Better When He's Bad
Page 38

The rest of it had happened in slow motion. I was handed off to Novak, a living, breathing carbon copy of the troubled young man I was in love with. Even if I hadn’t heard him call Bax “son,” I would have known. They had the same hulking build, the same bottomless black eyes, and even though he was a couple decades younger, Bax had the innate aura of a man you did not want to mess with, just like his father. It was shocking, but not nearly as much as the sight of Titus, beaten and held in the circle of bad guys. There were no heroes left to come riding to the rescue, and the bad guys most definitely had the upper hand.
When Novak grabbed me around the throat, it had taken everything I had not to panic. I couldn’t stop crying and I’m sure I said Bax’s name over and over again. It was the only prayer I could think of at the time.
The knife hurt when it had cut me open. The sting sharp and real. I had to scream, even though I knew Novak did it solely to get a reaction out of Bax. I wanted to be stoic and strong, but the blood was warm and heavy and the coppery scent was making me dizzy. When the blade had moved to the opposite side of my chest, I thought I was going to pass out. Bax was starting to fade in and out of my vision, and whatever was being said around me was just ghosts of words that meant nothing. Being held by Novak, watching my blood roll over his fingers, I suddenly understood there was a difference between bad and evil.
Everything stopped, the room went still, and all I could hear was Titus screaming his brother’s name. I would never, not ever, be able to forget the sight of Bax with that gun pointed up under his chin. It was crazy and desperate, just like him. He was looking at me, asking me to understand why he had to do it, while I begged and pleaded with him to stop. I would never be able to go on if he forced me to watch him die by his own hand. It was a raw, brutal kind of violence that would literally destroy me.
I heard Nassir swear and say something about Bax being an overly dramatic fool, and the next thing I knew, he was pulling me away from Novak by my wrist as a shower of glass from the industrial skylights above us came showering down. I opened my mouth to ask what was going on, but Titus had gotten free and tackled Bax to the ground, sending the gun flying in the direction Nassir had herded me.
The ugly black pistol that had been poised to end the life of the man I loved stopped just inches from the toe of my sneaker and I just stared at it. I had so much blood leaking out of me I wasn’t sure I could stay conscious much longer, but now I had enough strength left, enough anger and disgust at all this man had put me and those I loved through, that I had pulled away from Nassir and bent to pick it up.
I heard the handsome criminal tell me no, tell me to let the feds handle it, but I saw Novak moving toward Bax and Titus, thought of my brother possibly dead, and felt my own life force steadily pouring out of me. I pulled the trigger. I didn’t aim, didn’t care where the bullet hit, I just wanted to make him stop.
The next thing I knew I was on the ground, surrounded by Bax’s heat, and he was kissing my stunned mouth. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, that I wasn’t scared of going to jail for him like he had done for Race, but he wouldn’t let me talk or argue when he pulled the gun out of my frozen hands. We were pulled apart by men dressed in scary black tactical gear. Bax laced his fingers together and put them behind his head. It made me shiver how familiar with the routine he was.
I was struggling to make my lethargic limbs respond when I heard him tell the fed, “I shot Novak.”
I wanted to argue, to tell them that it was me, but the next thing I knew I was being lifted and strapped to a stretcher and a paramedic was asking my blood type and talking about stitches and plastic surgery. I couldn’t follow. I wanted Bax. I tried to keep my eyes on him, but he was getting handcuffs snapped on and I was getting rolled out into the night. It wasn’t until he gave me that grin, that small twitch of his lips letting me know he would go back to prison, would sacrifice his life in another way for me, that I got hysterical.
I was sure the paramedic sedated me because when I finally woke up, finally shook the fuzz out from between my ears, I was in a hospital, my chest was bandaged up like a mummy, and I had tubes and wires sticking out from me all over the place. I didn’t know what time it was, or how much time had passed, but I knew I needed to find out about Race and talk to someone about Bax. I wasn’t going to let him go back to jail for something he didn’t do.
I tried to lift a hand to touch my chest, but a gruff voice from somewhere off to my right made me stop. Not to mention, the slightest movement made my upper body feel like it was ripping apart at the seams.
“I wouldn’t do that. You have more needlework on you right now than a quilt.”
I shifted my eyes and squinted until Bax’s older brother came into focus. He looked terrible. His face was a mess, twin black eyes, a swollen lip, and it looked like he had his own set of stitches running across one of his cheeks and near one of his ears. Beyond that, he looked tired, and if the dark scruff shadowing his face was any indication, he hadn’t been home in a while.
“How’s Race? Where’s Bax? How long have I been in here?” I had a million questions and they were all tumbling out in a slurred rush.
Titus groaned and climbed slowly to his feet. He was cradling his ribs as he walked to my bedside.
“You lost a lot of blood . . . a lot. You needed a transfusion, but on the way here in the ambulance, you went into shock. You almost didn’t make it.”
I gasped and looked down at my tightly bandaged chest. I knew it had hurt, that the knife felt like it was cutting into the very heart of me, but I couldn’t believe I had almost died.
“Race took a pretty bad beating. He’s got a broken leg and a dislocated shoulder and they were worried about internal bleeding because of the severity of his injuries, but all in all, he’s actually in better shape than you at the moment. He was discharged this morning while you were still out of it. He was taken to a safe house by the feds, but now that you’re awake, I’m sure he’ll be here in a flash. He was really hard to handle when he heard how bad your condition was.”
I was so relieved that Race was okay I started to breathe a little bit easier, until Titus kept talking.
“Gus didn’t make it. They shot him in the gut and left him to bleed out. I’m sure it was Novak’s way of paying him back for double-crossing him, for letting Race hide out right under his nose this entire time.”
I gulped. I didn’t really know the old mechanic that well, but he was important to Bax and he had gone out of his way to keep my brother safe and offer us shelter in the storm. It wasn’t right. I cleared my throat a little and asked Titus to hand me a glass of water.
“I’m a little out of it, but not so much that I can’t tell you are avoiding telling me where Bax is.” If he had been willing to die for me, shouldn’t he be here when I narrowly escaped death myself?
Titus’s hands curled around the rails of the hospital bed, and even under the black and blue coloring his handsome face, I could see the ghastly white of his pallor.
“Listen, Dovie.” He sighed heavily and peered at me intently out of his swollen eyes. “You can’t say anything about what happened to Novak.”
“What? No way. I’m not letting Bax go back to jail for something he didn’t do.”
Titus swore under his breath. “You don’t have a choice. I knew Novak was going to have his guy on the inside grab me. I knew there were dirty cops in on all his action. I called the feds the day Bax handed me the flash drive. Getting Nassir to agree to help was a little trickier because that guy doesn’t do anything for free. I had him set up the fight, knew Bax would show, knew Novak would grab me and take me in, but I have no clue how he found you or Race. The feds have a good case against most of Novak’s crew, including the abduction of you. You can’t start telling people you shot Novak in the back. It would ruin everything and Bax would come unglued. Do you understand me?”
I tried to shake my head, but it hurt so bad, I had to squeeze my eyes closed and concentrate on breathing.
“There was a room full of people. Everyone saw me shoot him. Bax gave up so much for my family, for me, already. He can’t go back to prison.” I didn’t feel like I could make it without him.
Titus sighed again and let his head fall forward. “I’m not going to let him go back, but right now he’s an ex-con caught up in a seriously tangled federal investigation. If you try and get involved, try and sacrifice yourself for him . . . Jesus, Dovie, can you imagine the kind of self-destructive shit he’ll pull to keep you out of trouble? He’s in love with you, he was going to kill himself so you would be safe. Do you really think he’s going to stand by and watch you sit in a cell while the feds try and figure out who is to blame? Fuck no.”
I let my head fall to the side and felt my heart thud in my chest. “He’s locked up?”
“For now. He’s in a federal holding facility while the feds decide who is who and what charges to level at all the players. They need you and Race to testify, and chances are they’ll cut a deal with Bax in exchange for his testimony as well.”
“I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted him to stop.” My voice was so soft, I wasn’t sure I actually spoke the words aloud.
“I don’t care what you meant or didn’t mean. I’m glad the bastard is gone. It’s the only way Bax has any kind of shot at living a seminormal life.”
“He never even told me Novak was his father.”
“Because he hated it. When he was a little kid, Novak spent a lot of time denying Bax was his. He called my mom a whore, pretty much ruined her. She was never great, but I think that made her hit the bottle even harder. When Bax got a little older, started getting in trouble, started boosting cars like it was effortless, all of a sudden Novak sees the heir apparent to his criminal kingdom. At first Bax thought it was cool. Guys like Benny handing him wads of cash and having anything and everything handed to him was addicting. It wasn’t until he got popped a couple of times and Novak kept pushing him to go harder, make bigger deals, take more risks, that Bax realized what he was doing. Novak never wanted to claim him as his son, but he sure as shit wanted to mold him into a carbon copy of himself. Novak hated that he could never fully control him. Honestly, Bax’s stubborn, go-to-hell attitude is the only thing that kept him free of Novak’s grasp, plus I think that’s why Novak wanted him so bad. Novak couldn’t handle his own kid’s defiance.”
We stared at each other for a long, tense moment. I flinched automatically when he reached out and brushed a knuckle across the pristine white bandage that was covering my entire chest.
“He talks about sometimes having to make the hard choice. I know you don’t want to let him sit behind bars for something he didn’t do, but if you care about him, if you love him like I think you do, then that’s what you’re going to have to do. Right now I’m ninety percent sure I’ll have him out in a week or so. If you go storming in and throw yourself on the pyre, he’ll do something stupid to try and save you, and we’ll never see him again.”
I gulped and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to believe what he was saying, but I could hear the logic and truth behind his words. Whatever issue Bax had with him, Titus really did have his younger brother’s interest at heart.
“Can I go see him when I get out of here?”
A bitter laugh broke out, and even behind his battered eyes I could see frustration and sadness.
“He won’t even see me. He’s locked up, back in jail; that’s the last place on earth he’s going to want you to see him. You’re just going to have to be patient, Dovie. Let this play out.”
I would have nodded in agreement, but letting Bax control the way it played out meant giving him the option of walking away from me. I knew it. He didn’t want me to see it—the violence, the vengeance, the vitriol, the vileness that worked in his life—but now I was going to have a giant V stitched across my chest to remind me of it every day anyway. I was just going to have to show him that that the V also represented victory, value, vividness, vitality, and maybe even virtue, which he would never believe. I was in love with him, both sides of him, and I wasn’t going to let him go.