Dex ARe (7 page)

I shrugged. “Sly, from what I’ve seen so far, you’ve managed this club probably better than I ever could. I’m grateful. Hell, I’m in awe. I’m also not going to lie and say I’m not a little bit jealous. I should have been there with you, side by side.”

Sly reached over and put his hand on my shoulder, squeezing hard. Even in the dim light, I could see the corners of his eyes moisten. I straightened my back.

“I’m not going anywhere ever again, brother,” I said.

“I’m going to hold you to that. And you’re full of shit. There’s nothing I’ve done that you couldn’t have done just as well or better. This was supposed to be your club. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

I shook my head. “Well, that’s not how it played out and I won’t live my life with regrets. You shouldn’t either. Matter of fact, I’ll beat the shit out of you if you try.”

“Dex.” Sly’s voice lowered. He was struggling to tell me something. I’d known it from the second I walked back into the bar.

“Out with it,” I finally said. “It’s better I know. Whatever it is, we can handle it together now, right?”

Sly nodded but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He turned and looked out at the valley. A bright full moon had risen, casting ghostly shadows all around us. And there
were
ghosts here it seemed.

“Compromises had to be made,” Sly started. “I tried to strike the ones that I thought would hurt the club the least. Dammit, Dex. You don’t know how many times I wanted to talk to you. Get your counsel on the right thing to do.”

“And you were right not to.” Sly still hadn’t turned to look at me. I clenched and unclenched my fist at my sides, bracing for what he would say next. “It was decided. You and me. We had to cut ties. I wasn’t going to let myself be used by the feds or Pagano’s people or the Devil’s Hawks or anyone else while I was inside. You made the tough choices you had to make. I get that. You don’t owe me an explanation or an apology, brother. Whatever you did, I know you had to.”

Sly finally turned to face me. “Dex. I had to keep certain relationships intact. Maintain alliances with people I’d just as soon slit their throat. Blackie was an evil son of a bitch but I’m not going to deny I didn’t find some new respect for him once they sewed this President patch on me.”

Sly didn’t have to say it. It was in his eyes, his posture. There was only one alliance, one person he knew would make me question anything he did.

George Pagano. The man responsible for sending me to prison to cover his own crimes. The phone call I got earlier made a whole lot more fucking sense now.

Bile rose in my throat and I tasted blood where I bit my own lip. Sly’s face fell. He knew I’d worked it out for myself. In all these years we really were picking up where we left off. We could tell what the other was thinking with just a fleeting look.

“How deep?” I managed to say. “What’s his hold over us?”

The minute I asked, I knew part of the answer and it turned my stomach. I’d had to form my own alliances inside Marion. The Great Wolves reputation had been enough to make things easier than they would have been if I’d been on my own. But George Pagano’s organization had a much longer reach.

“So I was one of his bargaining chips? Protect me in Marion in exchange for whatever dirty work he’s still got the club doing for him?”

“That wasn’t all of it,” Sly said. “You had enough info to give the feds to turn shit upside down for him too. He knew that. That was the main reason he put the word out you weren’t to be touched. And it’s what kept the club from having to get in bed deeper with him. He wants to change that now that you’re out. He’s made overtures he wants to use our legit businesses to launder his cash. With you inside and with a reason to rat, we could keep him at bay. Now though?”

“Shit.” The weight of Sly’s words settled around my neck like an anvil. My release hadn’t just upset the internal hierarchy of the club. It apparently made us vulnerable to whatever shit George Pagano wanted to pull next.

“What’s his leverage? I still know what I know. If he’s worried I’m going to talk, what makes him think I won’t now?

Sly shrugged. “It’s different now that you’re out. It takes away your main incentive for going against club rules on rats. And he doesn’t have to worry about keeping up his end by protecting you. You need to know though, we’re not involved directly with his operations. The guns. The drugs. I got us out of that, I swear to God. But the bargain I struck, we still provide some muscle for him from time to time. Nothing like when Blackie was alive. Maybe one or two big jobs every year or two. Mostly it’s just scare tactics. The Great Wolves name and this jacket still strikes the fear of God in the people it should.”

“Except he wants a different arrangement now?”

Sly nodded. “Like I said. He wants to use the gym and the bar to launder his dope and gun money. We’re not having any part of it.”

“You know what that son of a bitch did to me, don’t you? You get how I ended up in that hole? He set the whole thing up. Used my own lawyer to plant evidence against me. It was Tora—
my
daughter—who figured out how to unravel it all. You have no idea what she had to put herself through to get me out. What it cost her. Every bit of that and the last thirteen years is on George Pagano.”

“Goddammit, I know that! And I’m swearing to you, whatever it takes, I’m going to find a way to untangle the club from the Pagano organization all the way now.”

I looked Sly straight in the eye. “And you know exactly what that’s going to take, don’t you?”

Sly set his mouth into a grim line. Dammit, I’d hoped for just a small measure of peace when I came back to Green Bluff. It didn’t look like I’d ever get it. Yes. I knew what it was going to take. I’d known since the day they locked me up and every second since. I turned and faced the valley. I wasn’t a praying man, but I believed in God. I believed in ghosts too. And they were down there: my father and Blackie Murphy. I walked the path that they set for me. It had been leading up to this maybe since the day they formed the club and did their first job for the Pagano family. I turned back to Sly and nodded. We’d put this to a vote, but the course was set and we both knew it. I put my hand on Sly’s arm and squeezed him tight.

“It’s time to go to war, brother.”

Chapter Seven

Ava

The trouble with having friends who know you well is that they know you
too
well sometimes. I got through a slow shift at the hospital last night and slept through most of the day without processing what
happened with Dex.
It still mostly felt like a dream. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen, but maybe if I didn’t let it in, I could save myself from feeling it. Dex was back, but it didn’t change anything. We were over. I’d moved on. I couldn’t let him shake things up again. But now Joleen stared across the kitchen table at me, tapping her fingers against the glass.

“I know you went to the Wolf Den last night,” she said. “You didn’t want to talk about it at work and I get that. Now you need to spill it. My poor heart can’t take the suspense. What happened, Ava? What’s got you looking so miserable?”

I dropped the spoon into my Captain Crunch and sat back in my chair, folding my arms in front of me. She had her chair turned backwards and rested her chin on the back. I hated when she did that. I liked things neat and orderly. Chairs pushed in when not in use. She blew a fuzzy brown curl out of her face and shot me her killer smile. She had skin smooth as porcelain and a deep dimple in her right cheek. She arched a brow at me and tapped her fingers some more.

“Did you see Sly?” she pressed. “Is there finally something going on between the two of you?” She kept her voice light, like she was curious in a positive way. I knew her just as well as she knew
me though. Joleen would have probably shoved my spoon through my throat if I actually said I planned to move in on Sly. I’d tried to disabuse her of her romantic notions regarding him for years.
Sly was way too much of a player and Joleen wasn’t cut out for club life. Hell, neither was I.

“I saw him,” I said. I couldn’t avoid the subject any longer. Talking about it was going to hurt almost as bad as living through it. Dex was back. If I hadn’t pulled myself together yesterday, who knows what would have happened between us. Well, I knew
exactly
what would have happened between us. My heart and body betrayed me at just the fleeting thought of it, sending fresh heat zinging through me and settling between my legs.

“And?” Joleen made a circular motion with her hand.

“And. Dex McLain is back.” I winced when the words came out, as if I could brace myself against the pain of what they might mean.

Joleen slammed her chair forward, making the front legs (or actually the back legs on account of how she had it turned) smack against the ground with a thud. “What do you mean, he’s back? Like transferred to another prison out here?”

I shook my head. “Back as in set free. I saw him yesterday.”

Joleen smacked her palm against her forehead. “Why. In. The. Hell didn’t you say something?”

I shut my eyes tight then opened them again. “There’s nothing to tell. I saw him. It shocked me a little. I came to work.”

“Ava. I know you and I weren’t as close as we are now back then. We’d just met. But he was your one. You were a wreck when he went away. Hell, you pretty much joined the army to get over him! Uh. You pretty much got yourself deployed to Iraq rather than stick around here and be reminded of him.”

I slid my bowl of cereal to the side and folded my hands on the table. “I didn’t join the army because of Dex.” I was ready to launch into a diatribe defending my life choices but Joleen’s palm held out in front of me stopped me.

“Let’s not,” she said. “I don’t want to waste time giving you a hard time about what you choose to tell me. My point is, I know he’s important to you. I’m trying to ask what happened and if you’re okay. That’s all.”

I smiled. “I love you.”

She flapped her hand at me and nodded. “I know. And I’d love all the juicy details, but it’s cool if it’s too heavy for you to talk about.”

I rested my chin against my arm. “I don’t even know what to say about it, Jo. He wasn’t ever supposed to get out. He was in there on federal RICO charges. Kingpin stuff. It was a life sentence. It ripped the club apart for a while. Hell, it could have ripped the town apart if Sly hadn’t been able to keep things under control.”

“Do you know what happened? I mean, he ... uh ... isn’t on the lam, is he?”

“No. And I don’t know all of the details. There was new evidence that exonerated him. He didn’t elaborate and it’s probably better if I don’t know anyway.” God. I was already doing it. I was already talking and thinking like Dex had trained me all those years ago. Don’t ask too many questions about the club. Don’t talk about it to other people, you never know who might be listening.

“So it’s over.” Joleen reached across the table and patted my arm. “He’s out for good?”

I squeezed my eyes shut again. It wasn’t just that I hadn’t wanted to talk about this with Joleen after yesterday. It’s that I didn’t want to work it through in my own head. Dex was out for good and my world was in jeopardy of being turned upside down all over again. I couldn’t let that happen. Dex didn’t do what they accused him of. I’d known that all along. But trouble followed the Great Wolves M.C. and Dex was usually at the center of it. I’d put it all behind me. I couldn’t risk the heartache and misery that was sure to follow just for the fleeting pleasure his body gave me.

“Sly says he’s out for good.”

“Sly says? What does Dex say?”

A slow blush crept into my cheeks and I tried to cover it before Joleen saw it. Too late.

“Ava, you didn’t.”

I sat up, rose to my feet and cleared my cereal bowl from the table. “I didn’t,” I assured her.

“Hmm. But just barely if the look on your face is any indication. I want to meet this guy, Ava. I’ve seen his picture on the wall at the Wolf Den. And I’ve seen the one you keep in your room that you don’t think anyone knows about.”

That stopped me short. In our brief, eight-month relationship, there was only one picture in existence of Dex and me. If I’d known our time together would end so quickly, maybe I would have taken more. I kept that picture under a layer of old newspaper I used to line my underwear drawer. I sputtered in response, the various scenarios that would put Joleen in a position to snoop through my panty drawer made my head hurt. I set my bowl in the sink and laid my hands on the stainless steel countertop.

That picture. Sly had taken it. Neither of us had been aware of the camera at the time. Dex was leaning against a wooden pillar on the old Wolf Den building with me in his arms. He’d opened his leather jacket and folded me in it, holding me against his chest with my back to him, his forehead resting on the top of my head. He’d said something to me. I don’t remember what, but it had made me smile. It was probably something dirty he’d whispered into my ear. He looked down at me with such tenderness in that photo. It captured so much of what we were together back then.

As I leaned against the sink I knew that’s all I could handle from him. Just a good memory in a photograph that I kept hidden away. I’d become something so different in the years that had come between us. I was stronger. Wiser. I’d survived actual combat and missing him. I was healed. I couldn’t let him rip open old wounds and go through it all again.

“I don’t think I’m going to see him again,” I said, turning to Joleen.

She came into the kitchen and leaned against the opposite counter. “Well, if you’re both planning to stay in Green Bluff, that’s going to be pretty tough to avoid. Have you talked to Chris about any of this?”

Chris. Shit. Chris. I hadn’t given a single thought to him in over twelve hours. We’d only gone on those two dates together. Except the last one ended with me tipsier and hornier than I planned and I’d let him fuck me in the back seat of his car. Just like some bad prom date. God. It had only happened three days ago. We weren’t at the point where I felt I owed him any explanations about an old boyfriend. But despite my action speaking to the contrary, I didn’t normally sleep around. Stuff like this was
exactly
why I liked order in my life. Chaos screwed everything up. Sleeping with Chris was chaos. Dex McLain was chaos.