Smokey

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Alexandra

I wait for as long as I can.

Which is not as long as if I were standing outside Reid’s Repairs by myself, or, honestly, with anyone else other than Ghost. But that man, with his blood-covered everything and his icy-friendly demeanor, gives me the creeps. He sips his beer and leans against the wall of the mechanic’s shop like he isn’t covered in another man’s blood and the first thing he says to me as soon as we’re alone is, “Hey, so things seem to be going pretty well between you and Smokey. I hear you moved in with him?”

He says it as if he isn’t an exact replica of Arnold in Predator, except instead of being covered in mud, it’s blood.

I look at him blankly for what might be a minute.

“Excuse me?”

“You two seem happy. Well, I know I can’t speak for you, since we haven’t spent much time together, but Smokey seems happy. He carried a lot of shit with him after what went down in Sacramento, but once he met you… It’s changed him. I’d never tell him this to his face, but you’ve done a lot to help him heal, and you’ve given him a purpose to work towards. I enjoy seeing him happy again. Honestly, Alexandra, I’m grateful that my friend’s finding himself again because of the love that you two share.”

“Wait, you wouldn’t say this to his face?”

I can’t believe one of the nicest things anyone’s said about my relationship with Dixon and the effect I’ve had on him is coming from a blood-covered interrogator in the parking lot at a mechanic’s shop.

What even is my life?

“I have a reputation. It serves me well. But if these guys found out that I enjoy a good Tessa Dare or Julia Quinn book as much as I enjoy ripping out some guy’s fingernails while he weeps like a newborn, my life would change in ways I don’t want it to.”

“You read Tessa Dare?”

“Yes. Tessa Dare, Julia Quinn, Meghan Quinn and sometimes Sarah J. Maas, too. What can I say? I love love just as much as I love torture. In a lot of ways, they’re kind of the same thing, you know?”

“Excuse me?”

His voice picks up speed, enthusiasm, and I can tell I’ve unleashed something that he’s never shared with anyone and is ecstatic that he finally has an audience. God help me.

“They both involve testing, probing, even pain. A good romance will take you right to the breaking point and beyond, just like torture. They have satisfying endings, too. At least, the good ones do — torture sessions and romance novels, both. You know, I’ve even been writing something in my spare time about this ex-interrogator and one of his former captives and…”

“I need something to drink.”

I can’t deal with this.

I race into Reid’s Repairs. Unfortunately, Ghost follows, still talking about his book idea, which actually doesn’t sound that bad, except I’m in no mood to listen to it, because the man I love is interrogating the man who holds the secrets regarding my brother’s tragic murder. Plus, I’m not Ghost, I don’t think I could find this situation romantic at all, ever. I go to the beverage fridge that the guys keep in the corner, and a faint sound catches my ear.

It sounds like a scream.

A very quiet scream.

Followed by a much-louder crash and one of the doors in the back thumps inside its frame.

Ghost and I trade a look.

“What was that?”

“Fuck. That’s where we’re keeping Erik Marquez. That door’s fucking reinforced and the room’s soundproofed. We shouldn’t be able to hear shit unless they’re having a real fucking party.”

My blood boils and the door thumps again, harder this time.

Whatever the hell Dixon is doing in there, it sounds brutal.

“He was supposed to come get me as soon as Erik Marquez was talking. I thought you said that he was about to break?”

“He was. I know what I’m doing.”

“Then why does it sound like a fucking war zone in there?” I don’t even wait for Ghost’s answer; Dixon broke his promise, and I am not letting him get away with it. I try to open the door, but it won’t budge. It’s locked. I whirl on Ghost. “Open this door.”

“Smokey won’t be happy if I do that.”

“Either open this door or get ready for me to rip your fucking head off.”

“Alexandra…”

I stare him square in the eyes.

“You know the power of love and the power of violence — hell, you’re writing a fucking book about them both. Do you really think you have any chance of stopping me? Open the fucking door, or I will inflict more pain on you than you’ve done to all your torture victims combined.”

I doubt I could take Ghost in a fight, but I also doubt he wants to see what Dixon’s reaction would be to finding out he hurt the woman who will become his ol’ lady.

Just as Ghost takes a set of keys out of his pocket, the door thumps once more, even louder this time.

He tosses the keys to me. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Warning be damned, I won’t be denied the truth that I am owed.

With fumbling fingers, I fit the key in the lock, twist, and open it.

The sight that greets my eyes is fit for a horror novel, not a romance novel, no matter what Ghost might believe. There’s blood everywhere — the floor, the walls, even parts of the ceiling, are painted with it. There’s a floor drain in the center of the room, which I suppose should make cleanup easier, but with a mess like this, even that seems useless. To get a clean room, it’d be better to demolish the place and just build a new one.

In the center of the gore stands Dixon.

His chest is heaving, his brow cut, there are contusions on his arms and face, and even a bite mark, too. He stands with his hands clenched at his sides, staring down at a lump of something on the ground.

Then I blink.

That lump is Erik Marquez.

Or was, to be more appropriate.

“You killed him?”

“I had no choice.”

“You were supposed to get me as soon as he started talking. What the hell is this? How am I supposed to get answers from that?” It doesn’t feel right calling what used to be a human being a ‘that,’ except Erik Marquez has been so battered that he doesn’t even look like he ever was human. “With a fucking Ouijaboard?”

“He told me the truth before he broke out.”

“Oh?” My heart stills a little, my fists unclench. I want to believe Dixon, just as much as I want the truth. “What did he say?”

“You’re going to want to sit down, Alexandra.”

“Tell me now.”

“Are you sure? I think you should sit down.”

“I think I’ve waited years for this fucking answer, and unless you want to have a serious physical problem, you’ll tell me.”

He shakes his head. It doesn’t come across as a sign of denial, but regret.

“No, you definitely haven’t earned, nor deserve, what I’m about to tell you…”

His voice sounds so sad that I’m drawn to him, to the pain I hear from him, until I remember just why I’m here and what he’s done.

“Tell me, please.”

“Erik confessed he was at the meeting. He was hired to watch from a distance and shoot to provoke a fight between the two clubs. If things looked like your brother was going to survive, he was supposed to make sure that didn’t happen,” he says. Then he clears his throat. “It was his shot that took out your brother. I’m sorry, Alexandra.”

I blink for a second. On the one hand, this answer absolves Dixon, and I suppose I should be happy about that. On the other, it raises questions that make my blood turn cold.

“He was hired? Who hired him? And why?”

“Alex…”

“Dixon, tell me. I need to know. After everything we’ve been through, don’t keep this from me.”

He waits. There’s such entrapping pain on his face that I can’t peel my eyes away.

Finally, he speaks.

“It was your father, Alexandra. Your father hired Erik Marquez to make sure that Lucas died at the meeting. Lucas had found out that your father was working independently of the MC and selling drugs. Once he arranged for peace with the Road Kings, Lucas was going to force your father to get out of the business. Your dad didn’t want that. So he and one of his cronies — some other member of the Crimson Fury who was also at the meeting and whose name started with an ‘M’ — made sure that Lucas didn’t survive that meeting.”

“Mateo? My father and Mateo killed my brother?” The voice that leaves my throat doesn’t sound like my own. It’s too broken, too weak, too pitiful. Then, the rest of me does, too — it’s as if I’m outside my body. I see myself drop to my knees, shaking.

Dixon runs to me and holds me upright. “That’s him. Yes.”

I shake him off. It can’t be. I can’t accept that my father and my best friend — my dead brother’s best friend — would kill Lucas, and all over some fucking money. Money and drugs, that’s why my brothers’ dead. What a fucking pathetic way to go for such a good man. Even thinking that feels like a disgrace to who my brother was as a person.

“You’re wrong. You’re lying.”

“Erik confessed. He admitted to all of this.”

“And now he’s dead? Beaten to death after giving you a story that conveniently absolves you of my brother’s murder? As if I’m supposed to believe that my father and my brother’s best friend had him killed.”

“He escaped. He came after me,” Dixon insists.

I turn.

Ghost is still there, at the far end of the garage, yet still within shouting distance.

“Ghost, you tied Erik up, right?”

“I did,” he answers.

“You’ve done this before, right?” I say.

“Many times.”

“And you know what you’re doing?”

“Oh, I could write a book on it. Actually, I wrote one. No, two. Part of an instructional that the government will disavow every using, and then, in my novel The Darkest Confession—”

I turn back to Dixon.

“You expect me to believe that Erik Marquez, who was subdued by a trained interrogator and legit creep, gave you a confession that completely exonerates you, while at the same time implicating my last remaining family member and my childhood best friend, and then broke out of his bonds, attacked you, and forced you to kill him?”

Even as it spills out of my mouth, the story sounds as messed up as the scene in front of me. It can’t be real. Dixon is lying to me to save his ass.

But why would he pick a story so insulting?

Why would he target some of the few remaining loved ones that I have left?

That infuriates me. My vision tunnels, the pure rage igniting my blood like gas on a bonfire. Dixon meets my eyes, and I see it there: the flicker of doubt that he’s played his hand too far.

Or maybe it”s fear because he knows exactly what I”m capable of. Like killing him. The thing I should have done weeks ago when I had the chance.

“Alex, you have to believe me.”

“Believe you?” My voice is a low growl. “You want me to believe that my father, the man who taught me to ride a bike, who held my hand when I got stitches, would orchestrate my brother’s death? That he’d kill his own fucking son? And Mateo? The boy I’ve known as a friend for my entire fucking life would kill my brother and his best friend? You’re asking me to accept that load of bullshit? How fucking dare you?”

Dixon opens his mouth to speak, but I don’t give him the chance.

“No. I don’t believe you.” My hands are shaking, not from fear or sorrow now, but from the violence that courses within them. Violence that aches to break out and finish what I started weeks ago. “You know what I believe? That you were terrified Erik would spill the truth about you. So you killed him. And now you’re trying to feed me this story that paints everyone but yourself as the traitor because you think it’ll throw me off your scent.”

He steps back then, and in his eyes — those eyes I thought I knew — I see it: the truth.

“You’ve got nothing to say now?” My voice is cold steel, demanding answers.

“Alex, you need to listen to reason. You know I want the truth as much as anyone, that I’d kill, and I’d die for it, and what I’m telling you is…”

Even his voice grates at my spine. If I stay in this room one second longer, either he or I will join Erik Marquez in death.

“I love you, Dixon. Or, at least, I did. But this is just pathetic. I know you killed my brother, and because I cared for you once, I’m going to walk away rather than murder you where you stand. We’re through, Dixon Green, you lying, back-stabbing motherfucker.” I turn away. It feels wrong to expose my back to him, but he looks too shocked, too broken, to attack me, even though it’d be the smart move. Because, later on, when I get my head on straight, I am going to kill him. As I reach the exit, I turn and yell at him over my shoulder. “But if I see you around, don’t think I won’t kill you. You murdered my brother, and I will get revenge for him.”

I storm out of Reid’s Repairs, the sound of my boots echoing off the grimy concrete as I push through the metal doors into the dimming twilight. A chill hits me; I hadn”t noticed how cold it was inside my fury. Now, as I stride toward nowhere in particular, that heat drains away, replaced with an icy fear that solidifies around my heart.

My hands still tremble, but not from the need to inflict harm. They shake with the realization of what I”ve just done, what I”ve left behind. Dixon doesn’t call after me; he doesn’t follow. Maybe he knows it”s useless, or maybe he”s too scared. Or guilty.

Tears threaten to spill over, but I blink them back furiously. Crying is for the weak.

With each step, I replay our last words, our final confrontation. The pain lances through me with each echo. How could Dixon do this to me? To us? I trusted him with everything: my fears, my hopes... my love.

And yet there is a phantom pain where my heart used to beat for him. It”s a hollow space now, filled with a venomous cocktail of anger and heartbreak.

I wrap my arms around myself in a futile attempt to stave off the cold.

In one fell swoop, I’ve lost so many people I care about — Dixon, the MC, the ol’ ladies, and everyone else the club has ties to in this city. Hell, I’ve lost Costa Oscura itself.

I feel so alone.

Who do I have? Who can I turn to?

Then a name hits me.

I reach into my pocket and dial a number that’s been automatic to me for as long as I’ve owned a phone. Even before, when I’d have to stand on tiptoes to grab the landline phone.

He answers after the first ring. “Alex? What’s up?”

“Mateo? I need your help. Tell me where you are. I’ll come to you.”