Dex ARe (18 page)

Ten minutes later, he rolled into the Wolf Den parking lot and cut his engine. I climbed off the bike but he stayed stock still, white knuckling the handle bars. I walked up to him but he kept his gaze straight ahead.

Billy, Sly, Tiny, Sawyer, Colt and a couple of the prospects came out of the bar at that moment. They’d either all woken early, or more likely hadn’t gone to bed yet. They were laughing and joking about something and started to head over toward us. Sly saw Dex’s posture and put a hand up to stop the rest of them. He gave me a quick nod and the group of them stayed near the doorway.

“Dex,” I said. “Let’s go inside.”

“You go ahead,” he said and I didn’t like the tone of his voice. “I need a minute.”

I sighed. “Thank you for not making a bigger scene back there than you did. Chris was out of line and I appreciate you showing some restraint.”

“I can’t fucking stand the idea of him touching you ... of anyone touching you ever again.” There was no inflection in his voice and I recognized the barely contained rage behind it.

It was in me to try and joke him out of his mood, but something about his eyes stopped me. Whatever turmoil brewed behind them, Dex looked deeply hurt and it gutted me to know I could cause that kind of pain.

“Let’s just go inside,” I said again, putting a light hand on his upper arm. “The sun’s
coming up and I’m hungry. And I’ve been on my feet all night and I want to eat breakfast and go to bed with you.”

Dex peeled his fingers off the handle bar and threw his leg over his bike. He didn’t move to embrace me or put an arm around me as we turned toward the Den. He looked over my shoulder toward Sly and the others. He was coiled rage; his biceps twitched and veins popped out of his forearms.

Sly shot him a questioning look and Tiny stepped forward. Dex wouldn’t put his arm around me but Tiny threw one around Dex. Sly gave me a wink. We were the two people in the world with the most experience dealing with Dex McLain when he was in a mood to brood. I figured I was in for a long day.

A car pulled up behind us and I turned to look over my shoulder when the world stopped. My body knew what to do before the next moments truly registered with my brain. Dex took a little longer. They all did. At the first
pop! pop!
Dex froze. I had already dropped to my knees. I saw hair fly up on the side of his head as a round whizzed by.

I might have screamed. I don’t remember. I rolled and crawled on my elbows behind the dumpster. Dex was right behind me. He shoved me to the ground, laying his body over mine as the next deadly volley sprayed overhead.

Then it was as if the sound got sucked out of the world and my ears buzzed. I had no heartbeat, no breath and all I knew was the smell of blood.

Chapter Eighteen

Dex

Ava moved before the rest of us. I became aware of a queer expression on Tiny’s face as Ava
dropped to the ground at my feet. I went toward her and through a spray of blood as Tiny’s chest exploded. He crumpled to the ground.

There were shouts. Screams. A haze of bullets that lodged in the door, shattering windows before me. I threw myself over Ava but she’d already taken cover behind one of the dumpsters. Then it was over. I got just a glimpse of the black van as it sped off toward the mountains.

Pagano. Hate-fueled rage heated my blood. With my bare hands, whatever the consequences, I would murder that man. But now, there was Ava.

“Go!” I shouted. Sawyer and Colt got to their bikes and tore off after the van. Sly, Gunner and Curtis ran toward their bikes but stopped when they saw Tiny lying lifeless and gray across the threshold of the Den.

“Call an ambulance!” Sly yelled and I moved off Ava. I didn’t think she’d been hit but we were both covered in blood. Her face held a blank expression, like she was seeing something behind her eyes different from what was in front of her. It lasted for only a moment, then she sat up and laid her hands flat on my chest.

“Are you hit?” she said; her voice was toneless. It held no fear, no alarm, just calm purpose as she lifted the flap of my vest and checked for wounds.

“I’m okay,” I said. “What about you?”

She shook her head and sprang to her feet;
her eyes were on Tiny. Her hands fluttered near her waist as if she were looking for something. “I need comm,” she muttered, her eyes turning glassy for a moment before she seemed to come back to me.
She was here, but there and it tore my heart apart. It was as if her nightmares of Iraq came back to life and it was all because she’d been standing next to me.

I would kill Pagano for her and for me.

She dropped to her knees and crawled over to Tiny. She pulled his shirt apart, exposing the great raw wound on his left upper chest. His skin was torn away in chunks and he seeped blood.

“I need you to call it in!” Ava shouted to Sly. “Get me on speaker with the dispatcher.”

Gunner handed Sly his phone and he held it near her ear as she worked on Tiny.

Ava stripped down to her tank top. She wadded her t-shirt and shoved it over Tiny’s wound, putting pressure on it. It soaked red within a matter of seconds. She rolled him slightly, checking for an exit wound. Not seeing one, she set him gently back on the ground. I knelt next to her, ready to do whatever she needed. Blood pooled and bubbled in the wound and Ava held her ear to his chest.

“Tiny!” she shouted. “You stay with me, okay? Help’s coming.” She looked behind at Gunner. “Go get me a clean garbage bag and Mo’s first aid kit; hurry!”

I took Sly’s phone from him and held it out near Ava’s ear while she talked to the dispatcher.

“Tell them to prepare for a major trauma.” She turned to me. “You know Tiny’s blood type?”

“B positive,” Sly shouted. “We sponsor a blood drive.”

Ava nodded. “You hear that?” she yelled into the phone. “Tell them to be ready with at least four units, okay? I’m going to try and get a field dressing on him. How far out is the rig?”

I took over staunching the blood flow and handed Ava the phone so she could hear better. Tiny was still conscious but not by much. His breath was shallow and his eyes kept rolling back into his head.

“Don’t you check out,” I said to him through gritted teeth. “Ava’s going to take care of you.” He moaned a little but I knew he heard me.

When Gunner came back, Ava tore through the first aid kit and taped the plastic bag over Tiny’s gaping wound. It seemed to help him breathe a little better but there was still so much blood everywhere. I knew the situation for him was pretty grim.

I don’t know how long it took after that. There wasn’t much Ava could do and I could read the desperation in her face. Then the sirens blared as the ambulance arrived. I recognized one of the EMTs. She’d called him Cal and he’d been on scene when Franco was brought in.

Ava shouted orders to him as they worked on Tiny. They put an oxygen mask over his face and Ava helped heave him on to the stretcher. Ava ran alongside it, holding an IV bag. Sly got to one of the cars and pulled up behind the ambulance so we could ride behind it. Ava tried to hop into the back of the rig but Cal stopped her.

“We’ve got him, Ava. You can meet us there.”

She pushed back and said something. Cal grabbed her shoulders. “You’ve been on your feet for more than twelve hours,” he said. “I said we’ve got this. You’ve done what you needed to do for him.”

I came behind her and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. She trembled beneath my touch but finally nodded, letting Cal and the other medics lift the stretcher into the ambulance and swing the doors closed. I guided Ava to the back seat of Sly’s Hummer and he peeled out before I got the door shut.

“How bad is he, Ava?” Sly shouted as soon as we made the turn for the highway.

I kept a tight grip on her. She seemed there but not there still. Ava’s skin was like ice and she shuddered. Her skin looked so pale I worried maybe she really had taken a hit and the adrenalin kept her from feeling it. She put a hand up and shook her head, sensing what I was thinking.

“If they can keep him from bleeding out in the back of the rig, he might have a chance,” she answered Sly. “His lung’s collapsed.”

“Ava, look at me,” I said, not liking her ashen color one bit.

She held a hand out in front of her face and turned it, inspecting it like it belonged to someone else. “Shock,” she said. “It’s shock.” She shivered next to me and I pulled her closer, trying to give her some of my body heat.

“How’d you know they were coming?” Curtis looked back at her. “I swear to God I thought those were firecrackers.”

Ava blinked hard then looked out the window. When she answered, her voice was so soft I knew I was the only one who could hear her.

“I know what an AK-47 sounds like.” I kissed the top of her head and squeezed her tight.

***

Tiny survived. At least as long as it took them to get him to the hospital and up to surgery. We wouldn’t know anything else until they opened him up and repaired the damage to his chest. The bullets missed his heart and that was the good news. But like Ava had said, he’d lost so much blood and that was the real danger. That, and she was pretty sure he’d never be able to use his left arm the same way again. She said the muscles in his shoulder were shredded and she figured most of the nerves too.

But he was alive. Ava, on the other hand, looked like the walking dead. Her color hadn’t improved and she’d said no more than two words as we waited. She drifted between sitting next to me and the nurse’s station. While Sly sat with her, I found her friend Joleen and cornered her. She was with one of the doctors who’d first worked on Tiny. He was a tall, solid guy with a mass of sandy hair and an odd smile. Endicott. That’s what I heard Joleen call him.

“I’m worried about Ava,” I said. Joleen narrowed her eyes at me and Dr. Endicott set a stack of charts on the counter next to him.

“Then you should steer clear of her,” Joleen said. “This is the second time somebody close to you has been hauled in here near bled to death.”

Endicott flinched but I held my ground. I couldn’t argue Joleen’s point but this was about Ava right now.

“She’s a combat veteran and somebody just shot at her head. Take her someplace safe, someplace quiet,” Endicott said. I didn’t know him, but something in his face and voice told me he understood something about her that I didn’t. “Jack Daniels might also help. Stay close but leave her alone. She’ll come out of it in a little while. If she doesn’t, call me.” He wrote his cell phone on a sticky note and thrust it into my hand.

“Thank you,” I said, ignoring Joleen’s laser stare.

“She off tonight?” Endicott turned to her. Joleen nodded. “Good. Talk to your supervisor and rotate her out until the beginning of next week.”

I nodded and left the two of them to talk behind my back. Their opinion of me didn’t matter. I just wanted to get to Ava and get her the hell out of here. She still sat next to Sly when I came around the hallway. I shook my head at him letting Sly know I didn’t have anything new to report on Tiny.

“I want to take Ava home,” I said.

Sly handed me the keys to the Hummer. Ava didn’t protest when I took her hand and told her we were leaving. She said nothing when we drove out of the hospital parking lot. She kept silent when I made the turn toward her loft apartment rather than the Wolf Den. The club was on lockdown but the last thing I wanted was her back at the scene of the shooting. Until we settled things with Pagano once and for all, I needed to keep her as far away from the club as possible, even if that meant far away from me. My gut clenched at the thought but tonight was way too close of a call.

Ava followed me up the stairs and handed me the keys when we reached her door. I didn’t wait for her to invite me in. I would have thrown her over my shoulder if she hadn’t. Nothing but nothing was going to keep me from her side for the rest of the day and night. I wanted her close to me, I wanted to hold her in my arms and let her scream or cry or sleep, whatever she needed to do to get that haunted look out of her eyes. I’d have to leave her at some point but I’d hold on to her for as long as I could until then.

Her apartment was the entire floor of an old converted warehouse. She had red brick walls and an open floor plan with the TV area, kitchen, sleeping area and bathroom in four quadrants. She walked to the kitchen sink and I spotted bottles of liquor stacked in neat rows on the top of her stainless steel fridge.

I poured us each a shot of Jim Beam while she stood at the sink, letting the water run hot. She scrubbed her hands with a towel as steam rose.

“Ava,” I said, after taking my first shot. I walked over to her and set her drink beside her. She rubbed at her flesh under the scalding water. The backs of her hands turned an angry red as the water hit them and she rubbed them together.

“Ava,” I said again. “You’re going to burn yourself.”

“It never comes out.” She almost whispered it. “I’ve tried everything but it never comes out. Not even with bleach.”

“What doesn’t, baby?”

She kept tearing at the reddened flesh of her hands. I reached out and grabbed her wrists. She really was going to scald herself. She stiffened at my touch and lashed out at me. Jerking her hands away she held them up.

“The blood never comes out no matter how much I scrub!”

“Ava. Your hands are clean. There’s no blood.” I reached over and turned off the water. I moved to take her in my arms but she shoved me away from her. Her eyes had turned wild, forming tears at the corner.

“Don’t touch me,” she shrieked. I moved toward her again; she tried to pull away but I gripped her upper arms and pulled her to me. She went stiff as I held her against my chest. She trembled but didn’t try to pull away again. She cried softly against my chest. I hooked my hands under her legs and carried her out to the sofa.

“I want to keep you safe,” I whispered against the top of her head as I smoothed her hair. “I’m going to find a way.”

She said nothing and that scared me most of all. My Ava was hurt, damaged and it had happened long ago. Yet one more thing I could lay on the doorstep of George Pagano. I knew in that moment if it meant I’d have to go back to prison for the rest of my life, I would wipe him off the face of the Earth. I would never let him get the chance to hurt me or anyone I loved ever again.