Lucky us.
Chapter 16
Titus
I JERKED AWAKE AS my fist, which was propping up my head, slipped away from under my chin. I had drifted off while sitting in Bax’s hospital room after having a fast and furious text argument with him since he couldn’t adequately tell me to fuck off through the pins and wires still holding his jaw shut. Dovie hadn’t left his side since the night he had forced her to go home. The reason I was there now was that she needed to run home and clean up the house a bit because Bax was getting released tomorrow. He was supposed to have been released two weeks earlier but had had a setback when one of the multiple screws holding his shattered ankle together had broken and he developed a nasty staph infection. He ended up requiring more surgery and more time laid up in recovery. He demanded that Dovie spend the night in a real bed, that she rest, and when she went to argue he agreed to text me and ask me to stay with him until he was sprung loose the next day. It was kind of cute, my ultra-badass brother acquiescing because he cared so much about the spunky redhead. Dovie didn’t want him to be alone, so he texted and I showed up to stay with him. As soon as she left Bax proceeded to chew me out for not helping him keep her away. It took me a second to recognize that he was scared, really scared for her well-being and thought she would be safer away from him and me and the whole mess with Roark. He was trying to push her away for her own protection, but she was too smart and too stubborn to go.
We went back and forth, back and forth, until he wore himself out and fell into a fitful slumber. After he was asleep I watched him for a while, stunned at how different he looked. Bax had always been big and built like a truck; now he almost looked frail. His face had thinned out dramatically, the black star inked by his eye now looking huge and ominous on the suddenly sharp planes of his face. His collarbone protruded under the neck of his hospital gown and all the bulk across his shoulders and arms had drastically thinned out. If it wasn’t for the tattoo on his face and the perpetual sneer that twisted his mouth even in sleep, he’d have looked like any other starving kid from the streets. He hadn’t been so close to being “Shane” instead of “Bax” since he was a little kid. It made me realize that he wasn’t just scared for Dovie, he was terrified he wouldn’t be able to take care of her in his current condition. He was terrified of failing her, so of course he was trying to get her to go. Thank God she never would.
I took a seat next to the bed and turned it all over in my head. Bax was trying everything to keep Dovie safe, even if she wasn’t playing along. The opposite side of that coin was the way I had dangled Reeve out in front of Conner from the very beginning. It made me cringe to think about the way I dropped her right into the lion’s den every day when I took her to Spanky’s and left her out there in the Point to fend for herself. She kissed me good-bye, swung those long legs out of the car, and pranced into the strip club like she didn’t have a care in the world or a giant bull’s-eye painted on her back . . . and I let her. What kind of man did that make me?
I knew I cared about her, knew this thing between us no longer had a rapidly approaching expiration date and was going to last beyond a showdown with Roark. She was in me. Deep down inside the same cage where I kept the monster and she seemed happy to be there, so how could I live with myself knowing I was willingly putting her at risk every single day? How had my little brother that never cared about anyone but himself turned into an honorable man trying to do right by his woman and I ended up the opposite? When had my world turned upside down and how come I hadn’t done anything to stop it?
It made me slightly sick. Reeve was too good for that. Beyond her bad choices, which had been fueled by grief, she was an amazingly good woman. She had a hard heart with a soft center and she deserved better than what I had given her so far. She deserved someone willing to risk as much as she was risking. She deserved to be coddled and protected the way Bax coddled Dovie, sheltered the way Race, in building a fortress, protected Brysen. She deserved more than me.
I pulled out my phone and sent her a text asking how her night was going. She freaking loved that filthy strip club. True to form, she took something downtrodden and broken and had added her street savvy and sharp style to it. She had taken a bunch of jaded and life-weary dancers and given them a purpose. I hadn’t been inside the club in the week she had been there, but already on the outside it looked like a totally different place. The graffiti was power-washed off the walls, the neon-pink sign that flashed GIRLS-GIRLS-GIRLS was long gone, the parking lot was lit up like a beacon, and the ridiculous sign declaring the place SPANKY’S was nowhere to be seen. Instead an old antique sign that looked like something from the Moulin Rouge shone with soft lights and directed people to the newly minted EMPIRE. It was sleek. It was sexy and it was fitting. Those girls had built an empire on naked skin and gyrating hips. Reeve was giving them their own kingdom of sex and power to control and I could see how empowered she was by it every time I looked into her shining navy eyes. She loved that she was helping women she identified with, and I think in that she felt like she was making up for her little sister getting torn up and spit out by the Point. She wanted to make sure no other young girl suffered that same fate.
I’m headed home. See you soon.
I stared at the text and frowned. Booker hadn’t shown back up since making bail, which had everyone wondering and questioning where he might be, and leaving Reeve to fend for herself with just the feds and Nassir to keep an eye on her when she wasn’t with me. I hated the idea of her out on the streets alone. I was doing a terrible job of keeping her safe.
Like she could read my mind, another message came through.
Chuck is going to drop me off. Don’t worry about me.
I swore out loud and sent her back a message telling her I would be home in the morning since I promised Dovie I would stay with Bax. Reeve sent back a frowning face and I felt my heart kick. She didn’t want to go to bed alone any more than I wanted to let her. I needed to step up my game, needed to make sure she knew I wanted her safe every single second she was risking her neck. I couldn’t let Bax show me up. My competitive nature and the fact I really did care about Reeve in a deep and powerful way wouldn’t allow for it.
I told her to think of me while she fell asleep and she shot back that if she was thinking about me while she was in bed, the last thing she would be doing is sleeping. I groaned out loud into the quiet of the hospital room and tapped my phone against my forehead. She really was perfect, just the right blend of good and bad, and I couldn’t get enough of either part of her.