RUINED #4
THE MOTORCYCLE CLUB ROMANCE SERIES
By Alycia Taylor
Copyright 2014. All rights reserved.
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CHAPTER ONE
OLIVIA
I opened my eyes and it took me a few seconds to remember where I was. I was back at my uncle’s house. I sighed, I felt like I was constantly going backwards with my life. I felt like since the day Dax was arrested that my wheels had been spinning but I never got anywhere. I needed to get off this crazy ride once and for all and take the route that would lead me away from all of these people who kept holding me back.
I put on my robe and went out to the kitchen to start the coffee brewing. I was trying hard to look ahead instead of backwards but my mind wanted to run over and over what I had lost…which right now seemed to be everything.
I’d lost Terrance, which was mostly good news. With him, I could at least tell myself I never really had him. He was nothing but a fake and I knew that I never really knew anything about him. I felt so stupid when I thought about how I believed for so long that he only ran parts for his dad and Bull. He helped set Dax up and he was involved in the drug side of the business. Scariest of all was that he was the guy they called to bring in the big guns when there was a report of a member of a Mexican drug cartel running around.
I had been living with a man I knew nothing about and the fact that I could be that naïve scared me to death. Maybe I should have been grateful to him for opening my eyes. I wouldn’t trust that easily again, that’s for sure. Terrance was out of my life for good so I guess I could at least give myself credit for that one step forward.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and as I poured the cream and sugar into it, I thought about Dax. When he came to see me yesterday he seemed like he was upset with me, like I was the one doing something wrong. Maybe it was only to appease his own conscience. I wasn’t the one choosing something over him. I wanted to be with him…more than anything. I just couldn’t keep compromising my own values and beliefs for those men.
I washed my hands of my own father because I didn’t believe in the way he was choosing to live his life. What was I doing continuing to pick these men that wanted to lead me right back into it? I knew Dax said repeatedly that he didn’t want to live the MC life and I wanted desperately to believe him. But how much more needed to happen before he was willing to just make a clean break and walk away? Was someone going to have to pull the trigger the next time a gun is in our face for him to get how dangerous this quest for revenge had become? He had a choice, revenge or me. He walked out yesterday. He made his choice and now I had to accept it and move forward….I had to.
I pulled myself up out of the chair and went to get into the shower. I had to work and I didn’t have any more time to waste sitting there wallowing in what should have or could have been.
I showered and dressed in a black and pink Harley t-shirt and jeans, put on my tennis shoes, pulled my hair into a ponytail and headed off to work.
My uncle wasn’t working today so me and the new guy Tyler opened up the shop. He was working in back doing some detailing and mechanic work and I was working the parts desk. As soon as he had gone in the back, the front door jangled. I looked up, right into Terrance’s brown eyes. Damn! I knew I would have to run into him sooner or later since I was working there, but I was hoping it would be on a day when someone else was working with me and I didn’t have to be the one to help him.
“Hi Liv,” he said, like I might possibly be happy to see him.
“I’m surprised you wouldn’t be ashamed to show your face around here,” I said. “Yet, you just walk in here like any ordinary citizen.”
“Come on, Liv. It’s just me. I’m still the guy I’ve always been.”
“And who is that guy, exactly, Terrance? Is he the guy who pretended to care about me when my boyfriend got locked up, but who was only looking for the opportunity to get into my pants? Or, maybe he’s the guy who carries an automatic rifle and busts down doors looking for the Mexican cartel?”
Terrance looked around the shop like he was looking to see if there were any witnesses to our conversation. Then he leaned in close to me….too close and said, “First of all, you should be really careful who’s around when you say things like that. Second, I was your friend. I wouldn’t have ever turned my back on you. You chose to walk away from me, remember?”
“After I found out what you did to Dax, remember?”
“I explained that to you,” he said, like it made it all better. Those guys were all crazy and I didn’t have the time or the patience for their shit.
“What did you come in here for, Terrance? Do you need one of those parts you buy in order to cover up what you’re actually running for your dad?”
“Knock it off, Olivia. I’m serious,” he said. He actually sounded a little scary when he said it. I guess I should quit thinking of him simply as an ex-boyfriend and remember who he really was. Proving it, he said, “I don’t need any parts today. What I need is for you to pass on some information. Let your new boyfriend know that what he’s doing could have fatal consequences. If he wants the business to leave him alone, then he needs to stay out of the business. This revenge crap is going to get him dead.”
“Are you threatening Dax?” I asked him. Just saying it made my heart pound in my chest.
“No, I would never hurt Dax. I know you and Dax both don’t believe this, but I still love him like a brother. My father on the other hand, does not feel the same kind of loyalty. He’s not a guy you want to mess with. Do you think I chose this life?”
I suddenly felt bad. I knew I shouldn’t have felt bad for him, he was a grown man. He could choose to do whatever he wanted to do with his life. But I felt bad for the little boy who grew up thinking so highly of a father and Bull and the others, only to find out who they really were. But, that’s when he should have walked away and he didn’t. That’s the guy that I didn’t feel sorry for.
“No, I don’t think you chose it to begin with, Terrance. I know how you grew up. But, I also know that you’re grown now and you continue to choose to stay. Is what your father wants that important to you still? Or, does he threaten you if you leave? Or, do you just choose to stay because this mess is your life and you don’t want to have to go out and work for a living the way everyone else does?”
“I do what I have to do,” he said, in a matter of fact tone. “Tell Dax to back-off, Olivia. I followed orders and I put those drugs in his bags. I was willing to do that to save my own ass. I’m not willing to see Dax hurt or killed. That’s what’s going to happen if he doesn’t leave it alone.”
“So it is a threat, then?” I asked again.
He looked pissed off and said, “Just tell him what I said, unless you want his blood on your own hands.”
I didn’t say anything. Terrance looked at me again for a while like he was waiting for confirmation that I would talk to Dax. I would, as much as I didn’t want to, but as far as Terrance was concerned, I was finished talking to him. I watched him walk out of the shop and drive away on his bike, knowing that I was going to have to talk to Dax.
CHAPTER TWO
DAX
I woke up in my room behind the bar and thought about what I was going to do today. I couldn’t do what Olivia wanted me to and give up
my quest to find out exactly who had me set up and why. I felt like if I did, I’d be telling them it was okay to fuck with my life…and it was definitely not okay. Even though I wasn’t giving up trying to figure this all out, I still needed to get on with it at some point. Sleeping in every day in the back of a bar was probably not going to get me anywhere.
I pulled my ass out of bed and got into the shower. While I was in there I prepared the spiel in my head that I was going to give my mom. I had almost three thousand dollars in my savings, but I was probably going to need three or four times that much to start. I was starting from scratch, so I’d need money for licensing and all of the equipment. I’d also need rent and deposit money for a building and probably deposits for all of my utilities.
I got out of the shower and pulled on a black Harley t-shirt and jeans. I pulled on my boots and went out through the back to get my bike. My dad and Bo were in the shop working on a couple of bikes.
“Hey! Decided to get out of bed today, huh?” my dad asked.
“Very funny.” I grunted.
“Where you headed out to?”
“I need to talk to Mom. Is she at home today?”
“As far as I know,” my dad said. “She was there when I left. What’s going on with you and your mom?” he asked.
“I just haven’t seen her in a day or two,” I said.
I straddled the bike and I was putting my helmet on when Bo said, “Missin’ his Mama! Ain’t that cute?”
Bo had something coming for him in the near future…I hoped.
When I got to the house my mom was out in her garden again. She had her back to me when I walked out and she had her earphones in. I knew I was going to startle her, but the little boy in me couldn’t resist. I went up behind her and touched her on the back. She was on her knees and she jumped back, landing on her ass and screamed. When she looked up and saw it was me and that I was laughing, I got smacked in the leg.
“You little punk!” she shouted as I held my hand out to help her up.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I couldn’t resist.”
She let me help her to her feet and then she reached back to brush the mud off her jeans. When she finished, she looked at me and said, “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to see my mom,” I told her. She rolled her eyes like she didn’t believe me.
“Have you had lunch?” she asked.
I grinned and said, “I haven’t had breakfast. I just got up.” She gave me a disapproving look. “I know. I’m burning daylight.” It was what she used to tell me and Brock when we were younger and didn’t want to get out of bed.
“You want a sandwich?” she asked me.
“I could eat,” I told her.
We went into the house and while she went to clean up and change I sat down and turned on the television. I stared mindlessly at a game show until she came back in. She had a tray with a ham and Swiss sandwich on a Kaiser roll, potato salad, a fruit cup and iced tea.
I shook my head when I saw it and said, “It looks awesome Mom, but you shouldn’t have went to all of this trouble.”
She waved me off like I was talking nonsense and asked, “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”
“Well, that really depends on you,” I said, taking a bite of my sandwich. Damn it was good. Way better than prison food.
“What do you mean?” she said, suspiciously.
“I’m still thinking about the tattoo shop thing we talked about a while back, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember,” she said. “Did you ever finish the list of what you’d need? I think I only got a partial one.”
“I did,” I told her. “I actually sat down and went online and priced out things like the tables and chairs and all of the equipment. There’s a little place right in town that’s for rent. It’s pretty cheap and I have about three grand left in my savings. So…this is what I think I’d need to borrow to get started.”
I handed her a piece of paper I had brought with me with the numbers on it. I ate my lunch and watched her face while she looked at it. She didn’t look enthusiastic, but she didn’t have a “no way” look on her face either. After a few minutes, she put the paper down and looked at me with a serious look on her face.
“Are you still trying to solve the mystery of who set you up?”
“Yeah, I’m doing what I can to figure it out." I thought I knew where she was going with this and I wasn’t sure I liked it.
“I wish you would stop that, Dax. You know that I do my best to stay out of that business of your father’s, but I’ve been around it long enough to know it’s not safe to cross these guys. They got you put behind bars for over two years, for what? You don’t even know, which means you didn’t really do anything. If you keep after them on this revenge binge I really don’t think they’d hesitate to hurt you…or worse. I don’t believe your father would have any part of that and if it happened he’d probably be on his own revenge quest. It would be too late for you. Please leave this all alone and get on with your life, Dax.”
“I can’t do that, Mom.”
“Okay, you’re a grown man and I can’t force you to do what I want. I can’t give you money for this business though if I don’t believe you’ll have your head in it a hundred percent.”
“Are you serious? What is this, blackmail?”
“No, it’s just what I said. You’re asking me for a lot of money to start a business. I have to see that you’re serious about making that business a success. I can’t see you having the time and the heart to do that if you’re still busy with all of this other nonsense.”
I was beginning to see as an adult how my mother was able to handle my dad all of those years.
“I feel like I’d be saying it was okay that they screwed up my life if I walk away now.”
“Then win by showing them they didn’t screw your life up, Dax. Open your shop, make it a success. Success is a fabulous fuck you to everyone who tried to hold you back.”
My mother never said the “F” word. I usually tried not to say it around her because she’d yell, “Dax! Language!” when I did. I guess she was trying to show me how serious she was. I needed her to help me or it would be years before I could earn the kind of money I needed to start this business and that was only if I could convince someone to give me a job in the first place. I knew she was right. I knew Olivia was right…I wasn’t going to drop this though until the Son of a Bitch who put me in prison and took everything from me had to look me in the eye and admit what he had done. So, I did what any bad son would do…I looked my mother directly in the eye and lied.
“Okay,” I said with a sigh. The sigh was to cover my guilty facial expression. “I’ll stop. I need to get on with my life and if that’s what I have to do then so be it.”
My mother’s face relaxed, a little bit. I knew she thought that was too easy though and she proved it by saying, “You promise?”
“I promise,” I lied again. Sometimes I despised myself.
CHAPTER THREE
OLIVIA
The day after Terrance came by I drove over to the bar to see Dax. I knew it wasn’t a good idea for me to see him. The more time I spent looking at him, the less resolve I’d have to continue staying away from him. I didn’t want to call him and tell him what Terrance said over the phone. All of this shit was making me paranoid. It was also making me an insomniac. Everything Terrance had said and the scary way he had said it kept running over and over in my head. Every time I tried to close my eyes, I would hear him say Dax was going to “end up dead.” I was a mess when he went to prison. I could barely function. I didn’t think I could take it if he died…if he was murdered. The only positive was that Bull was still their leader and if they killed his son, they would have some serious consequences to pay. Even I knew that, so that was what I tried to use to keep myself calm.
When I got to the bar there were about eight of the guys and some of their groupies hanging out. I glanced around, but I didn’t see D
ax and I was secretly glad. I knew it wasn’t any of my business anymore, but I really hated the thought of him being with one of those trashy girls. I saw Cookie behind the bar. He looked like he was training a couple of the skanky girls how to mix drinks. It wasn’t a hard job in a bar like this. It wasn’t like people went in there and ordered a white wine spritzer or a Cosmopolitan.
“Hey Cookie!”
“Hola Livia! Como Estas?” I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why a guy like Cookie with skills to support himself and the good sense not to be a criminal, chose to hang around this place. There was no way he didn’t know what went on behind the scenes.
“I’m good, Cookie, thank you. Have you seen Dax?”
“Yes, he’s in the back. In his room, I think.”
“Thanks Cookie,” I told him.
I got a few interesting looks from the groupies as I walked towards the back. I could always tell when I was around that they felt a little threatened by the fact that I came and went through the back. The back was where they wanted to be. Most of them didn’t even care which one of the old smelly bikers took them back there. They wanted to be old ladies. If they could get a young, good-looking one, that would be great. If not, they’d take what they could get. I didn’t think they’d be so envious of me if they knew I had no desire whatsoever to be an Old Lady and I hated that place with a growing passion. Each day that passed, I came to resent that place even more, as if it was the building that was evil rather than its inhabitants.
I hesitated in front of the brand new door that Dax must have put on the bedroom after Terrance kicked the other one down. I shuddered at the memory. When he was in the store, I couldn’t even look at him without seeing the maniac he was the night he’d broken in and shoved a gun in my face. I didn’t know if it was that thought or seeing Dax, but my hand was shaking as I lifted it to knock. Within seconds, a shirtless Dax pulled it open. He looked shocked to see me. I tried to keep my eyes trained on his face and not the ripped muscles right in front of me.
Ruined #4 (The MC Motorcycle Club Romance Series - Book #4) Page 1