Salvation

by Terri Anne Browning

  “Close your mouth, Mrs. Davis,” a voice I knew and loved commanded as I felt a soft hand touch my back. “You’ve more than said your two cents. Now it’s my turn.”

  I grabbed Aunt Willa’s arm when she took a step in the old woman’s direction, stopping whatever she was about to do. Blinking back tears, I cleared my throat. “No. It’s okay. She’s entitled to her opinion. And as she said, she knows her grandson. Of course he’s only playing with me to make his ex jealous.”

  “I… That’s not what I meant, actually.” Flustered, she took a step forward, but I took two steps back. “Lexa dear, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Oh, I think you did, ma’am,” Aunt Willa assured her. “Why else would you say it?”

  “Because…” Grimacing, she wrung her hands together. “Because I’m an old fool who likes to gossip.”

  “Glad to see you can admit it. But you’ve made your opinion on the subject loud and clear.” Aunt Willa stepped in front of me, her eyes darkening like storm clouds when she saw the scratch on my cheek, but she didn’t comment on it. “What do you need here, sweetheart? I’ll grab it and drop it off on my way home.”

  “Ch-cheese,” I muttered, my voice weak. I hated it, but I was so close to tears, I couldn’t really see her face. “Two pounds of the Colby-Jack sliced extra thick.”

  She smiled. “Raven must be making chili.”

  I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat.

  “You go on and check out. I’ll get the cheese.” I let her turn me toward the front of the store, not looking back when her hand dropped from my back. Blindly, I checked out and walked to my car, feeling defeated.

  Chapter 16

  Ben

  Paige shifted uneasily in the chair in front of my desk as I put my phone away after texting Lexa. “What was so important it couldn’t wait?” I asked, trying to focus on her, when all I could think about was how good Lexa had tasted on my tongue the night before.

  Paige glanced nervously at the door. It was closed but not locked, and my instincts kicked in, wondering what the hell was going on. Leaning forward, she lowered her voice. “There is something weird going on in Campbell’s office, Ben. This morning when I went in to grab some files, I overheard him on the phone, and he was talking to someone in Italian.”

  “Why is that suspicious? His daughter married some Italian guy I guess.”

  “He mentioned a name that my father has been following closely lately,” she whispered. “Carlo Santino is a nasty bastard, from what I’ve heard. Some mafioso who is into human trafficking and—” She broke off when the shadow of someone walked by the door. Pressing her lips together, she waited a few seconds once they were gone to speak again. “Campbell was speaking to this guy in an agitated way, Ben. I can understand a little Italian, but I couldn’t keep up with most of what I heard. But…” She blew out a frustrated breath. “But I heard your girl’s name. He’s up to something, and Lexa Reid is part of it.”

  “Fuck, Paige.” Getting to my feet, I walked to the door and opened it to make sure no one was out in the hall. Seeing it was empty, I shut and locked the door before dropping down into the chair beside her. “Did anyone else hear this?”

  “His secretary?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. She’s kind of ditzy from what I’ve seen. She gets his coffee like clockwork, but she knows nothing of his schedule or dealings. I’m fairly sure she’s fucking him on her lunch hour though, so she might know something.”

  “But you’re sure he was talking to Santino?” My gut felt like it was full of lead, and the thought of this bastard doing something to Lexa was making my blood boil. “The same Santino your father is looking into?”

  “From the context of what I heard, my instincts are telling me yes. He’s a bad man, Ben. And honestly, I’m not sure I’m comfortable continuing this investigation on my own if Campbell is working under the table with this guy. I thought when you wanted the DA looked into, you were talking about dirty politics and people paying him off to get a good deal at the most. This… My father would freak if he knew I was even in the same room with someone talking about Carlo Santino, let alone digging into his business.”

  I scratched at the beard growth on my chin, barely noticing the tightness in my knuckles from the stitches. “No, no. I don’t want to put you in any danger either, Paige. Talk to your father. Have him get someone else to take over the investigation.”

  “And Lexa? What will you do about her?” Her eyes darkened with concern. “She’s a target. If Santino gets his hands on her, you probably won’t ever see her again.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” I assured Paige, already making plans for how to protect my woman. “Don’t worry about her.”

  After she left, promising me she would call her dad on her way to her new temporary apartment, I grabbed my keys. Lexa was so damn stubborn; I knew I wouldn’t be able to protect her on my own. And if I didn’t tell her father what Paige overheard, he would definitely kill me. Not that I would blame him.

  I was using my truck until my cruiser got fixed. I’d been informed by my secretary that morning that Bash Reid was footing the bill, no doubt in hopes Campbell would go easier on his daughter. But we both knew she would be better off taking a chance on getting in front of a judge than accepting any offer Campbell tried to make. The dirty bastard wouldn’t go easy on her simply because of who her father was.

  The parking lot was half full when I pulled in and walked around to the garage bays. My cruiser was already in one, and Bash was standing beside it, writing down the damages on a clipboard.

  “Got a minute?” I called out, grabbing his attention.

  His eyes were so much like Lexa’s that when he turned them on me, all I could think about for a moment was her.

  Tossing the clipboard onto a huge toolbox, he walked toward me. “What do you want?” he growled, stopping a foot from me.

  “We need to talk,” I told him, glancing around at all the other mechanics. “It’s important.”

  Something in my tone must have conveyed to him I wasn’t joking around. Those blue eyes narrowed for a moment, before he nodded toward the shop. “Let’s go to the office.”

  Following him inside, I saw that a teenage boy who looked a lot like Bash was behind the counter, taking care of the half-dozen customers in line. “Max, I’m going to be in the office for a bit,” Bash told him. “Someone comes back this way, tell them to mind their own fucking business.”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said with a nod, his blue eyes narrowed on me just like his Dad’s had been earlier.

  In the office, Bash motioned toward the single chair sitting in front of a tidy desk as he closed the door behind him. “What’s this about?”

  “I assume you know who Carlo Santino is?”

  His entire body seemed to jerk at the mention of that name. Opening the door, he stuck his head out. “Max!”

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  “You have five minutes to get everyone out of the shop. Once you do, let me know.”

  “Ah, come on,” the boy complained. “I can barely work this damn computer. I’m not Lexa!”

  “Damn right, you aren’t. Now get your ass to work and get these people out of here.” Slamming the door, he leaned back against it. “Don’t say another word until he tells me they’re all gone.”

  I nodded my understanding. Then I got a text from Paige, telling me she’d talked to her dad and that she needed to talk to me. I told her I would meet her for lunch and put the phone back in my pocket, waiting.

  Eight minutes later, there was finally a knock on the door. “I’m done,” Max said when Bash cracked it open. “You gonna kill the sheriff and didn’t want witnesses?”

  “Shut up, boy. Now I want you to stand outside the front door. No one comes in this building. You hear me? Not even your sister.” Max’s eyes widened, but he nodded. “Good. Now, go.”

  Holding the door open, Bash watched his son do as he
was told before shutting it again. Facing me once more, he crossed his arms over his chest. “What the fuck is this about Santino?”

  “First, you should know Paige, that woman I’ve been seen around town with? She’s the special investigator into Campbell. This morning, she overheard a phone call Campbell was having. He was speaking in Italian, so she only understood part of the conversation, but from what she did hear, he was speaking to Santino.”

  “Dirty motherfucker,” Bash groused as he walked behind the desk and took a seat. “Always knew he was in someone’s pocket. Probably a lot of someones, but I never suspected it would be Santino. I should have, though.”

  “Paige heard him mention Lexa.”

  The air in the room suddenly seemed to crackle with a dangerous energy, and I was sure I’d just seen lightning flash in the man’s eyes. “My little girl’s name passed that fucker’s lips while he was speaking to Carlo goddamn Santino?”

  “That’s what Paige told me,” I confirmed, popping my knuckles on my uninjured hand. They ached to pound on both Campbell and Santino. Either of those bastards simply thinking of Lexa stirred the monster just below the surface. “Just hearing Campbell talk to Santino spooked Paige, so she’s talking to her father about getting another investigator on the case. But I knew I needed to tell you about this. I’ll focus everything on Lexa.”

  He nodded, which surprised the hell out of me. “I want to tell you to fuck off, but Lexa is so damn stubborn, she will throw a fit and a half if I put my own men on this. If we don’t tell her and just make sure we have eyes on her at all times, we should be good.” His face was gray, his jaw clenching and unclenching. “This is already a fucking nightmare. When Fontana took her, she nearly died. I can’t let that happen again, Davis. I’ll lose my mind.”

  “How bad was it?” I didn’t even know if I could stomach hearing his answer, but I needed him to tell me just how close to losing her I’d come, long before I’d even gotten the chance to love her.

  “When we found her, she was covered in blood, and we thought she was dead then and there. As soon as we got her to the hospital, they took her from us, and we didn’t see her for hours. She had emergency surgery to repair internal bleeding from where the motherfucker had beaten her so badly, he’d ruptured internal organs. The surgeon was damn good, or that scar on her beautiful face would have been ten times worse. She was in pain for months.” He ran his fingers through his dark hair that was lightly streaked with a few gray hairs at the temples. “But it wasn’t just physical pain that kept her up at night. This town is full of gossiping busybodies who have nothing better to do. No one knew the real story about what happened to her, so they started making up their own versions.”

  “People do seem to love talking about her,” I muttered. They all needed to keep their mouths shut. I was already sick and tired of everyone spooking her by talking about us.

  “We’re not telling her or her mother about Santino. Lexa will only try to evade us, and Raven doesn’t need the extra stress right now of worrying about our baby girl,” Bash said, pulling my focus back to the issue at hand. “You or your people stick to her like glue if she’s not home. I’ll make sure there is always someone at my house.”

  Keeping this from Lexa wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I would take her father’s lead on this. I knew just how stubborn she was, so I needed to trust his judgment for now.

  Another text came in, and I glanced down at it in annoyance, expecting it to be Paige. Seeing it was Lexa, some of my tension eased just a bit, and I texted her back before lifting my gaze back to her father.

  He was watching me intently, and I lifted a brow at him. “What?”

  Grimacing, he shook his head. “I could tell it was Lexa just from the look on your face. Even after that night we talked about Campbell, I didn’t want to believe you loved her. It was too soon. You barely knew her. You still barely know her, but I can see that you do.”

  “I do,” I rasped out, needing him to understand just how much his daughter meant to me. “I would give up my own life to protect her. She’s everything to me. And yes, I know it hasn’t been long enough by everyone else’s standards, but I knew the night I first met her that she was mine.”

  “Then I suggest you don’t fuck it up, boy.”

  Chapter 17

  Lexa

  Hannigans’ parking lot was already getting crowded that evening when I arrived.

  As I walked through the bar, several of the MC brothers called out greetings to me, and I got a kiss on the cheek from both Uncle Raider and Uncle Colt, who were running the place that night.

  Uncle Colt grabbed my chin as he pulled back, examining my cheek closely. “And your pops still hasn’t dealt with Murphy?”

  I shrugged, not sure what my dad was going to do about the deputy, and honestly, I didn’t care if he did something or not. I was beyond the point of caring about anything. I’d switched something off to keep from feeling the hurt Mrs. Davis’s words had caused earlier, and I wasn’t ready to turn it on again any time soon.

  “Rave seen this?” Uncle Raider asked, his eyes narrowed on my wrists.

  “She saw it this morning. And before you ask, I’m pretty sure she’s going to deal with Murphy herself. And Dad.” I shrugged again. “He’s on her shit list too.”

  The two younger Hannigan brothers shared a look before grimacing. “Well, Murphy’s dead. Maybe we should send flowers,” Uncle Raider muttered.

  “I have work to do,” I told them as I grabbed a bottle of Coke from the cooler behind the bar. I started to walk away, but I turned back at the last second. “And if the sheriff comes in looking for me, you don’t know who he’s talking about.”

  “Gotcha, sweetheart,” Uncle Colt assured me with a wink. Of the four brothers, Colt and Jet looked the most alike, but Uncle Colt was the most easygoing of them all. Which didn’t really mean a whole lot since he could be a hard-ass like everyone else in the Hannigan family. Still, he was easier to talk to than the others, and I loved him a little more than the other three because of it.

  Walking into the back office, I got to work. Mom said the bar and Uncle Spider’s place were the worst to do the books for. I understood why as soon as I sat down and saw the crumpled-up liquor supply invoice and other bills scattered across the desk. None of it was electronic like some of the other businesses Mom did the books for, like Aggie’s and Barker’s Construction, even though there was a perfectly good, state-of-the-art computer sitting right in the middle of the desk. Mom was the only one who used it, though, when she input the accounts into the system.

  An hour into it and my head was throbbing. I was about to cry mercy when I got a text from Ben asking where I was.

  Ignoring it, I grabbed the bottle of aspirin out of the top drawer of the desk and popped two before tossing my now-empty bottle of Coke in the trash. Needing to stretch my legs, I walked out to the bar in search of something else nonalcoholic to drink.

  The occupants had only doubled during the hour I’d been in the office, and the people at the bar waiting to order was staggering. Both of my uncles looked out of humor as I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and stepped back out of their way, taking a few minutes to watch them while sipping my drink.

  “Hey, Lexa!” someone called from the back where the pool tables were. “Bring us a round of beers, honey.”

  I glanced at Uncle Raider, asking if he wanted me to do it.

  “That would be a big help, sweetheart,” he said, grabbing eight bottles of beer out of the fridge and putting them on a tray. “Tell Tiny I’ll just put it on his tab.”

  Nodding, I grabbed the tray and walked back to the pool tables.

  There was absolutely nothing tiny about Tiny. He was at least six and a half feet tall, with shoulders as wide as a bull and the not-so-pretty face of one to go with it. He and seven of his friends grabbed the bottles off the tray, and he gave me a warm smile. He might not have been fun to look at, but he�
��d always been kind to me.

  “Uncle Raider said he’d put it on your tab,” I informed him after he’d hugged me.

  “Thanks, honey. Thought we were going to die of thirst back here until I saw your sweet face.”

  “I’m always happy to help,” I said with a smile. “But I have to get back to work. Enjoy your night, fellas.”

  For the next two hours, I worked my way through the rest of the receipts and finally got them all logged in to the accounting program on the computer. But that was only after I’d called to whine to Mom about it and beg her to walk me through a better way of dealing with her brothers’ chaos.

  Shutting down the computer, I grabbed my things and exited the office.

  I’d noticed the steady increase of noise out in the bar during the last hour or so, but I wasn’t prepared for the almost deafening roar of the crowd when I opened the door. Everyone was having a hell of a good time. Maybe too good, from the looks of it.

  Uncle Hawk was now behind the bar with his two younger brothers, but they still couldn’t get the drinks out fast enough. From the pool table area, the noise was the worst, though. Drunk bikers and a group of younger guys were back there, roughhousing and arguing. It didn’t take two seconds for me to realize why. My dad’s cousins, Tanner and Matt, were pool sharks, always scamming idiots who didn’t know any better out of their money.

  I’d never seen them in action before, though, but I’d heard plenty of stories over the years of all the money they’d won from frat boys or just about anyone who didn’t know the Reid brothers and their killer skills with a pool stick.

  Curious, I squeezed through the crowd, trying to get to the back without being noticed. If either of my uncles saw me watching the guys playing, they would kick me out. Especially now that the place was getting crazy and I was officially done with the books for the week.

  Tiny was still standing around the same pool table he’d occupied earlier, but he and his friends were more interested in what was going on at Matt and Tanner’s table than their own. Sitting on stools, they watched the entertainment, and I figured I was safest from the chaos and the view of my uncles with him.