Dillon's Universe: A Perdition MC Novel

by Isabel Wroth

Dillon nodded, but after a few steps toward the bed, feeling Harper's soft breaths on her throat and the fluttering thump of her heartbeat beneath the hand Dillon had on her back, letting go became difficult.

  “Something wrong?”

  Dillon shook her head, turning to rest her cheek on Harper's soft hair. “No. Do I have to put her down? I mean, she just seems really comfortable and I um... I don't mind. Unless you need me to do something that requires both hands.”

  His grin turned rather salacious in response to the unintentionally suggestive nature of her question. Dillon was really on a role with this flirting thing.

  “I don't need you to do anything yet. I'm going to get into the DPD records and do a little digging. Are you close with this woman who filed the MP?”

  Dillon shrugged, watching Nasa stride across the room to take possession of his command chair, fingers flying over three different keyboards, his computers waking up and filling with pages of data and information. She followed, standing over his shoulder to watch him work his magic.

  “You're hacking into official police records?” Dillon guffawed incredulously.

  Nasa nodded, reaching forward to grab a handful of jelly beans out of a huge cut crystal dish.

  “It's what I do. Don't worry, I won't get caught.”

  “I wasn't worried. DARPA wouldn't have hired you without some mad computer skills; it's just the principle.” Dillon huffed, wondering what else he was capable of.

  “I'd call Patti a friend, but not the kind of friend who would report me missing. She doesn't know where I live, and we didn't have any standing appointments for me to have missed.”

  Dillon hesitated only for a few moments before imparting a secret so well kept, she hadn't given it up even during torture.

  “The women's shelter is one of the lay-over points for battered women in transit via a network called Vanguard. Patti coordinates all the movements between drivers and safe houses in Texas.

  “I refurbished the building and helped them move from the old shelter, and I do transport sometimes. Picking women up to bring to the shelter or taking them from the shelter to the next stop or transporter in the chain.”

  Nasa made noises to say he followed, his fingers flying across the keyboards. “Are you sure Patti doesn't know where you live?”

  He was speaking to her, but now he was hunched forward, scowling intently at the screen directly in front of him.

  “I've never invited her over or shared my address with her. It's possible she followed me home one day or had someone in a vehicle I wouldn't recognize follow me. But considering the steps she takes to protect women from stalkers, I can't imagine her stalking me. Why?”

  Nasa flicked his fingers at the closest screen. “There's a report on file at the DPD about a pair of quote, 'unwashed bikers' who came to the shelter and got verbally aggressive with Patti five days before Ghost paid you a visit. Patti's phone records show three calls to a cell phone the day the Leviathans came to your house.”

  “She should have called me the day those two buttholes came to the shelter. What number was she calling?”

  Nasa pointed to a page on one of the screens above his head and rattled off the number to the cell phone Dillon used specifically for calls to the shelter.

  It was inside the silver case upstairs with her cash and guns, and the battery was probably dead by now. Tucked into the padded liner, Dillon wouldn't have heard it ring or vibrate.

  She told Nasa that, and he grunted like a caveman. “I'm gonna need that phone to check and see if Ghost tampered with it.”

  “Of course. I completely forgot about it, to be honest. When I went home, I just threw all my important shit together and didn't think about it again.”

  “Why would you have?” Nasa absolved. “So, you're not close with Patti, but you built the shelter she runs?”

  Dillon tipped her head from side to side, warring with herself about what she should and shouldn't say about Vanguard.

  In the end, she decided it was better she give him what information she could, rather than let him hunt it down himself and potentially uncover something that would put one of the shelter occupants at risk.

  “I volunteered at the original shelter and used it to interview women who needed a safe house through my foundation.

  "I got familiar with the building, and I didn't like it. It was outside the city limits by a fair distance and had a history of angry husbands and ex-boyfriends making appearances to try and terrorize their women into coming back to them.

  “After the last guy brought a gun and blew the locks off the front door to get inside, I dipped into my foundation fund to refurbish a four-story building only a few blocks from the 321st precinct in downtown Dallas. I put in some serious security modifications, especially in the first-level entry and exits.

  “Bulletproof glass, steel doors, electromagnetic locks on a deadman's switch at the front and rear entrance. There are bars and bulletproof, one-way glass on all the windows, except for the emergency exits required by the Fire Marshall.

  “There's a central panic room big enough to hold every occupant of the building, security cameras everywhere, and an alarm so loud you can hear it for three blocks. Did you just hack into the security feed? It's a closed system!”

  “Babe,” Nasa drawled, that one word laden with patronizing amusement guaranteed to pissed her off. “A secure Wi-Fi connection is about as secure as a screen door for someone like me. Patti's working on an open terminal connected to the security system.”

  Dillon watched him pull up every single security camera and flip through them until he got to the main entry, then dug into the logs to find the date and time listed on the police report filed.

  Steaming like a teakettle on the stove, Dillon tried not to be impressed by Nasa's skills.

  “Patti was probably calling to tell me about the security breach and got worried when I didn't get back to her. She knows how seriously I take the policy regarding buildings of mine being violated, physically or otherwise.”

  The bite in her tone caused Nasa's fingers to pause in their rapid-fire drumming, and he swiveled in his chair to face her.

  He wasn't smiling, and he wasn't being patronizing when he reached out to settle his big hand on her waist.

  “I'm not going to go back and spy on this place in my spare time or use anything I find to hurt anyone inside.

  "Patti reported two men who came to the shelter looking for a woman. I'm betting it was the same two guys who came to your house, and I want to see what happened.

  “I also want to see if anyone else found a way in like I did, so I can help you shore up those tiny weak points in the security. That's it, I promise.”

  She swayed from side to side, letting the repetitive movement of rubbing circles on Harper's back give Dillon the time she needed to take a breath and put aside her overprotective, possessive, proprietary feelings about the shelter.

  Nasa said he wasn't hacking in to cause trouble, and looking into his eyes, Dillon believed him.

  “Okay,” she murmured.

  “Okay,” Nasa repeated, giving her hip a squeeze before releasing her. “How did you get involved with Vanguard?”

  “Do you want the Reader's Digest version or the full story?” she asked.

  Bent to his task, she thought he wouldn't want the distraction of her talking, but he surprised her.

  “Full story. I'm listening.”

  The sour taste of that story filled Dillon's mouth, but she was proud of where her first terrible experience with domestic violence brought her.

  “My roommate in college and I were close. We were both alone in the world, no other family to speak of, both at UV on full scholarships.

  "Tally had been with her boyfriend since high school, and I hated his guts. Not just a little hate, like, I wanted to stab him in the eye with a dull spoon every time he opened his asshole mouth.”

  Nasa grunted out a laugh in response to her bloodthirsty desire, but didn't interr
upt her.

  “I didn't like how he had this gorgeous woman on his arm and always stared at me like he was picturing me naked.

  "Tally seemed happy; she told me she loved him, so I just got in the habit of avoiding situations where I had to be in the same room with him, and did my best to support her because we were friends.

  "As long as she was happy, I let her be. Thankfully, Todd didn't much care for me either, so our interactions were limited.

  “One day, Tally didn't come home after spending the night out with Todd. She wasn't at class, she wasn't answering her phone, and after one full day of nothing, I got worried.

  "I called around, looked everywhere I could for her; I even called Todd, and he said he hadn't seen her since dropping her off at the dorm.

  “He sounded genuinely concerned, and considering how possessive he was about Tally, I didn't doubt him. I was about to call the cops when the hospital phoned because Tally had put me down as her next of kin.

  "When I got there, they told me she'd been raped, and so badly beaten the doctors had to put her in a coma for a few days.”

  Dillon blew out a breath, remembering the horrified disbelief she'd felt as she'd walked into Tally's hospital room, seeing her popular, bubbly little roommate so bruised and beaten her face was unrecognizable.

  “I'd heard stories and seen photos of women in abusive relationships, but I hadn't ever seen it firsthand. I sat there, holding her hand, very calmly planning her boyfriend's murder because I knew he was responsible.

  “Todd never dropped Tally at the dorm. He walked her upstairs and made sure she went straight to her room, every single time.

  "Then when he was downstairs, he'd call up, make Tally come to the window and wave at him to confirm she was still where he'd left her. It was a routine he never deviated from, so why start?”

  Nasa made a sound to say he agreed and was listening, but didn't interrupt.

  “The cops came and asked me a bunch of questions, and as soon as I told them Todd was Tally's boyfriend, suddenly, the questions went from serious to patronizing. They asked me if I'd been drinking or out at a party with Tally and lost track of her.

  “Would I be willing to take a drug test? Did anyone else notice she'd been missing? Was Tally the type to sleep around?

  "All that bullshit, because Todd's father was some high-raking big-wig in the police force, and the two detectives weren't interested in believing the son of a cop might be a rapist.

  “Tally had no family to support her or protect her, which made her the perfect target for someone like Todd, and I couldn't believe I hadn't seen any signs before that day.

  "We'd slept in the same room for two years, and I never saw any bruises or behavior to suggest Todd was anything more than a narcissistic, jealous douche.”

  Men like Todd were excellent actors, and victims of spousal abuse went to great lengths to hide their injuries out of fear or shame.

  Even as classy as her fashion major roomie had been, Tally always wore sleeves that came down to her elbows, high-collared shirts, and her skirts never fell any higher than an inch below her knees.

  Dillon couldn't remember a time when she'd seen Tally wear anything even remotely revealing, and as her relationship with Todd went on, Tally only covered up more.

  She took showers late at night to avoid being seen in the dorm bathrooms, had a dressing screen on her side of the room—which Dillon had always thought was a silly modesty issue for a fashion student to have—and slept in long sleeves and leggings even in the heat of the summer.

  It hadn't even occurred to Dillon that Tally was hurting, because Tally always went on and on about fashion and clothes, her hair and make up. Things Dillon had zero interest in, so she tuned them out.

  “When Tally woke up, the first thing she said to me after I told her why she was in the hospital was, 'I shouldn't have made him angry. It's my fault.'

  "I hadn't known I could be so angry and so patient with someone at the same time, but I finally got Tally to admit he'd been knocking her around for the entirety of their relationship because Tally needed Todd to teach her how to behave. How it was her fault if he hit her because she knew the rules.”

  Nasa's fingers stuttered across the keyboard, briefly clenching into fists before resuming his task.

  “Was she too scared to leave him? Or too conditioned at that point to even consider it?”

  Even as his voice rang with incredulous outrage, there was compassion for Tally.

  “Both. One of the nurses clearly had experience with battered women, and she didn't sugarcoat it when she told Tally if she went back to Todd, there would come a day when he would put her in the ground instead of a hospital bed.

  “The nurse suggested a women's shelter, but because of his connections to the police force, I wasn't sure Tally would be safe there. I also knew that without irrefutable proof Todd was abusing Tally, nothing would happen to him.

  “So, I bought a nanny cam for Tally's hospital room, and while I waited for Todd to be Todd, I searched until I found a local domestic violence support group.

  "I told the group about Tally's situation, about Todd's police connections, and was given some great advice. After, a woman named Marsha approached and told me about Vanguard.

  “She gave me just enough information about how it worked for me to know it was the only chance Tally had, because even if I got proof of him in the act of abusing her, Tally wasn't going to get justice.

  "I went back and talked to Tally; I told her she could be safe, that there were people out there who would help her. She was so scared, in so much pain, but she said she would go.

  “While I was out packing her things at the dorm, Todd came back to the hospital with flowers and in stunning detail, told Tally what he'd do to her if she ever even thought about leaving him. It would make what he'd done to her for being stupid enough to sit by another man for a school picture, feel like a pleasant memory.

  “She must have thought I told Todd she was leaving, because when Marsha and I showed up to get Tally out, it was just in time to see the doctor pull a sheet up over her body. She'd used a syringe one of the nurses accidentally left behind to give herself a shot of air.”

  The grief of knowing that was the only way Tally thought she could truly be safe, to this day, had the power to make Dillon's throat constrict and burn.

  “I stood at the grave site a few days later, at the funeral Todd and his family arranged, watching that piece of shit cry as he dropped rose petals onto her casket, and I couldn't let Todd have the satisfaction of going on living his life free of the consequences.

  “Video in hand, I went to visit one of the computer geeks I knew had a crush on Tally, and I asked him to make sure it got to a local news channel.

  “Randy was a great guy, and he wasn't satisfied with the simplicity of my plan. Knowing the risks, he took it upon himself to hack into the school's email list and sent the video of Todd confessing to the rape and to having put Tally in the hospital to every single student, faculty member, and alumni of UV.

  “There was also a clip of the two cops who came to question Tally, basically telling her they didn't believe her, that her testimony wouldn't go anywhere or result in any arrests, that she should probably just forget about pressing charges, and be more careful of what she wore out in public.”

  Nasa gave a humorless chuckle, stabbing a little harder than was necessary at arrows on the keyboard.

  “Never underestimate the power of a computer geek with a crush or a vendetta.” As he glanced her way, Dillon did her best to pretend Nasa hadn't just implied he had a crush on her. “I gather the outcome from then on wasn't favorable for Todd or his father?”

  Dillon smirked, remembering the satisfaction she'd felt walking around campus hearing people talking about Todd everywhere she went.

  “The videos from Tally's hospital room were out by the end of that day, and after it made the news that the Charlottesville police department was closing ranks arou
nd one of their own to cover up the incident, the state police showed up to arrest Todd based on his video confession.

  “His dad retired almost immediately, and the two cops who told Tally it was pointless to file charges were fired. A few weeks after everything died down, I went back to the support group, to Marsha, and I asked to be part of Vanguard in whatever way I could.

  “At first it was being on call to deliver go-bags to random locations, and for about a year, my dorm room was stocked with empty backpacks from Goodwill and neatly labeled bins with travel size toiletry kits, feminine supplies, makeup, sunglasses, hats, shoes, clothes, hair-dye in every shade possible, along with clothes and stuff for kids.

  “The people in my dorm thought I was hoarding shit until I started asking them to donate their old clothes and any extra backpacks or duffles they had.

  "Once word spread a teacher got involved, it became a school project for extra credit. I had told her I was volunteering for a women’s domestic violence program.

  "That teacher was the one to get me the interview with the city, which got me on board as a translator for the police department.

  “At first, I'd been using whatever extra cash I had to shop at thrift stores, getting donations of expired makeup and toiletries from drug stores.

  "A local hotel with expired hand soaps and little shampoos even pitched in, but once Vanguard realized I was dedicated to the cause, I got a monthly stipend of about two hundred bucks.

  “I went from churning out five fully stocked bug-out-bags a month to twenty, and they all got used. Marsha would call me with a list and the sizes she needed; I'd pack it all up and drop the bag where she told me to.

  “As time went on, I told Marsha I didn't feel like I was doing enough. Not long later, she asked me to come with her on a pickup.

  "I brought one of my bug-out-bags, rode with her to some shitty motel about two hours away, and handed the bag to a woman who reminded me so much of Tally I nearly broke down crying.”

  Dillon would never forget the way that motel room smelled like stale cigarettes, mold, and terror.

  “The woman wanted to get on the road as soon as possible, but Marsha insisted on helping her change out of the scrubs she'd gotten at the hospital.