DAX: A Bad Boy Romance

by Paula Cox

  Blinking fast, Nash turned away and tried to put the bar and the bikers and everything else out of his mind. Driving while intoxicated wasn’t his thing, and getting on his bike with all those thoughts swirling around his brain was basically akin to being drunk. Helmet on, he straddled the bike and headed for home, mind blank right up until he locked his motorcycle and covered it for the night. In the light of the streetlight, he saw the flutter of falling rain, light and ineffectual, and for a moment he was lost in it. Only a moment though. Then he was swiping his hand through his hair and hurrying inside as a chill ran up his spine.

  As soon as the door locked behind him, Nash shed his wet outer layer, leaving the clothes in a pile on the floor in the front entryway, then headed for the kitchen to grab a beer. Just because he wasn’t in the mood to drink with any of the other Phoenixes didn’t mean he couldn’t use a boost of alcohol to help him forget. Bottle in hand, he leaned back against the counter, staring through the doorway into the living room—looking but not really seeing. With a shake of his head, Nash downed the whole bottle in nearly one go, only coming up for air was it was absolutely necessary.

  His place was quiet. It always was, but the smell of Eliza’s perfume had long since faded, and now his apartment felt quieter and emptier than usual. He should have brought her here sooner. He should have opened up faster.

  But hey, hindsight is twenty-twenty, right?

  Glaring at nothing in particular, Nash stalked back to the front entrance and grabbed his pile of soaked clothes, jeans and leather jacket and all. It was then he caught a flash of something. Only it wasn’t the sight of it that caught his attention. No, the black blended with the bulk of his wardrobe. Instead, it was the smell. It smelled like her—sweet and flowery. The scarf Eliza had knitted for him hung on the back of his door. He’d refused to wear it to a meeting with the MC, as if somehow the atmosphere would taint it. Unable to help himself, he reached for it and grazed his fingertips over the wooly garment, the wisps of black threads tickling his skin.

  He ought to put it away so that her beautiful features wouldn’t dance across his mind every time he saw something that reminded him of her, but that wouldn’t do him any good. Eliza appeared to him whether he saw something that reminded him of her or not.

  And maybe there was a reason for that. Frowning, Nash grabbed his wet clothing a little tighter, squishing rainwater out of the material and onto the floor, then turned and headed for his bedroom. The leather jacket he hung with care, while the rest was thrown into his empty laundry bin. Just as he was about to head back to the kitchen for another beer, his phone started to ring. With Eliza on the brain, Nash half-expected to see her name flash across the screen, but he swallowed his disappointment and pressed the mute button when he realized it was only Micky calling. Probably to make sure Nash wasn’t teetering on the edge of the deep. Nash had never needed to be disciplined. He was the guy the Steel Phoenixes could always count on. The threat of losing his place had definitely rattled him.

  Rattled him into thinking straight. Eliza fought so hard for her father’s innocence, and if a woman like that believed so wholeheartedly that he was innocent, maybe there was some merit to her claims. He hadn’t considered it before now, but maybe it was about time Nash pulled some strings, called in all his most needed favors, to see if he had actually been wrong. While he wanted whoever had orchestrated the cold-blooded murder of his fellow Phoenixes to suffer and die a brutal death, he wouldn’t wish that fate on an innocent man.

  He needed to be completely sure. The Phoenixes were fairly sure that his intel was good, that the dean was the one responsible for paying off the freelance hitmen, but the harder Eliza fought against him, the more Nash started to doubt the conclusions he’d come to.

  Nash hovered between the living room and the kitchen, between getting a beer and acting on his doubts. In that moment, he caught a whiff of Eliza again, as if her spirit had somehow embedded itself in his apartment. Eyes closed, he took a deep breath—but the scent was gone before he could exhale.

  One last time. He needed to look one last time into this situation with Dean Darryl Truman, if only to save a potentially innocent man from a horrific fate. Nash wasn’t blinded by the need to avenge his fallen brothers anymore—not when it came to the dean, anyway. It wasn’t about blindly pointing a finger and watching a man burn anymore. It was about making the real puppet master fry—and Nash couldn’t risk losing the real killer by taking down the most obvious fake one.

  He just needed to be sure.

  Turning away from the kitchen, he went for his office instead, then pulled out his phone and dialed a familiar number. The man on the other line answered with a grunt, and Nash took a deep breath.

  “It’s Nash,” he said softly, settling at his desk and opening his laptop. “I know you’ve already looked into this university funds thing, but… I need you to do just one thing more for me. You know you owe me…”

  Chapter 33

  “I think we’re going to call it a night…”

  Eliza’s gaze shot up from her laptop at the sound of Professor Holstein’s announcement. While she could have half-listened to the study session for another hour or so, it was very apparent that the table of first year students was ready to call it quits. Seconds later, books started to close, the rustle of backpacks sounded, and laptops were packed up. Everyone in the small study room looked almost as exhausted as she felt most days. First year, unfortunately, wasn’t an easy one, and it only went downhill from there.

  “Be sure to bring in your first draft case studies for our next session,” Professor Holstein continued, as the students started to file out of the room. A few nodded and smiled, but it was clear the rest of them just wanted to get out, which always made her glare. She and Holstein organized these study sessions to help people. They weren’t mandatory. Sometimes they even had upper year students dropping in just to brush up on some information. Most nights Eliza found them to be an extremely helpful reminder of lesson learned, and she hated seeing ungrateful little brats wasting them.

  When they were alone moments later, Holstein turned from the huge circular table that took up the majority of the room, then began erasing the notes he’d scribbled on the whiteboard. Eliza, meanwhile, began to slowly pack her things. Life had been going in a slow, drudging pace since she called things off with Nash. Food didn’t taste as good. The sun didn’t seem as bright. Eliza didn’t move as fast, her limbs weight down by the heavy feeling in her heart. But still she forced herself to do things: go to class, keep up with readings, and help Holstein with his voluntary study sessions. If anything, she wanted to just keep busy; it had only been a few days since she flew out of Nash’s apartment in a storm of tears and rage, and rather than hiding in her apartment, shoveling down ice cream, and binging on mindless TV, Eliza thought it more productive to keep busy.

  She’d already let her grades plummet once this year because of Nash—it wasn’t going to happen again. She knew she had to be stronger than that, not only for herself, but for her father, too.

  “So, I think that went well enough,” Holstein remarked, his voice cutting through the dull fog of her mind, sharp like a whip. Eliza looked up from her things, needing a few seconds to digest what the heck had actually come out of his mouth. He was such a handsome man, Professor Holstein, with his chestnut brown hair and bright blue eyes, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. Not as muscular as Nash—not of a classic academic handsome. Sometimes she found it hard not to stare, if only to admire how attractive he was, though Eliza had no real interest in the man who had morphed into her mentor beyond admiring his physical handsomeness.

  Oh, and that he was highly intelligent. That, too. But Eliza didn’t want classic good looks and an academic’s mind. Not anymore, anyway. Not now that she had seen what else was out there.

  “Eliza?”

  “Yeah, I think it went well,” she repeated back to him, having no real opinion on the issue. “Hopefully they a
ll bring their case studies next time so you can give them some tips.”

  “Hmm.” She looked down from his penetrating gaze, though it took her a second to remember what she was doing. Packing. Getting ready to head back to her apartment. “Eliza? Are you okay?”

  Her eyebrows shot up, her eyes flickering to him. “What?”

  “Are you okay?” Holstein tossed the whiteboard eraser down, then crossed his arms as he studied her. “You seem a little… out of it today. Well, the last couple of days.”

  “Oh?” Was it that obvious? She’d been trying so hard to seem normal, to keep going on with her life as if she hadn’t broken her own heart by walking out the door at Nash’s apartment. That night she’d been so tempted to go back, to tell him that she knew he wasn’t ignoring her evidence on purpose, but she couldn’t. He refused to listen to her. Refused to see logic, or even listen to the information she had. As far as she was concerned that night, Nash was trying to drive a wedge between her and her father, to alienate her from the man who had raised her, albeit with a strict hand and an inability to tell him he was proud of her, but he’d raised her all the same. While she might have been falling head-over-heels in love with Nash, and even that she wasn’t entirely sure of, Eliza knew that her loyalty ought to be with her father.

  Mostly because she knew he was innocent.

  But also because that was what he deserved after all these years of being a single parent. Eliza owed him more than the benefit of the doubt, and she refused to let Nash fill her head with lies.

  Or half-truths for that matter.

  “You seem distracted,” Holstein noted, a kindness in his voice that she appreciated. “Is everything okay?”

  “Uh…” She tucked her hair behind her ears, feeling a blush creep up. Oh, why keep it to herself? There was no shame in admitting it. “I think my boyfriend and I are kind of… I think I broke up with him.”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “You think?”

  “I just, uh…” Her blush worsened as he grinned, and Eliza suddenly felt the urge to run out of there. “I don’t know. I’m in a weird headspace. I’m sorry if it’s affecting my work.”

  “Your work’s been fine, Eliza,” he insisted, as she finally switched into high gear as she packed. “I only say it because I noticed something was off. We spend a lot of time together, after all.”

  “Right.” A nervous laugh slipped out as she grabbed her stuff, not even bothering to pull on her jacket, and made a beeline for the door. “Well, see you in class tomorrow!”

  She barely heard his goodbye as she booked it out the door, not stopping until she was down the hall and halfway through the flight of stairs that led to the outdoors. Eliza stopped on one of the landings to slowly pull on her jacket, the fog settling back in. Once she was all zipped up, she trudged onward, the memory of what had just happened feeling exactly so—just a memory of something that wouldn’t matter, regardless of how silly she felt in the moment.

  Using her body weight to push open the metal door at the bottom of the stairwell, she stumbled outside and cringed when she found herself in a light misting of rain. Darkness had settled across Blackwoods campus, and in the soft light of the occasional lamp along the walkways she saw a thick sheet of rain spitting down, which would probably be ice by tomorrow. Miserable, she pulled her hood up, tucked her chin into her coat, and started the slow, forced march back to her dorm. While passing one of the parking lots, she swore she heard the revving of a motorcycle engine. Her heart pounded in her chest as she sought out the source of the sound. Suddenly, everything was moving rapidly again, as if someone had pressed the fast-forward on a remote, but it all came crumbling to a stop when she spotted the biker.

  With a woman wrapped around him.

  It wasn’t Nash, thank god. She wasn’t sure she could handle seeing him with someone else so soon—or at all. But the bike was different than his, smaller, and the rider was tall and trim, nothing like her hulking, bulk of muscle Master. Licking her lips, she watched them go, wishing it was her and Nash zooming off into the night and knowing that she was the reason they weren’t.

  No. Her gaze narrowed, and she turned sharply in the direction of her dorm building. Their end wasn’t her fault, not entirely. Nash was the one who refused to look at her evidence. Nash was the stubborn one. He wouldn’t even entertain the information she had retrieved from her father’s office, not for a second.

  But perhaps he had a point, the little voice at the back of her head cried, refusing to be squashed and silenced no matter how many times she tried. It was the voice of logic, of reason, who whispered that maybe, just maybe, Nash had a point. After all, if her father had been involved in illicit dealings, why would he make a record of it in his personal journals? Did she expect to find her father, or any criminal for that matter, holding the smoking gun?

  Eliza groaned, coming to a stop near the entryway to her dorm building. Normally the steps were littered with people smoking or drinking or just being in the way in general, but the weather had kept them all indoors. There, before her, stood warmth and solitude, but she couldn’t shake the niggling feeling that she didn’t deserve either until she got to the bottom of it. If Nash was right and all her evidence was circumstantial, she would need to find something better, something harder, to prove her father’s innocence.

  And then she would have to forgive Nash, somehow, because his questioning of her logic might actually lead her to the truth.

  “Shit,” she muttered, taking a few more steps toward the door of the building looming ahead before stopping. She bit her lower lip, staring at the door hard as the rain continued to drench her.

  Then, against her better judgement, she turned back and headed for campus again. She had to find more. She had to get something more than circumstantial bullshit. This was her first real test, to prove her knowledge of the law, to find a way to fight for the innocent. So far she was doing a mediocre job, just as she’d done for most of her years in law school.

  Today, she needed to step up and do more, be better. Her grades were good but her drive was low—and that needed to change. Two profoundly influential men in her life hinged on the amount of effort she put in at that very moment. Her father, who she needed to save, and Nash… who may or may not deserve another chance. The fate of her relationship with both depended on what she found.

  And this time she wasn’t about to snoop through her father’s office. No, Eliza still went to the administration building, but she went to the lower levels, and before long, she found herself standing at the doors of campus security with the intention of going through her father’s private study when she was done. Beyond those heavy doors might be the proof she needed, the video evidence to put this matter to rest once and for all.

  Chapter 34

  “Holy…” Nash pulled the little tab back so that the grainy black and white video would start again, then exhaled softly at the sight of the man there. “Shit…”

  He’d been at it for hours, to the point where he wasn’t sure his brain was still working anymore. Thunder and lightning rattled the world outside, the gentle rainstorm of the night turning into a raging storm come the following early morning. The worse the storm grew, the harder and faster Nash worked, spurred on by the energy in the air, pushing himself closer and closer toward the truth.

  Everyone in his phonebook who could even remotely help was called. Guys who owed him favors, big and small, had to cash in. He looked deeper into the scandals at the university, snooped around the behind-the-scenes power players as best he could. Although his brain was practically fried by the time one of his contacts sent him the video, he was still coherent enough to recognize the son of a bitch caught paying a very well-known freelance hitman on camera. Short and beefy, the man carried himself as if he was just a little too big for his britches. Where Dean Darryl Truman was hawkish in all his features, Vice-Dean Phillip Crest was stocky, as if he were the muscle behind the dean, ready to inforce regulations and crack skulls if people
didn’t instantly obey.

  Nash had seen the man before, of course. His picture was usually somewhere close to the dean’s in official publications. Crest came from money, his family one of the wealthy founders of Blackwoods centuries earlier. The only reason Nash hadn’t honed in on him a little closer during his initial investigation was that Phillip Crest didn’t seem to be able to wield the same power as the dean did with university finances. Legally, the dean was responsible for the allocations of funds.

  But murder wasn’t exactly a legal business, was it? Just as Eliza had thought she could prove her father’s innocence by showing circumstantial, surface-level evidence to give proof to his whereabouts, Nash hadn’t suspected Phillip Crest because, on the outside, the man was clean. On the surface-level, he was squeaky as freshly polished bike rims. But below the surface was where everyone had their demons, and clearly Crest had more to speak of than the average man.

  Moments later, the contact who sent him the video confirmed that Phillip Crest had orchestrated the meeting. For a fleeting few minutes, Nash had wondered if Crest was just doing the dean’s dirty work. After all, he was an underling. If the dean said jump, the vice dean theoretically asked how high.