“Where are you?” Xander sent the text and stared at his phone for several long seconds, hoping to hear the little chirp sound that would signify Olivia’s response. But it didn’t come.
He sighed loudly and gestured to the bartender for another drink. He was feeling loose enough already, honestly, but he needed something to distract himself. Olivia had never been late before. Things happen. Maybe an assignment ran late or she got a flat tire or something, he tried to argue with himself. Xander checked his phone again. No messages.
“Hey, Ezra,” he said as the younger man passed by him on his way to the bathroom. “Have you seen Brennan around?” He always referred to her by her last name in front of other people. He was aware it was silly, but he worried that if he said her first name it would be obvious how whipped he was, how he felt about her. And he wasn’t ready for anyone to know that, not even Olivia herself.
Ezra stopped walking and shook his head. “No, I—wait, well, sort of,” he said. “I noticed her driving away like a bat outta hell yesterday.”
Xander didn’t know what to make of that. Olivia tended to be a more responsible driver whenever she wasn’t on a bike. When he let her sit up front on his bike, she would skid so fast on the dirt Xander would even get a little scared sometimes. But as far as he could tell, she was a responsible driver in her own car, paranoid a cop she knew would pull her over and embarrass her at work over it.
“Was anyone else around who might’ve spoken to her before she took off?” he asked Ezra.
Ezra shrugged. “Nah, I don’t think so. Don’t remember who else was hanging around, anyway.”
Xander wondered for a moment why Ezra only ever seemed to pay attention to Olivia, and not anyone else, but he dismissed the thought a second later. He’d just have to text her again. There was no way he could guess why she was speeding away yesterday, not without more witnesses to piece together the clues.
“Do you need help? I can come meet you,” he texted her. There was no response.
Xander sighed deeply and put his phone away. Maybe she was focused on her assignment, some troubled kid who really needed help. Olivia was so invested in helping people. It was probably his favorite thing about her. She was so passionate and intense. If she were wrapped up in helping somebody else, he couldn’t even blame her for it.
Still, it was boring, sitting around and watching the other boys drink and joke and laugh. After another minute or two sitting down, he went up to his room and lay down on his bed. He stared at the blank screen of his phone and groaned, wanting to bang his head against a wall. Xander hit the call button and pressed the phone against his ear, waiting for a long second for the dial tone to sound. It rang like normal instead of going straight to voicemail, so it wasn’t that her phone was dead. Maybe it was on silent. He called two or three times, but there was never any answer.
Come on, Olivia, where are you? Xander thought to himself. That question repeated itself on a loop, over and over again in his head. It was all he could think about. Eventually, he slipped off into sleep, clutching onto that same question. Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?
***
Olivia was in chains. Xander looked around and saw they were in a wet, dark basement, but he’d never been here before. Olivia was on the other side of the room, tied up against the wall. She was sobbing quietly, sniffling in an obvious attempt to get the tears to stop. Xander looked down at his own arms. There was nothing holding him back, no ropes or chains or locks to restrain his arms and legs. But when he tried to get up and walk across the room, he couldn’t move. It felt like his arms were suspended in glue, completely stuck in place. He opened his mouth to speak to Olivia, but his voice came out as a weak whisper. “Olivia. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay, baby.”
For several long seconds he thought she hadn’t heard him. She was crying so hard, it echoed in their wide empty prison. “How the hell would you know? You’re not with me. Not really.”
“I am, I am, I promise,” Xander said, tensing all his muscles to stand up. No part of his body moved, but he still sweat with the exertion. “I’m going to save you.”
Olivia lowered her head, and when she lifted it again to look at him it was with Marta’s face. She stared at him with daggers in her eyes, sharp and expertly aimed at Xander’s heart. “You left me. You left me to die.”
“No, no, no,” Xander rushed to say. He fought again to stand up but barely wiggled his big toe as a result. “No, please, I wanted to save you. All I wanted was to save you. Please.”
“It’s happening again, Xander,” Marta said. “Are you gonna let another girl die on your watch? Are you? Are you? Are you?”
Xander woke up with a start to an empty bed. He blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to get his vision to pierce through the darkness to make out any coherent shape. After a second, when the absolutely normal state of the apartment became clear, Xander collapsed on the bed before he groaned and rolled over, trying to escape the cocoon of blankets that swaddled his body. He had to fall asleep cuddling something a few hours ago, but now it was suffocating him, making him sweat like a pig in the desert heat.
What the fuck was that dream? Olivia, tied up somewhere, bruised and bleeding before transforming into an accusatory Marta? Where the hell did that came from?
He chewed on his bottom lip before sighing deeply and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He needed to eat something, settle his stomach so he could settle his mind. Olivia was just…taking some space, some time for herself. That’s all it was.
But no matter how many times he repeated it to himself, it wasn’t convincing. He finally decided on a gallon of orange juice in his fridge, walking back over to the couch to turn on the TV and fill his empty apartment with noise.
Staring at the late-night sitcom reruns, he finally surrendered to his base impulses and took out his phone to check for texts. There was nothing. He should have known better than to hope otherwise. He knew he would have flung himself awake at the first noise of a text alert or a phone call. He swallowed a huge gulp of orange juice to steady himself before typing out another text message to Olivia. “Not sure what to do here. If you’re pissed at me just let me know what’s up.” But again, nothing.
The next day, Xander rode into California with the boys, dropping off the drugs and picking up the money with his brain elsewhere, his mind totally focused on Olivia while his body did the club business. But still, there was nothing. No text, no call, no physical presence. She was gone.
The following morning, Xander walked downstairs to stand outside of the clubhouse, watching for cars. Here, on the edge of the desert, it was rare for cars to pass by. He was willing to stand out there for hours if he had to, but Eric came up behind him a few minutes into his watch, grabbing his shoulders and forcibly turning him around. “Boss, come on, we have the day off. You gonna stare off into space the whole time?”
Xander shrugged and turned back around, straining his ears for any sound of a car coming from the distance. “Just…looking,” he trailed off.
“For Olivia?” Eric asked.
Xander wasn’t sure what to say. He knew he was acting a little crazy, getting all worked up over a day or two of radio silence. He was ridiculously desperate for any signal from her, any sign she wasn’t angry at him for no reason. It was making him a little nauseated to realize how much he ached for her. He turned back to Eric, staring at him expectantly, secretly wanting him to give him a distraction, any distraction, to keep him from obsessing about Olivia’s absence.
“We’re all going to Jules’,” Eric said, gesturing to the group of boys that began to pool out of the clubhouse. “Just have a few drinks, talk up the ladies there, if you’re interested.”
“I don’t know,” Xander said honestly. Olivia might have lost her phone. She could be about to ride into the Souls’ bar any second now.
“What? Just ‘cause you got a girl now doesn’t mean you can’t flirt, man,” Eric said. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Xander offered him a half-smile and nodded. He had no desire at all to actually talk to any women like that, but it was a nice gesture from his brother to try. That was how the men in the MC communicated to each other: women, drugs, alcohol, guns. It was the only vocabulary they had. Xander walked over to his bike, ready to ride out onto the road and convert his energy into burnt gravel.
A half hour later, they pulled into the lot of Jules’ bar. This was a club-neutral bar, a place that was a friendly middle ground where various bikers could gather. Jules had the best hamburgers and the best beer in town, but she also had a hard-nosed policy about fighting. You get into one altercation, and you’re gone for good.
“Hey, Jules!” Xander yelled over the music as he stepped over to the bar. “A round of beers for all my boys.”
Jules obliged, quickly pouring out drinks for every one of the men, even the ones Xander had regularly fought with months earlier. It was the code. An hour passed by, and the men took turns ordering for each other. Xander settled into the shadows of the back of the room, taking out his phone again. Still nothing. Jesus fuck, Olivia, what is going on?
“Okay, one last time,” he whispered to himself, typing out a message to Olivia: “I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do here. Let me know.”
He was still looking at his phone when someone approached him, sidling up next to him in the shadows. “Bad day?”
Fucking Roger. “What the hell do you want?” Xander didn’t bother disguising the disdain in his voice.
Roger blew out a cloud of smoke that barely missed Xander’s face. “Just noticed you haven’t been talking very much. You’ve been hanging out more recently, but…not today, huh?”
Xander shrugged. “Why the fuck do you care?” Roger was always kind of a dick. Xander just didn’t know what his angle was this time.
“Don’t,” Roger said, swinging his beer up to take a drink in between words. “Just curious, that’s all. There’s not a lot of news around these parts, you know. Every day is kind of the same.”
Xander shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He honestly wanted to run away from his conversation, but maybe this is part of what Olivia was always talking about. He needed to be open to all the men, even the ones he couldn’t stand. “Well, you know, if my plans go through, you guys will have a lot of new shit to do. Less boring.”
“Yeah, you’ve—You’ve really been stepping up,” Roger said as he sipped at his beer. “We’ve all noticed the difference.”
“You have?” Xander asked, feeling confused. Not that much had changed yet, right? He’d barely accomplished anything, just earned a little bit of money with the California run.
“She’s got a hold on you, that chick,” Roger said, handing his beer over to Xander.
For some reason, he accepted it and took a deep drink. Xander’s mind was still wandering, going over all the possible reasons why Olivia might be missing now, and he needed something to keep him from freaking out. “You mean Olivia?” Xander asked Roger after a pause, handing the beer back to him.
“Yeah, whatever her name is. She’s really changed you.”
It was the truth, but Xander could easily detect the note of judgment in Roger’s voice. For bikers, women were tools, things to use and discard after they lost their appeal. They weren’t supposed to have the power to reshape your entire life, your entire identity. A month ago, Xander might have leapt into a fight at Roger’s words, the way he was trying to discredit him. But in the back of his mind he knew Olivia would be disappointed if he did.
“I guess so,” Xander said instead of smashing his fist into Roger’s face. After all, what was the point? He knew he could beat Roger’s ass. There wasn’t even any challenge in it.
“Yeah, she’s really made you straighten up. The guys…we respect you now, man. We know it’s ‘cause of her,” Roger said, handing the beer back to Xander after taking a huge gulp.
Xander didn’t know what to say, so he stayed silent, sipping at Roger’s beer.
“That’s why I’m a little bit…I don’t know, I was just surprised about the other day. You know, when she was chatting up Ezra.”
“W-What?” Xander asked, completely confused. “What about Olivia and Ezra?”
“I just saw them talking, if you could call it that,” Roger said, totally casually, but Xander stepped forward, closer to Roger, so he could look in his eyes. He needed to be sure he was telling the truth.
“What does that mean?” Xander asked, walking forward a little more so Roger stepped back further into the shadows. Xander wanted this conversation to be as private as possible.
Roger shook his head and took his beer back to take a drink. “I just saw them looking real cozy, the other day, you know? Kinda cuddled up at the bar. I was just surprised you were okay with that.”
Xander reached forward to grab Roger’s shoulders and force him to look him directly in the eye. “Cuddled up? How?”
“Well, honestly, she looked a little bit uncomfortable, now that I think about it,” Roger said, rolling his eyes back into his head as he thought. “But Ezra was all up in her face, you know, looking like he does when he talks to the chicks around here. Gets that stupid look on his face. He was like that, all up in her space. She looked a little bothered, I guess, but I just figured they were kidding around, you know.”
Xander felt numb, from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes. It was like he was in a dream. Or a nightmare. “Ezra…Ezra was hitting on Olivia?”
Roger nodded and waved over to the bar. One of the younger members came with two full beers, taking away the empty one to throw away. Xander wondered for a minute why Roger had younger guys obeying him like that, but he quickly dismissed the thought and refocused on Olivia. Ezra was…being aggressive toward her? Was she scared? Did she run away? What the fuck had happened?
“You’re sure you saw this? You’re not just fucking around for fun?” Xander demanded. His voice came out more desperate than he would have liked.
Roger shrugged. “Just wanted to give you a heads-up, man. None of my fucking business. I don’t care if the bitch cheats on you. Just thought I’d let you know. You know, one brother to another.”
Xander stared back at Roger, searching his face for any sign of deception, but the guy looked as casual and relaxed as possible, sipping his beer like he didn’t have a care in the world.
It was worth investigating, at the very least. It wasn’t like he hadn’t detected Ezra’s jealousy when Olivia rode with him. He figured it was just a childlike thing, wanting Olivia for a new friend. But maybe Roger was right. Maybe Ezra had crossed a line. Xander spotted Ezra across the bar. When the younger man locked eyes with him, he lit up and gestured for Xander to come over.
“Good luck, man,” Roger said behind him, but Xander couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
As Xander crossed Jules’ bar, fielding off offers from various bikers to come and drink with them, he interrogated himself. What the fuck was he thinking? Ezra? Innocent, sweet little Ezra? He was barely capable of carting drugs back and forth. He was always obedient toward Xander, doing whatever he asked him to, without a second’s hesitation. He was the last one to come on to Olivia? Right?
And what did Olivia’s absence mean? Would she really have run off the first time a guy in the Immortal Souls made a gross comment? She wasn’t that easily frightened, at least Xander didn’t think so. What would make Olivia run away?
Suddenly a cold, dense feeling descended over Xander’s head. What if Ezra wasn’t sweet and innocent, at least for that moment? What if he was aggressive, what if he was mean, what if he didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer? What if he scared her, really scared her?
As he approached Ezra at the bar, Xander doubted himself and tried to calm the fear that caused his stomach to clench uncomfortably. Ezra was adorable. Xander had only known him for a short time, relatively speaking, and he still felt like he was a younger brother. Xander kept him away from the more dangerous missions, tried to give him advice, patted him on the back without even thinking of it. How could he do something like what Roger was saying? And anyway, Roger was an asshole. Why should Xander believe him over a friendly kid?
“Hey, buddy,” Ezra said as Xander sat down next to him with his beer. “You already got a drink?”
“Yeah, um, Roger gave it to me,” Xander explained, the words sounding weird coming out of his mouth.
Ezra seemed to feel the same way, his face screwing up in confusion. “Roger, doing you a favor? I thought he hated your fucking guts.”
“Yeah, I did, too,” Xander said softly, trying to stare deeply into Ezra’s eyes so he could read what was going on inside the other man’s mind. Was he hiding something?
Xander silently debated with himself. Again, Ezra was such a sweet kid, and Roger was a douche. But at the same time, Roger had been with the group substantially longer than Ezra. Ezra hadn’t even been around for a year yet. What reason did Xander have for trusting him, really? He had been the last one to see Olivia at the club, after all. At the very least, something must have happened to make her run away like this, Xander thought.
“So, um, Ezra,” Xander began, causing Ezra to turn all the way in his seat to face him head-on. “You said you saw Olivia, like, tear out of the club like a bat outta hell?”
Ezra nodded, his throat working hard as he drank deeply. “Yep. Don’t know why, though.”
“Did you try to speak to her at all? Try to stop her?” Xander tried to keep the tone of accusation out of his voice, but judging by the way Ezra tensed up in discomfort he must not have been successful in that endeavor.
Ezra put his drink down. “I think I might have yelled something to her, yeah. Like asking her where she was going, but at the time I didn’t think much of it, you know? I thought she didn’t hear me.”
“That was it? You only said hey or whatever? She didn’t speak to you at all?” Xander asked.
A little line formed in between Ezra’s eyebrows as he thought back in time. “I don’t…I don’t think so…”
“You sure?” Xander asked, his voice coming out more urgently now. He needed to know. Why was Olivia gone? Why wasn’t she answering any of his texts? What could scare her so badly as to make her run away? And…what if she didn’t run away at all? What if somebody has her? Xander thought.
Ezra was turning dark pink, obviously nervous as hell. Why the fuck is he blushing so quickly? I haven’t even done anything to intimidate him, Xander wondered.
“I, uh, you know, I can’t be sure, it was a couple of days ago now…” Ezra trailed off.
Xander slapped his hand down onto the counter of the bar. He hadn’t meant to make a loud sound, but he did anyway, and Ezra jumped a little in his seat. “Can’t be that hard. Come on. Think. Did she say anything to you? And did you say anything else to her?”
“I don’t—I don’t know,” Ezra stuttered, his eyes suddenly glancing all around the bar, in every direction, like he was looking for the closest exit.
Hell, no, Xander thought to himself. There’s no way I’m letting you out of my sight now. Not when you’re trembling under pressure like this. He must have been hiding something, right?
“I think you do know,” Xander said, his tone going hard and cold. He stared at Ezra, hoping to make him crack wide open. “I think you do know, man. So just tell me.”
Ezra shook his head, going a deeper shade of red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Listen, did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me for something because I don’t know what I did and I can’t—”
Xander cut him off. “No. No, don’t start that weak shit. Give me the fucking truth. What did you do to her?”
“To who? Olivia?” Ezra asked.
“Yes, fucking Olivia,” Xander snapped, losing his patience. “I see the way you look at her. It’s fucking obvious to everyone, man. I know what you’ve been thinking about doing. I know, Ezra.” The more Xander said it out loud, the more certain of it he became. Ezra had tried something with her, gotten too aggressive, maybe even hurt her, scared her away so much that she ran off. Or maybe he even has her now, tied up somewhere, just like in my dream…
Ezra was still sitting there, silently quivering with his mouth open like a pathetic panting dog, and Xander had finally had enough of it. He slammed his other fist down onto the table, deliberately loud this time. He saw Jules look over to him, a warning look on her face, but he ignored it, setting his full focus on Ezra. “You’ve been hitting on her. Don’t deny it!” he yelled, knocking over the glass on the bar next to him.
“Hey, hey!” one of the bulking guys near the door shouted over. “Settle down, man.”
“Fuck off!” Xander yelled in the big guy’s direction. “I’ve seen it. You’ve been smiling at her, all fucking moony-faced, following her around. What the fuck did you do?”
“Xander, please,” Ezra said, putting his hands up in the air in surrender. “I didn’t do nothing, I promise. She just left. I’m sorry. She just left.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Xander protested, his heart pounding hard in his throat. “She wouldn’t do that. What the fuck did you do, Ezra? Just tell me, please, I need—” I need to know she didn’t leave me, Xander thought.
But Ezra just shook his head. “You’re fucking crazy, man, I haven’t done anything, I haven’t. You’re going nuts, man, without her, it’s okay, it’s just you’re going—”
Crunch. Xander’s fist moved forward and smashed into Ezra’s face, audibly colliding with his cheek.
For a second the bar fell silent, even the bouncers over by the door just watching. Ezra gasped for air below him, his hand coming up to cradle his face. “Xander. Please,” Ezra begged.
Xander thought of Olivia, bloodied and bruised like in his dream. And he thought of her naked and warm in his bed, tracing his hand with her fingers. She wouldn’t want me to do this. She would want me to be a leader, be calm, collected, keep my shit together.
But Olivia wasn’t there to stop him. Not this time.
“What.” Punch. “Did.” Punch. “You.” Punch. “Do!” Xander shouted each word as loudly as he could, hitting Ezra about the ears before focusing on his nose, hearing a loud crunch as he smacked into the side of his bone. He kept punching him until his knuckles burned with the impact of his blows. And then he kept punching him some more, shrugging off the hands on his shoulders that tried to pry him away. He kept hitting, hitting, hitting him, fighting against the burn in his muscles, until a strong pair of arms wrapped around his waist and yanked him away from Ezra.
Xander looked down to see his work. Ezra was covered in blood. All at once, Xander’s stomach dropped and his heart stopped pounding so hard, stopped sending blood to his limbs. He felt numb and nauseated, and he only barely had the energy to get out of the bouncer’s arms and struggle his way back over to Ezra, who flinched as he approached again.
Oh, God. Xander leaned over Ezra, grabbing his chin to look him in his eyes, now flowing with tears. There was no deception in those eyes. There was no guilt. There was nothing but fear. “You didn’t,” Xander began, panting hard while he pet the side of Ezra’s face. “You didn’t do anything, did you?”
Ezra nodded a little, barely moving the top of his head before groaning loudly in pain. He sounded like he was three years old, like the pain was too much for his body to bear.
Ezra’s blood was getting on Xander’s hands, but he didn’t care. He had to fix it. He had to make him better, stop the bleeding. “I’m so sorry, Ezra. I’m so, so, sorry. I didn’t—I couldn’t--”
“You’re not a leader,” Ezra said in a strained, labored voice. “You’re weak. Just like they all said you were. You’re weak.”
Xander opened his mouth to say something, but no words came. He touched the side of Ezra’s face, as if his hands could heal rather than hurt, as if he could do anything good. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, but the sound of his voice was cut off by the howl of police sirens.
***
Olivia couldn’t sleep. A part of it, she thought, was that it had been so long since she’d slept in her own bed. But most of it was the whole betrayal thing. She was a traitor. That was a new label that would take some getting used to.
She sighed loudly and got up out of bed, going over to the refrigerator to get something to distract herself from the pool of guilt that wouldn’t stop bubbling up in her stomach. So what, she thought as she brought a pastry over to her kitchen table. She broke her promise. She had promised, over and over again, that she wasn’t going to leave Xander. She wasn’t going to abandon him. She wasn’t going to be like the other people in his life. She was going to stay. She was going to fight.
All of that went out the window. But she couldn’t stay, not if it meant Xander being in danger. She was fighting for him, she told herself as she bit into the pastry, forcing herself to chew. She was fighting. She just had to do it away from him.
That’s what you do when you’re in love. You sacrifice.
Olivia was willing to give up the only thing that made her feel alive, just to make sure Xander kept on living. And she was going to have to figure out a way to live with that.
Her phone rang, the loud and sharp noise filling up the empty apartment. Olivia groaned, walking back over to where her phone was charging in her bedroom. It was probably the new client she was seeing, this recovering meth addict who needed lots of support, especially at strange hours, to keep from relapsing. But when Olivia found her phone, the ID read Uncle Jerry.
For a second she stared down at her phone, like she did whenever Xander called or texted her. It had to be this way, right? No contact. She had to leave like a ghost does, all smoke and vapor and then nothing.
But why was Uncle Jerry calling? He never contacted her, really, even when Xander was still fighting and causing problems for the club. He trusted her to do her job. And anyway, the job was finished. Xander was a leader now. She’d done the work—or the damage, she thought to herself—and molded him into a person that could guide others. What more did Uncle Jerry want? I’ll just ignore this call like all the others and he’ll get the signal, she thought.
The phone stopped ringing, and Olivia sighed in relief, heading back toward the kitchen to finish her pastry. But then a second later, the ringing began again. She knew it was Jerry, trying again. Olivia screwed her eyes shut and fell back against her bedroom wall, breathing deeply to steady herself. I’m doing the right thing, she thought. I’m protecting him. I’m keeping him safe.
The ringing stopped and started again, three more times. Olivia didn’t know why she hadn’t already silenced the phone so she wouldn’t have to listen to this reminder of what she’d lost. She gathered her strength and moved back over to the phone, intending to turn off the volume so she could eat and sleep in peace.
Instead, her finger moved over the screen and hit “accept.” Her heart was pounding in her ears by the time she brought the phone up to her face. What am I doing? What am I doing? It was like her hand had acted completely independently of her brain, but now she had to pay the consequences for her own instinctual response. “Hello?” she said into the phone, her voice shaking even on that one word.
“Olivia!” Jerry half-shouted on the other end. “Olivia, honey, I’ve been trying to reach you. Where are you?”
“I’m—I’m home. I’m fine. What’s up?” she said in response.
“Xander’s been arrested.”
Olivia felt like the floor had been ripped out from underneath her, and suddenly she was falling, down, down, down a bottomless well. “Wh-What?” she whispered into the phone.
“He was at a bar, not one of ours, and he beat the living shit out of Ezra. The bartender called the cops. He’s being charged with something, I don’t know. Assault and battery, maybe, if we’re lucky.”
“Ezra?” Olivia asked, completely dumbfounded. What the fuck could Ezra have done to piss Xander off that badly?
“Yeah, my impression from the other boys is that Xander thinks Ezra hit on you, or scared you, or kidnapped you. Clearly that didn’t happen, huh?”
Olivia was silent a moment, her breathing going hard and heavy. It was her fault. Ezra was hurt and Xander was in jail right now because of her, her thoughtlessness and selfishness in running away the way she did. Her legs had gone wobbly with the realization, so she had to go over to her bed to sit down. “I—I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Well, there’s a way for you to show it, if you care to,” Jerry said. “The bail money. I don’t have it.”
“What do you mean you don’t have it?” Olivia asked. “Didn’t you guys do a drop in California yesterday?”
“Yeah, but some of it has been reinvested in more opportunities like that, per the senior members’ request. And I can’t ask the boys to post up their share of the earnings for Xander.”
“Why not?” Olivia demanded.
“Because, honey, they just saw him beat the shit out of a brother for no goddamned reason. They don’t give much of a shit right now if he rots in jail or not,” he explained.
Olivia nodded to herself and swallowed hard. Xander had relapsed, going back to his old defense mechanisms, and whatever rapport he’d built with the boys was gone again. All because of her, because she listened to Roger instead of telling Xander what was going on. And the worst thing was? She still wasn’t sure it was the wrong decision. What if Xander was safer in jail than out where Roger could get to him?
“I don’t know, Jerry,” she whispered. “Maybe—maybe he should stay where he is.”
Olivia could hear Jerry click his teeth on the other end of the phone. “Was he just a job to you, then?”
“No, I—no,” Olivia rushed to say. “He was—is—so much more than that, and I—I just don’t know if the club is the right place for him anymore, Jerry. I don’t know if he should be there.”
“Then tell him that,” Jerry said, and Olivia almost dropped the phone in shock. She thought the old man only wanted Xander to replace him. But Jerry kept talking. “You could be right, for all I know. Maybe he’s not meant for the club life. Maybe it’s all a big prison and he needs to get out as soon as possible, but he won’t believe me if I tell him that. He won’t listen. He’ll stay and fight and fuck shit up until he dies, just like his old man, hating every minute of it without you.”
Olivia weighed her options. Where was Xander safest? In the county jail? Or out where he might run into Roger? Unless he skips bail and gets far away, lets Roger take the club and goes someplace else to live his life, Olivia thought. He could have a safe life away from her, away from his uncle, away from everything. That’s what he deserved.
And maybe I can follow him, she thought for a second before shaking her head at herself. She’d broken his trust, left him to get in trouble again. She didn’t deserve him.
Olivia cleared her throat and finally answered Jerry. “Okay, okay, I can post his bail. But I’m not seeing him in person, okay?”
“Why?” Jerry demanded to know.
“Just because,” Olivia shot back. Because it will hurt him too much to see me after I’ve abandoned him. Because he needs to learn how to be whole without me. Because I’m selfish and I don’t want to feel the pain. “I’ll meet with you to give you the money and then you post the bail.”
“All right,” Jerry said. “Tomorrow morning, halfway between the Souls’ club and The Scorpions’ Nest. Know what I’m talking about?”
“Yeah,” Olivia said. “I’ll bring the cash. Goodbye.” It was only after she hung up that she realized she didn’t know the bail amount. But she realized it didn’t matter. She’d just bring all the cash she’d earned from her job with the Souls. She didn’t want any of it anyway.
She didn’t want to have any reminder of what she’d lost.