by K. J. Dahlen
“I want you to stay here while I’m gone. I’ll swing by your house and pick you up some things and get the lay of the land.”
I lifted fearful eyes to Jax. I didn’t want to ask but I had to. “What if my mom doesn’t believe what happened? What if she thinks I’m lying about what he did to me?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know baby girl, I don’t know but we’ll figure it out. I won’t let that bastard hurt you again.”
I snuggled into his chest again, and knew deep in my heart that Jax would always be there for me.
A few minutes later, he got up and went into the bedroom. When he came back out, he was dressed for the day. Kneeling down in front of me, he put his big hands on my knees. Looking me in the eyes he said, “I want you to be safe here today. No one knows you’re here and that’s for the best. For now anyway. No one should come by here but if they do, I want you to hide. Don’t think about it, just hide.” Grabbing my hand, he pulled me into his bedroom. Hauling me over to the closet, he pushed his clothes over to one side to reveal a small doorway there. Pushing the door to one side, he showed me a hiding place. “It’s not very big but there’s enough room for a person to hide in here.”
“Why is this place here?” I asked.
“You know how an MC works. Sometimes, it’s better to avoid trouble rather than go looking for it. If Roy or anyone else comes here while I’m gone, I want you to get in here and wait for me to come back. You come in here and hide.” He glared at me for a moment then asked, “Got it?”
I nodded. “I got it. But as soon as you get back, we need to talk. I’m not sure I can live like this.”
A few minutes later, Jax left the apartment and I made sure the door was locked but it was too quiet. The silence about drove me nuts as the morning passed slowly. I watched a little TV but the programs sucked and I was worried about what my mother had to say. I wondered about what Jax had found waiting for him at my mom’s house or if Roy had even been home.
Finally, I could hear the church bells ringing in town and I knew it was noon. I got up, walked over to the bay window and looked outside. The rain from last night was gone and the sun was shining. The streets of the town were washed clean while the air was hot and humid.
My troubled mind wouldn’t rest. I hated not knowing what was going on and I wouldn’t admit it to anyone not even myself but I wanted Jax to come home and be here with me.
Finally, I heard a key in the door. I thought about going to the bedroom just in case it wasn’t Jax. I got as far as just inside the bedroom when I peeked out and saw him walking through the doorway.
Letting out a sigh of relief, I joined him in the kitchen. “Well?” I demanded. “How did it go?”
Jax shrugged. “It went.”
“What does that mean?” I frowned. “What did my mom say?”
He turned to stare at me for a moment. “Your mom knows your safe. She doesn’t know where you are but she knows you’re safe.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Jax sighed heavily. “Apparently, your mom got home just minutes after you left yesterday. Roy was drinking and tried to tell her that you kicked him in the balls when he wouldn’t give you the money he had. He got mad when she didn’t believe him and he hit her. She got away from him and called the cops and they came to arrest him. When they hauled him off, he called off the wedding.” He shrugged. “They’ve been together a long time and she’s kind of lost right now. I told her she could do better than him, but I don’t know if she believed me or not. She said it might be best if you didn’t come back for a while.”
I was stunned by the news. “Oh god, what have I done?” I asked as I stumbled over to the sofa and sat down.
Jax came over and sat down next to me. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he insisted. “Roy was the one who almost raped you. He did the wrong thing here, not you. Your mom will see that eventually. Right now, she’s not thinking rationally. But she knows you, hell she raised you. She knows you would never do anything with that bastard.”
“What if she doesn’t though?” I had to ask. “What if she takes him back and he does this to her?”
He looked me in the eyes and shrugged. “Then I kill him.”
I shuddered at the cold glare in his eyes.
Jax slapped my knee. “Are you hungry? I bought us some real food. Come on let’s eat.” He acted like he hadn’t just said he would kill Roy. Like it’d been a natural solution to the problem.
We went back out to the kitchen and began unloading the bags of groceries.
To Jax, cold cuts and chips were real food. I just shook my head as I began making some sandwiches. After we ate and I cleared the table, we went back to the living room and sat on the sofa.
Jax turned on the TV and we watched a movie for a while.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“I’m doing okay.” Although it was a little after one in the afternoon, I felt tired. “What else did you do today?” I asked.
“Club business,” he muttered.
“Was it dangerous?”
Jax shrugged. “No more than usual, I guess.”
I hesitated but I had to know. “How long is Roy in jail? Do you think he’ll be looking for me when he gets out?”
He just stared at me for a moment then nodded. “Yeah baby, I think he’ll look for you when he gets out and word on the street is he got out this morning.”
“How do you know that?” I gasped.
“I did some asking around.” Jax shrugged. “They didn’t know who I was, only that someone was asking. “
“And your brothers?” I asked. “How long are we going to be able to hide who I am and who my father was? No matter how well you cover my tracks now, they’ll find out who I am.”
Jax didn’t say anything, he just pulled me down to lie next to him. We watched TV for a while then we both fell asleep on the couch.
When I opened my eyes a little while later to my surprise, the coffee table was stacked high with an imposing tower of books. Jax was sitting on the floor beside the sofa reading one of the books. I sat there watching him without moving and for a few minutes, I could see the younger guy I’d fallen for all those years ago.
I knew it was wrong but I couldn’t explain the connection I felt for him. Now I knew it couldn’t go anywhere, so I just gathered as much of him as I could get to store away in my memories for later on, when he was no longer in my life.
I knew in my heart that Jax worshiped Bruno and his club. I’d always known that in his youth, he’d gotten into trouble. It had been wild child side of him that always excited me.
God, I had waited a long time to get on the back of that bike of his. I’d see him ride into the diner parking lot and I imagined riding off into the sunset with him. They seemed like impossible dreams back then and now, I knew why. I closed my eyes so the tears of my heartache wouldn’t betray me. Finally, I fell asleep again.
I woke at some interminable time later and sat up suddenly with one of those where-am-I moments. Darkness had fallen and the air had chilled. I must have slept for several hours, as the living room was now dark. I could hear Jax in the kitchen so I got up and joined him. He was reading something on his phone and eating a sandwich. I made myself one and sat down beside him.
He put his phone down and smiled at me. “Finally, awake I see.”
His smile made me pause, dammit he was just so gorgeous. I nodded as I swallowed my bite of food. “Sorry about that. I totally flaked out today.”
“No worries, you needed the rest.”
We rounded off the night with an episode of X Files and a couple of beers. Afterward, we fell asleep on the sofa.
It was entirely dark now, besides the glow of the television on the wall opposite. I had opened my eyes to see Jax’s television turned on to X Files and I switched the television off.
Jax’s body stirred beside me. I heard his voice – mumbling softly under
his breath as he slept. Like someone trapped in a terrible dream.
What the hell is he dreaming about?
A minute later, his body jolted from underneath me. We could hear the noise from the street below and it was annoying. Jax scrambled around the coffee table beside the sofa for a pen and paper and scribbled away furiously on the paper.
I peered at the paper, confused. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Just scribbling,” he muttered.
“Scribbling what?”
“My mind’s just on work that’s all,” he whispered.
Suddenly, Jax’s phone vibrated and he started to type a message to somebody, quickly. His eyes widened. He finally met my eyes. “It’s…uh…just a work problem.” He plugged in a cell-phone cable and set it on the coffee table.
Curious to know what he was up to, I squinted at his phone.
Jax shook his head and shrugged, put the television remote aside and laid down to sleep. “It’ll be ok Chloe. Promise,” he muttered as he closed his eyes.
I finally got up and retired to Jax’s bedroom. With as much sleep as I’d gotten that day, I wasn’t tired so I went to the window overlooking the town and gazed outside.
There wasn’t much happening out there. The streets were pretty quiet. Then the stillness was shattered by the roar of a bike as it pulled up in front of Jax’s building.
Jax came in and over to the window. Peeking out, he saw the biker sitting there watching his apartment. He growled.
The man didn’t get off his bike. He just sat there.
As the light wasn’t turned on he couldn’t see us watching him, but the fact he was out there at all pissed Jax off greatly.
I went over to the bed and laid down. I didn’t know who or what the man was doing down there but I didn’t think it was good.
The night went on that way. I would nod off and then jerk back to consciousness. Every time I woke up, I could see Jax sitting there staring down to the street. I knew he was waiting and watching for something to happen but I didn’t know what that something was.
The final time I woke, I saw the pink light of the morning through the bedroom window, as it was just starting to spread.
Chapter Six
(Jaxson)
Fuck it!
My bike tore along the road by the soft light of early day. It was my day off.
I found myself glancing frequently in the rear-view mirror – half expecting to see Antonio appear to chase me out of town. It was Wednesday. Two days before the election at my club. One of the brothers had staked out my place the night before, so I’m sure Antonio knew exactly where I was heading.
The landscape flashed past as I rode the 35 miles out of town to Tijuana. As it was a border town between California and Mexico, part of the city was on the U.S. side and that’s where I was headed. It was 7:30 in the morning. My heart broke to watch tears build in Chloe’s soft eyes. In the end, I caused that pain; I had to fix it. I had gotten up and dressed quickly so I could leave early while Chloe was still sleeping, partly to avoid her trying to stop me.
I had an axe to grind with Roy.
Roy’s shop was in the same town as the Blood and Bones MC clubhouse and I knew I’d had to be careful not to get caught in their territory or things could turn ugly very quickly for me.
I had a vague idea of where I was going; once I joined my MC, I rarely passed through this neck of the woods, maybe once or twice per year. A drizzly rain hung in the air. I threaded my way through the silent town’s narrow side streets that had all the restaurants, a barrage of fast-food places, coffee shops, and various sundry stores that were just opening up and little gift shops as well. It appeared to be an agreeable town. There was no hint that there might be a wide, more violent world beyond the city limits.
No hint until I passed the railroad yard. By the time I reached this point, the streets were flooded with cars. It was unnerving to pass the Blood and Bones strip joints that lined the town square, in what felt like firm warning that I was trespassing on their territory. Holy fuck. It was a damn foolish thing to come up here alone if at all, but I had no other choice. On the surface, it appeared to be a normal city street – packed with people on their way to work, and lined with small shops on either side. But as I threaded my way through the narrow side streets, steamier places started to pop up and it set me on edge. The closer I got to their bike shop, the riskier the situation became.
I was truly in another world now. Tijuana, California was a working class city. The people that lived and worked here didn’t make a lot of money and it showed in the way they kept their town. Parts of it were dirty and smelled bad while other parts of the city were a little cleaner and didn’t smell so bad. At least some of the people tried.
Just before I crossed the border to Tijuana, I passed the scene of San Diego’s most famous incident, the assassination of Charles De Luca.
The Blood and Bones MC and the Black Devils hated each other with a passion. Our rivalry went back three generations, but we’ve been sworn enemies since 2008. In the winter of ‘08, the Blood and Bones MC torched Bruno’s brother’s warehouse and assassinated him in order to try to take his territory and spread out. Bruno’s brother was such a good man that his death was shocking, and out of the blue. The ugly incident occurred just 3 months before De Luca started the club. De Luca held and got his revenge. Our rivalry had gone on from there. Each incident, each time we came together, the hits got more vicious.
My eyes narrowed. Speaking of vicious, I had reached Roy’s place, a dark and faded establishment still clinging to a hint of former grandness. I parked in the back lot and from where I sat, I could hear Roy working on a bike somewhere inside.
Once I knew where Roy was, I continued on down the hall to check the place out and see if anyone else was about. Roy’s mechanic was singing from beneath the hood of an El Camino, working on the engine.
Where on earth this place got its trade from besides a few Bloods, I couldn’t begin to guess.
I entered through the back door so that no Blood and Bones members would see me. It was early, so I hoped no one would be around yet.
A sign outside the front door read: Roy’s – NO ENTRANCE. WORK BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.
Over the pounding music from the workshop beyond, I could hear someone working on bike. I peeked in and took a look around Roy’s messy office. It only confirmed my original thoughts about the man being a slob. I saw many fast food boxes stacked on top of an already full trashcan and shook my head.
I had only seen Roy a handful of times when he’d come into Mandy’s to pick up some free food. I’d taken an instant dislike to the man. The man in the office was a whiskey-bellied, grim looking man of about 50, with a grey ponytail, dressed extremely casually in jeans that were one size too big with no belt and a shirt almost half way undone.
Roy’s office could only be described as a disaster zone. Stacks upon stacks of paperwork cluttered his desk that could never be conceivably sorted out. Considering the weeks’ worth perhaps months’ worth of disorganised paperwork sprawled over Roy’s desk, the man seemed remarkably equable and was sitting back in his chair spooning a tall stack of pancakes with butter and maple syrup from a takeaway box with his mouth hugely agape and bobbing his head to Women by Def Leppard. His eyes were half open but he paid no attention to anything but stuffing his face with food.
I amused myself for a minute watching him before I stepped into the room and turned the volume dial right down on the CD player that sat on his desk to mute the damn thing, which alerted him to my presence.
When Roy discovered that he had company he jumped up, and his head turned in my direction. “Morning. No customers out back.” He turned the music back up, with seeming disinterest.
I unplugged it from the wall.
“What the fuck! Are you deaf or something?” His face hardened as his eyes locked with mine.
“No, sir,” I said, keeping my voice calm.
“Look if you’re my 9 o’clock fill in this registration form, bike model, problem, all that shit.”
I didn’t answer.
Roy scooped the last of his sugary concoction from the box and then pulled a hip flask out of the top draw of his desk.
“A little early to be dinking, ain’t it?” I asked.
“The stuff doesn’t work on me. Never has. I drink and I drink whenever I want and I don’t feel any different.”
“You sure about that?” I asked, raising a brow at him.
“Yup,” he replied with a relaxed grin, starting at the flask before he downed another swig of whiskey with a swallow. He rolled his chair across to the window to his left, pressed his face up right up to the dusty glass to peer out of his office window that looked out onto the car parking lot.
My bike was the only vehicle there.
“That’s one hell of a ride and some pretty nice metal for a man your age. Customized. Limited- Edition model. That’s a rare breed of bike. What did a ride like that cost you? $40,000?
“Fifty,” I corrected as he rambled on to cover his own nervousness. I could almost feel him starting to sweat.
“So are you my 9 o’clock?”
I shook my head.
“Didn’t you read the damn sign? No one gets in here without an invitation. Do you know that this shop is part of the Blood and Bones MC?”
I shrugged like I didn’t care about his warnings and I didn’t bother answering his question, instead I asked one of my own, “I received a tip at my club’s bar that a girl came in battered and bruised by someone around town. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you Mr. Harris?”
“You have no grounds to come into my garage and accuse me. That’s a lie. Whoever your source is, they’re making it up.” The question didn’t faze Roy in the slightest.
“I won’t have any man touch a woman like that. Not in my town.”
“I don’t have time for your petty bullshit.”
“Chloe is a friend of mine.”
“Ohhh. So that’s how it is.”
