‘Stranger,’ she said, still panting. With her open palms, she lifted his head from where it rested on hers so that she could look him in the eye.
‘What?’ he asked.
She smoothed his hair away from his forehead. ‘I won’t let them have you. I won’t let them take you away from this, I promise.’
Here he was worried about her feeling like she was losing control of their relationship; while all the time she was formulating ways to hold onto him.
‘I’m going nowhere, babygirl.’
Fighting Back
By
Scarlett Finn
Copyright © 2015 Scarlett Finn
The right of Scarlett Finn to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published in 2015
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
For J
Acknowledgements
Thanks go out to Amy for this one. You were a delight and I couldn’t have done it without you.
Thanks to the readers for all their kind words and to Nancy P, who never forgets about me.
I also thank Melissa for holding things together over on FB, you are focused and committed, thank you.
Also, thanks to my family for always being willing to go around again.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter One
For weeks, Dax and Ivy hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the Stark family or anyone from Dax’s former life. That had changed this morning. Dax had been talking to Blaser, his new friend and boss, in the parking lot of their apartment complex when Ivy’s hand landed on his abs. He wouldn’t have minded his wife copping a quick grope, except gratuitous fondling wasn’t what caused her to make the connection, she wasn’t even looking at him.
Dax followed her line of sight to see what had her transfixed and was stunned to see a long black limo on the perimeter. It held the attention of the group of residents loitering in the parking lot, but Dax knew why that car was here. Such a show of opulence meant only one thing: the Stark family had come to town.
His assumption was proven correct when the driver left the vehicle and rounded it to open the back door. Brad Stark emerged, buttoning his suit jacket, and he fixed Dax in his sights. Dax despised being a participant in any spectacle and so crossed the apartment complex parking lot in hopes of putting an end to it.
Still shielded by the open limo door, Brad stood with his head held high, proud of the garish display. As irksome as he found it, Dax wouldn’t reveal how the exhibition bothered him, so sauntering up, Dax paid no attention to the chauffeur standing at the head of the open door. Coming to a stop, with the car door in between them, Dax said nothing and waited for Brad to explain himself.
‘Care to take a ride?’ Brad asked, without removing his shades.
The gathering of residents remained outside the apartment building that he’d been living in with Ivy since he tracked her down here about a month ago. Making a scene wasn’t part of his agenda, so he granted Brad’s request with a single nod. The driver moved aside to let Dax follow Brad into the car, then closed the door behind them.
Dax chose the seat opposite Brad, with his back to the screen covered driver’s area. Neither of them spoke until the car began moving.
‘You need to come home,’ Brad said.
‘If that’s why you’re here you can save your breath and your gas,’ Dax said. ‘The answer is no.’
‘I didn’t ask. I told you, you’re coming home.’
‘What are you going to do? Drive me to the airport? Sorry, no ID.’
‘Brought a jet, it’s waiting on a private airstrip.’
His first thought was for Ivy. If he got on a jet with Brad, then California was their destination. If he didn’t get on the jet, then Brad would keep coming back for him until he got his way, and Ivy might get caught in the crossfire. Resigning himself to the fact that he would end up complying with Brad’s request, didn’t mean that he would give up without protest.
‘You have to give me something, a reason,’ Dax said. ‘You and Tryst miss me so bad that you had to chase me down?’ Brad and Trystan Stark were Maurice Stark’s sons, and they had been sort of surrogate brothers to him through the years.
‘Mauri wants to see you, it’s important.’
‘Sure it is,’ Dax said. ‘I told you I didn’t give a fuck and that hasn’t changed. I’m not interested in Maurice Stark, or you and your brother anymore.’
‘Still with Dune?’
‘It’s Harrow,’ Dax said, correcting Brad’s use of Ivy’s maiden name.
‘Oh that’s right, you married the woman you were supposed to be training for Trystan… You’re lucky he didn’t kill you for that stunt.’
If this was a different environment, Dax might have laughed. ‘If he wants to start something, he obviously knows where I am, tell him to come and visit. Ivy might even cook.’
‘You are still with her,’ Brad said. ‘Serg said that you were, but I’ve got to say, I didn’t believe it.’
Serg was one of Mauri’s henchmen and a one-time close associate of Dax’s. ‘We’re married,’ Dax said. ‘You think I’d have fucked around on the family if I wasn’t sure she was the only female I wanted?’
‘Do you want us to pick her up? She can join us on the trip.’
‘I haven’t said I’m going anywhere yet,’ he said, clenching his jaw.
Maurice Stark exuded arrogance, he was a superior sonofabitch who taught all of his sons to be assured. Brad managed it with eminence and authority, Dax did it with aloof indifference, and the youngest, Trystan, used overt ostentatious glitz to show the world that he was better than everyone in it.
Truth be told, Dax wasn’t like the other two, he was an unofficially adopted Stark. When he was a kid, Dax had been caught in the act of picking Mauri’s pocket. Mauri didn’t punish him, he brought Dax home to be raised in the servants’ quarters.
At least that was the story Dax had been raised to believe for all of his thirty-three years, until Ivy Dune came in and turned his life on its head. After her, he started to ask questions of himself, he rebelled against who the Stark’s had conditioned him to be, and then Mauri had revealed some truths that Dax would rather not have known.
‘Bruno bet money that you wouldn’t come,’ Brad said. ‘I took the bet. I knew as soon as you heard he’d said that, you’d be leaping onto a plane.’
Finding out that Bruno, Mauri’s contemporary and right-hand man, was his real father and the real reason that Mau
ri had taken pity on him as a kid, made him sick to his stomach. Grinding his teeth, Dax sought distraction in the world sweeping past his view through the window.
‘Why’d they send you?’ Dax asked, still not tempted to return to the Golden State.
‘Can’t trust Tryst to do anything,’ Brad said. ‘The kid flipped out after you left and went on a binge. Mauri got Serg to track him down and drag him back to the mansion. He’s been pretty much locked up since then.’
‘He’ll be loving that,’ Dax muttered. There were only a few months age difference between him and Trystan, but he referred to Trystan as a kid because he still acted like a child in a candy store as soon as drugs and sex were on offer.
‘Mauri wants you back. Serg’s been watching you, we sent him ahead, so he could give us the skinny on what you’ve been doing – working security at that strip joint, Risqué? Got your wife answering phones at an auto garage? Come on, you know you’re worth more than this. Come home.’
‘Why? To jump back into enforcing? You want me running the operation again?’
‘No one did it better.’
‘I have a life here, a wife.’
‘We’re not asking you to leave her behind, bring her. You can stay in the mansion together or move into your old place, I know you haven’t sold it yet.’
‘Been a little busy.’
‘Then it all works out,’ Brad said, opening his arms. ‘If you’re planning on living here you’ll need to come back home to sell your apartment. You’ll need to pack up and move, right? You can stay in the mansion while you do that.’
Sitting forward, Dax propped his elbows on his knees and looked Brad square in his eyes. ‘If you think that I’m going to trust you cock-sucking perverts anywhere near my wife—‘
‘Ivy’s safe,’ Brad sighed.
The condescending impatience displayed by Brad retrieving a bottle of water from the fridge was meant to rile Dax and it succeeded. Dax snatched the bottle and tossed it to the floor. The men stared each other down until Brad relented and spoke to reinforce his declaration.
‘Mauri has told everyone to accept her as your wife. All the guys know it, so she’s safe.’
Mauri’s word was absolute, but Dax didn’t trust Brad any more than the motherfucker trusted him. ‘Like when you tried to take her from me at the beach house?’ Dax asked, Brad’s bottom lip twitched. ‘You came to that party and tried to get her to leave with you. What was that about?’
‘Good old-fashioned double cross,’ Brad said. ‘Trystan wanted her, you had her, I was curious as to what all the fuss was about… I also had to test how obedient she was, to see how dependent on you she had become.’
‘And were you surprised?’
‘That she refused? No,’ Brad said. ‘But I didn’t see the love, I didn’t see how dependent you’d become on her. You two played a good game.’
Dax wasn’t interested in impressing Brad. ‘Why now? Why should I come back when—‘
‘He’s sick, Mauri is sick… We should’ve figured it out when he pulled that trick about Tryst marrying Ivy, he’s known for months. It’s cancer, stage four, inoperable, he’s got about four months.’
Wiping a hand over his mouth, he sat back. Much as Mauri pissed him off during the Ivy situation he was the closest thing Dax had to a father and no one wanted to receive news like this about family.
His hand slid off his thigh to seek out its mate, its partner, except it wasn’t there because his wife wasn’t present. Ivy had become his support, and without her here, he was lost as to the appropriate way to react.
‘He wants to say goodbye?’ Dax asked.
Mauri wasn’t exactly the sentimental type, but Dax had grown up listening to the man talk. Mauri had counselled him on everything from girls to his fighting technique. The world wouldn’t be any worse off with one less crime boss in it, but Dax would be worse off without his mentor.
‘He wants to settle old debts,’ Brad said. ‘Least that’s what I think, he wouldn’t give me details… Since you left, he hasn’t been the same, and I know he’s not happy with the way things ended. Come back, hear him out. Say goodbye to the man who made you who you are.’
He could refuse, but then he’d never know what it was that Mauri wanted. ‘Ok,’ Dax conceded. ‘Take me back to the apartments, we’ll leave in the morning.’
‘We can go right now, we’ll get you on a plane and Serg can pick up—‘
‘Ivy won’t go anywhere with anyone except me; she’s a clever girl and my responsibility. She doesn’t trust you bastards any more than I do, which is why she won’t leave my side for a second. Take me home and come back in the morning.’
‘If you’re just picking her up then why—‘
‘She doesn’t jump at anyone’s command. She’ll need time to warm up to the idea of going back to the family who tried to take over her life.’
That was an understatement. Dax knew that Ivy’s love for him was real, and if he made a big enough deal of it then she would support him in just about anything. But going back to California, back to the family who had nearly torn them apart… that would take some persuasion.
Ivy put the last plate in the cupboard and glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. Brad Stark coming back into their lives spelled trouble, there were no two ways about it. That he'd come across the width of the country to seek Dax out meant that they were serious about wanting him back. It couldn't be anything else, there was no other reason for Brad to be here.
If Trystan had been the one to show up, he’d have been hell bent on revenge. Brad wasn’t so shallow; he did his father’s bidding, but he didn't do his dirty work. If Maurice Stark wanted harm to come to her or Dax then he had minions to do that for him.
The image of Dax entering that car without looking back was imprinted on the inside of her eyelids, which was why she’d kept herself busy cleaning up their apartment.
Their new life here was good, they were making friends and adjusting to life in their fresh environment. Dax had even found himself a couple of fights. Much as she didn’t like to see him come home bloodied, she knew that his love of the underground circuit was a part of who he was.
But with Brad back and Dax willing to hear him out, she could see their lives here being disrupted. There were too many questions about the past that she and Dax couldn’t answer if their new friends asked.
Wiping down all of the kitchen counters, she reminded herself how far Dax had come. The possibility existed that he would tell Brad to go to hell and if he did there would be a major reward in it for him coming from her.
The living-kitchen area of their home ran the breadth of the front of the apartment and had windows flanking the entrance. A narrow corridor at the rear of the property led to the bathroom and bedroom. There wasn’t much left to clean up, so her distraction, needed to keep her mind off Dax, was beginning to dry up.
The front door opened, and she tried not to display the flood of relief that overcame her. Coming home so soon, when she’d half expected him to be gone for days, was a good sign. Going to the fridge to retrieve the dinner steaks, Ivy was ready to forget that she’d ever cast her eyes on Brad again.
‘I got these from a place Bri recommended,’ she said of their female neighbour who she’d become friends with.
‘That’s it?’ Dax asked.
He came up behind her and slid one hand over her hip while the other scooped her hair out of his way, then his warm lips touched the artery pulsing in her neck. Ignoring his actions, she carried on seasoning the steaks.
‘The butcher is supposed to be amazing. The guys at the garage were jealous when I said I’d picked them up, and for what they cost…’
The hand on her hip carried on around to her belly, his other hand skimmed down her arm, and he pried her fingers away from the knife she’d just picked up.
‘Dax,’ she whined, but when he unbuttoned her shorts, she smiled. ‘You have to be at the club in an hour, and I have to feed you before—‘
‘I stopped at Blaser’s before I came up, he’s giving us some time off.’
‘For a belated honeymoon?’ she asked, coiling her arm around her body to slip his belt from its restraining loops. ‘Somewhere hot and far away from these shores?’
‘Actually, yeah, that’s one way to look at it. How does California sound?’
‘Like my idea of hell,’ she said, withdrawing her hand before it got to the good stuff. ‘You’re not much of a comedian, tough guy.’
‘I’m not kidding. We’re going to California tomorrow.’
‘Oh no we’re not,’ she said.
‘We are.’
With her hands on the counter, Ivy used all of her weight to push her body back into his, giving her space to escape. After shoving him aside, she went to the sink and washed her hands, using the reprieve to subdue the strength of her reaction to what he’d said.
Tossing the towel aside, she turned to face him. ‘You’re going back to them?’
‘We,’ he said, trying to encroach on her, but she removed herself from his path and headed into the living room.
‘I am not going back to Maurice Stark, and what about Trystan?’
‘What about him?’ Dax asked, his face set in a frown. ‘You’re not afraid of him, you’re not fucking afraid of anyone.’
‘It’s the fucking part that I stick on. You didn’t tell me about what happened the night you walked away, at that midnight meeting, but I can guarantee no one floated their congratulations, did they?’
‘Maurice has taken care of it,’ Dax said. ‘Brad told me that Maurice has told everyone about us and told them to keep their hands off you.’
‘Oh well if Brad told you that then I guess it’s ok.’
‘Why would he lie?’
‘Why would he tell the truth?’ she demanded. ‘And Bruno, what about him?’
His eyes went one way and his chin went up while his tongue darted out to moisten half of his top lip, she didn’t like that tell, not one little bit.
Fighting Back (Harrow Book 2) Page 1