Chapter Forty-Two
Dixon
The plan is simple: we treat Rafael Reyes like the cancer he is and we strike surgically to excise that tumor. It doesn’t take long for Ghost to track down the information about where Rafael Reyes lives. He’s owned the same home for decades. The same house that Lucas and Alexandra grew up in. The irony isn’t lost on me that, to save the only woman I’ve loved, I’ll have to kill her last remaining family member in her childhood home.
The house is on an almost-rural stretch outside of Sacramento. Not the best neighborhood, not really even a neighborhood, but it’s one of those places where what you’d pay to live in a near-condemned dive apartment in town can instead get you a decent tract of land and no nosy neighbors. We arm ourselves. At nightfall, we converge on the house and surround it at a distance.
Ghost and Rook stand beside me at a vantage point. At another location with visibility on the house, wait Bullet and Striker. At another, Hawk and Thunder.
I raise a scope to my eye. There are two lights on inside the home, one in what looks to be an upstairs office, and another in a downstairs living room, where the light from a couple lamps is accompanied by the flickering glow of a television. The lone motorcycle in the front driveway tells me he’s home. This is our chance.
“Let’s move in. Give the signal. We’ll breach from all sides.”
“Kill or capture?” Rook says. He has his cell in his hand, and I’m certain Bullet, the club’s VP, is on the line. They’re waiting for my word, my decision.
I grunt, thinking. There’s a part of me that plays with the idea of capturing Rafael Reyes. In making him confess, and then showing the proof to Alexandra. By capturing her father, maybe we could recapture what once existed between us. But even I know it’s a siren’s call of an idea. Alexandra would never believe me, no matter what proof I showed her. She and I are done, and the only option left to me is to move on, move in, and kill her father. It’s the last gift I can give her — protecting her from that monster and avenging her brother.
Part of me hopes she finds out.
Part of me just wants to clear my conscience and let time and scar tissue cover the wounds in my heart.
“Kill,” I reply. “If they can subdue him, so I get the final shot, great. But all that really fucking matters is that this piece of shit dies.”
Rook nods once, terse and understanding. There’s no further discussion, no second-guessing. We’re professionals. The word passes down the line as quickly as a spark along a fuse. We fan out, keeping to the shadows, our movements silent, but deliberate.
As we close in, the tension coils tightly within me. This is personal, yet it’s far more than just my vendetta. It”s justice for too many souls whose lives have been polluted by drugs and whose cries have been silenced by Rafael Reyes — Lucas Reyes first and foremost.
We reach our entry points, and the silence is shattered by the sound of splintering glass and groaning wood as windows and doors bust open. Seconds stretch like taffy, distorting time as we make our breach.
I’m through a window, rolling and coming up with my weapon leveled. The television blares some late-night infomercial, surreal against the sudden violence. I raise my weapon to the ready position and begin my search.
”Clear!” comes Bullet’s voice from what must be the kitchen.
Other voices shout a similar refrain.
I push on towards the stairs where the office light still spills its yellow glow. Gunshots pop from somewhere behind me — sharp retorts that seem louder indoors — followed by a string of curses in Rook”s voice. I climb the stairs two at a time, each step reinforcing my resolve.
He must be up here.
This is it.
Finally, I can put this behind me.
At the top of the staircase is a hallway, carpeted and lined with family photos — moments frozen in time, betraying no hint of the monster who lives here. I see photos of how Alexandra used to be, before all this hell came into her life. Before she met me. In those photos, she’s smiling, bright, carefree, loved. No more.
Reyes” door is slightly ajar; he”s not coming out.
I imagine what life will be like once I’ve put a bullet in his head, once I’ve found justice and put to rest the guilt and the pain I’ve carried for so long.
I’d like to think happy thoughts, be an optimist, but the realist within me tells me that, without her, life will be empty.
Bleak, fucking empty.
But it’ll be my empty.
And a chance to start over.
There’s almost a smile on my face as I approach the partially open office door. Revenge can be a hell of a mood-booster. In my mind, the yellow light spilling forth takes on a reddish hue, like a sunrise greeting a new day. I clutch my gun in the ready position, pull the breath that I’ll exhale as I put a round through the head of Rafael Reyes.
Tonight will be a good night.
And tomorrow, even better.
I push the door open with the barrel of my gun. The office is too still, too quiet, a stark contrast to the chaos we”ve unleashed throughout the rest of the house. My eyes dart to every corner of the room, hunting for Rafael Reyes, but he”s nowhere to be seen.
It”s then that I notice it: a small camera mounted in the room”s corner, its red light blinking steadily. It”s pointed directly at me — no, at the doorway where any intruder would appear. The setup is too professional for an impromptu installation; this has been here a while. A heavy feeling settles in my gut as I realize Reyes knew we were coming.
And he was prepared.
I”m exposed, caught in the camera’s unblinking gaze.
On instinct, I raise my gun and shoot it out. The red light winks out with a spray of plastic shards. Quiet returns, but now laden with a new tension. Shouts call out from below. It’s Ghost, and I answer that the room’s clear. If this is a trap, I won’t risk bringing anyone else from the MC in here. If this is a trap, I die alone.
Before I can step deeper into the room and search for any signs of Reyes or where he might have fled to, the shrill ring of an old landline phone slices through the silence. It”s coming from Reyes” desk — the one piled with papers and files and family photos.
I pick it up. A deep breath steels me, and I answer with a curt, “Yeah?”
The voice on the other end is terrified and shakes me to my core. “Dixon?”
Alexandra.
My heart surges in ways that I thought that dead organ never could.
“What is it?”
It’s hard to speak; combining those three words, three syllables, and eight letters, into something coherent involves wrestling with fear, with rage, with heartache, with desire, with the urge to bash the fucking receiver of this old, piece-of-shit phone to pieces and fire a dozen rounds into the wall, cursing whatever god exists out there that I have to hear her voice and experience the agony of losing her all over again.
“I need you, Dixon.”
“Need me? What do you mean?”
“I need you to come to me.” When I pause, she continues, her voice quicker, more urgent. “You were right, OK? You were right, and I realize that now. I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble, and the only way I can get out of it is if you come and get me. Please, help me. I love you, Dixon.”
Those words hit me like a bullet and my voice fails me. There’s a soul-shaking ache in my chest that may be my heart starting again. I know in that instant that, despite all the pain she’s caused me, despite all the things we’ve said to each other, simply hearing her voice and the way she sounds — the fear, the need, the helplessness — stirs a pull in me that makes clear to me that, despite everything I’ve told myself, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her safe.
For those four words — I love you, Dixon — I would do anything, go anywhere.
Even step into a trap.
“I love you, too,” I say, my voice hoarse, jagged, like shattered pieces of a puzzle forced back together. “Tell me when and where you need me. I’ll be there.”