CHAPTER 6
AVA
“Fucking mother fuck!” I hissed angrily at my reflection watching me from the mirror in my car.
I had made it back across the city on the subway and back to my car, thankfully without any more breakdowns of the emotional of physical kind.
My back ached terribly and my head was thumping angrily, but none of the physical pain compared to the tempest ripping at my emotions.
I was a mess, hence me swearing at myself in the tiny mirror. I had broken my one rule.
I’d been sat in my car around the corner from Temple for the last hour. I was, in fact, parked down the very deserted and run down back street I had been grabbed from that awful night as I fled the club, filled with young emotions and feeling heartbroken.
“Stupid little fool,” I hissed angrily, and I wasn’t wrong. I had been a fool back then. Two men I wasn’t even in a relationship with played with another sub and I fell to pieces and endangered myself. If only I’d known what true fear felt like back then, maybe I’d have made better choices.
I rose the almost empty vodka bottle to my twisted reflection, then drank down every drop that remained.
It was the only way I knew to get through being not only with Mason and Jack that night, but also being in Temple itself.
I was terrified the sound of one whip, or once scream from another woman and I would end up a rocking nervous breakdown in the corner, as I had so many times in the beginning after it happened.
I tossed the empty bottle into the back foot well of my car and checked the time on my cell phone.
5 P.M. I had some time before I had to face the music.
I’d need the time between then and Mason and Jack arriving to strengthen my resolve and try to acclimatize myself to the noises and activities in the club around me.
I needed to do anything I could to stop Mason and Jack seeing through my fears and working out I was even more fucked up than they had already realized.
Hell – Deacon too. I liked and respected him.
I didn’t want him to witness me freak out either.
All I really wanted was to go home and hide away again, but I couldn’t and I knew it. I needed to see Jack and Mace to find out if they had any leads I could work with to find Colt.
I could feel the buzz of the vodka, but nothing like I used to when I first started drinking, and when I stepped out of my car I stood as steady as I ever did considering my injury.
Yeah, I thought as I swung my back pack over my shoulder.
I was definitely going to need more drinks before the guys arrived at Temple .
I’d already decided to leave my car at the club for the night.
I was a mess, but not one who would endanger others by driving after drinking.
My money was dwindling fast, but I’d used my credit card from Colt to pay for a ride back to the apartment, just this once.
I slammed the door of the car closed, and before I even turned to walk away from it a huge impact smashed into me from behind until I was slammed into the side of the car and held there between the weight behind me.
The pungent odour of sweat clued me in that it was a person, and by the cold metal at the back of my neck, they held a gun on me.
“Where’s the gun?” a deep voice rumbled close to my ear. I tried to glance behind me, but the gun was pressed harder against my neck. It was dark out and the quiet street I’d chosen to park in was deserted around me.
“What fucking gun?” I bit back angrily. My options of slipping were nil considering my actual physical abilities and how hard he held that gun on me and it pissed me off.
“From your apartment. Give it to me now.”
Fuck . I had completely forgotten about the gun I picked up.
I was so damned dumb! Why hadn’t I handed that off to Mason?
We’d have prints back on it by now and a very promising lead.
Instead I’d kept the damned thing in the bottom of my back pack and forgotten all about it.
What kind of detective did that make me?
That’s probably why they put you out to pasture, idiot , I reminded myself.
“I gave it to the cops. Tell me where my brother is and maybe I can get it back,” I told him as calmly as I could.
“If that’s true, I have no use for you then,” he sneered, like he was delighted with my reply. I knew he was going to shoot me, so those impossible options became all I had.
Ducking as fast and low as I could I felt the bullet he’d just fired graze the side of my head, but I didn’t have time ti think about it as I moved around him just enough that when I stood I could smash my metal stick down across the back of his head like I was taking a baseball swing.
The hit was hard and he stumbled back, losing the grip on his gun as he seemed to lose consciousness for a split second.
That was all I needed to pull the knife from my boot and I held it out before me as a warning.
“Who do you work for?” I gasped. “What the fuck do you want with Colt?”
I had stupidly underestimated the sheer size of the masked man stood before me.
In a second he was upright and racing towards me.
I braced myself to go at him with the knife, but he was faster – which wasn;t hard nowadays – and he knocked my knife from my hand and slammed one of his own deep into my shoulder.
The pain was inexplicable as I dropped to the ground and fought to keep breathing.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been stabbed.
It had happened in the early days of my career when I was a patrol officer, but that had been shallow and nothing compared to the pain I felt now.
I was helpless to do anything but watch on as the masked man scooped up his own gun, then tipped out the contents of the back pack I’d dropped somewhere in the scuffle. He grabbed the envelope with the gun and glanced inside, then took off with it tucked into the pocket of the dark jacket he wore.
“FUCK!” I roared as I sat there, blood pouring from my shoulder as I berated myself for forgetting about the huge fucking lead I’d been carrying around this whole freaking time!
I was tempted to grab my knife from where it sat on the snow covered ground beside me and stab myself in the other shoulder for being such a useless asshole.
Knowing I had to move I tried to make myself stand, but getting up from the ground was hard enough for me, without blood loss and the fact I was freezing my ass off to consider.
Admitting defeat I moved slowly and made a grab for my cell which had fallen from the shallow pocket of my leather jacket in the scuffle. It sat close to me in the snow and I just about got my finger tips on it as I cursed up a storm from the pain the movement caused.
“Hey,” Deacon greeted almost the second I’d hit his contact.
“Hi,” I gasped. “Where are you?”
“Just got to the club. I’m not working tonight, so I figured I’d get some paperwork done while…”
“Deak, gotta stop you there, bud. Can you…shit!” I hissed as a spasm raced up my back and caused me to jolt, only making my shoulder flare in agony. “I need you to come outside. I’m around the side of the club…on the shitty back road. I need some help.”
“What’s wrong. Are you….” I didn’t even listen to what he was calling down the line, instead ending the call and throwing my cell back to the snow.
I reached for my shoulder and felt around the knife to try and figure out how bad the wound was.
I wasn.t too worried until I reached to the back, with a loud groan of pain, and felt the tip of the knife poking out.
It had gone right fucking through me! That sonofabitch was dead if I ever laid eyes on him again.
“AVA!” I looked up and found Deacon at the end of the snow covered street, staring at me with utter horror. His face almost made me laugh out loud, but even I knew that would be inappropriate.
“Calm down, big guy,” I tried to ease him as he raced to me and dropped to his knees at my side. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I just…can you help me get to my feet?” I held a hand out to him and he just stared at it like it was a snake that might bite him.
“Your feet? You need EMT’s. I…I have to call 9-1-1,” he stuttered as he fell back onto his ass and pulled his cell from his pocket. Clearly he hadn’t dealt with anything on this scale before. Or maybe it was the blood. Would a tough guy like him really be freaking out at the sight of blood though?
“No,” I lunged forward and snatched his cell from his hand before he even saw it coming. “No 9-1-1. No hospital. Just get me to my feet and help me into the club,” I panted hard through the pain I’d caused with my movement, but it was worth it. There was no way in hell I was going to any hospital.
“You’re bleeding a fucking lot. I don’t think it’s a good idea to move you,” he worried.
“Well, either you help me, or I do it myself. Either way I’m getting up and I’m getting to the club. I’ll bet it would be a fuck ton less painful if you help me though.”
“You are one insane, stubborn pain in my ass, woman,” Deak growled. He got to his feet, then I was airborne, in his arms and moving towards the club. My head started to swim, likely from the blood loss, and I had to clench my teeth not to cry out at the pain of being moved.
“Deak! What the fuck?” I wasn’t even aware I had closed my eyes until a male voice yelling caused me to jolt back to awareness. Deacon was rushing through the entrance of the club and the security who had been manning the entrance was the voice I had heard.
“Find Jack and tell him to get to Colt’s office right the fuck now!” Deak barked.
“Calm, big guy,” I tried to say, but the words sounded slurred even to me. Maybe slurring at him wasn’t the best way to calm him, I realized.
“I should have called 9-1-1! Why didn’t I call 9-1-1?” Deak uttered to himself, sounding like he was truly freaking out.