Ruined #5 (The MC Motorcycle Club Romance Series - Book #5) (3 page)

“Olivia, I let you come stay here after your dad was
arrested, to keep you safe. I shouldn’t have ever let you hang around this
place and get involved with that club. They’re dangerous guys. Dax getting shot
in the gut proves it, if you didn’t already know.”

“I know,” I admitted. “But Dax isn’t like them, he
just wants out.”

“Then he needs to do it before he gets you involved
in something nasty. Unless he already has. Is that why the police think you
would know something about the shooting, Liv? Are you already involved in
something?”

“No, I promise I’m not. If anything, Dax doesn’t
tell me most of what goes on down there and I stay away from the rest of them
as much as I can. I’m not into anything except Dax. I love him.”

My uncle sighed and put his arm around me. Pulling
me into his side he said, “I know you’re a good girl, I just worry about you.”

“Please don’t. I don’t want to make you worry. When
Dax gets better, he and I are going to figure out what to do with our lives and
it’s not going to have anything to do with the club.” As I spoke the words, I
was really hoping they were true.

CHAPTER
FOUR

DAX

The nurse had just given me one of those little bags
of morphine right before the cops walked in. I wasn’t surprised to see them. When
I got to the hospital they would have called the police because of the gunshot
anyways, but my mom said that my dad actually called an ambulance to the club
to pick me up. I wondered about the heroin and if he had it put away before
they got there.
I
hadn’t heard of anyone getting
arrested, so I had to assume he did.

“How are you feeling, Dax?” This
was
the same detective who
had been in charge of my case before I went to
prison. I can’t say I felt any warm and fuzzy reunion vibes coming off of him.

“Like I got shot, detective. How about you?”

“Like I see your ugly face way too much. You just
got out of prison. Why the hell were you in a situation where someone might
shoot you?”

I
laughed and was once again punished by the screaming pain from my surgical
sight. “I went to the garage to get the sketchpad out of my saddle bags. I was
going to get it and go home. Whoever shot me must have been in there looking
for something to steal.”

“You think so?” He raised an eyebrow like the
thought had never crossed his mind. “Is that your way of telling me that you
didn’t see who shot you?”

“I don’t know if I saw them or not. I don’t remember
anything after I opened the garage door. Someone already being there, boosting
things has to be the only explanation,” I told him. “My dad and his friends
were there I think. I saw their bikes anyways. But they were all up in the
front and besides, none of them would shoot me.”

“Because you’re the son of the MC President?”

“Because I have no beef with any of those guys. Most
of them are my friends, or my dad’s.”

“Who was all there that night?”

“I have no idea. I just told you that I came in
through the garage and got shot.”

“Your motorcycle was there, in the garage?”

“Yes.”

“So what were you driving?”

“My father’s pick-up,” I told him.

“Bull Turner?” the detective asked. He knew damn
good and well who my father was.

“Yes,” was all I
said.

“Do you know anyone that might want to hurt or kill
you?”

“Not to my knowledge,” I said. I could name at least
three in my head.

“What about new
friends
you made in prison. Was anyone there holding a grudge when you left?”

I smiled and said, “I was a model prisoner. I didn’t
make any friends or enemies. I did my time and kept to myself.”

“You’re going to make it hard for us to find and
prosecute whoever did this to you Dax. Why is that?”

“I’m not trying to make it hard, Detective. I really
don’t know.”

He asked me a few more questions about whose bikes I
saw that night in the garage and if there were any cars in the parking lot. I told
him I’d seem my dad’s bike and some of the old timers. I didn’t mention Blake
or Terrance. I wanted to deal with them myself, more than ever.

As soon as they left and I had lay back and closed
my eyes, I heard a familiar voice saying, “Imagine meeting you here.” It was my
P.O. I really wanted to feign unconsciousness, but she seemed like the type who
might smack me upside the head just to see if I flinched.

I opened my eyes and said, “Aw, Miss Ortega, how
nice of you to visit me.”

She rolled her eyes and asked, “What the hell have
you gotten yourself into Dax?”

I sighed, “I just told the cops, and I’ll tell you
too….
I’m
not into anything. I only went down there to
get my sketch pad out of my saddlebags. I had no intentions of staying and the
last thing I remember is a gunshot echoing in the garage. I didn’t see anyone
else in there with me. I didn’t see who shot me. I’m not being stubborn by not
telling them, I honestly don’t know.”

She gave me one of those looks, the one that you get
from your third grade teacher when she knows that you’re the one who put the
tack on her seat but she also knows that she’s not going to be able to prove
it. “I hope you are telling us the truth, Dax. I am really pulling for you to
make something of your life. You’re an intelligent guy who seems to still have
his grasp on a moral or two. Don’t make me wish I hadn’t been on your side,
because you would hate me on the other one.”

“I won’t. I’m going to make something of my life. I
told the detective that I think someone had gotten into the garage somehow and
was looking for stuff to steal and I just happened to walk in on him. He
doesn’t want to buy that though. He’d rather pin this on someone in the club.”

“It’s the kind of thing they would do,” she said.

“Shoot one of their own?” I asked.

“One of their own who is trying to get out,” she
said. She left it there and told me she was going to take a copy of my
tox
panel. It showed I was negative for all drugs and since
it was time for me to test again, she’d just use that. Before she left, she
reminded me that I didn’t have to face any of the
bad guys
alone. I could call her for help anytime. I thanked her
and closed my eyes again. I thought about how genuinely lucky I was to have so
many good people in my corner. It wasn’t ten minutes after Miss Ortega left
that I heard a rap on the door. Jeez, no rest for the wicked. At least this one
knocked.

“Come in,” I said. My dad let himself in the door.

“Hey boy,” he said in the two pack a day voice of
his.

“Hey dad.”

“How’s the belly?”

I smiled. The morphine was beginning to take effect.
“Right now, it’s good. The morphine bag is almost empty.”

My dad laughed. Then he turned serious and said,
“Blake says he saw you with the gun on me and then you turned it on him so he
shot. He didn’t know what was going on, but it looked like you were aiming to
hurt somebody.”

“Did you ask him about all the things I told you?”

“No son, I didn’t.”

“Do you think I’m lying about it, or what?”

“I don’t think you’re lying, Dax. I think you’re a
little desperate to clear your name so you’re grasping at straws. I know Blake
can be an asshole, and his wimpy kid and Olivia being together while you were
locked up had to piss you off…but I don’t believe Blake would do this, asshole
or not. He doesn’t have a death wish…”

“Yet, here I am with a hole in my gut and he’s still
walking around. I guess this proved to him it would be okay to just kill me
next time.”

“What the hell did you expect me to do? You were the
one holding the gun on me when he came in, Dax. If I’d walked in on his kid
holding him at gunpoint I would have done the same thing.”

“What about Brock, Dad?”

“What about him, Dax?”

“He had as much to do with the set-up as Blake
did
. I have a video of him on your computer and he admitted
it to me.”

“Him, I did ask,” my dad said.

“What did he say?”

“He said that you’re crazy. He says the same thing
you did only that you’re the one who’s jealous.”

“And of course you believe him?”

“I know Brock is jealous of you, Dax. He always has
been. I know he’s hot-headed, that was why I never wanted him taking over this
club. But to go so far as to set up his own brother…I just think you’re
mistaken, son.”

“Okay,” I said, closing my eyes.

“Okay, you’re going to give this shit up?”

“No. Okay as in you’re entitled to your opinion. I’m
entitled to mine. When I prove to you that I’m right though, I
guaran
-fucking-tee you that I’m going to say
I told you so
.”

I thought my dad laughed, but I wasn’t sure. I
drifted off and when I woke up, he was long gone and my mom was sitting next to
my bed.

CHAPTER
FIVE

OLIVIA

After I got off work, I went straight to the
hospital. I met Gail leaving as I was going in.

“Hi, how is he today?”

“He’s tired. I think he’s had too many visitors.”

“Uh-oh. Is everything okay?”

“I suppose, for now. I’m just getting too damn old
for all of this drama,” she said. “The police were here and his P.O. and his
father. I think it all took a lot out of him.”

“The police came to see me too,” I told her. “They
seem to be looking at Dax not so much like a victim, but like he did something
to cause all of this. It kind of pisses me off, but then I have to remember
what kind of mess we live in every day and what kind of shit the police have
had to deal with the club over the past few years.” She put her hand to her
head. I felt bad for her, but I didn’t know what to do.

Finally I asked her, “You’re not still blaming
yourself for any of this, are you?”

She smiled and never really answered me. Instead she
said, “I just want my boy back. I want the one back that they sent to prison. I
miss him.”

Tears formed in my eyes and I said, “He’s still in
there. We just need to whittle away at the shell he’s built around him.”

Gail nodded and gave me a hug. When I passed the
nurses station on my way up, I heard the nurse taking an order to discharge Dax
in the morning as long as his vital signs remained stable. That at least would
make him happy.

“Hey gorgeous,” I said, sticking my head in the
door.

“Hey! Finally, a visitor I can get on board with.” I
smiled and went over and gave him a kiss.

“Did the doctor tell you they are discharging you
soon?”

“No, what did you hear?”

“I heard some scuttlebutt at the nurse’s station
about the super-hot guy in 217 being released. They were all depressed about
it, even the male nurses.”

“I can see that,” he said. “I was the most popular
guy on my block in prison just because I was so pretty.”

I chuckled and said, “Dear God, I hope that was the
only reason. On a less gross note, your mom said the police came to see you
today.”

“They did in fact. Made my day. It was the same
detective that kept me in an interview room for hours after they arrested me
for drug trafficking.”

“How’d it go?”

“As well as that sort of thing can, I guess. I told
him I’d gone to get my sketchpad and I didn’t see who shot me. I don’t think he
believes me, but I don’t think he can prove anything otherwise. My dad and the
guys aren’t talking.”

“Why not?” I asked him. “Blake shot you. Why isn’t
your dad more pissed off?”

“Because he doesn’t believe me when I say they set
me up and because I had a gun and he thinks that means I brought it on myself.”

“That sucks,” I said.

“Yeah, well I have another plan.”

“Uh-oh,” I said, genuinely worried about what his
plan
might be.

He laughed and said, “Not that kind of plan. I’m
going to get my parents to call a meeting. I want everyone together. I want
them all to hear what I have to say. I want this out in the open once and for
all.”

“Do you think they’ll admit to anything in front of
the entire club?”

“I doubt it, but at least it will get everyone else
to thinking about what they’ve seen or heard. It will also point the finger
directly at them if anything happened to me.”

“I can’t wait for this to be over. I’ve been worried
about what was going to happen to you for three years. This is killing me,
Dax.”

“I know, baby. I want it to be over too. I really
do.”

I visited with him until they kicked me out. We
tried hard to talk about pleasant things, anything but the club and what was
going to happen when Dax got out of there and confronted them all face to face.
I was hoping if I stayed in denial, the bad things wouldn’t come to pass.