“I have a buddy with a table for sell. I’m going to look at it and see if it’ll work for the shop,” I lied.
“Oh good,” she said, going back to her paper.
I kissed her on the cheek and said, “Thanks for entertaining the P.O. again. I’ll see you later.”
“You’re welcome. See you later,” she said. I hated lying…especially to my mother.
*************
I drove back up to the warehouse. I was happy to see that it looked like no one was around. I could outrun someone on my bike, but in my dad’s old flatbed Ford, I doubted it.
I stopped close to the rolling front doors and got out. Since the last time I was there, and Brock and I had gotten into it, someone had put about five more locks on the door. I was sure it was my brother. He wasn’t going to tell anyone that I had been able to waylay him and that I knew the warehouse was full of drugs. He thought if I came back and saw all of those locks on the door, I would just pack up and go home. He not only thought wrong, but putting all of the locks on the warehouse was kind of stupid as well. It was almost the equivalent of putting up a big sign that said, “Hey! Something big is in here, you should break in!” Morons.
I stood several feet back and aimed the gun at the first lock and fired. There were five of them, so it took me five shots, but I eventually got them all off. I rolled open the doors and was happy to see that the crates of heroin were still there. I got back in the truck and backed it in. I left it running while I loaded the crates onto the flatbed. I used the tarp I’d brought and covered them and tied it all down.
I drove to the bar. I knew it was the stupidest move I’d made yet, but my dad had already told me they’d be shooting pool and I just so happened to know no one had used the back door at the far end of the clubhouse in years. I was able to take the back road up to the bar. The dirt one Olivia and I took walks along sometimes.
I backed the truck up close and used the key I’d stolen from my dad’s office to unlock the old rusty lock on the back door. Two at a time and at break-neck speed; I unloaded the crates into my room. I was sweating by the time I got done, more from panic then from heat or exertion. I locked my door up tight and went back to the pickup, locking the outside door up once more.
I drove back up the way I came and around so that it looked like I came into the bar off the main road. I parked in front and went inside. It was a packed house. Cookie was cooking up a storm and two of my dad’s groupies were serving up drinks as fast as they could pour them. They had a young woman in a bikini writing the names of those in the tournament on a dry erase board while they all stared at her ass. Those losers deserved to go to jail, I thought just as I caught Blake’s eye across the room. Terrance was with him and they were both boring holes through me with their glares. I went around behind my dad’s bar and grabbed one of his beers. I strode over to my dad’s table and I sat down.
Fuck ‘em.
Chapter Thirteen
Olivia
Several days passed. I’d been staying with my uncle, slowly packing my things up to move back in with Dax since the night we went out. He wanted me to come back and stay with him and I agreed to it, but I was taking my time because as much as I wanted to be with Dax, I was dreading going back to the bar. I told Dax it was the hold up, but he didn’t seem to mind I was taking my time.
I finally finished packing and cleaned the room I’d been staying in really well.
It was a lot earlier than I thought it would be when I got done. I hadn’t heard from Dax that day so I decided to call him and see if he wanted to do something. I’d been thinking about going to Mel’s with him since the day I stopped there. I thought it would be fun to hang out for a while and have dinner.
I called him, but he didn’t answer so I decided to just load up some of my stuff and drive over. If he wasn’t there, I could probably get Bull to open the bedroom for me so I could start moving some of my stuff over. It had been about a week since I cleaned it, so I figured it would probably need to be done again too.
I found Bull, Blake and Bo in deep conversation in the back when I got there. They stopped talking when they saw me and after a few seconds of recovery time, Bull said, “Hey sweetheart, Dax isn’t here. I really don’t know where he went.” I had my arms full of bags and it finally must have dawned on him because he said, “I can open the room for you if you want me to.”
“I’d like that, if you don’t mind,” I told him.
I smiled at Blake, but he didn’t smile back. He just glared at me and it was making me nervous so I turned away quickly and pretended to be shuffling with my bags until Bull came back with the key. He slipped the key in the door and stepped away, letting me go inside on my own.
“Thanks, Bull,” I told him over my shoulder.
“Sure, sweetheart,” he said. I hated it when he called me that.
I turned back towards the room and was surprised to see it was full of wooden crates. What the hell was this? Was Dax collecting equipment for his business? I put my stuff down and went over to look more closely at them. They didn’t have any lettering or markings on them. The one on top looked like it had been pried open and the lid only sat down on it loosely. With a knot in my stomach, I lifted the lid and looked inside. I already thought I knew what I was going to find. The crate was full of little black balloons. I reached in and picked one up just as I heard the door open behind me. I swung around and saw Dax looking at me with the Oh Shit! look on his face.
“What the hell, Dax? What is this?”
He closed the door quickly and said, “Keep your voice down, please.”
“What is this?” I said again, holding out the bag.
“It’s heroin,” he said. I felt like I was going to throw up.
“You’re going to do something aren’t you? You’re still going after them? Where did you get all of this?”
“I stole it,” he said. “From Blake and my brother’s warehouse.”
I felt the tears stinging my eyes and I couldn’t stop them. My voice cracked as I saw the future I’d let myself imagine once again start slipping away. “You promised, Dax. You were supposed to stop.”
“I’m sorry, Liv. I can’t.”
“What are you going to do with all of this? This is…I mean, I don’t know anything about drugs but even I know this stuff is worth a lot of money. They’re not going to just overlook this, Dax.”
“No, they won’t overlook it. The bad guys will go after Brock for it. The drugs all went through him. It was his responsibility to make sure they were safe. He failed. Now he’ll have to take whatever comes his way like a man.”
“They’ll kill him, won’t they?” I asked, shocked. Dax didn’t seem to care it was his own brother he was talking about. He suddenly seemed as cold as the rest of them. What the hell was wrong with these people?
“That’s not my problem. I hope they don’t kill him, but he’ll have to figure it out. He should have thought of all that before he got mixed up with these people.”
“You don’t even sound like yourself,” I said.
“I’m not the same guy I used to be, Liv. No one will ever push me around again. They are going to be sorry that they fucked with me.”
“And what about me, Dax? What am I supposed to do? Live in a room full of heroin and act like I don’t know it’s here?”
“No, you need to go back to your uncle’s house. It’s too dangerous for you here.” The tears were running freely down my face and I could feel my breath catching in my throat.
“Dax, please—” I said. I wasn’t even sure what the rest of the sentence was supposed to be. He lied to me about stopping, why would I consider believing him again? It didn’t matter anyways, he cut me off.
“Olivia, go home. I’ll call you when this is over and it’s safe.”
I stared at him, in shock for a few seconds. The tears had a mind of their own and they just kept falling. Finally, I snapped back and instead of sad and worried, I was pissed.
&
nbsp; I picked my bags back up and told him, “Don’t bother calling, I won’t answer if you do.”
I stormed out and got in my car and left. Dax didn’t come after me.
Chapter Fourteen
Dax
I felt like shit when Olivia walked out, but at least if she was mad at me, she would stay away. Once these guys figured out what I’d done and what I planned to do, being with me would be about as safe as walking across a field of land mines. I knew that statement should have made me not want to do this, but I couldn’t stop. I had to make those guys pay for what they did. They needed to finally get that they couldn’t just go around fucking with whomever they felt like fucking with.
I’d stolen all of Brock’s drugs a little at a time over the past few days. He obviously hadn’t figured out they were gone, because he would have been on my doorstep already if he had. I planned to use their own drugs to set them all up. Once I put some of them in Terrance and Blake’s bikes, enough to make sure when they were caught they’d be doing hard time, I was going to destroy the rest of it. I was going to dump the crates out in the empty field behind the bar and then run them over and over and over until the dust in the bags mixed with the dirt. Brock would be left to explain to a member of the Mexican drug cartel how he had lost millions of dollars’ worth of heroin. They would probably cut his head off. I guess I felt a little bit bad, but he had gotten himself into this. He shouldn’t have been screwing around with people like them in the first place.
I sat in the room and waited until about ten pm before I went out and checked on where everyone was. I walked into the bar and grabbed myself a beer, glancing around quickly. I saw Terrance, sucking face with some chick that looked like she was about forty and an ex-porn star. Blake was sitting at my dad’s table with his back to me. The rest of the guys were all there, either engaged in kissing and feeling up girls or shooting pool or shooting the shit. They were all occupied though and that was the point.
I went back into my room and filled a small canvas back pack with bags of heroin. Then, I made my way out to the garage, glancing again into the bar as I went by. It didn’t look like anyone had moved. I went into the garage and pulled out my flashlight. I didn’t want to turn on the light and have someone see it under the door. I found Terrance’s bike first. I shoveled fistfuls of the bags into his saddle bags and put all the stuff he usually carried back on top of them.
I did the same with Blake’s bike. I was putting in the last handful when the door behind me opened. I slipped the gun out of my waistband and turned around. It was my dad and he was walking towards me until he saw the gun.
He stopped dead in his tracks and with a shocked expression on his face he asked, “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Getting even,” I said.
“That’s Blake’s bike. You put something in the bags, why?”
“Because Blake was part of the set-up. He ordered it, and my brother. Your son sent Terrance the email and Terrance put the drugs on my bike. They’re not going to get away with it. Please Dad; I need them to pay for what they did to me.”
“Dax, you’re not making sense. Why would Blake want to set you up? He knows I’d have his ass if he fucked with you. As far as Terrance goes, I’ll buy that. That boy ain’t never had any balls, but Brock? What was his motive?”
“Blake didn’t like you saying you were going to have me succeed you as President. He knew he couldn’t kill me. If you found out, it would be suicide. But he found a way to get rid of me anyways, at least for a while. And yes, Dad, Brock did do this. He admitted it to me. He’s so jealous of me he can’t see straight. He says that you have always liked me best, and he got the short end of the stick. He’s also got it in for Mom and you know how bad it hurt her to see me in that place. He hurt us both in one fell swoop.”
My dad shook his head. “I just can’t believe any of this, Dax. I’ve known Blake my whole life. Do you know the things I’ve done for him? I can’t believe he would turn on me like that.”
I heard the door again before I could respond. I looked up in time to see Blake come through the door. I moved the gun from my dad to him, but he already had his own out. I could see movement out of the corner of my eye. My dad was moving but I didn’t know where. I couldn’t take my eyes off Blake. In the next few seconds, the deafening sound of a gunshot ripped through the garage.
PART FIVE
Chapter One
Olivia
I had just walked into the store when I heard the phone ringing. My uncle picked it up and after a few seconds he said, “It’s for you, Liv.”
I had left my cell phone off all night and morning. I didn’t want to talk to Dax or listen to his excuses in a voice mail or read them in a text.
“Is it Dax?” I asked him with what I hoped was an, I don’t want to talk to him face.
“No, it’s his mother,” my uncle said.
He handed me the phone and walked away. I stared at it for a few seconds before finally concluding that if his mother was calling me….something bad must have happened to Dax. I had a flashback to when he went to jail and my heart was already speeding up when I finally said, “Hello?”
“Hi Olivia, it’s Gail.”
“Hi,” I said. “Is everything okay?”
“No honey. Dax was shot last night.”
Shot! What the fuck? I thought she was going to tell me he got arrested. That was bad enough, but I had somewhat mentally prepared myself for that...but not shot.
“Is he okay? Where is he?”
“The bullet went through his abdomen. They had to do some repairs to his stomach and they removed his spleen. He’s pretty doped up right now, but he’s out of surgery and they said he did fine.”
“Oh God,” I said.
“I tried to call you last night, honey, but I was never able to get through. I left a bunch of voice mails…”
“I’m sorry. My phone was off. Can I come and see him?” I asked.
I felt numb and at the same time, shaky all over. I knew something bad was going to happen and as happy as I was that he was alive, I wanted to kick his ass for doing exactly what his mother and I had been telling him not to.
“Of course, honey. They just moved him out of ICU onto the floor. He’s in room 217.”
“Okay, I’ll be there soon,” I told her.
“Okay but drive safe. There’s no emergency now. He’s not going anywhere.”
“I will, thank you, Gail.”
I told my uncle that Dax was in the hospital. I avoided telling him why. He told me he’d call someone else in and to go and not worry about it. I grabbed my purse and headed for the hospital. The whole way I couldn’t stop thinking about how scared Dax must have been, how much pain he must have been in. It actually caused me physical pain to think about it. I was still angry, but now I was angry at whoever did this to him. If they would have been in front of me, I might have shot them myself.
It seemed like it took me forever to get to the hospital. It was normally only a thirty minute drive but it actually only took me about twenty-five minutes. I was in a high state of anxiety before I got there though.
I practically ran from the parking lot to the elevator and took it up to the second floor. I found 217 and when I got to the door of the room, I had to force myself to stop and take a deep breath before I went inside. Feeling slightly calmer, I pushed open the door. I saw Gail, sitting in the corner in a chair. She smiled and gave me a little wave. The curtain around the bed was pulled about half way so I could see the outline of Dax’s body under the sheet, but I couldn’t see his face. Gail saw I was hesitating and she beckoned at me to come in further. I forced my feet to move forward and when I got to the bed I closed my eyes for a second before finally looking around the curtain.
Dax was pale, almost as white as the sheets on the bed. He had an IV with a bunch of bags hanging off of the pole and some other kind of tube coming out of his stomach and going to a container on the wall. There was some kind of green foam
y stuff in the container. I guessed it was suctioning stuff from his stomach. There was a bag hanging on the side of the bed with urine in it so he must have had a catheter in as well. He was such a big guy but lying in that bed with all of that stuff hooked up to him made him look smaller somehow, and so pathetic. I felt tears in my eyes as I leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.
“You’re an idiot,” I whispered to him, “But I still love you so much. I’m so glad you’re going to be okay.”
I felt Gail’s hand resting on my shoulder and I turned to look at her. “I’m going to go down and get us some lunch,” she said.
I nodded and wiped one of the tears from my eye. Gail wrapped me up in her arms and that was when I finally lost it. I felt bad, but I couldn’t stop. I would stop for a second and then I would think again about how easily we could have lost him and start crying all over again. Gail was great. She just held onto me and let me cry, not saying a word.
When I finally stopped I said, “I’m sorry, I know he’s okay but I can’t help thinking about how much worse it could have been.”
She smiled and said, “Don’t be sorry. I’m just not crying now because I’m cried out. I cried on Bull’s shoulder all night.” She handed me a tissue and I took it and blew my nose. “I’m going down for the food, I’ll be right back.”
I forced a smile and nodded. I was afraid if I tried to speak that I’d start crying all over again. Once Gail left, I turned back to the bed. I ran my hand lightly across Dax’s handsome face and said, “I’m not leaving you this time, not ever. All of this craziness has forced me to take a deeper look at how I feel about you, Dax. I love you so much. I don’t want to be without you, ever. I can’t even imagine a life without you any longer. I don’t want to even try. So, you better hurry and get out of this bed so we can hurry and start getting on with our lives.”
Dirty SEAL (A Navy SEAL Romance) (The Maxwell Family) Page 91