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“People forget things in the heat of the moment, Alexandra. Especially when there’s shooting involved.”
“Shut up, Dixon. Shut up.” The look she gives me isn’t angry. It’s beseeching. Forlorn. As if the pain of her brother’s loss is surging through her anew, cutting new pathways through her heart and her memories. “I’m trying to tell you that, if you insist that this man was present at the meeting and wearing the same cut as my brother, there is so much more going on with his death than either of us understands.”
“That doesn’t matter, Alexandra. I know what happened. I know I shot Lucas.”
She slaps me, then. Eyes wet with tears, her slap carries all the force of years of heartbreak. “Yes, you fucking shot him. You fucking shot him and you took from me the best brother a sister could ask for. You stripped the Crimson Fury MC of a bright future, you robbed the world of a decent man. You are an abhorrent person and I still hate you… But if what you’re saying about this man is true, there’s more going on with my brother’s death than either of us knows, and you may not be the one responsible for his murder.”
That hits me like a thunderbolt. Not responsible? I know what I did.
Even though the idea of it excites me and stirs hope that I know I don’t deserve.
“What do you mean? I shot him, Alexandra. I pulled the trigger, and I put the bullet in him. It was me. Put aside all those fucking questions and do what you came here to do. Kill me.”
“I want to. Looking at you makes me so angry. I hate you with every scrap of who I am, because my life changed forever and for the worse because of what you did. I have spent so many years envisioning what I want to do to you. But the things you’re saying, the things that have happened tonight… You may have shot my brother, but I’m not so certain that you’re the reason he’s dead.”
For so long, I’ve hated myself for what happened, for what I know I did, and I’ve sought death like it was a long-lost friend. Now, she wants to change that?
I have to reject the idea.
Yet, if there was anyone on earth who could make me listen, it’s her.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you and I both owe it to my brother to find out the truth. And I need your help to find it.”
Chapter Nine
Alexandra
My world — past, present, and future — hinges on the conflict swirling in Dixon’s dark eyes. It drives me crazy that a man I heartfully hate holds my identity in the palm of his bloodstained hand. Everything I thought I knew about my brother’s death has just been called into question. Everything is upside down for me, and for Dixon — this handsome and hateful heartthrob that I wish I met in a different life — the same must be true as well. The question now is: will his desire to know the truth win out over his desire to die?
I wait, my aching heart in my throat.
“You want my help?”
It isn’t just that I want it; I need it. To have any hope of succeeding, I need Dixon. Wherever my hunt for the truth takes me, I know it’ll involve dealing with other men like the one who nearly killed me. But I can’t stop, because Lucas can’t rest until he’s received justice, and neither can I.
“Are you going to make me beg?”
There’s a pause. One long enough that the words ‘Because I will’ are on the tip of my tongue, hesitating there only because of the hate that I’ve carried for this cocky biker for so long. Still, I’ll say them if that’s what I have to.
“I might.”
Then a smirk. A colossal, gut-twisting smirk.
“Fuck you.”
“Amazing case you’re making here. Really convincing me.”
He’s such a fucking prick. I hate him just as much as he hates me… and almost as much as he hates himself.
My teeth grind together. Then I close my fingers and make a fist, just like my brother taught me, and I punch Dixon right in his jaw. It feels good, so I do it again, this time hitting him in the groin, and he keels over, his hands on his crotch and a pained look on his face. It’s the best I’ve felt in a long time.
“Dixon Green, you are as pleasant as road rash on my vagina. Fuck you, I fucking hate you. I can’t believe that you’ve spent years tortured by this question, just as much as I’ve been tortured by the fact that you fucking shot my brother in the head, and now, you get something right in front of you that says that maybe the way you saw things isn’t the truth — something so blatant that it literally breaks down the fucking door and tries to murder you — and you are so stuck in your pitiful fucking self-loathing that you won’t even fucking investigate it? Are you lazy, an idiot, or a coward? Or are you all three?”
“Depends on who you talk to. Any of my COs — that’s commanding officers for a civilian like you — would probably tack on a few extra descriptors.”
Punching him again feels even better than the first time.
