you’d stopped her from going by herself, if you’d been faster, it wouldn’t have happened at all, his subconscious mocked.

  “That was quick,” Jasper said quietly.

  Braun jerked back into the here and now, balancing his thoughts as Atticus strolled back to the truck with his hands in his pockets.

  He slid back into the driver’s seat, closed the door, then looked at Braun. “Good news or bad news?”

  A chorus of conflicting “Good news!” and “Bad news!” came from the back seat, followed by Jasper’s curt, “Will you shut up before I take a bullwhip to you both.”

  The fury in Braun’s veins died. He rubbed his hands over his face, then dropped them in his lap. “Fucker’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah. No blood on your hands tonight, boss. 911 call came in from a young woman claiming to have shot her parents. Babbled on about years of abuse. Dispatch has it all recorded, so I’ll see if I can get my hands on the transcript. Uniformed officers responded,
found the scene as described, called in homicide.”

  “A young woman?”

  Atticus nodded. “Disabled, wheelchair-bound. From the description given to Hennessy, the homicide cop, by the first responder, she’s a mess. Depending what they find inside and during the investigation, he thinks it’s going to be a case of self-defense. He’s gonna give me a call when they wrap it up.”

  Bodie’s sister. It had to be. Before now, he’d had no love toward any of her family. The way Bodie spoke about them—including her sister—led him to believe she thought they hated her. She’d been right about her parents, but maybe she’d be proved wrong about her sister.

  “Alicia,” he muttered. “Her name is Alicia.”

  “Well, Alicia did us a goddamn favor.” Jasper said it bluntly. “She killed two psychotic individuals. Now we just need to hunt down the second person, the one riding the other bike, and finish this thing with a big, bloody how so we can move on and figure out what’s the best step forward.”

  “Got a theory on that, one you’re not gonna like,” Atticus said thoughtfully, his gaze resting back in the house which was now a centerpiece for the locals. The neighbors were out in force, eager to catch a glimpse of whatever tragedy had struck in their midst. “Can’t see them from here, but there’s two motorbikes stashed by the house. Can’t say for certain but I’m pretty damn positive they’re the ones we passed on the road.”

  “Both of them? Here?”

  “Oh my God,” Connie whispered. “Atticus, you can’t think...”

  “Caught up yet, boss?”

  “The mother. You think Bodie’s mother was the second rider?”

  The big man nodded slowly. “Might be I’m jaded, but I’d guess so. Which means her mother and father were the ones to beat her.”