“Of course you don’t,” he said. “Who were you living with when Dax was doing time?”
The mother-fucker already dam well knew the answer to that question before he asked me. I told him about living with Terrance but breaking up a few weeks ago and moving in with my uncle. He kept a smug smirk on his face the entire time. I had never wanted to hit a cop before, but I really wanted to slap that look off his face.
He finally said, “Okay, if you think of anything else,” and handed me a card.
I looked at it and then back at him and I said, “I’ll call right away.”
He smiled and seemed genuinely amused. After they left, my uncle who I hadn’t seen watching from the back came up to the counter.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Was that about Dax getting shot?”
“Yeah, how did you know he got shot?”
“Honey, I work in the motorcycle business. I hear all the good rumors. And of course there was you racing off to the hospital yesterday. How is he doing?”
“He’s doing well actually. They took out his spleen and repaired his stomach…”
“Olivia, I let you come stay here after your dad was arrested, to keep you safe. I shouldn’t have ever let you hang around this place and get involved with that club. They’re dangerous guys. Dax getting shot in the gut proves it, if you didn’t already know.”
“I know,” I admitted. “But Dax isn’t like them, he just wants out.”
“Then he needs to do it before he gets you involved in something nasty. Unless he already has. Is that why the police think you would know something about the shooting, Liv? Are you already involved in something?”
“No, I promise I’m not. If anything, Dax doesn’t tell me most of what goes on down there and I stay away from the rest of them as much as I can. I’m not into anything except Dax. I love him.”
My uncle sighed and put his arm around me. Pulling me into his side he said, “I know you’re a good girl, I just worry about you.”
“Please don’t. I don’t want to make you worry. When Dax gets better, he and I are going to figure out what to do with our lives and it’s not going to have anything to do with the club.” As I spoke the words, I was really hoping they were true.
Chapter Four
Dax
The nurse had just given me one of those little bags of morphine right before the cops walked in. I wasn’t surprised to see them. When I got to the hospital they would have called the police because of the gunshot anyways, but my mom said that my dad actually called an ambulance to the club to pick me up. I wondered about the heroin and if he had it put away before they got there. I hadn’t heard of anyone getting arrested, so I had to assume he did.
“How are you feeling, Dax?” This was the same detective who had been in charge of my case before I went to prison. I can’t say I felt any warm and fuzzy reunion vibes coming off of him.
“Like I got shot, detective. How about you?”
“Like I see your ugly face way too much. You just got out of prison. Why the hell were you in a situation where someone might shoot you?”
I laughed and was once again punished by the screaming pain from my surgical sight. “I went to the garage to get the sketchpad out of my saddle bags. I was going to get it and go home. Whoever shot me must have been in there looking for something to steal.”
“You think so?” He raised an eyebrow like the thought had never crossed his mind. “Is that your way of telling me that you didn’t see who shot you?”
“I don’t know if I saw them or not. I don’t remember anything after I opened the garage door. Someone already being there, boosting things has to be the only explanation,” I told him. “My dad and his friends were there I think. I saw their bikes anyways. But they were all up in the front and besides, none of them would shoot me.”
“Because you’re the son of the MC President?”
“Because I have no beef with any of those guys. Most of them are my friends, or my dad’s.”
“Who was all there that night?”
“I have no idea. I just told you that I came in through the garage and got shot.”
“Your motorcycle was there, in the garage?”
“Yes.”
“So what were you driving?”
“My father’s pick-up,” I told him.
“Bull Turner?” the detective asked. He knew damn good and well who my father was.
“Yes,” was all I said.
“Do you know anyone that might want to hurt or kill you?”
“Not to my knowledge,” I said. I could name at least three in my head.
“What about new friends you made in prison. Was anyone there holding a grudge when you left?”
I smiled and said, “I was a model prisoner. I didn’t make any friends or enemies. I did my time and kept to myself.”
“You’re going to make it hard for us to find and prosecute whoever did this to you Dax. Why is that?”
“I’m not trying to make it hard, Detective. I really don’t know.”
He asked me a few more questions about whose bikes I saw that night in the garage and if there were any cars in the parking lot. I told him I’d seem my dad’s bike and some of the old timers. I didn’t mention Blake or Terrance. I wanted to deal with them myself, more than ever.
As soon as they left and I had lay back and closed my eyes, I heard a familiar voice saying, “Imagine meeting you here.” It was my P.O. I really wanted to feign unconsciousness, but she seemed like the type who might smack me upside the head just to see if I flinched.
I opened my eyes and said, “Aw, Miss Ortega, how nice of you to visit me.”
She rolled her eyes and asked, “What the hell have you gotten yourself into Dax?”
I sighed, “I just told the cops, and I’ll tell you too….I’m not into anything. I only went down there to get my sketch pad out of my saddlebags. I had no intentions of staying and the last thing I remember is a gunshot echoing in the garage. I didn’t see anyone else in there with me. I didn’t see who shot me. I’m not being stubborn by not telling them, I honestly don’t know.”
She gave me one of those looks, the one that you get from your third grade teacher when she knows that you’re the one who put the tack on her seat but she also knows that she’s not going to be able to prove it. “I hope you are telling us the truth, Dax. I am really pulling for you to make something of your life. You’re an intelligent guy who seems to still have his grasp on a moral or two. Don’t make me wish I hadn’t been on your side, because you would hate me on the other one.”
“I won’t. I’m going to make something of my life. I told the detective that I think someone had gotten into the garage somehow and was looking for stuff to steal and I just happened to walk in on him. He doesn’t want to buy that though. He’d rather pin this on someone in the club.”
“It’s the kind of thing they would do,” she said.
“Shoot one of their own?” I asked.
“One of their own who is trying to get out,” she said. She left it there and told me she was going to take a copy of my tox panel. It showed I was negative for all drugs and since it was time for me to test again, she’d just use that. Before she left, she reminded me that I didn’t have to face any of the bad guys alone. I could call her for help anytime. I thanked her and closed my eyes again. I thought about how genuinely lucky I was to have so many good people in my corner. It wasn’t ten minutes after Miss Ortega left that I heard a rap on the door. Jeez, no rest for the wicked. At least this one knocked.
“Come in,” I said. My dad let himself in the door.
“Hey boy,” he said in the two pack a day voice of his.
“Hey dad.”
“How’s the belly?”
I smiled. The morphine was beginning to take effect. “Right now, it’s good. The morphine bag is almost empty.”
My dad laughed. Then he turned serious and said, “Blake says he saw you with the gun on me and then you turned it on him
so he shot. He didn’t know what was going on, but it looked like you were aiming to hurt somebody.”
“Did you ask him about all the things I told you?”
“No son, I didn’t.”
“Do you think I’m lying about it, or what?”
“I don’t think you’re lying, Dax. I think you’re a little desperate to clear your name so you’re grasping at straws. I know Blake can be an asshole, and his wimpy kid and Olivia being together while you were locked up had to piss you off…but I don’t believe Blake would do this, asshole or not. He doesn’t have a death wish…”
“Yet, here I am with a hole in my gut and he’s still walking around. I guess this proved to him it would be okay to just kill me next time.”
“What the hell did you expect me to do? You were the one holding the gun on me when he came in, Dax. If I’d walked in on his kid holding him at gunpoint I would have done the same thing.”
“What about Brock, Dad?”
“What about him, Dax?”
“He had as much to do with the set-up as Blake did. I have a video of him on your computer and he admitted it to me.”
“Him, I did ask,” my dad said.
“What did he say?”
“He said that you’re crazy. He says the same thing you did only that you’re the one who’s jealous.”
“And of course you believe him?”
“I know Brock is jealous of you, Dax. He always has been. I know he’s hot-headed, that was why I never wanted him taking over this club. But to go so far as to set up his own brother…I just think you’re mistaken, son.”
“Okay,” I said, closing my eyes.
“Okay, you’re going to give this shit up?”
“No. Okay as in you’re entitled to your opinion. I’m entitled to mine. When I prove to you that I’m right though, I guaran-fucking-tee you that I’m going to say I told you so.”
I thought my dad laughed, but I wasn’t sure. I drifted off and when I woke up, he was long gone and my mom was sitting next to my bed.
Chapter Five
Olivia
After I got off work, I went straight to the hospital. I met Gail leaving as I was going in.
“Hi, how is he today?”
“He’s tired. I think he’s had too many visitors.”
“Uh-oh. Is everything okay?”
“I suppose, for now. I’m just getting too damn old for all of this drama,” she said. “The police were here and his P.O. and his father. I think it all took a lot out of him.”
“The police came to see me too,” I told her. “They seem to be looking at Dax not so much like a victim, but like he did something to cause all of this. It kind of pisses me off, but then I have to remember what kind of mess we live in every day and what kind of shit the police have had to deal with the club over the past few years.” She put her hand to her head. I felt bad for her, but I didn’t know what to do.
Finally I asked her, “You’re not still blaming yourself for any of this, are you?”
She smiled and never really answered me. Instead she said, “I just want my boy back. I want the one back that they sent to prison. I miss him.”
Tears formed in my eyes and I said, “He’s still in there. We just need to whittle away at the shell he’s built around him.”
Gail nodded and gave me a hug. When I passed the nurses station on my way up, I heard the nurse taking an order to discharge Dax in the morning as long as his vital signs remained stable. That at least would make him happy.
“Hey gorgeous,” I said, sticking my head in the door.
“Hey! Finally, a visitor I can get on board with.” I smiled and went over and gave him a kiss.
“Did the doctor tell you they are discharging you soon?”
“No, what did you hear?”
“I heard some scuttlebutt at the nurse’s station about the super-hot guy in 217 being released. They were all depressed about it, even the male nurses.”
“I can see that,” he said. “I was the most popular guy on my block in prison just because I was so pretty.”
I chuckled and said, “Dear God, I hope that was the only reason. On a less gross note, your mom said the police came to see you today.”
“They did in fact. Made my day. It was the same detective that kept me in an interview room for hours after they arrested me for drug trafficking.”
“How’d it go?”
“As well as that sort of thing can, I guess. I told him I’d gone to get my sketchpad and I didn’t see who shot me. I don’t think he believes me, but I don’t think he can prove anything otherwise. My dad and the guys aren’t talking.”
“Why not?” I asked him. “Blake shot you. Why isn’t your dad more pissed off?”
“Because he doesn’t believe me when I say they set me up and because I had a gun and he thinks that means I brought it on myself.”
“That sucks,” I said.
“Yeah, well I have another plan.”
“Uh-oh,” I said, genuinely worried about what his plan might be.
He laughed and said, “Not that kind of plan. I’m going to get my parents to call a meeting. I want everyone together. I want them all to hear what I have to say. I want this out in the open once and for all.”
“Do you think they’ll admit to anything in front of the entire club?”
“I doubt it, but at least it will get everyone else to thinking about what they’ve seen or heard. It will also point the finger directly at them if anything happened to me.”
“I can’t wait for this to be over. I’ve been worried about what was going to happen to you for three years. This is killing me, Dax.”
“I know, baby. I want it to be over too. I really do.”
I visited with him until they kicked me out. We tried hard to talk about pleasant things, anything but the club and what was going to happen when Dax got out of there and confronted them all face to face. I was hoping if I stayed in denial, the bad things wouldn’t come to pass.
********
Dax called me before I was even out of bed the next morning and I groggily answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey! Can you come break me out of this place?”
“Sure, I’m sorry. I just assumed your mom would be taking you home.”
“She said she would, but she had an appointment this morning. I didn’t want to wait ‘til noon. I want to go home…now.”
“Okay you big baby, I’ll be right there.”
“Big baby? I survived getting shot. How much tougher can you get than that?” he asked.
“You can be in love with the guy who got shot and survive that,” I said with a giggle.
“Yeah, yeah. Hurry or I’m going to start walking. Worse yet, I’ll take a city bus. You can catch anything on one of those.”
“I’m on my way,” I told him.
I jumped in the shower and quickly got dressed. After I was ready I went and let my uncle know what I was going to do. I wasn’t scheduled to work that day but I just wanted to make sure he hadn’t planned on me being there. He wasn’t, but he was concerned about me picking up Dax.
“Where are you taking him?” he asked.
“To his parent’s house.”
“Okay, so you won’t be near the club at all?”
“No, straight to his parent’s from the hospital. I’ll be fine.”
He nodded and said, “I used to worry about you, some. I knew you had sense enough not to get in the middle of their nonsense. But a gunshot…an internal war…that’s heavy shit.”
I kissed him on the cheek and said, “I know. I promise to stay away from all of that and be safe.”
“You better,” he said, “I kind of like having you in the family.”
“Yeah, well…you’re okay too,” I told him.
I made the fifteen minute trip to the hospital and when I got there, I found Dax fully dressed in clothes his mom had left for him. For a guy who had just got shot a few days ago, he looked rea
lly hot.
“Hey, look at you. You look good.”
“Thanks,” he said, pulling me into him and covering my mouth with his. We kissed deeply and it was the best kiss that we had shared in a long time. I felt his hand slip from my waist down to my ass and squeeze.
“Hey! We can’t do that here, mister.”
“Okay, but as soon as we get to my parent’s house right?”
I laughed. “Yeah right. That’s just what I want to do when your mother is sitting in the next room.”
“Then let’s just do it here real quick.”
“Stop it! You’re recovering from a gunshot and major surgery. I doubt that having sex is in your treatment plan.”
“If there’s no sex with you in it, I want no part of that treatment,” he said with a grin.
“Horn-dog,” I told him.
I didn’t hear the nurse come in but Dax saw her and said, loudly, “No, you’re the horn-dog. I just had surgery. I don’t think I’m supposed to have sex.”
“Dax!” I said. I could feel my face turning red. I looked at the nurse and said, “He’s the one who suggested it, not me.”
She was an older lady. She laughed and said, “I believe you, honey. He’s been ornery like that since he woke up from surgery.”
She had his discharge paperwork and as he signed it she read off all the follow-up and aftercare instructions. No strenuous activities were one of them. When she said it, he looked up at me and wrinkled his forehead.
When all the paperwork was signed, she gave us his copies of everything and put him in a wheelchair that he argued with her about and rolled him to the elevator and all the way out to my car. She had to be at least sixty and the whole way out, my boyfriend was shamelessly flirting with her. It was good to see him back in true form.
We stopped at the pharmacy to pick up his meds on the way to his parent’s house. I told him to stay in the car, but of course he ignored me. When I got up to the door he was right on my back. Besides his meds we left with three candy bars, a bag of beef jerky, a bag of Cheetos and another of pork rinds as well as a six-pack of soda and a pack of gum.
“What is all of this junk food for?” I asked him.
Dirty SEAL (A Navy SEAL Romance) (The Maxwell Family) Page 93