by Jayne Blue
“She off tonight?” Endicott turned to her. Joleen nodded. “Good. Talk to your supervisor and rotate her out until the beginning of next week.”
I nodded and left the two of them to talk behind my back. Their opinion of me didn’t matter. I just wanted to get to Ava and get her the hell out of here. She still sat next to Sly when I came around the hallway. I shook my head at him letting Sly know I didn’t have anything new to report on Tiny.
“I want to take Ava home,” I said.
Sly handed me the keys to the Hummer. Ava didn’t protest when I took her hand and told her we were leaving. She said nothing when we drove out of the hospital parking lot. She kept silent when I made the turn toward her loft apartment rather than the Wolf Den. The club was on lockdown but the last thing I wanted was her back at the scene of the shooting. Until we settled things with Pagano once and for all, I needed to keep her as far away from the club as possible, even if that meant far away from me. My gut clenched at the thought but tonight was way too close of a call.
Ava followed me up the stairs and handed me the keys when we reached her door. I didn’t wait for her to invite me in. I would have thrown her over my shoulder if she hadn’t. Nothing but nothing was going to keep me from her side for the rest of the day and night. I wanted her close to me, I wanted to hold her in my arms and let her scream or cry or sleep, whatever she needed to do to get that haunted look out of her eyes. I’d have to leave her at some point but I’d hold on to her for as long as I could until then.
Her apartment was the entire floor of an old converted warehouse. She had red brick walls and an open floor plan with the TV area, kitchen, sleeping area and bathroom in four quadrants. She walked to the kitchen sink and I spotted bottles of liquor stacked in neat rows on the top of her stainless steel fridge.
I poured us each a shot of Jim Beam while she stood at the sink, letting the water run hot. She scrubbed her hands with a towel as steam rose.
“Ava,” I said, after taking my first shot. I walked over to her and set her drink beside her. She rubbed at her flesh under the scalding water. The backs of her hands turned an angry red as the water hit them and she rubbed them together.
“Ava,” I said again. “You’re going to burn yourself.”
“It never comes out.” She almost whispered it. “I’ve tried everything but it never comes out. Not even with bleach.”
“What doesn’t, baby?”
She kept tearing at the reddened flesh of her hands. I reached out and grabbed her wrists. She really was going to scald herself. She stiffened at my touch and lashed out at me. Jerking her hands away she held them up.
“The blood never comes out no matter how much I scrub!”
“Ava. Your hands are clean. There’s no blood.” I reached over and turned off the water. I moved to take her in my arms but she shoved me away from her. Her eyes had turned wild, forming tears at the corner.
“Don’t touch me,” she shrieked. I moved toward her again; she tried to pull away but I gripped her upper arms and pulled her to me. She went stiff as I held her against my chest. She trembled but didn’t try to pull away again. She cried softly against my chest. I hooked my hands under her legs and carried her out to the sofa.
“I want to keep you safe,” I whispered against the top of her head as I smoothed her hair. “I’m going to find a way.”
She said nothing and that scared me most of all. My Ava was hurt, damaged and it had happened long ago. Yet one more thing I could lay on the doorstep of George Pagano. I knew in that moment if it meant I’d have to go back to prison for the rest of my life, I would wipe him off the face of the Earth. I would never let him get the chance to hurt me or anyone I loved ever again.
I got Ava to drink the whiskey. I poured her two more shots and it did wonders to calm her nerves. As I held her in my arms, she finally fell asleep. I carried her over to the bed and tucked her in. When I was certain she was deeply out, I called Sly.
“He’s in ICU now,” Sly reported. “He made it through for now.”
I shuddered with relief as I sank back down onto Ava’s couch. I could hear her snoring softly in the corner of the room.
“Everybody else accounted for?” I asked.
“Billy’s rounded everyone back up and they’re at the Den. Prospects and I gave our statements to the cops. They want to talk to you and Ava, of course.”
I gripped the phone tighter. “Tomorrow. She’s in no condition to talk to anybody and I’m not leaving her side.”
“I’m not worried about much heat from law enforcement. We’re clean on this, Dex. And we still have plenty of friends with the Green Bluff P.D.”
“It’s not the cops I worry about either, Sly,” I said and I knew he could read the menace in my voice. “This ends now. I’m not going to wait around while you and Billy try to fucking Nancy Drew this. We both know who’s responsible for this and who jumped the Franco kid. What are you going to do about it?”
Sly sighed and the silence between us felt like it had physical weight. “Billy’s talking to Londo. That’s Pagano’s guy. They’re arranging a sit down.”
“Not with Londo.” I said my words through gritted teeth. “No more fucking middle men. It’s got to be you and me and Pagano in a room. And I’m not going to stand here and promise you we all walk out alive.”
Sly paused again and my heartbeat roared in my ears.
“I’ll set it up,” he finally said and I ended the call.
***
There was a brief moment when Ava woke up in my arms that a smile crossed her face and I knew she loved me. I pulled her close to me again and kissed her forehead. Then she stiffened, sat up, and got out of the bed.
“Ava?”
She wouldn’t look at me. She pulled a clean t-shirt over her head and slid into a pair of jeans.
“I have to take off for a little while,” I said, ignoring the cold stare she gave me. “Can you hang out here until I get back?”
She tore a brush through her hair. She threw it to the bed as I went to her. I wanted to fold her against me and kiss the worry out of her eyes but she took a step away when I tried.
“I’m such an idiot. Everyone told me this would happen. Even Sly told me this would happen.”
I took another step toward her. She paced in front of the bed like she were a caged animal. I didn’t like that look in her eyes. I didn’t like how she trembled. She was angry, she was scared and she wouldn’t let me touch her.
“Are you going to tell me you’re going to handle this now? You and Sly? Tell me it’s club business and I shouldn’t worry?”
“No.” My voice was low. She seemed teetering on the edge of unrestrained rage, but her point was crystal clear.
“Well, thank you,” she said, nearly spitting the words in my face. “Thank you at least for that.”
“You should worry,” I said. “I do know what it’s going to take to handle this. I don’t know if it will work and I can’t promise it won’t get worse before it gets better. It probably will get much worse. You asked me not to lie to you anymore and I won’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t keep you safe.”
She nodded, leaned against the brick wall. “Can you keep you safe? Can you stand there and tell me this won’t end with you or Sly or somebody else taking a bullet? Or that you won’t end up back in handcuffs? Do you know I still dream about that too? I still have nightmares about how they led you away from me with your hands bound behind you in cuffs in that fucking dive bar outside of Chicago. I think about it all the time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t. Don’t be sorry. Not for any of it. I know who you are. I know what you are. It’s my fault.”
“You’re right. Except it’s not your fault,” I finally said. I stopped trying to touch her. I grabbed my cut from the back of the couch and stabbed my arms through it. “Things are just as much a mess right now as they were the first time around. And last night you came
damn close to getting hurt because of it. It’s not going to happen again. I’ll promise you that but I can’t promise you what that will cost me.”
“Your life?” The rage had left her voice and she spoke in a flat tone. “Your freedom again?”
I shut my eyes tight. When I opened them to look at her again, the hurt in her own eyes tore my guts out. “Keeping you and the club safe matters more than what happens to me.”
“It matters to me!” She brought her hands up and tore them through her hair. “It matters to me, Dex. I can’t live like this. I’m not a twenty-year-old kid anymore. And the thing is I liked it. I’ve always liked the danger and excitement that comes along with you. God help me but I do. Jesus, I went to go live in a war zone when you left and I loved that too. And I think that was partly because I wanted to fill up the hole that was left over when they took you away. But I can’t do it anymore. I can’t live on the edge like this. Tiny might live, but he’ll never be the same again. Neither will I.”
“I know.” For the thousandth time since I’d met her, I was going to ask Ava to wait. It was in me to promise her things would get better if she just gave me a little time. And she knew it. She knew the look on my face and what I was going to say before I uttered the words.
“No.” She shook her head and backed away. I don’t think she planned it. She seemed just as surprised by the word as I was when she said it. But when she said it, something settled in her eyes and I knew she meant it. It hurt as much as if I’d been the one shot today. Ava put her hands out in front of her to keep me from reaching for her. “The only way it’s going to get better is if I make it that way. I need you to go.”
“Baby ...”
“I can’t do this anymore. I want something else.” Her voice choked and tears spilled out of her eyes. She crushed my heart. “I have to be done with this if I have any hope of staying sane.”
“I love you, Ava.” There. I said it. But it was the wrong time and too late. God. I couldn’t lose her. Not after everything. But we’d been here before. I’d made her all of these same promises and yet we kept ending up here. The only difference was, now she seemed brave enough to end it.
I didn’t beg her. I didn’t act on all of the urges I had in that moment. I could have taken her in my arms and kissed her. If I’d thrown her to the bed and tried to fuck her, I knew she’d let me. My cock swelled at the thought of it. I wanted her. I would always want her. But I would always hurt her. The pull between us was so strong, my claim on her still there. As much as I loved her and wanted her, I respected her too. And everything she said was true. I couldn’t protect her. She got hurt when she was around me. In the end, turning around and leaving was the least cruel thing I could do.
So I left. As Ava stood there brave and strong, with torment in her eyes, I said goodbye and quietly closed the door behind me. I swear I felt the pieces of my heart rip in two.
Chapter Nineteen
Ava
I lost count of how many more shots I did after Dex finally walked out. I’d made him go. It was the right thing to do. How many more times did I have to suffer through heartache and hell because of him? As many shots as I’d taken, I was still stone sober when Joleen walked in. She brought Mark Endicott with her.
I waved the bottle at them as they came around to stand in front of me on the couch. “You as bad as you look?” Mark said. He took the bottle from me and downed a shot. Then he sat next to me and smoothed the hair away from my face. He knew shell shock when he saw it and I’d been deep in the throes of it when he saw me at the hospital. Hell, I still was.
“Your friend’s probably going to make it,” he said. “He’s in for a tough recovery with that shoulder and he might never be able to work his hand well enough to ride a motorcycle again, but he’s going to live.”
“I’m glad,” I said and of course I was. Tiny was one of the good ones. So is Dex. I took the bottle back from Mark to try and drown out the rest of that thought.
Joleen stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. This was her best charge nurse routine and I was the last person it would work on. “He’s gone.” I answered the question before she could launch into the speech she’d likely prepared on the way over. “I ended it with Dex. Save it.”
Joleen’s posture changed. Her shoulders slumped and she sank until she sat on the coffee table in front of me. “Shit, honey. I’m sorry. Just ... shit.”
Mark took the Jim Beam bottle and handed it to Joleen. She held it up in salute and took her share. “I’d suggest going out and getting shitfaced but it looks like you’ve got that part handled.”
“I’m not drunk,” I said. “I should be. I should be good and sloshed but I’m not. I’m just sad.”
And God, I was. I was also angry with myself. For the last few weeks, since Dex had come back into my life, I hadn’t made a rational decision. I’d been kidding myself that things would change with him. What I said to him had been right. I wasn’t twenty anymore. I couldn’t live in the past and the blush of my first love and my first time. I was a grown woman with a life and people who depended on me. I needed to move forward, not back. All of these things were true. It didn’t stop it from feeling like I’d just torn my heart out of my chest and let him walk off with it.
“You did the right thing. Well, probably. What the fuck do I know?” Joleen said, placing her hand gently on my knee. “You know I love the boys in that club, but you’ve done nothing but suffer by association with him. I mean, Dex has been back like what, six weeks? We don’t want to see you hurt, Ava.”
I smiled at her. “This sounds like an intervention. How’d the two of you get nominated to come over here?”
Mark smiled. “I’m the last person to give anybody advice on how to deal. Pure motives, I swear.” He crossed his fingers over his heart and held up two fingers. I reached across the couch and hugged him. Then I hugged Joleen too. Then I sobbed. A big ugly cry that left my face and Joleen’s shirt a mess. She just patted my head through it like the good friend she was.
“God,” I said when I finally stopped hiccupping enough to get words out. “Why does it fucking hurt so much?”
Mark shrugged and took another swig. “Because you’re in love with the guy.”
“That doesn’t help.”
He smiled. “It never does.”
We talked late into the night. At some point, Joleen cracked another bottle of whisky and I fell asleep on the couch just after the room stopped spinning. It still wasn’t enough though; when the alcohol wore off, I knew more than my head would feel like I’d taken a sledgehammer to it.
I woke sometime after ten; my internal clock was way off from the night shift and the alcohol. Joleen was in bed and Mark was snoring face down on the other couch, a half-empty fifth of Jim Beam dangling from his grip. My head felt like it split in half when I staggered to my feet to throw a blanket over him and put the bottle away.
I checked my phone; Dex hadn’t tried to call but the Green Bluff P.D. had. I still needed to give a statement about what happened in front of the Wolf Den. That could wait. It was a Great Wolves problem, not mine.
I downed three ibuprofen tablets and a can of V-8 and grabbed an ice pack from the freezer for my forehead. This was a humdinger of a hangover and as much as I hated it, I knew probably the best cure might be to sweat it out on a run. I wrote a quick note for Joleen, found my tennis shoes and pulled open the steel door intending to step out in the hallway.
Instead, I smacked into a wall in the form of Curtis, Sly’s most trusted prospect. He stood with his back to the door and I slammed my cheek straight into the center of his leather clad back. He jumped and turned around, grabbing me by the shoulders as I swayed on my feet. For a half second, I saw two of him.
“What the fuck, Curtis,” I said.
He shrugged and ran a hand through his mass of brown curls. The kid really had a head of hair that would make any woman jealous. He was in his late twenties with a
baby face and permanently blushed cheeks. He almost looked like he was playing dress-up in his biker boots and leather. But he was a sweet kid and I knew Sly felt he had real promise. He’d never tell me as much, but Curtis was probably next to patch in as a full member. God help him.
“Sorry, Ava,” he said, smiling.
Realization settled over my shoulders and made my blood start to simmer. “Sly sent you over here.”
Curtis shrugged again. “Dex and Sly. It’s just a precaution.”
I nodded. “So are you just supposed to stand there or can I expect you to follow me when I go for my run?”
Curtis stammered for a second. “It’s just a precaution. I promise, I’ll hang way back, you won’t even know I’m there.”
“Forget it,” I said. It wasn’t the kid’s fault but I deeply resented Dex sending a spy. At the same time, dread turned my raging blood to ice as the gravity of the situation became clearer. That, and the scent of Tiny’s blood all over me which I couldn’t seem to shake. Alcohol, PTSD and heartache had kept me numb to reality for the last twelve hours. Now though, I could fully process the fact that it wasn’t just Dex at risk here. Shit.
“I’m sorry—”
I put a hand up to cut him off. “Stop saying you’re sorry. What’s going on, Curtis? Is this a Devil’s Hawks thing? I thought that was in the past. There hasn’t been a club war in Green Bluff in almost a decade.” I knew it broke rules for me to ask, even more for Curtis to answer.
“I can’t say. Really. But Dex told me to make sure you know you shouldn’t worry.”
I shook my head, forcing back a bitter laugh. It was the most ridiculous thing the kid could have said. Even more so if it really had come from Dex. “Right. So I’m not supposed to worry, but he thinks I need a bodyguard anyway.”
Curtis put a hand out and patted my shoulder. “It’s really just going to be for a little while. A day or two tops, then everything will be over.”
He plastered a smile on his face but something dark clouded his eyes and my heart fluttered. Dex had said as much last night ... that everything would be handled in a couple of days. I shuddered thinking about exactly what he’d have to do to handle it. I had to work on shutting off those feelings. It was a skill I’d perfected for years. Getting into the habit of it again made me feel physical pain.
