Chapter 22
NICOLETTA
The next morning, I wake up disoriented, a bit groggy, and alone.
I have a throbbing ache in my right side, and an overpowering need to use the bathroom.
I try to push myself up on my good side, but it pulls on the stitches on my bad side.
I twist the other way, and when I lose my balance, I jostle the end table, sending the carafe of water clear to the floor with a crash.
“What the fuck?” a male voice bellows from the other room, followed by Bolt charging into the room.
“What the hell are you doin’?” He rushes to my side of the bed.
“I was trying to get up.”
“Then you call me.” He frowns down at me. “Anyway, whatever you need, I can do for you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Try me?” He folds his massive arms over his chest in full macho mode.
“I have to pee,” I deadpan, then wait.
“All right, wiseass, you got me, but at least let me help you.”
After trying a few different positions, Bolt finally gets me on my feet, and I head for the bathroom.
When I’m done, I wash my hands, splash water on my face, and brush my teeth. I open the door, and Bolt is standing in the hallway like a soldier.
He points to the bedroom. “Back to bed.”
I don’t argue because I feel like I got run over by a bus.
“Get into bed. I’ve got breakfast ready.”
Two minutes later, he returns with that amazing coffee and sweet Mexican pastries on a plate. He sits on the edge of the bed, his gaze intense like he expects me to explode before his eyes.
“What time is it?” I have no idea how long I slept.
“It’s one o’clock.”
“In the afternoon? I don’t think I’ve slept that late since I was a teen.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think you’ve ever been shot before either.”
“True.” I sip at the coffee, and it’s delicious as always.
“I’m not gonna ask how you feel, cause the second day is like you got hit by a truck.”
“I was thinking run over by a bus, but, yeah, close enough.”
“The second day is a bitch, then you start to feel better by day four or five, and you get up and try to do normal shit. Then it hits you that you got shot, and your body ain’t ready for normal shit.”
“It’s frightening how much you know about this subject.” I pull one of the pastries in half.
“You’ve seen my body, babe; you know I got scars.”
“Yes, I just didn’t know how you got them.” I take another sip of the steaming brew.
“I’m an outlaw, and outlaws have scars.” He grins at me. “And now you’re an outlaw too.”
“According to Clark Williams, my biological father was also an outlaw.”
“I wouldn’t believe too much of what that bastard said. Maybe the guy was just down on his luck.”
“Either way, the only reaction I felt when Clark revealed the truth about my parentage was relief. It really ate at me that the man I called my father all these years was capable of such horrors.”
“I know all about shitty fathers, but I’d say you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known outside of my mother.”
That admission stops me cold. Of course Bolt had parents, everyone did, but somehow I could also imagine him being constructed out of welded steel, held together by sinewy muscle.
“You’ve never mentioned your mother.”
“Hmmm.”
I don’t want to push, but I can’t control my curiosity. “Is she still—”
He slowly shakes his head, and my heart catches. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too.” He digs his hand into the front pocket of his jeans. “This is all I have from her.” He holds up a chain with a St. Christopher’s medal dangling at the end.
“How long has she been gone?” I somehow sense he wants to talk about her, but he doesn’t know how.
“She died way too young.”
“Cancer?” I venture.
He huffs out a humorless laugh. “In a way. My father was an abusive bastard. Just kept taking and taking—like a cancer.”
“And?” I prod.
“Came home from high school and found her hanging in the basement.”
I gasp, then school my reaction. “That’s truly terrible. I’m so sorry you had to find her like that.”
“The next day, my father took off, and I was alone. We didn’t have shit, so the state had her buried.
A week later, on my seventeenth birthday, I took off too.
Headed south, bummed around San Diego doing odd jobs, getting my ass in trouble, in and out of jail.
Six years ago, I came down to Tijuana with Diesel.
We fought for the cartel first, then Smoke and Blood recruited us to fight for the Royal Bastards.
” He spreads his arms wide. “And here I am.”
I reach for his hand and place it between mine.
“I want you to know something.” He leans in until we’re face to face. “I never told that story to anybody.”
I cock my head. “Not even Smoke or Diesel?”
“Nope. Nobody but you.”
“Why? You’re so close to both of them.”
“Just not something you spit out over a few beers.”
“Then I’m honored, although I don’t think I deserve it.” I lower my eyes, and try to form the words correctly, then realize there is no correct way to explain betrayal.
“I never wanted to lie to you about the knife.” I draw in a breath. “That’s not entirely true. That first night, it seemed like my only option, then I just . . . I was afraid of your reaction, and the longer I waited, the worse it got.”
“Funny, I never thought of it, but in an indirect way, it was my mother who told me about the knife.”
“What?” Please don’t tell me he has conversations with his dead mother.
Bolt holds up the chain. “I always have it on me when I fight, and that night, with everything goin’ on, I forgot it. When I got to the gym, I freaked and had Diesel come here and get it. I keep it in the back of my bottom drawer.”
“And along with the medal, he found the knife.”
“Pretty much.” He leans in. “Hiding that knife in my drawer wasn’t cool.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry. I was desperate. After seeing the condition of your room, I figured you’d never find it, and if you did, I’d be long gone, and you’d know what to do with it.”
“Not anymore.” He motions to his now orderly room.
“Now, I understand why Diesel was giving me those looks.”
“He was just looking out for me. Me finding needy women who like to use me is the regular. Like the chick who conned a thousand bucks outta me for her sick kid. Not only didn’t she have a kid, but then I saw her on IG guzzling drinks at some resort down the coast.”
“There’s nothing wrong with trying to help people.”
“If they need it, yeah, but . . .”
“Tell me how you met Dr. Ezra Callahan.”
“Ezra? Yeah, that’s a fuckin’ crazy story.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world.” I spread my arms wide and wince. “Think I could have another pill?”
“You can have an Advil now. Maybe another pill tonight.”
“Wow, the biker being the voice of reason.”
Bolt barks out a laugh. “The last time Callahan took a slug outta me, I partied all night on the beach doin’ shots of tequila and popping oxy.”
“How’d that end up?”
“With me passed out on the sand the next day with the cops standing over me.”
“That still doesn’t explain how you first met him.”
“Six years ago, before I was with the Bastards, I was all over the place. The higher the jump, the deeper the hole, the faster the race, I was all in. I was hanging with a crew who delivered pharmaceuticals.”
“Street drugs?” I ask.
“Street drugs,” he confirms.
“And something went wrong, and he patched you up?” I venture.
“Probably not the way you think.”
“The cops raided the place where we stored the shit, and I made a run for it. Got away too, only in the scuffle, I also took a bullet in the back of my leg.” He shakes his head, remembering. “Stung like a bitch, so one of the guys I was with tried to cut it out.”
“The bullet?” I ask in shock.
“As you can imagine, that didn’t go well.
Later that night, I ended up at the Seashell, sweating with a fever and trying to drown the pain in booze.
Ezra saw the condition I was in, took me in the same backroom as last night, removed the bullet, and sewed me up.
He said another few hours, and the infection would’ve killed me. ”
“That’s both terrible and amazing.”
“Story of my life, babe.”