Hawke: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance (With bonus book Sons of Flame MC) (8 page)

Chapter 9

Jack

For the longest time after Naomi left, I could still smell her.

No one else seemed to notice, or if they did they didn’t say anything. But I avoided showering until almost six just because the scent of her was on my fingers, and floating up from under the blanket. Her hair had been filled with her own scent, too, different than what was between her legs, of course—but none of that bullshit flowery, fruity crap that so many other women washed their hair with.

There was definitely something sweet about her, though; sweet, and practical, and direct. And good God she had squeezed me right. Being inside Naomi had felt like going somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be. Being in the wrong neighborhood, or a Catholic church during the mass when I was covered in somebody’s blood. That place was quiet, and clean, and special.

I’d been a secret guest no one was supposed to know was there. It made me crave being back in it; with her, surrounded by her smells, her body, her everything.

Which was the next best thing to never-gonna-fucking-happen. Just the fact that she was hangin’ around my mind like that meant that I needed to back away slowly before something real bad happened.

I didn’t rest much for the remainder of the day. I tossed and turned when I tried to sleep, already having a hard time of it from my injuries; add to that not being able to shut my brain down, and I was about as fucked as it was possible to be. Why’d she have to take me up on it? Why hadn’t she warned me I’d be screwed in the head like this afterward?

People are idiots, that’s why. Animals. We just don’t know better. At least, I never did.

I didn’t know what time it was when the stranger came into my room, but he wasn’t a nurse or a doctor. He was in street clothes. That meant he was either one of Valentino’s guys, or he was a cop who’d somehow gotten wind I was here and connected to the mobster. The second I saw him, scenarios started playing through my head. I was still too banged up to last long against someone fresh, so I’d go for his knees, one at a time, maybe his eyes. My room was five stories up. If I could put him through the window, we’d be over fast. I could call for help, hit the nurse call button, but that would just put someone else in the way. I could bludgeon him with the metal rod that held my periodic IV drip, but that was a strain on my ribs and I’d be slow.

Knees, or window, then.

“Jack Hawke?” The man asked. He was tall, clean cut. Good lookin’, I guess—straight nose, no scars, square jaw. Not a fighter. Good sign.

“Who wants to know?” I asked.

“I’m just being polite, Mr. Hawke. I know who you are.”

“Alright,” I said. “So? What do you want?”

“Don’t you want to know who I am?” He asked me.

“Will it change what you want, how this plays out, or whether you leave me alone?”

He raised an eyebrow, a little surprised. I guess it doesn’t. He seemed to think.

“I’m Officer Jason Desouza,” the guy said.

Well, it was better than one of Valentino’s guys come to finish the job. By a little bit, anyway. “I see. Well, you’re wastin’ your time. I got nothin’ to say about what happened. I didn’t see the guys, I don’t know why they grabbed me, it was a freak accident and I’m not pressin’ charges.”

He sighed, and closed the door behind him. “That’s not why I’m here, Mr. Hawke.”

“Call me Jack,” I said. “I’ll call you Desouza, and we can be straight with each other like that. What do you want if you’re not here on official business?”

“Well,” Desouza said, pulling something from inside his jacket, “it’s not entirely unofficial, actually.” He handed me a small packet, a manila envelope. I opened it cautiously and tipped the contents into my hands.

They were pictures. Of me, sometimes, and sometimes of people I was with in those pictures. I knew ‘em. Valentino’s guys, mostly, but a few others were just everyday scumbags I knew from the cage.

“What’s this?” I asked. “You been watchin’ me? What, you want an autograph? Gimme a pen, I’ll sign it.”

“You’re confirming those are pictures of you, then?” Officer Desouza asked.

“Sure. That’s me. What’s your point? You got a badge, lawman?” I tossed the pictures on the bed.

He nodded slowly, his lips curled down in an obliging frown. He pulled his badge from his back pocket and held it up. “Satisfied?”

Could have been a fake, but it wouldn’t have mattered. “Alright, so? You got some pictures. What’s your point?”

“All of those were taken at times when illicit exchanges were made,” he said. “Drugs, illegal arms, even people. Human trafficking is a major felony, Jack. Care to explain what you were doing there?”

I gestured at the pictures, “You got nothing there showing me taking or giving money, drugs, weapons, and sure as hell no people. I don’t truck with that crowd.”

“Mind if I ask what you were doing with them, then?”

“You know how many drug dealers you probably passed on the way up here?” I said. “You can’t throw a rock in this city without hitting ten of ‘em. I come from a bad part of town, what do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me what your association is with men like Peter Valentino.” Desouza fixed me with the Cop Look. He must not have realized who I was.

“Name doesn’t ring a bell,” I said.

“Two of those pictures show you in his company,” he pressed. “I know that you know him.”

“Just cause you got a picture of me in proximity to anybody doesn’t mean I know him, pal.”

“I’m not your pal, Jack.”

So it was gonna go like that? “Alright. You gonna cuff me, or read me my rights? I gotta ask for a lawyer here, or what?”

He didn’t produce cuffs, didn’t acknowledge that I had a right to a lawyer. Still, that didn’t mean all this was off the books. “I got nothin’ else to say, Officer.”

Apparently he did, though. “I know you’ve got a record, Jack. I know you’ve been picked up for assault, battery, public drunkenness, and disturbing the peace. You’re a criminal.”

“I been to jail a few times,” I said. “No prison time, no convictions. Plenty of people have. So what?”

“So you live a dangerous life, with dangerous people,” he said. He was getting angry, losing his cool. That meant this was personal. I wondered who he really was, but kept that question to myself. “Getting someone else involved with it could mean putting them in danger. If Valentino wants to get at you, how do you think he’d do that? Find someone you care about, maybe?”

Pieces fell into place. I’m not stupid. “Oh,” I said, finally understanding. “This isn’t about me at all, is it?” I couldn’t exactly name Naomi, though. “Look, guy, you got this all wrong. I don’t got anybody like that. Look at me, you think I’m the kinda guy who’s got kids? A wife? Even a girl for more than a night? I ain’t got nobody. No family. No friends. Don’t you worry your pretty head about me.”

Of course, if he did mean Naomi, he did have a point.

Officer Desouza narrowed his eyes at me, watched me carefully for some tell. Good luck with that, bud. I ain’t got a tell. Tells are for people who don’t believe what they’re sayin’.

“What kind of proof can you offer that you can afford this lengthy hospital stay?” He asked finally.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“What kind of cash do you have saved up that you can pay out of pocket to be here,” he clarified, though it didn’t really shed a light on the point.

“Enough,” I told him. “What’s it to you, anyway?”

“And what if Valentino knew you were here? What if he knew when you were getting out?”

A hot spear of anger shot through my spine, turned my vision momentarily red. I sat forward. “You threatening me, Officer Desouza?”

“I’m just posing hypotheticals, Jack,” he said calmly. “Making sure you’ve thought everything through. You think a guy like Valentino is going to care that you’re laid up, that you’ll still be weak when you leave here?”

“I told you, I don’t know Valentino, and he don’t know me. Where’s this going?”

“You don’t belong here,” he said. His whole body was tense. Was he gonna take a swing at me? Looked like he might.

“I got busted ribs, a busted arm, a busted face,” I said. “If I don’t belong in a hospital, who does?”

“You don’t belong with Naomi,” Desouza barked.

There it was, plain as day. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Desouza. Whatever you think you know, you don’t. We’re done here.”

He took a step toward me, though, fists tight. I tensed, relaxed, moved my hands so they rested near my waist.

“Whatever is going on between you two,” Desouza whispered, “I can’t imagine you give a fuck about her but I do, so you hear me nice and clear when I say this.” He leaned in close, his face contorted with a sneer. “She’s too fucking good for you. And if you and her are linked, somehow, and someone wants to fuck you up—and I’ll just bet they will, eventually—that buckshot is going to hit her, too. And if anything happens to her, I’ll fucking kill you myself and they’ll never find your body. Am I made perfectly clear, asshole?”

I leaned forward from the bed, so that our faces were inches away. I didn’t need to put on the show he did. That was what guys who only wanted to look tough did. Guys like me? We didn’t need to do that. So I spoke calm, slow, so he’d understand what I was saying.

“You don’t fuckin’ know me, and you obviously don’t fuckin’ know Naomi, or you’d know you didn’t have to have this conversation. And if she was here, what do you think she’d say about it?”

Adrenaline was hot in my body, but I didn’t shake from it the way Desouza did. Hell, I only felt normal when it was pumpin’ through me.

Desouza straightened, took a step back. He nodded slowly, looked toward the closed door, and then back at me. “I’ll make this simple. You leave, tonight, go back to whatever hole you crawled out of. If you don’t, I’ll inform Naomi’s manager she’s been involved with you outside of your professional relationship. She’ll lose her job, and probably won’t work in this city again, anywhere in the Saint Michael’s network—which is everything in fifty miles—or anywhere they call in her reference to this place for.”

“You’d screw her out of a life?” I asked. “What kind of friend are you?”

“The kind that would rather see her jobless than dead. It’s your decision. I’ll call to check and see what you decided in a few hours.”

The pain didn’t matter just then. Whatever atrophied leg muscles Naomi had been worried about weren’t an issue, obviously. I was out of the bed and a foot from Desouza, ready to crack his skull after all before he could move.

Or; no—he’d moved. Just a little. On hand behind his back, under his jacket where I was smart enough to know he probably had a plain clothes side-arm.

I watched him. He was calm. Of course, why not? If he shot me it was self-defense, right? That would solve his little problem.

And if I didn’t do what he said, Naomi was screwed. I almost wanted him to do it, to tell about us. Then, maybe she and I could…

But that was a woman with a mission. She did this job for a reason. Because she wanted to do good in this shitty, fucked up world. Wanted to take care of assholes like me that gave her hell and didn’t think we needed it. If I made that choice for her, took it away from her—even if she said it wore her down—then what kind of person was I, really? What did I want from her? How far was I willing to take this?

Far enough that we’d outrun the shit I was tangled up in? Far enough that I could keep her safe?

Not in this town.

I backed down. I didn’t look away, though. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll leave. You’re a worse bastard than I am, though, you know that? You love her, right? I can tell. Nobody’s willing to kill somebody over a casual acquaintance.

“Let me tell you something about Naomi you obviously don’t know, bud.” Desouza rolled his eyes and looked like he was gonna speak. I didn’t let him. “She sees right through you. Right through me, too. I don’t know what she sees when she looks into me; I can’t make sense of that. But you? You want to know why she doesn’t love you back?”

Desouza’s arm tensed, like he might actually pull that gun on me.

I shook my head, pitying the man that probably was closer to her than I ever was, but so far away he’d never cross the distance. “Because she can see this; this right here,” I said, wavin’ at him here, in my room, trying to make her decisions for her. “She wants to be free, man. She wants to live her life on her own terms. She’s tired of all the people pullin’ her this way and that way, like they think she’s a doll or somethin’. You’re doin’ it right now. That’s why she don’t want you, pal.”

I shrugged, and turned to gather the pictures. I slipped them in the envelope, and tossed it at him. “Do what you want with those. I don’t fuckin’ care. I’ll leave. But it won’t change anything for you, man. Not a damn thing.”

That was it between us. I turned away, started collecting the blanket and sheet I’d dropped on the floor when I came off the bed at him. The adrenaline was draining away, bringing back my aches. I held onto the pain like a lifeline, to keep me sharp; keep me hard. I’d walk out. I wouldn’t come back. Not if it meant that Naomi got to make her own decisions, live her own life safe from me, and my shit. At the very least, that made me better than this asshole.