17. Dax
DAX
Dear Diary,
I should have knocked.
Grief was a fucked-up thing. I’d gone to bed last night full of anger and hurt and nowhere for it to go, except into pushing Nyah away when she was just trying to be there for me.
I hadn’t wanted to sleep, but the adrenaline crash was real.
It had dragged me under like a tidal wave, drowning me until I’d had no choice but to let my body take over.
I’d dreamed of my mother.
I’d expected it. Expected nightmares where I saw her dead, sliced-up body and unseeing eyes. It was why I hadn’t wanted to close my eyes in the first place. I’d been so sure those images would play over and over for hours and I wouldn’t be able to escape them.
But it hadn’t been like that. It had just been her smiling face, reminding me how much she loved me, loved Nyah, and the baby we were having.
In my head, she held that baby in her arms, stroking his dark hair lovingly, while Nyah and I watched on, the two of us smiling and happy.
And I woke up knowing that’s exactly what my mother wanted for me. And it was what I wanted for myself.
With sleep-tousled hair, I stumbled out of the bedroom War had allowed me to use.
My eyes were barely open, and yet my body ran automatically, stepping over the air mattresses on the floor.
There was a hum of people moving about in the kitchen, the smells of eggs and bacon scenting the air and grumbling my stomach.
I didn’t knock when I got to Lynx’s closed bedroom door, where I knew Nyah had slept.
I was too impatient to get down on my knees and grovel for leaving her alone last night when she was battling with her own grief.
I knew she’d developed a friendship with my mother, and though her loss wasn’t the same as mine, it was arrogant to assume she wasn’t feeling it as well.
I opened the door and stopped dead.
Her eyes were closed. Her face tilted up to the ceiling, her dark hair splayed out on the pillow around her. The clothes she’d worn last night were strewn about on the floor, leaving her completely naked, the twisted sheets not doing much to cover her.
Lynx hovered over her; his fingers wrapped around her throat while he fucked her lifeless body.
I didn’t think. Couldn’t feel. Everything spun around me so badly it felt like being picked up by a tornado and tossed around the room. The noise I let out was something between a strangled cry and a bellow of anger.
I lunged at Lynx, only one thing on my mind.
Get him away from her.
Nyah’s eyes flew open, and she twisted beneath him. “Dax!”
Chaos erupted. My brain couldn’t make sense of any of it, that she was dead then alive and how Lynx could even be here.
But my body went into autopilot, the threat identified and needing to be taken out.
I threw punches into Lynx’s face, my knuckles bruising on his nose and cheekbones, and something cracking but I wasn’t sure if it was him or me.
The pain inside me eclipsed everything.
Nyah screamed at me to stop, but I couldn’t. Lynx had killed my mother, and my body still held the belief he’d killed my woman and my child as well, even though I could see and hear that she was actually alive and begging me to stop.
I couldn’t.
Footsteps thundered from out in the common room, someone yelling to get the kids out. The click of weapons being cocked. War issuing commands like his men were his army.
They could all fucking shoot me. I didn’t care. Without the people I loved, I was as good as dead anyway.
Hands grabbed at me, hauling me back, but I kept going, my focus solely on the one thing I could control.
But then Luca was between us, his face cutting through the chaos. His eyes were fire, and he shoved a gun to the side of my head, speaking in a tone so deadly sharp it broke through everything else.
“I’ll kill you before I let you kill him.” He pressed the gun against my temple harder. “I swear to fucking God, Dax, I will. I’m no stranger to being the bad guy, and she already fucking hates me.”
I breathed out raggedly, my fingers and knuckles suddenly throbbing like a motherfucker. Nyah stared up at me from the floor, where she was wrapped in a sheet and crouching over Lynx’s beaten form. There were tears in her eyes and betrayal in her expression.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. “This isn’t you.”
She was right. It wasn’t. I sank down hard on the mattress, the bed frame shifting beneath me, and stared at the man on the floor. A man who had been my friend until twenty-four hours earlier. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” Lynx muttered through a split lip. He pushed himself up to sitting, leaning on the wall. “I’ve survived worse beatdowns. I’ll survive this one too.” He stared at me as well as he could with a swelling eye. “I didn’t kill your mother.”
War rubbed his face wearily. “Church. Now. Everyone.”
He stalked off without another word, and I squinted after him, not having any idea what he meant. But Fang, who’d been hovering in the doorway, turned to follow him.
Hawk crossed the room, shaking his head, and plucked the gun from Luca’s fingers. “I’m taking that back. And for the record, you ever touch my gun again, I will use it to end you.” He looked at Lynx still on the floor. “Get up. You heard Prez.” He walked out without waiting for Lynx to answer.
Lynx winced with pain and pushed to his feet.
“Someone want to tell me why War suddenly just went off to pray and is demanding we go with him?” Luca asked, squinting after the men who’d just disappeared from the room, confused expression on his face.
“Church is a club thing,” Lynx explained.
“I’m not often invited since I’m still a prospect, but it’s where big club decisions are discussed and made.
And if the prez calls you to church, you go, without question.
So unless someone wants to punch me again, I’m going.
And you all need to come too. He said everyone. ”
He opened his chest of drawers and tossed an oversized sweater and a pair of boxer shorts at Nyah.
She put them on quickly, taking the hair tie from her ponytail and fitting it around a handful of bunched-up material to make the shorts fit her slimmer hips without falling off.
The sweater covered it up anyway, hanging almost to her knees.
Her eyes pleaded with me. “Just let him explain, okay? He didn’t do this. I know him.”
I couldn’t stand to see the pain in her expression, especially knowing I was responsible for most of it. I turned and walked away to find this church War had summoned us to.
The rest of the clubhouse that had been full of people mere minutes ago was now eerily quiet. The chatter of kids and the clinking in the kitchen of someone making breakfast was all gone.
War barked out my name as I passed a doorway, just off the main common room.
He sat at the head of a long table, and with a flick of his head, beckoned me inside.
“Church” turned out to be nothing like one at all.
It was simply a regular room with a photo of a Harley on the wall.
A wooden gavel sat in front of War, and the guys from the club all sat either side of the table, all of them staring at me.
None of them had gavels in front of them, but they did have guns laid out on the tabletop, a silent reminder of who was in charge here.
“Take a seat,” War commanded more than asked. His attention flickered over my shoulder. “All of you. Sit.”
Me, Nyah, Luca, and Lynx all filed in, taking seats at the opposite end of the table from War and the rest of the Slayers.
War eyed us. “First. Do any of you need medical attention?”
“No,” I said. Lynx did the same.
War nodded. “Good. Then Lynx, I think you have some talking to do. And you can start with how the hell you got back in here last night when there’s cops everywhere out in front, and I’ve got guys on every gate.”
Lynx sighed. “The cops are easy enough to avoid amongst all the trees. Pretty sure they’re all scared of the dark and don’t stray too far from the safety of their vehicles.
And Herb falls asleep every time you put him on sentry.
He’s fucking terrible. Wasn’t very hard to find the gate he was on.
A whole army probably could have come through his gate without waking him up. ”
I didn’t know who Herb was, but I knew some of the other prospects, and none of them had been invited into this meeting, so I assumed he was one of them.
War pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed out heavily. “For fuck’s sake. He just let a serial killer walk right on in through our gates when my woman and kids were here.”
I knew how he felt. My woman and child were here too.
Lynx shook his head. “I’m not going to hurt anyone here, War. I fucking swear on that.” He turned to me. “And I didn’t hurt your mom. I liked her a lot. And I like you. Why the fuck would I hurt you like that?”
“You don’t give a shit about me, Lynx. You don’t even fucking know me.” I scrubbed my hands over my face, suddenly exhausted even though I’d only just woken up.
“I know enough to know you’re a good guy. I know Nyah loves you, and that’s enough. I won’t hurt her. Not ever. And hurting you or Virginia would break her.”
“Where were you when she was murdered?” War asked.
Lynx swallowed so thickly his throat bobbed. “I honestly don’t really know. Last thing I remember is having Nyah in my bed and my chest got tight.”
Reaper frowned at him. “Was it your asthma? You haven’t had an attack in ages, have you?”