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Despite her understanding of the club, and the role of the SAA, Kelsey could admit to herself that the idea of Dex torturing a man as her father described, causing so much pain that his heart gave out, gave her pause. However, it also provoked another question.
So she asked, “Why did he do that, Daddy? You were there—why? Was it his idea? Did he do it for fun?” and then stuck the hypo into his forehead and depressed the plunger.
Her father glared at her with his one good eye. “Starting to think you’re taking something out on me, pix.”
She could have told him he deserved it, but instead she said only, “Sorry.”
He grunted skeptically. Kelsey set the used hypo with her growing bio-waste pile and collected her suturing supplies.
As she slid the needle in for the first suture—taking pains to be gentle now—she said, “I know you won’t tell me. I know it’s ‘club stuff.’ Which means no, he didn’t do it for fun. He did it for the club. What bad things haveyoudone for the club, Daddy? Should I think you’re not a good man?”
“It’s different, pixie.”
“Why?”
He caught her wrist before she could start the second suture. “Because you’re mydaughter! I have to keep you safe. I don’t want you withanyBull, much less somebody like Dex. I want you to have a life that’s better than this, that’s more. That’s safe and happy.”
“Daddy.” Kelsey pulled her wrist from his grasp and took his hand in hers. “I love you. As long as I can remember, you’ve been my hero. You are the best man I know. And you gave me this life. You gave me the Bulls as my family. You keep me safe—theykeep me safe. And happy. I love my family. I love my life. Why would you think I would want anything different?”
“You don’t know the club like you think you do.”
“I know anyone with a Bull on his back is going to protect me. They’ll treat me like family because wearefamily. And that includes Dex.”
He stared at her silently while she sutured his forehead. She could feel him thinking, trying to come up with his next challenge. Kelsey tried to figure out what it would be, so she could work up her rebuttal.
But when he spoke again, as she tied off the last suture, he opened with a defeated sigh. “Fuck, Kelsey. Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”
“Yeah. I’m asking you to trust me.”
~oOo~
Kelsey parked on the driveway of a humble, but cute, ranch house. It was painted a cheery yellow with white trim and seemed well kept. The whole block was made up of similar homes in similar condition—well tended by not fancy. The cars parked on driveways were mostly a little older, maybe an average of a decade older. This close to Christmas, most houses had some kind of decoration going on—at least a strand of lights across the front eave, but there were a couple illuminated plastic nativity scenes, some inflatable snowmen and Santas, decorated trees twinkling in front windows, wreaths hanging on front doors.
Dex’s house was dark and unadorned. Only a faint light at one small window near the door suggested he might be home.
Probably she should have called. For all she knew, he had a woman in there. But when she’d convinced her father to back off and let her figure out for herself what, if anything, she wanted of Dex—and then had persuaded him to give her his address!—she’d been too flush with victory to really think things through.
Her excuse—and, in fact, her purpose, at least in part—was to see if he needed medical attention.
But yeah, she should have called first.
As she sat in her car, which was already starting to get cold, and considered the pros and cons of calling him right now, the porch light flipped on, and the front door swung open.
Dex stood there in jeans and an unbuttoned shirt. By his stance, with one hand behind his back, she knew he had a gun in his hand.
His Malinois, Charlie, stood at his side, at full alert.
Recognizing her car, he said something and signed to Charlie, and the dog’s posture relaxed at once.
Her stomach suddenly full of bees, Kelsey got out of her car. As she went to her hatch to collect her bag, Dex told Charlie to back off. He closed the door and came toward her.
She saw he was barefoot and bare-chested under his open shirt. The bitter cold of the snowstorm had given way to typical Oklahoma winter cold, but that still was hardly barefoot weather.
As he got closer, she saw his face. Her father had not been exaggerating for macho effect; Dex did look worse. The wound her dad had made in his cheek the night before was at least twice as long now, and ragged. The edges had swollen badly. Both lips were split and swollen, both eyes swollen and black, his nose was broken and cut open across the bridge, and a nasty bruise showing around his beard at the back of his jaw suggested it was, or had been, dislocated.
He’d obviously done some first aid on himself: the laceration on the bridge of his nose was closed with three odd-looking sutures, and the bad wound on his cheek was closed with butterflies.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. His voice was thick, more than the congestion of his broken nose. That jaw, she thought. Good odds for dislocation, possibly a fracture.
