Chapter Sixteen
P at had never had such a rested sleep before in his life. Opening his eyes, he already knew Ava was awake. She didn’t sleep for long, and was always an early riser. Glancing toward her, he saw her sweet, soft smile.
“Good morning,” she said.
He didn’t respond, but reached out, gripped the back of her neck, and pulled her close.
Last night, he had expected nightmares after killing Solomon.
That man had been linked to his past, and in truth, he never expected that to come leaking into the present.
He never intended to see him again. Now, that man was dead.
The cartel was using people, offering them rewards, and then killing them once the job was done. They did it to that single mother, they did it to the mechanic. The only question was, where were they going to hit next?
Kissing his woman, he pushed that fucked-up shit out of his mind. Being with Ava kept the nightmares at bay. Not once had he woken up, nor had a bad dream.
“Morning breath,” Ava said again, breaking from the kiss.
“I don’t care.”
Ava laughed.
Bernice whimpered and Pat frowned.
“It’s after eight,” Ava said. “She’s getting pretty desperate and you asked that I never leave your bed, so I stayed, and now she really needs to go and so do I.”
“How long have you been up?” he asked.
“Since six-thirty, roughly. I don’t put a time on it.”
He couldn’t believe he had slept that much longer than her.
“I know you’re not going to sneak off. If you need to go to the bathroom, take Bernice,” Pat said. “Just make sure you come back.”
Ava cupped his face. “Always.” She pulled out of the bed.
“You go to the bathroom. I’ll take Bernice,” he said.
Ava nodded and then stopped him by kissing him again. “Thank you.”
She was completely naked because last night he refused to let her wear any pajamas or nightshirt. He wanted to feel his woman naked against him, and he watched that curvy ass as she walked away from him.
It had felt good touching her last night, feeling those ass cheeks within his palm. Thinking about her response as he stroked her ass, he felt an answering pulse in his dick and couldn’t help but groan. For now, he had to take a very patient Bernice out.
He pulled on a pair of sweatpants, along with a baggy shirt, and made his way toward the dog.
He lifted her up in his arms, and instead of waiting for the elevator, he took her downstairs and out the door.
He took her to a small field around the back of the apartment blocks.
In his sweatpants were the doggy-poo bags he used to clean up the mess. He fucking hated mess.
Letting Bernice onto the ground, he watched her, allowing the cold morning to wake him up. He needed coffee and some food.
Pat watched Bernice as the dog sniffed around, and as he reached into his pants pocket, he became aware of two things: Bernice had begun to growl, and the shadow behind him approaching.
He reacted as soon as the man came close, slamming his fist into the guy’s stomach, and then before he could respond, he took out the guy’s throat by slamming the flat of his hand against him.
The moment he spun around, he saw the ink that covered the man’s arm, and the small teardrops, showcasing the number of kills the man had. Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting to defend himself as he was on the ground.
Pat was not happy. He glared at the bastard, and then grabbed him, hauled him up, and for good measure, because he was pissed off, head-butted him as well. The guy literally was knocked out and was nothing more than dead weight.
“Fuck!” Pat was not happy.
He didn’t have his cell phone and no way to fucking call Bull or anyone else. Not to mention the fact Bernice had made a mess, and this was pissing him off, because he wanted to clean that shit up.
“Piece of fucking shit!”
He growled and knew he had no choice but to take this one step at a time. It was also fucking daylight and that was not helping. That was pissing him off big time.
Letting the guy fall to the ground near the lump of dog shit, he didn’t care if the man woke up to that smell. If he even tried to run, he was shoving that man’s face in it. Scooping up the mess, because he couldn’t stand it, he secured the bag, picked the man up, and placed him over his shoulder.
“Bernice, come,” he said.
She didn’t argue and followed him. He tossed the soiled bag into the trash bin and entered Ava’s building, complete with the fucking bad guy. Stepping into the elevator, Bernice trotted in beside him.
On the way up to Ava’s floor, the man on his back was starting to come around, and he had no choice but to drop him, wrap an arm around his neck, and send him back to sleep. There was an art to this. He wanted to knock him unconscious, not kill him. It had been a long time since he had done this.
As the elevator doors came around, he checked the guy’s pulse, happy to see he hadn’t fucking killed him, not that it would have been much of a problem to him. That piece of shit deserved it. The kills that were registered on his body could all be innocent people for all he knew.
Picking him up again, it was a miracle no one had stopped him by now.
With him over his shoulder, he called to Bernice and marveled at how good this dog was, and no one had wanted her at the shelter, other than Ava.
Some humans were pieces of shit. The human race never failed to surprise him with what they were capable of.
Knocking on Ava’s door, he waited. He was not going to bring this asshole in.
The door opened and Ava stood in a robe with a smile that quickly dropped when she saw him.
“Pat, what’s going on?”
“I don’t have time for questions. I need you to grab my keys, my cut, and my cell phone. This is not what I planned for our breakfast, but I’ll talk to you about it later, okay? I need you to trust me. Do not call the cops, Ava, do you hear me?”
Her eyes were wide, but she scrambled into her apartment.
This was going to be a damn hard test. The club business hadn’t really touched Ava.
She had seen the aftermath and dealt with his instructions, but this was new.
If she called Dylan, made a fuss, then it was simply over for the two of them.
He knew this. It was a risk he didn’t want to take right now, but he had to.
She trusted him with her body, and she was going to have to trust him with this.
She brought him back everything he asked for.
“What is going on?” she asked.
“I can’t tell you, but you need to do as I ask.” He dropped the guy onto the floor, put on his leather cut, then lifted him in his arms again. “Go to your mom’s fabric store. I’ll be by later. I promise.”
He looked at her, and he wanted to kiss her so badly. He couldn’t stand the thought of her rejecting him, flinching, so he grabbed the guy that had been about to attack him and headed out.
Bernice stayed behind, and Pat left Ava. He heard her apartment door close even before he stepped onto the elevator.
Pat didn’t look back as he left the building. No cops magically turned up, and he dumped the guy into the trunk of his car. Slamming it closed, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Bull.
“It’s a little early, Pat,” Bull said.
“Yeah, well, get the basement ready, because I’ve fucking got one of those pieces of shit. Tried to attack me this morning while letting my dog take a shit.”
“Your dog? You’ve got a dog?” Bull asked.
“Yeah, I do. Get the basement ready, I’m coming in. Also, you might want to call Dylan with a warning. There might be someone calling about me grabbing a guy.”
“Pat, what is going on?”
“I had no choice but to let Ava see. The guy went to attack me, I had no car keys, no cell phone, and dog shit that needed cleaning up. I had no choice.”
“Fuck!” Bull was not happy.
If Ava turned on them, that was a problem, especially with Violet and Hazel. Three women were a dangerous game to play. Pat didn’t like it. He knew Bull didn’t like it. He would not want to run the risk of killing Ava, or making her disappear. This was a whole lot of shit he hadn’t planned for.
“I’ll sort it out,” Bull said.
He hung up and Pat drove all the way to the clubhouse, not liking that feeling if Ava decided to call the cops. If she got Dylan involved, there was no problem, other than the fact he knew he would never be able to trust her.
Fuck.
She trusted him. She had told him she trusted him, yet he didn’t know if he could trust her.
Ava was a good woman. She made the right decisions.
That didn’t make her a bad woman. If he was anyone else, he would tell her to call the cops.
That was the right and good thing to do.
Right now, he just needed her to trust him.
Arriving at the clubhouse, Grant was waiting for him.
“Everything set up?”
“Yeah, are you okay?” Grant asked.
“Fuck, no,” he said. There was no point in denying it. The woman he was in love with might turn against him. He was not okay with that.
In a matter of days, he had killed several men, including a man from his past he had a great deal of respect for. There was a lot of shit happening, and it was getting very fucking boring. The cartel was pissing him off, and the truth was, he wanted it over.
Ranford being missing was just another reason to anger him. There was still no word from that meddling fucker, and now it was starting to anger Pat. He wanted to get this problem resolved.
With Grant’s help, he got the man down to the basement where Rusty was waiting. The man looked like shit, as if he hadn’t slept. Pat was used to Rusty being the playful one of the group, the one who always seemed to have a smile and crazy-ass story to tell.
“What happened?” Rusty asked.
Pat gave him the rundown as Grant got him hooked up to the chains. Within seconds, Grant had thrown a bucket of cold water over the attacker, bringing him back to the land of the woke.
“Wakey, wakey,” Grant said.