Chapter Eleven
Faith gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.
Dinah was a little taken aback when Brute had invited Road, and he’d grabbed her hand to take her into the hospital room. That was where she finally met Faith. She’d stood as far away as she could, and the other woman started a conversation with her.
From what Road had told her, there were not a lot of women at the clubhouse for Faith to talk to, apart from some women that were loyal to the men. She read between the lines, as she heard a lot of rumors about the Evil Fallen Bratva MC compound. There were a lot of women constantly coming and going. From what she knew, none of the men ever stuck around. The women were used of their own volition, and then left. They didn’t have a place within the club.
Faith had been the first woman in the club to be claimed by one of the men, which gave her a status she didn’t think the other women would appreciate.
Dinah adored the other woman, and was surprised when Faith reached out to give her a hug. She did hug the other woman, but again, since her mother’s passing, other than Road, there hadn’t been anyone she’d shown affection to.
Afterward, Road had taken her home, and he’d stayed the night. They didn’t have sex, and she just got a horrible feeling. She wasn’t sure what it was.
By morning, Road had in fact left, which again was another surprise. He left her a note by the coffeepot, saying something had come up and he needed to take care of business.
Dinah screwed up the note, poured herself some coffee, and then got ready to go to work. The salon was a nice place to be when she wanted distractions.
She had no doubt that Nikki Golubev had caused the problem. She had not known he was a Golubev several years ago when he came to get a haircut in this very salon.
This was where her mother had worked. From what she knew, her mother had struck a deal with the owner, that if she got Dinah trained and ready, she could take her spot.
Between fast-tracking through college to get her qualifications with her mother training her day and night, she’d been able to claim her seat within a short time. She had also kept it, and her reputation had only grown from there. Dinah knew, when the time was right, she could move on, maybe leave town, find a new place, start from scratch, and build herself up. The only problem was, this was her mother’s chair.
She knew Angela, her mother, had so many plans. Just before her attack, she started to learn beauty application. Angela Evans had wanted to expand, to one day find a location of her own, open a salon and beauty something or other, and just have a place for women to come and pamper themselves. It had sounded amazing at the time. Of course, it hadn’t come to pass.
Dinah arrived at her station and several of the women were already gossiping about something. She didn’t make friends well, and even though she had been working here for years, she knew a couple of the women didn’t like her. They didn’t like her skill, or the fact their clients had opted for her to be their hairdresser.
She didn’t do anything but listen to her client, and then work her magic, taking her time. She also listened to their worries and never once burdened them with her own bad shit. Like now, none of them knew she was thinking about Nikki Golubev and trying to remember the last time he had come to her salon. Her mother had still been alive at the time of his last visit, but she had started to develop a lot of health issues.
Dinah didn’t know how he had done it, but there had been an envelope of cash left in her bag at the end of the night. She didn’t know why, and Dinah hadn’t spent a single cent of that money. For the past couple of years, she had kept it locked away in a shoebox in her closet, and now it was once again in her bag, just in case he showed up. She had no idea why he’d given her the money then, but if he for some odd reason decided to show up, Dinah had the envelope stuffed in her back pocket, which is why she had also chosen to wear an oversized tunic shirt. She didn’t want anyone to know she carried a load of cash.
There was no way she was going to take his money, nor his father’s.
Dinah pushed the mess out of her mind, as she got to work on her first client. A simple cut and blow-dry, but in the opposite order. She loved washing hair and treating it, bringing it back to life.
The woman talked incessantly about her husband, and how he wasn’t paying her any attention, but after today he would regret it. Dinah gave the usual sounds that showed she was listening, and worked her magic. After an hour, she had the woman staring at the mirror, and she clapped her hands, with a big old smile on her face.
“You’re a genius, thank you.”
Dinah let her go and pay, as she cleaned up and got ready for her next customer. It had been a few weeks since the prom fiasco, so it was always a little slow after that.
Many of her customers just wanted a quick trim to remove split ends. She didn’t have a complete style until the afternoon. As the doorbell rang indicating there was a client, she knew it was someone new by the way the women reacted. Dinah didn’t know why, but she had a feeling it was Nikki.
She glanced up, and sure enough, he stepped into the hair salon and took a seat. Dinah stared at him for several seconds but then got back to work. Someone else could work on his hair. She wasn’t interested in taking his money.
It was a good job she had brought his money from all those years ago. The memory of her mother rushed through her, and she couldn’t help but feel the anger.
Because of his father, her mother had lost the will to live. She’d lost the fight with everything, and her dream of the future had been shattered. Dinah finished her latest client, and then walked toward the counter.
“Dinah, you’ve had a drop-in,” Macy, the boss, said.
“We don’t do drop-ins.”
“Well, he seems like such a nice man that I didn’t want to disappoint him, and he asked for you specifically.”
Dinah’s jaw clenched. Anger traveled up her spine, but she ignored it. This man was not going to ruin her day. He was a piece of shit to her.
She walked over to him. “The chair,” she said.
He raised his brows and she expected him to complain, and she hoped he would, just so she could tell his expensive ass to get the fuck out of her chair. But, she couldn’t do either, as he walked right over to her chair and sat down.
“I think it would be best to just have a tidy up,” he said. “You see the style. You know what I like.”
She held onto her scissors.
His father had given the order to hurt her mother. Dinah didn’t know exactly what he had done in the background, but the urge to plunge her scissors into his neck was so strong, she could almost taste it. By just being alive, she hated him.
Dinah counted to ten and got to work on his hair, even though there were several moments where she just wanted to kill him. Her mother was no longer alive, and she knew he and his father were to blame.
“How have you been, Dinah?” he asked.
The fact he said her name with a familiarity pissed her off.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Ah, so I see you now know who I am.”
She let go of his hair as she came close to holding it within a tight grip. There was no doubt in her mind, she hated this man and his father with every fiber of her being.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.
“Actually, this is a salon, and last time I checked, I can do whatever the hell I want.”
She gritted her teeth. Rather than risk ruining her reputation and going to jail for a man who was not worth it, she got to work. She did his hair, and didn’t once slip up or ruin the style. Once she was done, she pulled the apron from around his neck, and got to work cleaning up, as he went to pay.
“Dinah, walk me to my car,” Nikki said.
He had gained the attention of the whole salon, so she had no choice but to continue being polite. But at least it gave her the perfect opportunity to tell him to fuck off and give him back his money. She hated him.
Stepping out of the salon, Dinah couldn’t help but feel … bare. This was dangerous, of that, she had no doubt.
Nikki wasn’t parked in front along with everyone else, and she knew that was on purpose. He had done all of this to intimidate her. She wouldn’t back down. Not now, not fucking ever. Even as her heart raced and she felt that fear traveling up her spine, she refused to leave.
She followed him around the back, to where his car was parked, and there was no one waiting for him.
“Was that so hard?” he said, leaning against his car.
Dinah reached into her back pocket and knew he tensed up. “Do not come back here.” She slammed the money against his chest.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“You know what it is. I didn’t want it then, and I don’t want it now.”
He took the envelope and opened it. She had surprised him.
“That was meant to make your lives easier.”
She shook her head. “I don’t care what sick and twisted lies you tell yourself. I don’t want your money, and do not come back here again.”
“If you could kill me, would you?” Nikki asked.
Dinah spun around and glared at him. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“You know I would. You hurt my mother.”
“Actually, that is not entirely accurate. I didn’t give the order to hurt your mother. I know what my father did, and I do try where I can to make amends for his fuckups.”
“And you think that makes you a good person?” she asked.
Nikki shook his head. “No, I know it doesn’t make me a good person. I’ve done a lot of shit. Some of it I’ve enjoyed, others I haven’t, but when it comes to you, Dinah Evans, I have only tried to make your life a little easier, especially when it comes to what happened to your mother. My father is not a man who takes rejection well.”
“And I’m not a woman who has to stand here and listen to your bullshit,” she said.
She didn’t know when she had become a sounding board for people’s problems, or why they were willing to open up to her.
“Haven’t you ever been curious about who gave the order?” Nikki asked.
“Your father gave the order.”
“I know what he did, but someone else played the middle man.”
And with that, he climbed into his car, and she watched as he took off.
****
Road was pissed off. His anger had taken on a whole new level of rage, and he needed to get to Nikki and fucking kill him.
He thought he could send out little texts, giving him the runaround all day, and then at eight in the evening while he’d been on the way back to Dinah, he requested his presence in No Man’s Land. He was going to kill him, and he didn’t give a fuck what Brute said.
Climbing off his bike, he grabbed his gun and loaded it up, keeping it at his side. When it came down to a confrontation between himself and Nikki, he knew he would win. He was faster, stronger, and he’d faced a lot more than Nikki ever had.
All he had was whatever his father had given him. Road worked tirelessly for everything he had.
Nikki was already leaning against his car, and the lights from his car as well as from his own bike lit their path, otherwise it was in total darkness.
Brute had no idea he was meeting Nikki. Even though it had taken several hours for Faith to deliver their baby, they were both back at the clubhouse and doing well. He knew their son was already well-loved by the whole club. Not that he could blame any of them. From the brief glance he got, he knew Brute and Faith’s son was going to be a heartbreaker. From what he knew, they hadn’t named him yet, but they still had time to decide on a name.
“What the fuck do you want?” he asked.
All he wanted to do was commit violence, to end this feud, but Brute held him back. He knew the other man had a plan, and even though he didn’t agree to it, he had no choice but to follow orders. This was the last thing he wanted to do.
He kept hold of his gun.
“You need to end it with Dinah Evans,” Nikki said.
“Is that what this is about? You want to start giving me relationship advice? Fuck you, I’m not doing that.”
He tightened his grip on the gun and stared across at Nikki. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d wanted to kill the son of a bitch, and that hadn’t changed. Again, he thought about Brute.
Nikki smiled. “Okay, I get that you hate my guts, and I even accept it. I mean, who wouldn’t hate me, bu t— and this is the proble m— you’re one of my father’s problems. Seeing as you decided to attack his businesses left and right, he’s asked not just for me, but others to look into the Evil Fallen Bratva MC members. More importantly, who they are associating with. Imagine my surprise in finding out you’re screwing with the very daughter of the mother you gave the order to scar.” Nikki laughed. “Kind of a prolonged karma, right?”
“We’re done,” Road said.
“Yeah, if you don’t end it with her, then she is going to become a target. There is only so much I can do.”
“Only so much you can do, because from what I can see, you do very little but bark orders and shit all over people. That is what you do, Nikki, because the truth is, you’re afraid of your father, and you’re terrified of him finding out you’re a scared little boy.”
Nikki raised his gun, but Road was already there, and loaded. Nikki’s gun wasn’t.
“You think I’m not doing my job?” Nikki asked. “Trust me, if it wasn’t for me, your club would be in ruins, and I am warning you, you don’t have what it takes to hit him hard enough. Not yet, and with where he’s going, you must play it careful. He’s gone to Italy, and you know what that means.”
Road did, but he kept glaring at the man opposite him.
“You know what this means,” he said. “And my father is going to make sure you pay, and if he even remembers who Dinah is, or more importantly, who her mother is, he isn’t going to stop until she’s exactly like her mother.”
Nikki was the first to put his gun away.
“That’s it. That is all the advice I’m going to give you,” Nikki said. “It’s now in your hands as to what you do with it.”
He spun around toward his car and Road struggled. Every part of his brain was firing, telling him to fucking kill that bastard.
“Oh, and don’t you like my new haircut? Dinah did an amazing job.”
Nikki climbed into his car, and Road knew he couldn’t kill him. One of the rules of the club was never to act on his own. He wasn’t going to jeopardize the club for his own personal grievances.
Brute didn’t know, nor did any of the guys, what Nikki had done to him. That the man had laughed as he helped scar up his face. One day, he and Nikki would have their showdown, but not today.
And with that, he had no choice but to climb onto his bike and head back to Dinah. All the time, he kept thinking about the warning.
Nikki was right. It wouldn’t be long before Sergey would come after him. He’d known growing attached to Dinah would come at a cost.
He rode all the way to her house, not taking into account the scenery, or anything. All he could think about was Dina h— the threat to her lif e— and as he came to park on her driveway, he looked up at her house.
Sergey had told him to take care of the woman, that she had offended him, and Road had blindly followed those orders. He stepped up to Dinah’s house, and he didn’t even get a chance to knock at the door before she opened it.
“You do not have a single clue what happened to me today,” she said. “That guy, Nikki Golubev, came to the salon and demanded I walk him to his car. I’m pretty sure he threatened me, but he said the craziest thing to me. He told me to think about who would give the order to hurt my mom. That’s crazy, right? I’m losing my mind, because Sergey, his father, gave the order.”
Road looked at her and thought that last night, when she’d looked up at him with that smile on her face and the twinkle in her eyes, it was probably the last time.
Nikki’s warning rang in his ear.
“I did,” Road said.
Dinah stopped. Her mouth opened and closed. She kept looking at him, and then she laughed. “What?”
“Sergey Golubev told me that there was a woman who had offended him and she needed to be taught a lesson. So I did, I helped him teach her. I was the one that sent the men to your house. To this house,” he said. “And, they were told to give it the Golubev stamp of approval.”
He had promised himself he would never hurt her again, but as he witnessed the tears filling her eyes, she took a step back.
“Get out,” Dinah said.
“I … I didn’t know—”
“Get out. Get out. Get the fuck out of my house, you piece of fucking shit! How could you do that? How could you allow them to do that?”
“Dinah, I didn’t mean—”
“No, get out.” The tears were falling down her face, and it broke his heart to see. “Get out.”
There was no reason to keep fighting. This is what Nikki had done. He’d not allowed him to end things with Dinah. He had made sure to put the blade in and twist it. The only woman who had ever made him feel like a man, who made him feel like himself, and Nikki helped to destroy it.