Page 5

Chapter Five

Summerville Dax

A fter eating dinner, Dax was able to convince Dani, with the help of Lex, to come to their new house. He has yet to touch his wife, and it's killing him. But watching her eat, it's obvious they fed her the bare minimum. Likely just enough to keep her strength up, and she looks like such a shell of the person she used to be. He hates the fact he could have been searching and saving her from three years of being locked up but didn't know. He could have had her back months ago if Chance wasn't such an asshole he wants to punch in the fucking face again and again.

“We'll get you clothes tomorrow,” Dax says as Dani follows him into the house while he gives her a tour now that they’re alone. They walk into the master bedroom and attached bathroom, and she looks frightened. “We'll get everything else you need, too.”

“What... what happened to my old stuff?” Dani asks. “Did you throw them out when you thought I was dead?”

He gapes at her. “They were destroyed in the fire.”

Her fear quickly changes to curiosity, and she tilts her head. “What fire?”

The fire that made me believe you were dead and gone forever. “Why don't you shower and get cleaned up, and then I can fill you in on everything.”

How does he explain that he should have poked holes in the story about her death but didn't? To tell her he could have been looking for her, but he let people convince him otherwise to try and move him past his grief?

Shrugging, she walks into the bathroom, and he hears the water turn on. In another life, he would be in there with her as she showered. He’d help her wash every part of her body while their tongues danced and hands toyed. The memory causes him to use every ounce of strength he has not to break down into uncontrollable sobs from both grief and relief.

How do I tell her I never looked for her? That we buried a body that isn't hers? She has a grave and a headstone, and my grief allowed me to just take everything at face value. How do I tell the woman I love more than life that I just gave up on her? That I let her down and put her through unspeakable hell?

He wrestles with his thoughts as she walks out of the bathroom wearing nothing but one of his T-shirts. Her legs show bruises and scrapes in various stages of healing, and she's far too thin. But seeing her in the same attire she used to wear all the time reminds him how much he loved it. This was his favorite sight to see.

“I hope this was okay,” she says. “I found a shirt in there.”

“You never have to worry that it's okay.”

Her eyes look around the room. “It looks familiar.”

“I tried to replicate everything we had. In a way, it let me pretend, even for a second, that you were still here with me.”

“What fire, Dax?”

Sighing, he looks at the ground. “I was on a run with the club, and when we came home, the house was burned to a crisp. Only our home. The neighbors’ houses were fine, and no one saw a thing. That they admit, anyway,” he says and holds back the lump in his throat. “There was a body burned in our bed beyond recognition, and every report said it was accidental. Because it was our house, and the body was female, it was identified as you.”

“I have... I have a grave?”

Dax can't stop the tears from flowing freely now. “Yes.”

“I remember that night,” Dani says, and she leans against the bathroom doorframe when he dares glance up at her. “Men broke into the house and grabbed me from the bed. Our bed. I tried to fight, but there were too many of them. The neighbors... the ones to the left, I think, watched them take me, but they didn't do anything to help. The guys shoved me into the trunk of a car, and that's the last I saw of our house.”

His head snaps up. “The neighbors saw you being taken?”

“Yeah, uh, Hanson? And Travis. I think I saw Omar, too. Those names are right, right? It feels like the past few years are a jumble of everything.”

Growling, he clenches his jaw. “Yep, those were our neighbors. The ones who said they never saw anything suspicious when they were questioned about the fire.”

“If I'm alive, who did you bury?”

Letting out a dry laugh, he shrugs. “I have no fucking idea.”

“Are you going to hurt our old neighbors?”

“I'm going to have a chat with them,” he says and stands. “Dani, can I... Can I hold you?”

Sliding away, her back presses against the wall next to the dresser. “Dax-”

“I just need to know you're really here. Here with me, and that you're alive and safe now.”

Dani looks at the ground as her hands wrap around herself. “Do I have a choice?”

Hands fall to his sides, and pain fills him. “You always have a choice.”

“I didn’t before,” she says, her eyes not looking at him. “I can't... I can't stand to be touched. At least, not right now. I'm sorry.”

“What did they do to you, Dani?”

When she shakes her head, it takes everything in him not to turn and run out to find every man in a Kingsmen kutte and brutally murder them. “I don't want to talk about it. Can I... Can I have a pillow?”

“What?”

“To sleep on. Can I take a pillow from the bed?”

“Where do you think you're sleeping, Dani?” Her bony finger points to the corner of the room on the hardwood floor. “You're not sleeping on floors anymore, baby. You'll sleep in the bed.”

“Dax, I can't-”

“I'll take the couch until you're comfortable with me being around. After what you've been through, you deserve to sleep in a comfortable bed.”

“It's your bed. I-I can't take your bed.”

Shaking his head, he walks towards the door. “It's our bed. And until you're ready to share it with me, just to sleep, it's your bed. Goodnight, Dani.”

“Goodnight.”

Dax shuts the door behind him and walks outside for air to find Mac, Finnegan, and Chance waiting. The anger at Chance hasn't subsided, and he just shakes his head as he pulls out his phone.

“Hey,” Colt answers. “Everything okay?”

“Griffin's Beach still here?”

“Some of them, yeah. What's up?”

Swallowing, he clenches his free hand into a fist. “Undertaker there? And Venom?”

“Yep.”

“I need you three to come with me somewhere. Can you meet me at my house?”

“Be there in a few.”

Looking at Mac and Finnegan, he nods towards the house. “I need at least one of you inside with her. She's in the bedroom and really skittish, so I don't think she'll come out at any point. But just in case she needs something, I want someone there to hear her.”

“What about me?” Chance asks.

“I need you to get the fuck away from me for a while. If I look at you for too long, I'm going to kill you. Right now, it's taking everything in me not to slit your fucking throat.”

“Dax-”

Again, Dax's fist cuts Chance off as he falls to the ground. “You knew. You knew Kara saw her, and you did nothing. I can't even look at you.”

“Dax, it's not Chance's fault,” Mac tries to argue.

“Kara fucking saw her!” he shouts at his Sergeant at Arms. “She left to try and find her when this asshole should have come to me and told me.”

Motorcycles interrupt them, and Colt, Venom, and Undertaker pull into the driveway. Seeing Undertaker on a trike oddly fits because all Dax can imagine is a gorilla on a mini bike otherwise.

“What's going on?” Venom asks as they walk up to join them. “Chance is on the ground. I see we're still pissed at him.”

“I need backup for a little visit,” Dax says. “Colt, what did you guys do when Lex was missing?”

“Uh, we found every Slasher property and ransacked them, killed or maimed any Slashers inside while we searched, then blew the shit out of their houses. Why?”

“That's the guy I need right now. Can you be him?”

Nodding, Colt chuckles. “I can be just about anything you need. Except a woman. My shoulders are a little too broad for that.”

“Same,” Undertaker agrees.

Venom looks at them. “Oh, fuck you all.”

Against his will, Dax cracks a smile. “I need to visit my old neighbors.”

“How's she doing?” Venom asks.

“It's bad,” he says. “She can't talk about what happened to her, but when I wanted to hold her, she said she can't stand to be touched.”

Cracking his neck, he rolls his shoulders. “This mission involve us rolling heads? Killing your old neighbors?”

Again, Dax decides he likes Venom. Always there when they need him for whatever. “Possibly. Dani says they saw her being taken out and shoved in a trunk.”

“Motherfuckers are gonna wish they said something when we show up,” Undertaker says. “I hate woman-beaters.”

He leads the three men back to their bikes and drives to the house he hasn't been to since the night he came home and was told his wife was gone. The lot has been cleared, and grass has already started to grow where the house once stood.

Parking in the driveway, Dax walks to the house on the left and pounds on Hanson's door. He's the first one Dax wants to talk to because he used to consider the man a friend. He'd donated to the cost of the funeral for Dani, and now Dax can't help but wonder if it was from guilt.

“It's after ten at night, Dax. What's going on?” Hanson asks as the door swings open.

“I need to talk to you about the night my house burned down.”

“Now? It's been over two years-”

Dax reaches out and grabs him by his throat, pushing him into the entryway of his house and slamming him against the wall. “Closer to three, motherfucker.”

Colt, Venom, and Undertaker follow him inside, and Hanson looks scared as he struggles against Dax's hand.

“Dan's alive,” he growls, looking into the man's eyes. “She's alive, and she says she remembers you seeing her being taken out by Kingsmen and thrown into the trunk of a car. You, Travis, and Omar. Now, if she saw you, you sure as shit saw her. Why the fuck have you never said a goddamn word?”

Loosening his grip to allow Hanson to speak while still stuck against the wall, he waits for the response. “If I said anything, I'd be next.”

“You thought the Hellraisers couldn't take on the Kingsmen?” Venom asks. “We were into fucking drugs with the cartel and got out of it. We'd have blown those pussy assholes away before they'd ever be able to touch you.”

“Not when they have half the cops in this town in their pocket, too,” he says. “I wasn't threatened by the club. I was threatened by the cops.”

Dax releases him. “Other two, too?”

“We all were. Honestly, man, we all thought they killed her. At least, this way, you got some closure. We had no idea they were gonna keep her alive.”

Colt moves past Dax and gets in Hanson's face. “You got a wife?”

“Yeah,” he says, his hand rubbing his neck.

“Tell me something,” he says, his face close to the scared man's. “If she disappeared into the night, and someone saw, how would you feel knowing three fucking years later some asshole you talked to probably daily knew but allowed her to go through years of hell because he was a pussy bitch? That he didn't have the balls to do anything to help her?”

Swallowing, Hanson blinks. “I'd be pissed.”

“I sure hope no one decides to get retaliation,” Undertaker says.

“You'd hurt my wife?”

Venom laughs and cracks his neck. “Be careful. I hear there are a lot of electrical issues in these old houses causing crazy fires no one notices.”

The men all walk outside, and Hanson runs out after them. “Are you going to do that? Are you going after my wife?”

No one acknowledges him again. Even though Dax knows none of them would ever touch his wife, but Hanson doesn't know that. And after what he did, Dax wants him scared.

“We talking to the others?” Venom asks.

Dax shakes his head. “No, I'm not expecting a different story. And I know Hanson's gonna go running to them with what happened. They'll probably move soon.”

They drive back to his house, and he turns to the three men who showed up in record time to help him. Colt holds a hand up. “Don't.”

“But-”

“Family, Dax,” Venom says. “You want their houses set on fire, just let me know. I can be in and out of there without anyone seeing a fucking thing.”

“I kind of want to flip their cars upside down,” Undertaker says. “But that would probably be hard to conceal.”

Colt nods. “Yeah, probably. But imagine the looks on their faces. I also want to see those small ass cops arrest your ass. It'd look like trying to handcuff Godzilla or something.”

Sighing, he nods to these men and walks inside. “You can go, guys.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I need time in the house with my wife, even if we're in separate rooms.”

Sitting down at the kitchen table, he rests his head in his hands. The Kingsmen have the cops in their pockets. He's fucked. He's actually royally fucked. But why do they want Dani? Why keep her alive all this time and never tell him? What the fuck are they doing?