Chapter Nine
Alexandra
My world — past, present, and future — hinges on the conflict swirling in Dixon’s dark eyes. It drives me crazy that a man I heartfully hate holds my identity in the palm of his bloodstained hand. Everything I thought I knew about my brother’s death has just been called into question. Everything is upside down for me, and for Dixon — this handsome and hateful heartthrob that I wish I met in a different life — the same must be true as well. The question now is: will his desire to know the truth win out over his desire to die?
I wait, my aching heart in my throat.
“You want my help?”
It isn’t just that I want it; I need it. To have any hope of succeeding, I need Dixon. Wherever my hunt for the truth takes me, I know it’ll involve dealing with other men like the one who nearly killed me. But I can’t stop, because Lucas can’t rest until he’s received justice, and neither can I.
“Are you going to make me beg?”
There’s a pause. One long enough that the words ‘Because I will’ are on the tip of my tongue, hesitating there only because of the hate that I’ve carried for this cocky biker for so long. Still, I’ll say them if that’s what I have to.
“I might.”
Then a smirk. A colossal, gut-twisting smirk.
“Fuck you.”
“Amazing case you’re making here. Really convincing me.”
He’s such a fucking prick. I hate him just as much as he hates me… and almost as much as he hates himself.
My teeth grind together. Then I close my fingers and make a fist, just like my brother taught me, and I punch Dixon right in his jaw. It feels good, so I do it again, this time hitting him in the groin, and he keels over, his hands on his crotch and a pained look on his face. It’s the best I’ve felt in a long time.
“Dixon Green, you are as pleasant as road rash on my vagina. Fuck you, I fucking hate you. I can’t believe that you’ve spent years tortured by this question, just as much as I’ve been tortured by the fact that you fucking shot my brother in the head, and now, you get something right in front of you that says that maybe the way you saw things isn’t the truth — something so blatant that it literally breaks down the fucking door and tries to murder you — and you are so stuck in your pitiful fucking self-loathing that you won’t even fucking investigate it? Are you lazy, an idiot, or a coward? Or are you all three?”
“Depends on who you talk to. Any of my COs — that’s commanding officers for a civilian like you — would probably tack on a few extra descriptors.”
Punching him again feels even better than the first time.
“I’ve hated you for years. Hunted you for almost as long, too. All because of what I thought happened on that day. You’ve caused so many people so much pain, but now’s your chance to make things right. To help heal the wounds you’ve caused. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to find out what really happened? Or do you just want to die and leave me to suffer? Are you that selfish?”
My cheeks are wet with my tears, and the salt stings the abrasions left on my face by the attacker’s blows. I feel pitiful, begging like this, and must look pitiful, too, because something cracks inside Dixon’s dark eyes and he releases a sigh.
“Fine. I’ll help you.”
He extends his hand and I shake it the way my father taught me — firm grip, with an extra squeeze and a hard grind on his knuckles; it’s subtle, but enough that he knows it’s deliberate and hopefully he makes the connection that I have no problem grinding other parts of him if he pisses me off.
“Thank you,” I say.
In that moment, something close to a smile comes across his face and it’s as if a weight has left his shoulders. There’s a fire in his eyes that wasn’t there a moment before, and his voice is different. Stronger, determined, yet still a note of doubt lingers. Not that I blame him. For years he’s had a story written on whatever he has that passes for a soul, and now, that story may be wrong.
“I can’t think that we’ll find anything that changes what happened. I was there, I know what I did, but maybe…” He almost sounds hopeful.
Good. I want him like this — hopeful, determined, focused. If whoever arranged my brother’s murder is the same person who sent this man to kill me, they’re dangerous and they’re determined to cover up anything that could point to their involvement. I need Dixon on my side, as disgusting as that sounds. But that doesn’t mean I have to trust him.
Because he is who he is: a cocky asshole and a killer.
Then my eyes leave Dixon’s and land on the gun on the floor. I need Dixon, but I still can’t trust him. Quickly, I make a move and snatch the gun from the floor and train it upon him.
“Alexandra? What the hell are you doing?” He raises an eyebrow at me.
My grip on the gun is steady as I level it at Dixon”s chest, the cold metal reassuring against my palm.
”Just taking precautions.”
”You always this charming to your partners?”
”Only to those who”ve earned my special brand of hospitality.”
Circling around him warily, I make my way to the kitchen, keeping one eye on Dixon and one on my destination.
“Have you forgotten that I wouldn’t mind if you shot me to death?”
“Have you forgotten that there are many places to shoot a man that won’t kill him? That they’ll only just make him suffer, bleed, and be without the use of his cock for the rest of his life?”
“God damn.”
Opening a drawer, I rummage through until I find the handcuffs — there, between a whisk and a spatula. The shiny bracelets glint tantalizingly under the fluorescent lighting.
Dixon cocks an eyebrow as I toss them to him.
”What”s this? Handcuffs in the silverware drawer?”
”Believe it or not, Dixon, some people actually have active romantic lives. And some of us like to be prepared for every eventuality.”
As if he should even be surprised that I keep a pair of handcuffs in the kitchen; it’s where all the booze and chocolate are kept. How could it not be an ideal location for having sex? Or at least starting the act? Seinfeld didn’t have it wrong, even if the observation came from watching George Costanza stuff cold cuts into his mouth while crawling beneath the covers with a woman who was way out of his league.
Not that I remember the woman’s name, but all of them were out of his league.
”Now, shut up and cuff yourself to the radiator,” I order, motioning with the gun towards the clunky old heater in the living room. ”The sooner we establish trust, the sooner we can get to work.”
“This is how you establish trust?”
“Where are we starting from? You are still the most likely suspect in my brother’s murder, and I did just watch you kill a man in my kitchen.”
“To save your life.”
“Still doesn’t negate the fact that you killed him. We’re starting from, like, negative trust. Oh, and I still hate you and everything about you and still might shoot you for the hell of it. So… Handcuffs, radiator, now.”
Dixon complies, though there’s an amused look on his face and a challenge in his eyes — part of me believes he’s going to test me so I can fulfill that death wish he’s carried with him ever since my brother’s death.
I hope he doesn’t.
Dixon reluctantly secures the handcuffs around his wrist and the radiator pipe. There”s a clanking of metal on metal as he tests the restraint.
”Satisfied?”
I don”t respond, simply nod once before turning on my heel and heading to the kitchen. My hands tremble slightly as I open the cabinet and grab the bottle of tequila sitting on the shelf. I need a drink. Or ten. Cradling the bottle against my chest, I make my way down the hallway to my bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind me. Finally alone, the facade I”ve been projecting – the strong, unflappable persona of a woman on a mission — crumbles. My back slides down the door until I”m sitting on the floor, legs splayed out in front of me. The tequila bottle rolls away, forgotten for the moment, as the dam breaks. Harsh, ragged sobs rip from my throat as hot tears stream down my face.
All the sadness over Lucas”s death that I’ve been fighting to suppress comes crashing down on me in waves. How did it come to this? How fucked up is it I’m working with the man I believe killed my brother just to get answers?
I pull my knees up, hugging them tightly as I bury my face in them.
My legs are soon soaked with my tears.
A physical pain grips my chest; Lucas, with his bright smile, his stupid jokes, his hair that always — no matter what he did — was messy, like he’d just spent hours tearing down the highway without a helmet… in a hurricane.
He deserved so much better than what he got.
And tonight, he was supposed to get justice.
“Lucas, please. I need your help.”
I take a long pull straight from the bottle of tequila, relishing the burn as the liquid slides down my throat.
“What do I do?”
Another gulp that ends with me sputtering and nearly choking on the tequila as a distinct memory of Lucas — him, teaching me how to shoot, speaking in that gentle, guiding voice he always had when he was really serious about me learning something — surfaces and I swear I can feel him right beside me.
“I miss you so much.”
I drink some more. A lot more.
Until my lips are tingling and my fingers are numb.
If I were a customer at work, I’d have cut myself off a long time ago. But I’m by myself and have never felt more alone than I do in this moment, when everything I thought I knew has just been upended and left for dead on my kitchen floor.
As much as I drink, I cry.
Then I hear Dixon”s voice calling out from the living room.
”Alexandra? I can hear you crying in there. Are you okay?”
I wipe my tears away with the back of my hand.
”Like you care,” I call out, taking another swig from the bottle.
”Look, I know this is a lot to process, but we need to focus on the task at hand. That body in your kitchen isn”t going to dispose of itself.”
His words, though matter-of-fact, feel like a slap in the face.
How can he be so cold?
Oh, that’s right, because he’s the murdering asshole who probably killed my brother.
”Just give me a minute, OK? I”m trying to wrap my head around all of this.”
”We don”t have time to fuck around and throw tantrums,” Dixon says. ”The longer we wait, the harder it”s going to be to deal with the body. There are more chances to be discovered, not to mention the fact that every moment that passes, that body is getting riper. At about twenty-four hours, things get real. Trust me, you don”t want to experience the bloat stage. It gets really gross, really fast.”
I push myself up from the floor, stumbling slightly as the tequila hits me. I make my way back to the living room, glaring at Dixon.
”And how would you know that? You some kind of expert on dead bodies now? Because you’re talking like a fucking mortician. That how you get off? You kill people and then, what, play around with their bodies?”
“That’s not being a mortician, that’s being a necrophiliac.”
“Same difference.”
I know it isn’t, but I’ve got tears in my eyes, tequila in my tummy, and a murdering asshole cuffed to my radiator, so logic is out the fucking window.
“Big difference. One preps a dead body to go into a hole in the ground, the other preps himself to go into a hole in a dead body.”
“Fuck you, that’s nasty.”
“I’m not fucking around here. I know what I’m talking about. I”ve been a volunteer firefighter since Sacramento. I”ve seen things, smelled things, you can”t even imagine.”
“So, what are you saying?”
“I was content to play along with your little handcuff games when it looked like you had your shit together, but if you’re going to have a whiny tequila night while a dead body rots on your kitchen floor, that changes things. Let me out of these handcuffs and let’s take care of this dead body.”
“I just put you in handcuffs. I’m not taking you out right away. I’ll take care of the body myself.” My words don’t land with the effect I want them to have, mainly because I drunkenly wobble when I turn around to look at the body on the floor. “I’ve got a dolly. I’ll load him up. You can stay right where you are.”
“You’ve pissed yourself,” he replies, eyes squarely on my knees, upper thighs, and, unfortunately, my crotch.
“This isn’t pee. These wet spots are from crying.” As if that makes it better.
“Alexandra, you’re too fucking drunk to operate a dolly, much less a car. Besides,” he says, pausing a moment to sniff the air, “do you really want to fumble around with that body when he’s already done the thing that all people do shortly after they die?”
I sniff, too.
Oh no.
Beneath the odor of tequila, I catch what he’s talking about. It makes my stomach turn and my knees wobble.
I hate it, but I need his help.
Sighing, I draw the gun and then toss him the handcuff keys. Then I point the gun at his crotch. It’s shaky in my grip, but I’m confident I could still get the job done if I had to.
“Fine. Unlock yourself and grab the body. And don’t make me hurt you, because I promise I won’t just shoot you to death, I’ll just blow your dick off and then, while you’re flailing about on the floor screaming about your bleeding penis, I’ll beat you to death with it.”
He unlocks himself and gives me a shit-eating grin that makes me want to shoot him right now.
I hate Dixon Green more than it should be possible to hate someone.
“Alexandra Reyes, you really are such a pleasant person. Now, sit back and let me get that corpse off your kitchen floor.”