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“How bad was it?” I didn’t even know if I could stomach hearing his answer, but I needed him to tell me just how close to losing her I’d come, long before I’d even gotten the chance to love her.
“When we found her, she was covered in blood, and we thought she was dead then and there. As soon as we got her to the hospital, they took her from us, and we didn’t see her for hours. She had emergency surgery to repair internal bleeding from where the motherfucker had beaten her so badly, he’d ruptured internal organs. The surgeon was damn good, or that scar on her beautiful face would have been ten times worse. She was in pain for months.” He ran his fingers through his dark hair that was lightly streaked with a few gray hairs at the temples. “But it wasn’t just physical pain that kept her up at night. This town is full of gossiping busybodies who have nothing better to do. No one knew the real story about what happened to her, so they started making up their own versions.”
“People do seem to love talking about her,” I muttered. They all needed to keep their mouths shut. I was already sick and tired of everyone spooking her by talking about us.
“We’re not telling her or her mother about Santino. Lexa will only try to evade us, and Raven doesn’t need the extra stress right now of worrying about our baby girl,” Bash said, pulling my focus back to the issue at hand. “You or your people stick to her like glue if she’s not home. I’ll make sure there is always someone at my house.”
Keeping this from Lexa wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I would take her father’s lead on this. I knew just how stubborn she was, so I needed to trust his judgment for now.
Another text came in, and I glanced down at it in annoyance, expecting it to be Paige. Seeing it was Lexa, some of my tension eased just a bit, and I texted her back before lifting my gaze back to her father.
He was watching me intently, and I lifted a brow at him. “What?”
Grimacing, he shook his head. “I could tell it was Lexa just from the look on your face. Even after that night we talked about Campbell, I didn’t want to believe you loved her. It was too soon. You barely knew her. You still barely know her, but I can see that you do.”
“I do,” I rasped out, needing him to understand just how much his daughter meant to me. “I would give up my own life to protect her. She’s everything to me. And yes, I know it hasn’t been long enough by everyone else’s standards, but I knew the night I first met her that she was mine.”
“Then I suggest you don’t fuck it up, boy.”
Chapter 17
Lexa
Hannigans’ parking lot was already getting crowded that evening when I arrived.
As I walked through the bar, several of the MC brothers called out greetings to me, and I got a kiss on the cheek from both Uncle Raider and Uncle Colt, who were running the place that night.
Uncle Colt grabbed my chin as he pulled back, examining my cheek closely. “And your pops still hasn’t dealt with Murphy?”
I shrugged, not sure what my dad was going to do about the deputy, and honestly, I didn’t care if he did something or not. I was beyond the point of caring about anything. I’d switched something off to keep from feeling the hurt Mrs. Davis’s words had caused earlier, and I wasn’t ready to turn it on again any time soon.
“Rave seen this?” Uncle Raider asked, his eyes narrowed on my wrists.
“She saw it this morning. And before you ask, I’m pretty sure she’s going to deal with Murphy herself. And Dad.” I shrugged again. “He’s on her shit list too.”
The two younger Hannigan brothers shared a look before grimacing. “Well, Murphy’s dead. Maybe we should send flowers,” Uncle Raider muttered.
“I have work to do,” I told them as I grabbed a bottle of Coke from the cooler behind the bar. I started to walk away, but I turned back at the last second. “And if the sheriff comes in looking for me, you don’t know who he’s talking about.”
“Gotcha, sweetheart,” Uncle Colt assured me with a wink. Of the four brothers, Colt and Jet looked the most alike, but Uncle Colt was the most easygoing of them all. Which didn’t really mean a whole lot since he could be a hard-ass like everyone else in the Hannigan family. Still, he was easier to talk to than the others, and I loved him a little more than the other three because of it.
Walking into the back office, I got to work. Mom said the bar and Uncle Spider’s place were the worst to do the books for. I understood why as soon as I sat down and saw the crumpled-up liquor supply invoice and other bills scattered across the desk. None of it was electronic like some of the other businesses Mom did the books for, like Aggie’s and Barker’s Construction, even though there was a perfectly good, state-of-the-art computer sitting right in the middle of the desk. Mom was the only one who used it, though, when she input the accounts into the system.
An hour into it and my head was throbbing. I was about to cry mercy when I got a text from Ben asking where I was.
Ignoring it, I grabbed the bottle of aspirin out of the top drawer of the desk and popped two before tossing my now-empty bottle of Coke in the trash. Needing to stretch my legs, I walked out to the bar in search of something else nonalcoholic to drink.
The occupants had only doubled during the hour I’d been in the office, and the people at the bar waiting to order was staggering. Both of my uncles looked out of humor as I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and stepped back out of their way, taking a few minutes to watch them while sipping my drink.
“Hey, Lexa!” someone called from the back where the pool tables were. “Bring us a round of beers, honey.”
I glanced at Uncle Raider, asking if he wanted me to do it.
“That would be a big help, sweetheart,” he said, grabbing eight bottles of beer out of the fridge and putting them on a tray. “Tell Tiny I’ll just put it on his tab.”
Nodding, I grabbed the tray and walked back to the pool tables.
There was absolutely nothing tiny about Tiny. He was at least six and a half feet tall, with shoulders as wide as a bull and the not-so-pretty face of one to go with it. He and seven of his friends grabbed the bottles off the tray, and he gave me a warm smile. He might not have been fun to look at, but he’d always been kind to me.
