by Jayne Blue
“It’s time to go to war, brother.”
Chapter Seven
Ava
The trouble with having friends who know you well is that they know you too well sometimes. I got through a slow shift at the hospital last night and slept through most of the day without processing what happened with Dex. It still mostly felt like a dream. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen, but maybe if I didn’t let it in, I could save myself from feeling it. Dex was back, but it didn’t change anything. We were over. I’d moved on. I couldn’t let him shake things up again. But now Joleen stared across the kitchen table at me, tapping her fingers against the glass.
“I know you went to the Wolf Den last night,” she said. “You didn’t want to talk about it at work and I get that. Now you need to spill it. My poor heart can’t take the suspense. What happened, Ava? What’s got you looking so miserable?”
I dropped the spoon into my Captain Crunch and sat back in my chair, folding my arms in front of me. She had her chair turned backwards and rested her chin on the back. I hated when she did that. I liked things neat and orderly. Chairs pushed in when not in use. She blew a fuzzy brown curl out of her face and shot me her killer smile. She had skin smooth as porcelain and a deep dimple in her right cheek. She arched a brow at me and tapped her fingers some more.
“Did you see Sly?” she pressed. “Is there finally something going on between the two of you?” She kept her voice light, like she was curious in a positive way. I knew her just as well as she knew me though. Joleen would have probably shoved my spoon through my throat if I actually said I planned to move in on Sly. I’d tried to disabuse her of her romantic notions regarding him for years. Sly was way too much of a player and Joleen wasn’t cut out for club life. Hell, neither was I.
“I saw him,” I said. I couldn’t avoid the subject any longer. Talking about it was going to hurt almost as bad as living through it. Dex was back. If I hadn’t pulled myself together yesterday, who knows what would have happened between us. Well, I knew exactly what would have happened between us. My heart and body betrayed me at just the fleeting thought of it, sending fresh heat zinging through me and settling between my legs.
“And?” Joleen made a circular motion with her hand.
“And. Dex McLain is back.” I winced when the words came out, as if I could brace myself against the pain of what they might mean.
Joleen slammed her chair forward, making the front legs (or actually the back legs on account of how she had it turned) smack against the ground with a thud. “What do you mean, he’s back? Like transferred to another prison out here?”
I shook my head. “Back as in set free. I saw him yesterday.”
Joleen smacked her palm against her forehead. “Why. In. The. Hell didn’t you say something?”
I shut my eyes tight then opened them again. “There’s nothing to tell. I saw him. It shocked me a little. I came to work.”
“Ava. I know you and I weren’t as close as we are now back then. We’d just met. But he was your one. You were a wreck when he went away. Hell, you pretty much joined the army to get over him! Uh. You pretty much got yourself deployed to Iraq rather than stick around here and be reminded of him.”
I slid my bowl of cereal to the side and folded my hands on the table. “I didn’t join the army because of Dex.” I was ready to launch into a diatribe defending my life choices but Joleen’s palm held out in front of me stopped me.
“Let’s not,” she said. “I don’t want to waste time giving you a hard time about what you choose to tell me. My point is, I know he’s important to you. I’m trying to ask what happened and if you’re okay. That’s all.”
I smiled. “I love you.”
She flapped her hand at me and nodded. “I know. And I’d love all the juicy details, but it’s cool if it’s too heavy for you to talk about.”
I rested my chin against my arm. “I don’t even know what to say about it, Jo. He wasn’t ever supposed to get out. He was in there on federal RICO charges. Kingpin stuff. It was a life sentence. It ripped the club apart for a while. Hell, it could have ripped the town apart if Sly hadn’t been able to keep things under control.”
“Do you know what happened? I mean, he ... uh ... isn’t on the lam, is he?”
“No. And I don’t know all of the details. There was new evidence that exonerated him. He didn’t elaborate and it’s probably better if I don’t know anyway.” God. I was already doing it. I was already talking and thinking like Dex had trained me all those years ago. Don’t ask too many questions about the club. Don’t talk about it to other people, you never know who might be listening.
“So it’s over.” Joleen reached across the table and patted my arm. “He’s out for good?”
I squeezed my eyes shut again. It wasn’t just that I hadn’t wanted to talk about this with Joleen after yesterday. It’s that I didn’t want to work it through in my own head. Dex was out for good and my world was in jeopardy of being turned upside down all over again. I couldn’t let that happen. Dex didn’t do what they accused him of. I’d known that all along. But trouble followed the Great Wolves M.C. and Dex was usually at the center of it. I’d put it all behind me. I couldn’t risk the heartache and misery that was sure to follow just for the fleeting pleasure his body gave me.
“Sly says he’s out for good.”
“Sly says? What does Dex say?”
A slow blush crept into my cheeks and I tried to cover it before Joleen saw it. Too late.
“Ava, you didn’t.”
I sat up, rose to my feet and cleared my cereal bowl from the table. “I didn’t,” I assured her.
“Hmm. But just barely if the look on your face is any indication. I want to meet this guy, Ava. I’ve seen his picture on the wall at the Wolf Den. And I’ve seen the one you keep in your room that you don’t think anyone knows about.”
That stopped me short. In our brief, eight-month relationship, there was only one picture in existence of Dex and me. If I’d known our time together would end so quickly, maybe I would have taken more. I kept that picture under a layer of old newspaper I used to line my underwear drawer. I sputtered in response, the various scenarios that would put Joleen in a position to snoop through my panty drawer made my head hurt. I set my bowl in the sink and laid my hands on the stainless steel countertop.
That picture. Sly had taken it. Neither of us had been aware of the camera at the time. Dex was leaning against a wooden pillar on the old Wolf Den building with me in his arms. He’d opened his leather jacket and folded me in it, holding me against his chest with my back to him, his forehead resting on the top of my head. He’d said something to me. I don’t remember what, but it had made me smile. It was probably something dirty he’d whispered into my ear. He looked down at me with such tenderness in that photo. It captured so much of what we were together back then.
As I leaned against the sink I knew that’s all I could handle from him. Just a good memory in a photograph that I kept hidden away. I’d become something so different in the years that had come between us. I was stronger. Wiser. I’d survived actual combat and missing him. I was healed. I couldn’t let him rip open old wounds and go through it all again.
“I don’t think I’m going to see him again,” I said, turning to Joleen.
She came into the kitchen and leaned against the opposite counter. “Well, if you’re both planning to stay in Green Bluff, that’s going to be pretty tough to avoid. Have you talked to Chris about any of this?”
Chris. Shit. Chris. I hadn’t given a single thought to him in over twelve hours. We’d only gone on those two dates together. Except the last one ended with me tipsier and hornier than I planned and I’d let him fuck me in the back seat of his car. Just like some bad prom date. God. It had only happened three days ago. We weren’t at the point where I felt I owed him any explanations about an old boyfriend. But despite my action speaking to the contrary, I didn’t normally sleep around. S
tuff like this was exactly why I liked order in my life. Chaos screwed everything up. Sleeping with Chris was chaos. Dex McLain was chaos.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, thinking it through at the same time I answered. “Dex is in the past. I’m not going so far as to say Chris is my future. It’s too soon to make that kind of a statement. I don’t expect him to clue me in on his old girlfriends so ... no ... this isn’t something I need to run and tell him about.”
Joleen nodded. “Glad to hear you say that. But you need to tell him something. Chris called me yesterday wanting to know why you’re dodging his calls and texts.”
Ugh. I crashed my head to the countertop. I had to do something about Chris, even if it was just to tell him I needed space to figure out what I wanted. If only I could get the memory of Dex’s lips sliding down the column of my throat and heading lower out of my head.
“Get dressed.” Joleen turned and walked out of the kitchen. “Our shift starts in twenty minutes.”
***
Any hope I’d harbored that work would be a welcome respite from the inside of my head was shattered at 8:03 that evening. That’s when Dr. Louis Brancheau decided to grace the E.R. with his presence. He had a pattern of degrading nurses, talking down to patients and generally lowering the morale of the entire department.
I stood patiently, gritting my teeth listening to him berate me about how to start an IV line while a two-year-old girl laid limp on the gurney in the aftermath of a doozey of a febrile seizure. In his arrogance, he started an arterial line instead and jokingly told the kid’s distraught parents, “It’s okay, she might need one of those too before she gets out of here.”
“I think we’ve got it from here, doctor,” I said, plastering on my best diplomatic smile. “Why don’t you let me call you after we get her settled into a holding room?”
Brancheau snorted at me but mercifully left the room. I set about unfucking his mess and got the girl started on a valium drip the right way. Then I talked her parents through the next few minutes as they watched their daughter finally fall asleep.
Brancheau left me alone for most of the rest of the shift but I had to deal with two crying nursing assistants, four pissed-off patients and the mess he made of my intake system.
“How many hours until seven?” I muttered through tight lips as Doyle, my favorite intern, walked by. He had two bright red splotches at the center of each cheek. I knew him well enough to know that meant he was holding in some serious anger. Yet another victim of the Great Andrew Brancheau, M.D. As brutal as he was with the nursing staff, he was even harder on interns.
“Fuck,” Doyle sputtered. “Too many. It’s just after eleven. And I’m on until noon tomorrow.”
I patted Doyle’s back. He was a sweet kid. Twenty-eight years old and he’d already lost most of his blond, wispy hair.
“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” I said. “Our job here is to pretty much keep Brancheau from killing anyone. I know you’re up to the challenge.”
“Ava,” he said. “When are you going to finally agree to leave all of this behind and fly away with me on my Gulfstream?”
I laughed. This was a running joke between Doyle and me. We knew the “rich doctor” stereotype was a fantasy. Doyle was up to his ears in student loans for a job that was shockingly low pay nowadays.
“Get in line, sistah!” Misty walked between us and planted a fat sloppy kiss on Doyle’s cheek. He grabbed her by the waist and spun her into a low dip. Yep. Dr. Doyle Wayne—he of the two first names—was one of the good ones. Misty the Man-eater was all wrong for him. The twinkle in her eye when he finally let her up reminded me that I was going to have to fix Doyle up with someone suitable before he got himself into major trouble.
The radio squawked at the nurse’s station and Misty stepped around me to get to it. I didn’t like the look on her face when she talked to the EMT on the other end.
“Not another car pileup,” Doyle muttered. “That will make three this week.”
I gave Doyle a knuckle knock to share his concern. This particular phase of full moons had been extra deadly this time around.
“Bring ’em on in,” Misty said, talking into the receiver.
I arched a brow at her when she didn’t fill us in right away.
“Oh.” Misty smiled, talking to both me and the EMT on the other end. She mouthed the words, “It’s Cal.”
She nodded and jotted notes while Cal talked in her ear. “Sorry. He’s about two minutes out. Stabbing victim outside the Great Wolves Gym.”
My heart tripped. Stars swam in front of my eyes. “What is it a club member? How bad does he say it is?”
Misty said some words but I couldn’t hear her over the blood roaring in my ears. I reached over her and took the receiver from her.
“Cal?” I practically shouted. “Cal, it’s Ava. What’ve you got?”
“Stabbing victim,” Cal answered. “Lost several units in the field. You need to page whoever’s on call from surgery. The knife’s still in his chest and he’s got multiple stab wounds to the abdomen and right hand where he tried to deflect it.”
“Is it a club member?” My mouth went dry. Joleen was suddenly in front of me. The receiver went choppy and I couldn’t hear Cal’s answer.
It was Dex. I knew it. My heart knew it. Of course it was Dex. He was back. There were consequences to that. There always were. This is how these things worked. He came back into my life just to be snatched away again before I even had a chance to talk to him about anything real.
“Ava.” Joleen took the receiver and put it back in its cradle.
“It’s Dex,” I said. Color drained from Joleen’s face as well.
She nodded and set her mouth into a grim line. “Prep Exam 1,” she yelled out, but Doyle and Misty were already on the move.
Two minutes later the ambulance bay doors open and my world shattered into a million pieces all over again.
Chapter Eight
Dex
The transition was going to be tougher on Billy than Sly had let on. I could see it in his face. We spent the day going over books. Sly planned on calling a meeting in the morning so he could lay out what he wanted for the next few weeks. Bottom line, he wanted me to learn the business inside and out. I was going to meet with suppliers, get to know the promoters, even start observing some of the training sessions with our most promising fighters.
For the first time since I’d rode back into Green Bluff, I felt more excitement than dread. When Sly talked, ideas started churning in my head. The gym was a massive organization and the next thing on the horizon was bidding on two new locations in the Midwest. He wanted me to head out to Cleveland with him in a couple of weeks to meet with some investors and scout some property. It would be a chance for the two of us to ride cross country again and reconnect with some other charters along the way. If things weren’t so unsettled with Ava, I felt like I could maybe breathe again for the first time in more than a decade.
Billy was less than thrilled. He sat in on the meetings; as V.P., it was his place. But he didn’t say much and kept a permanent scowl on his face. I had to trust Sly knew how to handle him better than I did. But I was getting damn sick of feeling like I had to apologize for breathing when he was around. Billy was brand new when I went inside. I’d paid my dues and patched in long before he even started hanging around the club. Diplomacy wasn’t my thing. What he needed was a swift kick in the ass to set him straight.
“I want you to sit tight and handle things here while we’re gone,” Sly said after laying it out for Billy that he wasn’t invited on the Cleveland ride.
Billy shook his head. “You’re the boss, boss. But I think blowing off Chicago is a bad idea.”
Chicago was George Pagano’s headquarters and I had no desire ever to set foot in the state of Illinois again, having served my time there. I’d learned this was a running debate between Sly and Billy. Billy wanted to build a gym near Evanston. S
ly didn’t want any part of it. The further we stayed away from Pagano’s reach, the better.
“I need you here, Billy, and that’s the end of it.” Sly rose to his feet and rapped his knuckles on the table. I raised a brow when Billy set his mouth into a hard line.
“Franco’s got a big fight with DiSalvo on the 14th of next month,” Sly went on. “DiSalvo’s people keep trying to renegotiate the terms. I need you here to keep a lid on that. I can’t rely on Franco’s trainers for shit like that. It’s got to be one of us or they’re going to try walking all over that kid.”
Billy nodded but his eyes were still cold. Something else was brewing between them that I didn’t think had to do with me. Chalk it up to one more thing I’d need to get straight from Sly when it was just the two of us. Blackie might be long gone, but I could see the internal club drama was just as bad as it ever was. Charlie had kind of warned me as much on our ride out here.
“We clear?” Sly said. He’d moved to the desk at the end of the room, leaving Billy and me still sitting at the conference table. Billy shrugged.
“Sure thing. I can handle DiSalvo’s people. No worries.” His eyes found mine and something flickered behind them. I loved the guy. I did. But we were definitely going to have to settle this the way we used to in the old days if his attitude didn’t improve soon.
“Good,” Sly said. “Can you send Tiny in here with last month’s receipts? I want to run through some of the Den stats with Dex and bring him up to speed there next.”
Billy smacked a palm to the table and stood up. He was being dismissed and he clearly didn’t like it one bit. As soon as he’d left, Sly sat back at the head of the table.
