Chapter Seven
Alexandra
I spin a split second before there’s a flash of searing light from the barrel of the gun and a shuddering crack as the bullet rips forth and bites a hole in the wall right behind where I was standing. Heart in my throat, I run into the kitchen, all thoughts of Dixon pushed from my mind, replaced by the pulse-pounding urge to survive.
It must be one of Dixon’s buddies, here to kill me and rescue their friend. I was so careful to cover my tracks, but apparently, I wasn’t careful enough.
There’s a wisp of air that zips by my head, followed a microsecond later by the flash of light and the roar of the gun. Another shot.
I cry out.
I can’t be this close, only to die. But there’s no fear in my heart, only anger. I won’t have some asshole take this away from me. I scream again as rage claws its way up my throat.
I have to survive. Not just for myself, but for Lucas, too. He deserves revenge.
My eyes scan the room, looking for something, anything, I can use as a weapon. By reflex, I snatch a steak knife and spin and throw it right at his head.
He ducks.
It hits the wall behind him and clatters uselessly to the floor. He laughs.
From the living room, I hear Dixon shouting. Angry, violent, wordless shouts. Further sounds of struggle follow, and I hear the chair fall over. The masked man aims again and I dive, the bullet tearing a hole through the cupboard door and shattering my coffee mugs to a thousand pieces.
I barely hit the ground before he takes aim again and on hands and knees, I leap out of the way, scrambling. Pain sears up my left arm as a friction burn from the cheap linoleum floor takes me from wrist to elbow. That pain disappears as another bullet zips by my head, missing me by inches and tearing another hole in the cupboard behind me. There’s a loud, ringing sound like a gong that echoes through the apartment as the bullet bites into my cast-iron skillet.
Fuck. I had finally gotten a good layer of seasoning on the damn thing. Now I’ll have to start all over.
Spinning again, I lash out with my foot and send a kitchen chair flying toward him. It hits him just below the knee and he stumbles. I leap to my feet and grab my coffee pot from the kitchen counter.
Whirling, I hurl it right at his head and it smacks him in the temple, shatters, and hot coffee and shards of glass turn his masked face into a bloody, steaming mess. He howls, drops the gun and clutches his head with both hands.
I grab another steak knife and run at him, screaming. With all my strength, I sink the steel into his shoulder, spilling fresh blood on my hand.
A grunt and a fist to the face are all I get in response.
I hit the linoleum floor like a lump, waves of pain cascading through my body.
A kick follows, hitting me in the ribs. Something shifts inside me, beyond painful, but I bite back the pained whimper I want to release and roll sideways, narrowly dodging his follow-up stomp that just misses where my head used to be.
I get to my knees, my eyes searching the kitchen for another weapon.
I see it through the dangling door of my cupboard: my now-fucked-up cast-iron skillet. Scrambling, I race to it, clench my hands in a baseball batter’s grip around the handle, and turn just in time to bring it to bear against the attacker. It hits him on the side of his head.
He hits his knees.
With the cast iron clutched in a double-fisted grip, I stand and raise it high, intent on bringing it down on the top of his head and crunching his skull. My swing dies in a shriek as he lashes out with his fist and hits me between the legs.
I crumple.
With a shove, he pushes me and I land on my back on the blood-soaked floor. He climbs atop me, dripping blood from the multitude of cuts on his face and the stab wound in his shoulder. There’s a faint outline of a wicked grin visible beneath the black fabric of his ski mask. Dimly, I’m aware of Dixon’s voice in my living room, screaming, shouting my name, and the distant sound of splintering wood. But only barely aware, because the man on top of me is now wrapping his hands around my throat, and the sound of my heartbeat grows louder with each near-impossible breath as he squeezes, his eyes popping wide against the bloody black of his ski mask, excited, gleeful.
A droplet of spit falls from his mouth and lands on my nose.
I squirm. Grab his hands by the wrist and pull with all the strength in my body.
He doesn’t budge.
My world grows darker.
Things move at the edge of the dark, squirmy impressions and squiggly shapes as the veins in my eyes pop and the oxygen supply to my brain goes as dry as Nevada in the summer.
Spittle foams in my mouth.
Tears brim in my eyes.
I try to cry out — something, anything, even just ‘please’ — but it does no good.
Then, in the shadows at the fringe of my vision, I see a large shape. It looks like Lucas.
This is it; I’m going to die.
He’s getting closer.
He’s here to take me away.
At least I’ll be able to see him again. Assuming he and I go to the same afterlife — though I’m not so sure. For everything he did in the MC, he was still a good man. Too good for that line of work. He had hopes, dreams, ambitions to not just change the club for the better, but to bring change to all of Sacramento’s MC scene.
And his laugh.
Oh, his laugh.
At least I’ll get to hear that again, soon. I hope.
That shape is closer. More real. It’s time.
He extends his arm toward me, and I wish I had the willpower to release the hold on my attacker’s wrists and reach toward Lucas, but part of me still clings to life, even though I’ve longed to see his face again for every minute of every day since he was murdered.
Then his hand changes course.
It grabs hold of my attacker by his throat and wrenches him away.
I gasp a never-ending breath of air as pain and blood flow through my body and fill my brain.
I try to sit up, but the most I manage is a moan and an inclination of my bruised neck.
Through the haze that clouds my vision, I watch the shadow of my brother beat and batter the attacker. Fists rain upon him like a thunderstorm, unleashing a torrent of violence that ends with a bone-crunching stomp on the man’s head.
I hear and feel the crack of the man’s neck deep in my bones.
My vision swirls then, and I gasp once more for air. It feels like I have to fight for every breath. Then a fit of coughing overtakes me as something that shouldn’t be loose in my throat feels loose and my head falls back to the floor.
For minutes, it seems all I can do is cough and fight to keep air in my body.
When it stops, when air finally stays inside me, a hand presses itself gently to my cheek and I look up to see my brother’s face looking down at me, compassion and caring writ in every line and wrinkle.
“You saved me.”
I’ve missed him. Missed him so much. Just looking at his face makes my heart collapse in my chest. I want to laugh and cry at the same time.
“Are you all right?” It’s not his voice.
The words that slip into my ears aren’t coming from Lucas’s mouth. They’re repugnant, sickening — they’re Dixon’s.
Gingerly, I shake my head.
My vision clears and my soul rejects what I see in front of me: Dixon, kneeling beside me, looking like he actually gives a shit about me.
“Not you. No, not you…”
“Who else would be here to save your ass? You’re welcome, by the way.”
I swing at him.
It’s a pathetic punch; I can barely move my arm, but he lets it hit him and the lack of anything it does is so much of an insult that I want to scream.
His mouth quivers a little in a smile.
“I’d rather be dead,” I spit at him.
“Join the club.” He looks over his shoulder at the man on the floor. “If that’s really the case, I can try to wake that guy up, see if he’ll finish the job. Don’t hold out much hope for it, though. I heard a pretty serious snap when I stepped on his head.”
“Why’d you save me?”
“Because I couldn’t just sit there and watch him hurt you. Now, hold still, this might hurt, but I need to check you over. He got you good.”
Before I can protest, his hands are on my face, my neck, with a touch that is both commanding and shockingly gentle.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s called first aid. I don’t know if you noticed, but that man beat the shit out of you and tried to choke you to death.”
He runs a finger along my cheek, and I flinch, from the warmth of his touch, from the look in his eye — tender, caring, deep, yet enough to inspire visceral, burning hatred in my heart — and from the pain that flares through my body.
“Ow. How the hell do you know this shit?”
“It was part of my medical training.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No. Firefighter. I told you that already.”
“Seriously? You’re really a firefighter?”
“Volunteer. But, yeah. Outside the MC, I put in my time with a local fire crew.”
“You’re lying.” I shake my head, even though the action sends my brain bouncing inside my skull and makes Dixon hold my head still by putting my chin in an iron grip.
“Why do you think I’d lie about that? I don’t give a shit about getting into your pants,” he says, and those words send a flash of something like regret blazing through my body. Why do I suddenly care about whether he wants to get into my pants? “I’m also way beyond the point of needing to impress you, because I did just save your life.”
“Still doesn’t make up for you being a murdering asshole.”
“It doesn’t. But this murdering asshole is going to check you over for a concussion, to make sure you don’t have any brain damage. Well, other than your pre-existing brain damage and your rampant bitchiness. Follow my finger with your eyes, OK?”
I do, while I seethe over the fact that he’s not as awful as I’d hoped he’d be.
“Am I concussed?”
“No. You’re just angry and beat up a bit. Also, a bit of a bitch.”
What an ass. I hate that he’s saved my life.
“Great, tell me something I don’t know.”
Dixon doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he turns from me and goes to the dead body of the attacker, who is fouling the linoleum floor of my kitchen with his blood. Kneeling beside him, he grabs the ski mask and rips it off. The motion lifts the man’s head off the ground and sends it dropping back with a loud ka-thunk. For nearly a minute, Dixon looks down at the man. His gaze is so intense, so focused, that I don’t even think to speak, nor do I even move for the attacker’s gun, which is laying so temptingly close by on the floor. I just look at him. There’s something playing out behind his eyes, like he’s deep in a memory that is both vital and painful.
Finally, he nods, and he turns to me.
“Alexandra, look at him.”
“I’d rather not.”
“No, look at him. Does he ring a bell?”
My eyes go to the dead man’s face, then back to Dixon.
“Fine. I’ve looked at him. Never seen him before in my life.”
A second passes where Dixon looks me over with a weighty stare that leaves an impression on my chest. I breathe deep as he opens his mouth, his words coming slowly and filling me with a sense of anticipation and dread.
“You sure you haven’t seen him?”
“No. Are you as dense as you are awful? I already told you I haven’t seen him. Why?”
“Because when your brother was murdered, he was standing right beside him, wearing the same MC patch.”