FIFTEEN
Vaughn wakes with light brown hair against his face. It reminds him vaguely of his leave in Thailand and the sweaty black braid of the girl he met the night before when something called Dragon Venom burned his throat and his senses. Half an hour after drinking the vile stuff and Vaughn would have given that girl anything she wanted. She settled for his body, at least for that night.
But Mollie is not some random Taiwanese girl who couldn’t pronounce his name. She isn’t like anyone he’s ever known and so he doesn’t mind that she fell asleep against him on the uncomfortable hospital bed. He doesn’t mind the low, wheezing snores that move from her nose or the drool that dampens his gown.
He does mind the thick erection that strains against the blanket. Sighing, he adjusts himself, tries to move over, to give Mollie more room, but the movement has her stirring, has her wiping the moisture from the corner of her mouth.
“Hey,” he says when she looks up at him. “Sleep well?”
“Vaughn.” Then Mollie rushes to sit up, tries to jump off the bed, but he clamps his arms around her waist.
“Where you going?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.” She looks behind her to the hard plastic recliner that is extended in a pathetic excuse for a bed. “That thing was so hard and my back still aches a little from the wreck.” When Mollie turns back, brushes her arm across Vaughn’s leg and notices his morning issue, her voice dips and Vaughn loves the way it sounds sultry and tempting. “And you looked too good laying here all alone.”
“I’m glad you joined me.” He moves to kiss her, then thinks better of it. His mouth feels dry and he’s pretty sure fuzz has grown on his teeth. “They leave me a toothbrush?”
Mollie hops down from the bed and shuffles in the bathroom, coming back through the door holding up a toothbrush and small tube of paste. “You need help?”
“I think I can manage.” Vaughn swings his legs over and leans against the IV rod as he moves into the bathroom, taking Mollie’s offered shoulder to support himself when his head begins to swim. Before they reach the bathroom, he notices the window in the door and the trooper who eyes him. “What’s with the security?”
Vaughn likes Mollie hovering over him. He finds it funny that this tiny woman, who is generally fiercely independent and full of piss and wind most days, sits him down on the edge of the tub, fixes his toothbrush and hands him a glass of water so that he isn’t forced to stand in front of the sink. As he brushes, she cleans the counter and tosses the plastic cup wrapper into the bin. “How much do you remember?” Mollie leans against the sink watching him brush.
The cold lid of the toilet clicks against the tank when Vaughn opens it and he spits, taking the towel Mollie offers him. “I remember you getting knocked down and then hearing a gunshot.” He darts his gaze to her, moving his eyes up and down her body. “You okay?”
“Not a scratch.” He doesn’t like that she frowns, doesn’t like how she lowers the toilet lid to sit and immediately grabs his hand. “That Alex guy, from Viv’s office?” Vaughn nods. “He interrupted Jimmy.”
“Oh.” Vaughn tosses the toothbrush onto the sink, but doesn’t release Mollie’s hand. Concentrating, he tries to remember Alex being in the parking garage. He has a vague recall of someone drawing that punk Jimmy’s attention away from Mollie, but the harder he thinks, the quicker the pounding drum in his head beats. “Is he okay?” As soon as he asks, Mollie’s expression tells him all he needs to know. “Shit.”
“According to the cops, Alex called 911 before he interrupted Jimmy. They think he must have heard the shouting and immediately dialed the number.”
Vaughn had never liked Alex. He always thought the guy exploited his position in Viv’s office for his own benefit. But, looking down at Mollie’s hand, watching how steady her fingers are, how whole and safe she looks, Vaughn can’t help but feel gratitude. Alex may have been a little shit, but when it mattered, he had sacrificed without hesitation. He did what anyone with an ounce of courage would do, same as Tony Williams, same as Vaughn’s father.
His chest tightens, thinking about Alex, how the guy’s life was cut too short. “I hate that he got caught up in this.”
“Me too. Viv said he didn’t have any family.” Mollie leaves the toilet and helps Vaughn to his feet. “She had no clue he was at the precinct.”
“That is weird.” Mollie eases Vaughn against the bed and he lays back, his head swimming. He immediately blocks out the overhead light with his arm across his eyes. “He wasn’t the one I spoke to. It was the girl, Emily.”
“That’s what I told Viv.” The rail on the bed squeaks when Mollie brushes against it and sits next to him. “Vaughn, Emily’s the mole.”
He pulls his arm from his eyes. “What?”
“Viv was shocked too. She’s been trying to find her, but no luck so far.”
Emily was a sweet girl. Vaughn didn’t know her well, but she’d always been kind, helpful, if not a bit shy. He can’t imagine someone like her being mixed up with a drug cartel. “She doesn’t seem the type,” he tells Mollie pulling her closer to him with a hand on her hip.
“I’m not,” Emily says, walking into the room.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Mollie yells.
Immediately Vaughn sits up, pulling on Mollie’s arm, hand searching for a weapon and when none could be found, he grabs the TV remote, trying to stand in front of Mollie as Emily lingers in the doorway.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, take it easy.” Emily holds the door open wider. “Look, your sister’s here. She knows I’m here. Honest.” She looks through the doorway and into the hall. “I swear, she just stopped to talk to one of the troopers.” Emily retreats a bit, sliding to the left as Viv enters the room.
“It was Alex, he was the mole, not Emily.” Viv says, flopping down on the extended recliner. Vaughn hasn’t seen his sister look this tired since she picked up from the airport after planning their father’s funeral. Her hair is a mess and there are heavy bags under her eyes. “Emily was digging through Alex’s apartment, forgot her cell in her car. That’s why I couldn’t get a hold of her.”
“Is that right?” Mollie says, folding her arms across her chest. Vaughn had seen her frown like that often enough to know when she was smelling bullshit. He didn’t buy the story either.
“Apparently Alex called her, told her that I wanted you two at the precinct, asked her to call you.” Viv stretches her legs and then rests against the wall. “The cops searched his home. There were receipts for forty gallons of gas.”
“Why is a receipt for gas suspicious?” Mollie hasn’t uncrossed her arms, hasn’t moved at all since Viv began her explanations.
“He didn’t own a car. They also found a map of downtown Cavanagh. There was an inked-in route from the church to the precinct. He was our guy.” Viv pats the spot next to her and Emily joins her. “The fire investigators took statements from several people who were in the area when the fire first broke out. Two witnesses claim that they’d seen Alex near the church just before it started.”
“So you think Alex was working with Jimmy?” Vaughn asks.
“Yes, we believe so. We think he started the fire to divert the police’s attention, keep everyone out of the precinct. But the funny thing is, he wasn’t the only accomplice.” Viv opens her bag and passes a mug shot to Mollie and when she looks down at it, her mouth drops open.
“Bullshit.”
“Mollie, he confessed,” Viv said, sitting up to rest her elbows on her knees.
Viv nods for Mollie to hand Vaughn the photo and his face mimics Mollie’s jaw drop. “The scrawny DJ?” Viv nods. “Come on, Viv, this is crap.”
“Cavanagh PD caught him hanging around Mollie’s place. That old lady friend of yours called it in.”
Vaughn pulls Mollie down next to him on the bed, hoping she would lose the fierce frown throwing lines across her forehead. “This kid is a punk, Viv. I’ve met him. That night, at the awards banquet? He’s a little shit, but he’s harmless.”
His sister has taken on the same hard frown he’s seen a handful of times over the past year. Viv is was still young, but in moments like this, when her worry and anxiety are at their zenith, the small wrinkles near her mouth and dark circles under her eyes are exaggerated. “Yes, well, that little kid is the son of Winston Richards, attorney for the Vasquez Cartel. They are the ones trying to stop Mojo from testifying.”
“What?” Mollie’s voice is high pitched, peppered in shock and disbelief.
“Exactly. He’s well placed, had plenty of opportunity to take your stuff. It was a distraction, I’m sure. So Jimmy could get a lay of your place, maybe plant some bugs or figure out your schedule, Mollie. The kid was there for your equipment. The brat really wants to be a DJ.” Viv digs in her bag, pulling out a breath mint. “That would lead you right to him. Jimmy attacks you and Bret gets your gear and Mojo gets sent a message that you aren’t untouchable.”
Mollie shakes her head even before Viv has finished with her explanation. “But the fire at the alumni office, and Autumn’s attack?”
“The fire was Jimmy. We knew about the Shelby, but the idiot didn’t trash the car. Bret told us Jimmy said it was too pretty to ditch. He’s cocky enough not to get rid of it or use something else for the robbery.”
Mollie stares down at the picture and Vaughn can tells she’s trying to convince herself that the facts are not fiction. “What about Jimmy? Where’s he now?”
“We’re looking, Mollie. We’re still looking.”
The mug shot lands between them on the bed when Mollie drops it. “And my dad?”
Viv walks to the window, slipping a finger between the blinds so she can look out. Vaughn knows this move—his sister had perfected it over the years, first lying to their parents about where she’d been when she missed curfew, then, later, lying to him over Skype when Caroline had done something Viv didn’t want Vaughn knowing about. She was an expert at deflection, and right now she used that skill to make Mollie wait, to delay her response because she was trying to work out how to best give bad news. When his sister drops her hand from the blinds and takes a steady breath, Vaughn moves toward Mollie, knowing what was coming was not going to be good.
“Mojo’s testimony is recorded and…” There is no expression on Viv’s face, no quick sympathetic frown, no apologetic head tilt. That alone has Vaughn worried. “He’s on his way into Federal Custody.”
“What?”
Hands up, placating as Mollie jumps up, Viv’s voice is strong, confident. “This is how these things are done.”
“You conniving bitch—you’re sending him back to jail! You promised! You and your boss promised he would go free! That was the deal.” Vaughn manages to pull Mollie back, to hold her against him before she goes after his sister. But restraining her doesn’t keep her voice from raging or attracting the attention of the guards in the hallway. “My dad trusted you and you what? Feed him to the sharks?”
“Sis, what the hell?” Vaughn moves Mollie around, standing between the two women. “This is shitty. What were you thinking?”
“We can’t have a convicted felon out on the streets. You know that, Vaughn. You know how the system works.” To her right, Emily’s eyes have gone wide and fearful. She pulls on Viv’s arm when Mollie almost breaks out of Vaughn’s grasp, but his sister is calm, deflecting Vaughn’s scowl and calming Emily at the same time. “Mojo will be remanded to a federal facility in an undisclosed location.”
“He’ll be killed.” Mollie is fast, quicker than Vaughn expects and is in Viv’s face, pushing on her shoulder before he realizes he’s not holding her anymore. “You just killed my fucking father, you heartless bitch.”
Vaughn glares at his sister when the troopers enter the room, jerking Mollie away from Viv like she’s a terrorist and not a hundred pound college student.
“I understand you’re upset,” Viv says, no hint of compassion or understanding in her voice at all.
“Fuck you, you understand.”
Viv grabs her purse and nods Emily to the door before Mollie can wrestle free from the troopers’ grip. The smaller of the two cops, with thin, wiry arms has twitchy fingers and as Mollie continues to fight against the other trooper, he pulls out his Taser, as though Mollie will only be subdued with 50,000 volts.
“Do it and I’ll fucking knock you flat on your ass, concussion or no,” Vaughn tells the trooper.
“Stop. That’s enough,” Viv says, waving off the cops so Vaughn can grab a trembling, enraged, Mollie around the waist. Vaughn feels the shake of her arms, how her breath comes in and out like she’s just ran a marathon.
Vaughn meets his sister’s gaze, knowing she can read him; knowing that behind his eyes are litanies of emotion that are reflected in his vicious, heavy glare. His anger doesn’t seem to bother his sister and the mask she’s perfected to disguise her upset, her fear, takes away any friendliness she had on her face when she first walked into the room.
“We didn’t come to this decision lightly, Mollie. Mojo knew who he was dealing with.” Finally, Viv’s mask slips and Vaughn recognizes a glimmer of remorse, but, next moment it is gone. “The upside of this is that we’ll have Jimmy in custody soon and your father will get the treatment he needs.”
“In prison? Are you fucking stupid?” Vaughn’s soothing voice in her ear does nothing to calm Mollie. “What good will treatment be when word gets around that he snitched?”
Viv looks at Vaughn, and he knows she wants his approval. “Not this time, Viv. This is beyond fucked up. You know this is fucked.”
“I’m just doing my job, little brother.”
Frustrated, still held back by Vaughn’s restraining hands, Mollie jerks in Viv’s direction. “Yeah, well, your job is going to cost me my father.”
Mollie had not been to her apartment in weeks. Being back now seems uncomfortable somehow, even with Vaughn’s large arms wrapped around her and the constant kiss of his breath against her neck. The Super had been better than his word. The locks had all been changed and finally included a dead bolt and the anti-kick rod that Vaughn insisted the man install. But then the town was consumed by the fire and the loss of the church and the Super got distracted, made promises to set it up after he had his dinner.
The reality of what was happening felt like a weight around her neck. It made her breathing feel heavy. It made her scared of what the next hour, the next day would bring. More than anything, she felt even heavier when Vaughn apologized, which he kept doing since Viv walked out of his hospital room.
“I hate this. I hate that this is happening.” His arm tight around her, Vaughn pulled her closer to his chest. It wasn’t technically another apology, but the hint of it echoed in his tone.
“When are you going to stop blaming yourself?” Mollie shifted around, making Vaughn move so that she could straddle him. “None of this is your fault.”
“No, it’s my sister’s.”
“Vaughn.”
He always scrubs his fingers over his face to hide his frustration. He is hiding now, digging his fingertips into his eyebrows, over his bottom lids and Mollie pulls at his wrists, rests his hands on her waist and pulls his chin up so she can look at him. So he will look at her and stop hiding.
“I never thought she would do this.” He sits up straight, jostling Mollie with the movement. “She was always too much. Too proud, too confident, too focused. Sometimes she doesn’t see when what she does gets in the way. Mollie, if I could go back.”
She laughs. How often had she said that in lifetime? If I could go back, I’d warn Daddy about the cops. If I could go back, I’d let Marcy Mitchell keep hitting Kristi in the face when she was thirteen. If I could go back, I’d have stopped Evelyn and Autumn from getting in that car that night. But you can’t go back. Mollie knows that. No matter how hard you want to, you can’t ever really go back. “If we could all go back, Semper Fi, this world would be full of people correcting wrongs.”
“That’s a bad thing?”
“It can be.” She loves when Vaughn wears that small, confused look. The faint creases in his forehead deepen, make her want to smooth them out with her fingers. “If every wrong was righted, if they never happened, then no lessons would ever be learned. If my father had never been in the club, he might have never been an outlaw biker. My mom may have never left him because of it. And I’d still be in Jackson, miserable, because my real family was here.” Mollie settles her arms on Vaughn’s slumped shoulders. “Because you are here.”
He pulls her forward, lets those rough, tempting lips cover her mouth, lets the softness of his tongue do things to her girly bits that she should probably never discuss in mixed company. Then, he ends the spell he’s cast with more guilt, more lingering doubt. “I just hate that things have gone sideways. I wish…”
“Stop wishing, baby. That’s not how life works.” A small peck to his lips, then one on the tip of his nose and Vaughn is silent. “You have to fight and muddle through and forgive yourself when you fuck up. We all do.”
“I won’t be forgiving my sister any time soon.”
Mollie wants to agree with him. Viv wanted too much, expected too much and the anger she harbored has not fully left Mollie. But she knows what a waste of time it is to hold onto resentment. It is a poison that festers with time; a weapon that you willingly allow to kill you. “You can’t live like that. She’s your family, Vaughn. You have to forgive family. It’s a law or something.” She smiles.
Vaughn takes to kissing her again and she loves how he does this, how one smile, a quick wink from her has him all gooey and liquid in her hands. “I could do that forever,” he says, coming up for a breath. One hand is on her ass, the other is a continual pull on her neck, drawing her closer and closer to him. “I don’t ever wanna stop doing that.”
“Then don’t. I’m not going anywhere.”
Vaughn frowns, eyes flashing with something she’s never seen from him before and the expression has her worried. She moves back, squints to examining what she had said that would make him distant. His expression isn’t regretful, not angry but she won’t push; she’ll let him speak first, tell her when he is ready with what is weighing on his mind.
Finally, when they have been silent for several seconds and Vaughn’s gaze shifts back to her face, he clears his throat, taking in a big breath as though he needs it. “There’s something I wanted to tell you.”
Mollie feels stupid for the way her heart hammers. She’ll never admit it out loud, but the potential in what Vaughn will say has her biting her lip. She doesn’t think he’ll tell her he loves her, not with the distant, hesitant look working over his features. Deep down, she wants to hear it, but there is fear there. Love is dangerous, beautiful—one syllable that can transform lives, that can cripple even the hardest heart. But not this kind of fear, not with this distance, this hesitation.
He pulls on her fingers, rubs his own fingers on the space between her thumb and forefinger. “I should have told you this a long time ago.”
“I’m listening.”
He nods once, then pulls her closer, hands returning to her hips. “Part of why I listened to Viv and Mojo, why I so easily agreed with them that I shouldn’t touch you wasn’t because it was the right thing. It was because I was scared.” When he reaches both hands toward his face, to scrub, to hide, Mollie stops him. “I sound like a punk, but it’s true. You scare the shit out of me, Mollie Malone.”
“Why?”
She wasn’t expecting that and didn’t know if she should be worried that she liked hearing about Vaughn’s fear. But then Vaughn tugs on the ends of her hair, smoothing his finger over the strands. “Because the last time I loved someone, it blew up in my face.” He takes a breath. “It cost my father his life.”
Mollie can only blink at him. “What?”
A final squeeze of his hand on her hip and Vaughn nods, and Mollie can tell it is costing him a lot just to hold her eyes. “I was coming to the end of my tour and Dad kept texting me, telling me things with Caroline had gotten really bad. He wanted me to ask for an emergency leave. I don’t know why I hesitated. Maybe it was because out there, in the desert, I knew exactly what I had to do. I had a mission, I completed it and that was it. There was no questioning what I had to do.
“But back home with Caroline talking to herself, talking to people who weren’t there, with her throwing her meds back in my face, telling me she hated me,” he closes his eyes, but doesn’t attempt to hide behind his fingers, “I was pathetic, helpless. Didn’t know what to do. And so I ignored my dad’s messages, kept giving him excuse after excuse because I knew I was useless to her. I knew she was too sick for me to take care of and I tried, Mollie, I swear to God I did. I didn’t know what I was doing and I probably wasn’t helping at all, but I made the effort. Even when…” Vaughn’s head rests against Mollie’s shoulder and when she touches his back, she can feel the fierce tremble that works through his body.
“What, baby?”
He growls, frustrated, maybe mad at himself that getting the words out have become a battle. Another breath and he hold her hands—a tether in the moment that keeps him from drifting away. “Even when she came at me with butcher knives and when she tried burning our house down.” He looks up at her. “Even when she told me she’d gotten rid of our baby. Oh, god, Mollie, when she told me about the abortion…” Mollie’s hand shoots to her mouth and she can feel her eyes burn, but Vaughn continues, seeming to need this exorcism of the past. “I took her to doctor after doctor. Shit, I even went to see a medicine man in New Mexico, thinking he’d have some answers when Western medicine did nothing for us.”
At his rueful smile, Mollie drops her hands, clings to him. The smell of his chest, his skin beats back the tears in her eyes. “What did he tell you?”
Vaughn’s hands are blistered and there are faint scars that scissor around the tops. But when he smooths his fingers down her back, like he does now, Mollie doesn’t feel the grab or give of his flawed fingers. She only feels comfort. “That the demons in Caroline’s mind had won. That she wasn’t my soul mate. Then he said I’d have sons. I left after that.” He exhales and the breath tickles the fine hair at Mollie’s nape. She sits up in time to see him shrug. “It was right after Caroline told me about the abortion. So I went back to Afghanistan, was ready to re-up, serve another tour and then Caroline IMs me on Skype and I could tell she was in a bad way, that her moods had gotten worse. She had a gun.” His gaze open and glassy with moisture, Vaughn stares at Mollie like he hopes she understands, like he needs her to understand him. “I have no idea where she got it, but there she was on Skype, ranting about me hating her, about her wishing she was dead, about how all the voices were telling her to shove a bullet in her brain.” Again he blinks and the gesture brings him back to Mollie. “She thought it would make me happy. So I called my dad. I knew he’d be by to check on her, he did that every day. So when I told him she had a gun, he called it in, but he didn’t wait for back up. He was so damn stubborn. And I watched the whole thing, Mollie. I was seven thousand miles away, helpless again as I watched my wife shoot my father and then put the gun to her heart.”
“Oh God. God, Vaughn.” This time, when the burn behind her eyelids returns, Mollie is helpless to keep herself from crying.
Vaughn catches her tears, wiping them away before they reach her chin, then rubs his arm against his own wet face. “I didn’t know how my dad was. I just knew he’d been shot. So I called Viv. She got a hold of me an hour later, told me he was gone too.
I didn’t re-up. I couldn’t. Hiding from my problems had only gotten people killed. So I came home, stayed with Viv, and every night, over and over again, I fail Caroline, I fail my dad in my dreams.” He pulls Mollie down to him, allows himself the warmth of her arms, the quick rhythm of her heart, of her comfort before he grabs her shoulders to make sure she can see his eyes. “I didn’t want to love you, Mollie, because I couldn’t live with failing you, too.”
“You love me?”
“Did you hear anything I said?” Mollie smiles, hoping the expression will chase away some of the darkness in Vaughn’s heart. “I told you, I’m broken.”
“Semper Fi, you’re not broken.” Mollie lets the soft touch of her fingers on his stubble transform Vaughn’s frown, shift it into stillness. “You’ve been bent, you’ve been pushed to your limits, but no one who sacrifices like you do, who wants to save, to love like you do, is broken.”
“And if I fail you?”
Mollie shakes her head. “You couldn’t fail me, Vaughn because I don’t need saving. I can save myself.” Mollie moves up on her knees so she can look down at him. “Maybe it’s time you let someone save you.”
And Vaughn’s pleased growl is intoxicating. She can barely maintain composure or hold back from flipping him onto the sofa to show him just how she’ll start saving him.
“I love you,” he says, when breath is required again. But Mollie is too high on him, on the way he feels against her, the way his lips, his hands, his skin makes every worry vanish. “I didn’t think it was possible anymore for me, but I do. I love you.”
“I lov…” The phrase is stolen from her with the wail of a car alarm. It is high pitched and squealing and they forget for a moment about confessions, about past sins when the plan that had been put into play days before finally begins to play out. Vaughn is off the sofa and at the door, gun fisted tight in his hand before Mollie registers that he has moved. “Vaughn, wait. Remember the plan. Wait for the guards.”
“If that motherfucker is out there, I’m gonna be the one to stop him. Lock the door and don’t leave this apartment.”