Ruined #5 (The MC Motorcycle Club Romance Series - Book #5) (6 page)

“Okay, I’ll get there right at noon,” I told him.

He went back to his work, and I went back to my room
to finish getting dressed. I was nervous about the meeting, but I was also
excited. I really hoped that something would come out of it besides me playing
my only hand in front of the entire club.

I hadn’t really gotten the okay from my doctor to
ride the bike yet, but I thought I was ready. I didn’t get the go ahead yet for
sex, but for that, I knew I was ready. I just had to convince Olivia I was.

The ride to the bar felt both good and bad. It felt
great to be back on the back of the bike. I felt free for the first time in
over a week. It was bad every time I hit a bump or leaned too far into a turn.
It hurt like a son of a bitch.

When I drove up and saw all the bikes, I felt my
hands shaking a bit. I’d like to say I went in feeling invincible and with no
doubt in myself at all, but that would be a big, fat lie.
I
had just been shot a week ago. I was naturally anxious about how many of them
were going to want to shoot me after I said what I had to say.

When I walked into the bar it felt like all eyes
were on me and a hush fell over the crowd. I knew my dad hadn’t told them what
I was there to say, so it was either my imagination, or they were just curious
about my gunshot. My eyes fell on the terrible trio then. Brock, Terrance and
Blake sat together at a booth on the far side of the bar. They were all
shooting daggers at me out of their eyes.

When my dad saw me he stood up at the bar and said,
“Alright, settle down.” He banged his gavel on the wooden bar. My dad loved his
gavel; sometimes I thought he should have stepped over the other side of the
line and become a judge instead of a criminal. “I want you to all listen up. My
son has something that he needs to say.”

There were mutterings through the crowd as I took my
place next to my dad. I expected him to go sit down, but instead, he stayed by
my side. I was sure he did that because he knew they wouldn’t dare shoot me
while he was standing in the vicinity for fear of shooting him instead. I was grateful
and touched.

“Thank you all for coming,” I said. “I know this is
a bit unorthodox as far as meetings go, but there’s something that’s been going
on far too long and it needs to be addressed. Almost three years ago,
I
was arrested because there were drugs in my saddle bags. I
didn’t put them there, I didn’t agree with anyone else putting them there and I
didn’t even know they were there. I’ve been saying that all this time, and
people either don’t believe me or they don’t care. Either way, I can’t take
this any longer.
I
need my life back and the only way
that’s going to happen is if I can prove I was set up. I’ve been working on it
since I got out of prison and I’ve actually gotten a lot of good leads. There
are three men in this room now. Two of them have admitted to me that they were
involved in setting me up. The
third has been implicated by
the first two
, but he has yet to have the balls to admit to anything.
I’ve been around this club my whole life.
I
know how
things work and I know that if he did this, there are more than two men who
know about it. I’m asking…no, I’m begging for your help. Please, if any of you
have any information you’d like to share, please come forward now.”

It was dead silent for a full five minutes before I
heard my brother yell out, “Looks like you’re out of luck little brother. I
hope your mommy is out there waiting for you still. You’ll need her to walk you
back across the street.”

The place exploded in laughter. I glanced over at my
dad, and he wasn’t laughing. He sauntered back up front and after rapping his
gavel a few times, he said, “Any of you bone heads got anything else funny to
say?”

They instantly became silent. Once again, I wondered
about my dad’s history. How did a man half my size command that kind of respect
and compliance from such a motley group?

“Alright, I guess we’re done then,” he said.

“No, wait!” I didn’t know I was going to say that
until I heard the words come out of my mouth. My dad was giving me a warning
look, but I was really past the point of caring. The three men I was accusing
knew it. I figured the rest of them had a right to know too.

“Blake, your illustrious Vice President gave the
order to set me up, Brock, my brother sent that order to Terrance, my best
friend. Terrance carried the order out and put the drugs on my bike. Blake is
your V.P. and Brock is acting as a President for many of you that ride with
him,” I said, waving my hand at the nomad group. “Just sit and wonder next time
they’re pissed off at you for something…in this case, something you had no
control over. They got away with setting me up, what’s to stop them from doing
the same to you?”

“Fuck you!” shouted Terrance, my former best friend.

The chatter started as a low rumble and then it grew
almost deafeningly loud. Some people looked shocked by what I said, and some
looked scared. After several seconds, my dad banged the gavel again. It took a
lot for him to get them under control this time. When they were, he said again,
“Anybody got anything to say?” After waiting in silence for over two minutes he
said, “Alright then, go home…or wherever.”

He started to walk past me and I grabbed his arm.

“Wait, Dad. Is that it?”

“What else can we do?” he asked. “This was a bad
idea from the start.”

“Fuck!”

My dad was only inches away from me and although I
was yelling out in frustration, he thought I was yelling out at him.

“Watch
yourself
boy,” he
said.

“I’m just so fucking pissed! I’m so fucking tired!”

“Then go home,” he said, and continued past me. I
looked out on the crowd and Blake was still staring me down. I wanted to go
over and have it out with him once and for all. I knew he wouldn’t be averse to
a sucker punch or two though and I wasn’t in good enough physical shape yet
after my surgery to handle it.

I followed my dad’s instruction and I went home,
pissed, as usual.

CHAPTER
NINE

OLIVIA

The last couple of weeks following the meeting at
the bar, Dax hadn’t been himself. I could tell that he was trying, but I think
he really had it in his head that getting them all together was going to
somehow make someone crack and solve his problems once and for all. He wasn’t
mean or snappy towards me. He wasn’t even distant. He was just not his normal
funny, sweet self. He was flat, like he was depressed and it broke my heart.

I actually felt bad for being so excited about my
first day of school, but I still was. It at least felt like I wasn’t still just
sitting around and waiting for my life to begin. I was being pro-active. I was
taking my life by the reigns and leading it where I wanted it to go. I still
had faith that Dax would be able to do the same. He hadn’t really left the
house much in the last two weeks. He blamed it on the pain from the gunshot and
surgery, but all
I
had to do to debunk that is to
remember the night we went out only a day after he was released from the
hospital. I knew what the difference was, it was hope.

He had missed his Health and Safety class because of
being in the hospital too. He said the next one was in a month and I think that
also had a lot to do with his mood. He felt like everything was going wrong and
he definitely didn’t feel like he was in control of where his life was going
any longer. I felt so helpless sometimes. I would have done anything I could to
help him, but I had no idea what that might be.

So I continued to do what I needed to do for me,
still hoping that it would all lead to what I needed to do for us. I put on my
new school clothes like an excited teenager, put my books and paper tabs in my
backpack and headed out for my first class on Monday morning. When I pulled
open the front door, I nearly had a heart attack. There was a man standing and
holding a bouquet of white roses.

“Oh, you scared me,” he said. “I was about to
knock.”

“You scared me too,” I said. “Are those for me?”

“Are you Olivia?” he asked.

“That’s me.”

“Then you are the lucky recipient,” he said. He
handed them to me and said, “Have a nice day.”

I took them back into the house and sat the vase on
the counter. I pulled off the card and opened it. It said, “Carpe Diem, I love
you! Dax.” My eyes watered and I felt like I couldn’t breathe again. God, I
loved him. He was so depressed over what was going on in his life, yet he still
took the time to do this for me.

Before I left, I texted Dax and thanked him for the
flowers and told him I loved him too. He texted back a smiley face and I
started my day with a smile of my own.

I had to fight for a parking spot when I got there
and then walk all the way to the other side of campus for my first class. It’s
so funny how your thoughts about things changed depending on where you’re at in
your life. In the past that would have either pissed me off, or stressed me
out. That day, I just didn’t care. I would have walked from home just to be
there. Luckily, I made it to my class with two minutes to spare.

The first day of Sociology we just went over the
rules and the syllabus. It made for a long hour, but I didn’t let it get me
down either. I had an hour break after that class, and an appointment with a
counselor to talk about the nursing program. Look out real world, here I come.

CHAPTER
TEN

DAX

I had waited two weeks for that day. The day after
we had our big club meeting I went down and switched out the camera above the
bar for one that Greg the tattoo guy had loaned me. This one was a live feed,
like a camcorder and I could watch what was happening minute by minute from
home.

I had arranged the flowers for Liv the day before. I
was so happy for her, although my own life seemed to be sucking at that moment.
I would never wish her anything but the absolute best of everything.

I got a text from her about the flowers. She sounded
excited, even
through
a text. I told her that I loved
her one more time and then I went to check on what my camera was recording. I
felt like a kid in Disneyland when I saw them. Terrance, his father and Brock,
all three bellies up to the bar and no one else in sight. This was finally it.
I
grabbed my jacket and as fast as I could go without
risking being arrested for reckless driving, I rode to the bar.

I was shaking again as I went inside. This time it
wasn’t fear, it was anticipation. When I walked in, they all looked over and
stopped talking. Blake tried giving
me
the stare down,
but I was so used to and sick of his games that it didn’t even faze me any
longer. I smiled at him.

“What the fuck do you want now?” he asked.

“I just came in for a beer. What are you boys up to?
Planning another set up? Thinking about shooting someone else?”

“Fuck you! You were holding a gun on your own Daddy.
I shot you to save my friend.”

I laughed. “Yeah, because you have such a good
heart.”

“What the hell do you want, Dax? I’m getting tired
of all of this?” Brock asked. He was tired…poor thing.

“Then end it, Brock. Tell me the truth, all of you
from start to finish. Then we can get on with our lives.” I looked directly at
Terrance and said, “No matter how pathetic they may be.”

“You already know my part, I told you. I’m not going
to stand up like I’m in church and testify in front of a room full of people.
You’re a complete idiot if you thought that would work.”

I shrugged. “It was worth a shot, right?”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Blake said.

I sat down on one of the stools and said, “No, I
don’t think so. I think I’d rather sit here with the three of you.” Terrance
was giving me a hard stare and I said, “What’s wrong old best friend? You don’t
want to have a beer with me?”

“I don’t know what you want, Dax. I told you my part
and Brock told you his. You can assume the rest and just leave us the fuck
alone. Go back to college or something.”

“I want to hear Blake’s part.”

Blake startled me by jumping up and grabbing me.
Shoving me into the wall beside the bar, he got way too close to my face and
said, “You want to hear my part, you little shit? It was
all
my
plan, the whole thing. I wanted to kill you and make sure you didn’t
come back. But if your dad would have found out and I would have gone to jail,
it would have ruined everything. So I did the next best thing. I got some good,
quality street grade from your brother and I asked him to go into your dad’s
email account and send an order to Terrance. The rest as they say is
history…Oh, right up until I found you messing with our bikes and shot you.
That was fun. Too bad I didn’t have time to take a better aim. I could have
stood right next to your daddy with my arm around him at the funeral. He would
have thought it was all about saving him.”