Page 65 of Dodge

He let the sentence drop.

I motioned him close and whispered in his ear, “Please don’t fuck up Rafter for kissing me.”

He laughed and brushed away the moisture from his cheeks. “No promises for any future contact, but I’ll give him a pass this time. He will forever have my gratitude for saving your life.”

A nurse came in and checked the IV bag, took my pulse, and made notes on a fancy rolling computer station. “The doctor said after you finish this, you can go home.”

Home. The apartment? Nope. I’d rather have my bottom lip pulled over my head like a hat than go back there.

Dodge read my mind.

“We’re going to the Lair. I’d prefer taking you to my room, but Betsey is insisting you stay upstairs in the guest suite where you were before. I wouldn’t argue. You know who will win.”

It took some time, but we arrived at the Lair sometime late in the afternoon. I felt like a steamroller had run over me, backed up, and took a second turn. Prep at the restaurant hadn’t been done, and I was panicking. How long would it take for me to recover enough to go back to work?

Dodge, in that uncanny way of his, answered that question.

“Macie wants to see you badly, but I told him to call after service tonight and see if you were still up. He and Katie Grace can handle the restaurant, and the other two chefs can cover temporarily. Betsey said she’d fill in or send her guys from the River’s Edge to assist where needed. We got this covered, sweetness.”

His kiss was affirming.

I did not like the idea of people coming to my restaurant and eating someone else’s food, even if it was my recipe, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could bounce out of this bed and hop down to my place.

Tears started flowing from my eyes. Fuck me, I hated crying, but I couldn’t stop. It hit me how close I came to dying, probably within seconds. Those few moments when I lay helpless on the floor in my janky apartment. Alone. My breath gone. No way to fight back for the life I wanted so bad and had within my grasp. So much of my existence wasted on a family that couldn’t care less about me, and just when I had a chance for one, to have it ripped away by a man I’d tried to accept as a friend.

The unfairness of it blended with sprinkles of outrage and a healthy dollop of fear on top. I was angry and scared. I wanted to both scream my rage and cower in the corner for protection at the same time. How dare someone do this to me? Try to end my life like I didn’t matter? Ididmatter. I was not a second-class citizen because of my DNA, nor unworthy of this world, and I was so goddamn sick of trying to prove it.

Dodge leaned in closer and held my hand as he awkwardly bent to give me a full-body hug in the hospital bed. “I’m here, baby. I’ll always be by your side no matter what, and we’re gonna get through this shit together. You remember what I told you the first time we met?”

A picture of him straddling his bike came to me. He’d tapped the dragon symbol on the vest he wore.“You see this patch? This means I’m a member of the Dragon Runners Motorcycle Club. We have a strong brotherhood tighter than any blood family and an unbreakable code of ethics. Any man who earns the right to wear this cut is one you can trust with your life.”

This man would always stand between me and danger. He would stay devoted to me for all our years to come, and when our kids were born, he would be an awesome father with unconditional love that had no limits. It was overwhelming and humbling.

“I love you, Dodge.” My words were inadequate for all I experienced in those moments.

“I love you, too, Fauna.”

I hoped I never took that love for granted.

EPILOGUE

After Dodge broughtme to the Lair, Betsey fussed over me for days. Eva came to see me with her daughters. Lori came by with her newborn son. Kat went into labor, or otherwise she would have been there too. Psalm sent over a basket of lotions and soaps that filled my temporary quarters with fresh scents. Tambre came and did my hair. More people than I’d ever had in my life pampered and cared for me.

I didn’t bother to inform Harriet or her family. I had my own.

On the third day of my convalescence, I was ready to leave the Lair and get back to work. I wasn’t sure where I would go, but it wasn’t back to that apartment. I’d turn that spot into a storage area rather than live there again. Dodge took care of that, too, and drove me to a cute little house not too far from the center of town. Three bedrooms, two baths, and a small, fenced yard. Brick had loaned him the down payment, and when Dodge sold either the Goat or the Ghia, he’d pay the club back.

A week after I went back to work, Dodge came in the restaurant after a day of “helping” his father. His face was solemn. Mallory had quietly passed away that morning. The alcohol in her system hadn’t been a lethal level, but her organs couldn’t cope after the abuse they’d suffered for so many years. They failed one by one without her ever regaining consciousness. There was still no way of knowing if she was one of Dewey’s victims, but I wasn’t sure it mattered. She was gone, and Dodge would mourn her despite their rocky lives.

Dewey was sitting in a prison somewhere waiting for his trial. He’d called Macie a few times, and even though that ship had sailed way off into the sunset, he had several revealing conversations with the man. According to Dewey, his family never fully accepted his homosexuality. They simply ignored it most of the time and referred to it as a phase he would eventually get out of his system. Somehow, Dewey became convinced that if he forced himself to have sex with women, he would stop being gay and his family would love him again. This didn’t go very well, and he started drugging women to accomplish this task.

Obviously, it didn’t work. The more he tried, the worse he felt. He confessed to drugging me that time at the Omni as his first attempt, but Dodge interfered with his plans that night. He’d been refining his technique and experimenting with doses and methods. Some of the other women, he could only mess with and not actually rape. Zelda was an accident. Katie Grace was supposed to be the one to finally free him, but he didn’t expect her to be affected so quickly and publicly. After she fell down, something in his brain broke, and he decided the whole problem rested with me. I was the one who got away, and he needed to finish what he’d started. Immediately after his arrest, he tried to kill himself in his jail cell and ended up in a prison hospital. The latest news said he was in a psych ward and not doing well.

I can’t help but wonder if he was so fucked-up between his family and his love for Macie that he had a really bad psychotic break or simply wanted to be caught. Even though the guy tried to strangle the life out of me, I kinda pitied him. Part of me hoped he would find his peace and heal from his own personal trauma.

Another part of me hoped he would choke on a big prison dick. He did attempt to kill me, after all.

Dodge’s father made a surprise appearance at the hospital before I checked out. Dodge had gone to the garage to make an attempt at catching up on the backlog of work that had built up. I was fine with that, as I was champing at the bit to get away from the antiseptic-smelling place. An older man knocked on the door and came in when I called out permission.

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