by April Lust
“To who? Olivia?” Ezra asked.
“Yes, fucking Olivia,” Xander snapped, losing his patience. “I see the way you look at her. It’s fucking obvious to everyone, man. I know what you’ve been thinking about doing. I know, Ezra.” The more Xander said it out loud, the more certain of it he became. Ezra had tried something with her, gotten too aggressive, maybe even hurt her, scared her away so much that she ran off. Or maybe he even has her now, tied up somewhere, just like in my dream…
Ezra was still sitting there, silently quivering with his mouth open like a pathetic panting dog, and Xander had finally had enough of it. He slammed his other fist down onto the table, deliberately loud this time. He saw Jules look over to him, a warning look on her face, but he ignored it, setting his full focus on Ezra. “You’ve been hitting on her. Don’t deny it!” he yelled, knocking over the glass on the bar next to him.
“Hey, hey!” one of the bulking guys near the door shouted over. “Settle down, man.”
“Fuck off!” Xander yelled in the big guy’s direction. “I’ve seen it. You’ve been smiling at her, all fucking moony-faced, following her around. What the fuck did you do?”
“Xander, please,” Ezra said, putting his hands up in the air in surrender. “I didn’t do nothing, I promise. She just left. I’m sorry. She just left.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Xander protested, his heart pounding hard in his throat. “She wouldn’t do that. What the fuck did you do, Ezra? Just tell me, please, I need—” I need to know she didn’t leave me, Xander thought.
But Ezra just shook his head. “You’re fucking crazy, man, I haven’t done anything, I haven’t. You’re going nuts, man, without her, it’s okay, it’s just you’re going—”
Crunch. Xander’s fist moved forward and smashed into Ezra’s face, audibly colliding with his cheek.
For a second the bar fell silent, even the bouncers over by the door just watching. Ezra gasped for air below him, his hand coming up to cradle his face. “Xander. Please,” Ezra begged.
Xander thought of Olivia, bloodied and bruised like in his dream. And he thought of her naked and warm in his bed, tracing his hand with her fingers. She wouldn’t want me to do this. She would want me to be a leader, be calm, collected, keep my shit together.
But Olivia wasn’t there to stop him. Not this time.
“What.” Punch. “Did.” Punch. “You.” Punch. “Do!” Xander shouted each word as loudly as he could, hitting Ezra about the ears before focusing on his nose, hearing a loud crunch as he smacked into the side of his bone. He kept punching him until his knuckles burned with the impact of his blows. And then he kept punching him some more, shrugging off the hands on his shoulders that tried to pry him away. He kept hitting, hitting, hitting him, fighting against the burn in his muscles, until a strong pair of arms wrapped around his waist and yanked him away from Ezra.
Xander looked down to see his work. Ezra was covered in blood. All at once, Xander’s stomach dropped and his heart stopped pounding so hard, stopped sending blood to his limbs. He felt numb and nauseated, and he only barely had the energy to get out of the bouncer’s arms and struggle his way back over to Ezra, who flinched as he approached again.
Oh, God. Xander leaned over Ezra, grabbing his chin to look him in his eyes, now flowing with tears. There was no deception in those eyes. There was no guilt. There was nothing but fear. “You didn’t,” Xander began, panting hard while he pet the side of Ezra’s face. “You didn’t do anything, did you?”
Ezra nodded a little, barely moving the top of his head before groaning loudly in pain. He sounded like he was three years old, like the pain was too much for his body to bear.
Ezra’s blood was getting on Xander’s hands, but he didn’t care. He had to fix it. He had to make him better, stop the bleeding. “I’m so sorry, Ezra. I’m so, so, sorry. I didn’t—I couldn’t--”
“You’re not a leader,” Ezra said in a strained, labored voice. “You’re weak. Just like they all said you were. You’re weak.”
Xander opened his mouth to say something, but no words came. He touched the side of Ezra’s face, as if his hands could heal rather than hurt, as if he could do anything good. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, but the sound of his voice was cut off by the howl of police sirens.
***
Olivia couldn’t sleep. A part of it, she thought, was that it had been so long since she’d slept in her own bed. But most of it was the whole betrayal thing. She was a traitor. That was a new label that would take some getting used to.
She sighed loudly and got up out of bed, going over to the refrigerator to get something to distract herself from the pool of guilt that wouldn’t stop bubbling up in her stomach. So what, she thought as she brought a pastry over to her kitchen table. She broke her promise. She had promised, over and over again, that she wasn’t going to leave Xander. She wasn’t going to abandon him. She wasn’t going to be like the other people in his life. She was going to stay. She was going to fight.
All of that went out the window. But she couldn’t stay, not if it meant Xander being in danger. She was fighting for him, she told herself as she bit into the pastry, forcing herself to chew. She was fighting. She just had to do it away from him.
That’s what you do when you’re in love. You sacrifice.
Olivia was willing to give up the only thing that made her feel alive, just to make sure Xander kept on living. And she was going to have to figure out a way to live with that.
Her phone rang, the loud and sharp noise filling up the empty apartment. Olivia groaned, walking back over to where her phone was charging in her bedroom. It was probably the new client she was seeing, this recovering meth addict who needed lots of support, especially at strange hours, to keep from relapsing. But when Olivia found her phone, the ID read Uncle Jerry.
For a second she stared down at her phone, like she did whenever Xander called or texted her. It had to be this way, right? No contact. She had to leave like a ghost does, all smoke and vapor and then nothing.
But why was Uncle Jerry calling? He never contacted her, really, even when Xander was still fighting and causing problems for the club. He trusted her to do her job. And anyway, the job was finished. Xander was a leader now. She’d done the work—or the damage, she thought to herself—and molded him into a person that could guide others. What more did Uncle Jerry want? I’ll just ignore this call like all the others and he’ll get the signal, she thought.
The phone stopped ringing, and Olivia sighed in relief, heading back toward the kitchen to finish her pastry. But then a second later, the ringing began again. She knew it was Jerry, trying again. Olivia screwed her eyes shut and fell back against her bedroom wall, breathing deeply to steady herself. I’m doing the right thing, she thought. I’m protecting him. I’m keeping him safe.
The ringing stopped and started again, three more times. Olivia didn’t know why she hadn’t already silenced the phone so she wouldn’t have to listen to this reminder of what she’d lost. She gathered her strength and moved back over to the phone, intending to turn off the volume so she could eat and sleep in peace.
Instead, her finger moved over the screen and hit “accept.” Her heart was pounding in her ears by the time she brought the phone up to her face. What am I doing? What am I doing? It was like her hand had acted completely independently of her brain, but now she had to pay the consequences for her own instinctual response. “Hello?” she said into the phone, her voice shaking even on that one word.
“Olivia!” Jerry half-shouted on the other end. “Olivia, honey, I’ve been trying to reach you. Where are you?”
“I’m—I’m home. I’m fine. What’s up?” she said in response.
“Xander’s been arrested.”
Olivia felt like the floor had been ripped out from underneath her, and suddenly she was falling, down, down, down a bottomless well. “Wh-What?” she whispered into the phone.
“He was at a bar, not one of ours, and he beat the
living shit out of Ezra. The bartender called the cops. He’s being charged with something, I don’t know. Assault and battery, maybe, if we’re lucky.”
“Ezra?” Olivia asked, completely dumbfounded. What the fuck could Ezra have done to piss Xander off that badly?
“Yeah, my impression from the other boys is that Xander thinks Ezra hit on you, or scared you, or kidnapped you. Clearly that didn’t happen, huh?”
Olivia was silent a moment, her breathing going hard and heavy. It was her fault. Ezra was hurt and Xander was in jail right now because of her, her thoughtlessness and selfishness in running away the way she did. Her legs had gone wobbly with the realization, so she had to go over to her bed to sit down. “I—I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Well, there’s a way for you to show it, if you care to,” Jerry said. “The bail money. I don’t have it.”
“What do you mean you don’t have it?” Olivia asked. “Didn’t you guys do a drop in California yesterday?”
“Yeah, but some of it has been reinvested in more opportunities like that, per the senior members’ request. And I can’t ask the boys to post up their share of the earnings for Xander.”
“Why not?” Olivia demanded.
“Because, honey, they just saw him beat the shit out of a brother for no goddamned reason. They don’t give much of a shit right now if he rots in jail or not,” he explained.
Olivia nodded to herself and swallowed hard. Xander had relapsed, going back to his old defense mechanisms, and whatever rapport he’d built with the boys was gone again. All because of her, because she listened to Roger instead of telling Xander what was going on. And the worst thing was? She still wasn’t sure it was the wrong decision. What if Xander was safer in jail than out where Roger could get to him?
“I don’t know, Jerry,” she whispered. “Maybe—maybe he should stay where he is.”
Olivia could hear Jerry click his teeth on the other end of the phone. “Was he just a job to you, then?”
“No, I—no,” Olivia rushed to say. “He was—is—so much more than that, and I—I just don’t know if the club is the right place for him anymore, Jerry. I don’t know if he should be there.”
“Then tell him that,” Jerry said, and Olivia almost dropped the phone in shock. She thought the old man only wanted Xander to replace him. But Jerry kept talking. “You could be right, for all I know. Maybe he’s not meant for the club life. Maybe it’s all a big prison and he needs to get out as soon as possible, but he won’t believe me if I tell him that. He won’t listen. He’ll stay and fight and fuck shit up until he dies, just like his old man, hating every minute of it without you.”
Olivia weighed her options. Where was Xander safest? In the county jail? Or out where he might run into Roger? Unless he skips bail and gets far away, lets Roger take the club and goes someplace else to live his life, Olivia thought. He could have a safe life away from her, away from his uncle, away from everything. That’s what he deserved.
And maybe I can follow him, she thought for a second before shaking her head at herself. She’d broken his trust, left him to get in trouble again. She didn’t deserve him.
Olivia cleared her throat and finally answered Jerry. “Okay, okay, I can post his bail. But I’m not seeing him in person, okay?”
“Why?” Jerry demanded to know.
“Just because,” Olivia shot back. Because it will hurt him too much to see me after I’ve abandoned him. Because he needs to learn how to be whole without me. Because I’m selfish and I don’t want to feel the pain. “I’ll meet with you to give you the money and then you post the bail.”
“All right,” Jerry said. “Tomorrow morning, halfway between the Souls’ club and The Scorpions’ Nest. Know what I’m talking about?”
“Yeah,” Olivia said. “I’ll bring the cash. Goodbye.” It was only after she hung up that she realized she didn’t know the bail amount. But she realized it didn’t matter. She’d just bring all the cash she’d earned from her job with the Souls. She didn’t want any of it anyway.
She didn’t want to have any reminder of what she’d lost.
Chapter 9
Jerry was late. Olivia kept biting at her nails, picking at her cuticles until they bled. She didn’t know why she was so anxious. They were just going to trade the money and then that’d be the end of it. Olivia would finally be able to move on from this whole mess.
What if I don’t want to move on? Olivia thought.
Well, too fucking bad, she retorted to herself. You’ve got to be a woman about it. Grow up and get over it.
It’s not that easy, she thought.
It won’t be easy, she realized. It’s going to hurt like hell, like having your organs forcibly taken out but kept alive, still beating and connected to you in some way. You’ll still feel what you’ve lost.
That’s not fair, she thought.
It’s not. But that’s love.
Jerry finally rode up on his bike, tearing her away from her internal argument. Olivia walked forward as he rolled to a stop, offering a backpack full of cash. “It’s there. All of it.”
“Thanks,” Jerry said, putting the bag on his back and getting right back on the bike. “Well. I guess this is so long, huh?”
“Yeah, just do me a favor, all right?” Olivia said.
“Anything, doll,” Jerry replied.
“Let him go. I know you thought he was meant for this. I did, too. I loved seeing him grow into a leader and…” Olivia cut herself off. There was no point imagining a beautiful future that would never come true. “But it’s not going to happen. Just let him go, please.”
Jerry nodded slowly. “I guess you’re right. Goodbye, Olivia. Be safe.”
“I will,” she yelled over the roar of the engine as he pulled away on his bike. Olivia walked back to her car. She got into the driver’s seat, holding her head in her hands. She just needed a minute before setting off into the future. I did something good today, she told herself. I set Xander free, in more ways than one. That’s got to count for something.
Olivia sighed deeply and turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered but did not start. “That’s…weird,” Olivia said to herself, trying again. And again. And again, until the engine made an ugly, whining sound whenever she tried turning it on.
“Oh, goddammit, are you fucking serious?” she yelled to nobody. Jesus Christ, of course this was her luck. Why the hell did all vehicles seem to malfunction around her? Was she cursed or something?
As always, there was little to no reception on her phone, and besides, who the hell would she call anyway? There was a little house in the distance, a few hundred feet away. She could knock on the door and see if anybody was home, available to help.
Just then, a shadow in her rearview mirror caught her attention. When she turned to look, the shadow was gone, but maybe there was something or somebody in the distance, other than the rickety little house. Olivia got out of her car, still holding her keys and her purse, and turned the corner, looking for someone to help.
Olivia spotted the source of the shadow instantly: Roger.
He faced her, holding a dirty wrench in his hand. Every nerve in Olivia’s body clenched up, ready to flee. But there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
“Have you been there this whole time?” she asked, fighting to keep her voice steady as she clenched harder onto her keys.
Roger grinned and spun the filthy wrench around in circles between his fingers. “Your car was a handy little hiding space. I tried to fix something for ya, but I’m afraid I fucked it up. Oops.”
Olivia nodded slowly as realization dawned on her. Roger had disabled her engine. He must have waited until her car rolled up, stayed close to the ground, and waited for Jerry to leave.
“So what’s the plan here, Roger? You gonna beat me up? I did what you asked. I fucked off. You should stick to your word.”
“See, that’s the thing, Liv,” Roger said, stepping closer to her.
Oliv
ia resisted the urge to back up in fear. Dan’t show how scared you are. Dan’t give him the satisfaction, she thought.
“You didn’t stick to your word. You left, but now you’ve butted back in again. I overheard Uncle Jerry on the phone last night. Not the brightest bulb, that Jerry, talking in the bar in front of people. I know you gave the money to get little Xander out of jail. Seems like you can’t stop causing me problems, huh?”
Olivia didn’t say anything. She was debating if she had time to get in the car and lock the doors, wait until she could get enough signal on the phone to call the police. Roger was still for now, but the second she moved, he would, too. She would have to be fast at it.
Roger kept talking. “I tried to be nice, Liv-girl. I tried to give you a fair warning, give you a chance to get out of town and let things go back to the way they should be. But no, you just couldn’t do that, could you? Shame.”
