Raine Falling (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) (6 page)

CHAPTER 13

I
t had taken me a lifetime to get to where I was going. I lost count of how many times I almost turned around. I measured the distance by remembering the milestones of my life. The good and the bad. I missed Claire and I wished she were with me. No one else would ever truly understand what a “long strange trip” it had been. I was glad that she was safe and getting the help she needed, but I had never felt so alone in my life and I needed her.

The thing was that I had held on to the
safe place
for so long, it had taken on mythical proportions in my mind. No matter how bad things got, knowing that there was an out option for me had made me brave. Now I was heading straight into
it
. What if
it
no longer existed or never had? What if my journey’s end brought me to an empty lot? What if it brought me to a place where something that once was, was no longer? With all the passing years, I had not doubted for a moment Prosper’s promise. But on that long lonely road, I was losing faith. Prosper had never lied to me though. I couldn’t imagine him starting with something that had been so important. There would be something at the end of this road. I made myself be sure of that. I owed him that faith. I drove on.

CHAPTER 14

I
parked in front of a long, low building with a flat roof and no windows. Half a dozen Harleys, a van, and a couple of trucks were all parked in front. Painted on the side of the building was a large broken winged angel, the emblem of the Hells Saints MC. So it was here. The safe place was an MC clubhouse
. Of course it was
. This wasn’t good. Not good at all. I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but stupid me hadn’t expected this. My safe place was the home plate of the shadow people of my childhood. Things had just gotten worse and my brave was almost on empty.

Quickly I pulled myself together and got out of the car. I headed towards the door.

It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the dim lights. When they did, I felt the impact of several feral eyes boring into me. The lamb who had just walked uninvited and alone into the lion’s den. The room was one long, massive rectangle. It had a scarred oak bar that ran the length of it. There were a few pool tables in the back end of the room. Several worn couches lined the walls. In the middle of the room sat various heavy wooden chairs and tables. Some round, some rectangle, some square. Most of them occupied. There were a few card games being played. There were lots and lots of women whose choice of clothing screamed barely there, draped on the men playing those games.

I felt sick inside. I didn’t want to be here. Instantly I knew I had made a mistake. This was no one’s safe place. The adrenaline screaming through my body set me in a fight-or-flight response mode. But I was tired of running, so I figured I had better pony up and fight for Claire and me.

I looked straight ahead to the bar. Holy shit. Now what? Taking a deep breath, I walked towards it like I had a right to. Even though there was no one currently behind it, I thought that it would be a good place to start.

I heard it.

Then it pounced.

The stuff of my nightmares. The thing that I had packed up all my earthly belongings to escape. My sister’s would-be killer was barrel-assing it towards me with hell to pay in his eyes. I was going to have to hightail it out of my safe place. Thanks a lot, Prosper.

“What the fuck, Raine?” Diego was on me before I had gone three steps. “You follow me here? You crazy? What the fuck? Private property, Babe! This is not cool!” His fingers were digging into my arm. He was dragging me to the door.

I pulled away from him. Sweet Jesus. I had just driven all day trying to escape him, and here he was. If I let him take me out of that door, it was going to be over for Claire and me.

“Get off of me!” I yanked back. Then I pushed him. Then I kicked at him.

He looked at me horrified and released his grip for a split second. I ran from him and instinctively looked for the biggest guy in the room to help me. I stood right in front of that guy.

“I’m looking for the man who’s behind the bar today.” My voice strong and clear. My body shaking.

Everyone just stared at me. It was awful. The stuff of nightmares. I tried again.

“I need to find the guy who is working the bar today,” I repeated desperately.

Diego came up behind me, and I could feel his breath on my neck. He grabbed my arm
again
and started to yank
again.
The big guy put his hand up in a stop gesture to Diego.

“This your woman, D?”

“No! I am not his woman. I need to talk to the guy who’s behind the bar today.” I was near hysteria.

No one answered. Not one person responded. Those were my magic Ali Baba Open Sesame words. I had played this scene over and over again in my mind. They were the words that held the key that unlocked the door to the safe place. And no one was answering.

God help me.

Diego started dragging me towards the door.

“You got business with me, darling?” A voice came from the back. I couldn’t see him, but thank you Jesus I could hear him.

“I got this, Jules.” Diego still dragging me. Me still trying to scratch his eyes out.

“Woman’s got something to say.” The voice was getting closer, but I still couldn’t see.

“Woman’s got something to say, she’s going to say it to me. Outside,” Diego said.

“No, Brother, ain’t happening. She’s not your woman. She came here looking for the man in charge, and today that man is me. Taking into consideration that her face looks like somebody used it for a punching bag, and
again,
she asked for me, I’m going to hear the lady out. Because you know me fifteen years, Brother, you’re going to be okay with that. Because I know you fifteen years, I’m gonna assume you got nothing to do with the black and blue that she’s sporting.”

Diego stopped dragging me to the door, but to make up for it his fingers were a vise grip on my arm. The man belonging to the voice stepped out of the shadows. He was six feet five inches easy. He had on a clean, white wife-beater under his cut. A black-and-silver belt was holding up his low-riding, loose-fitting jeans. He had muscles on top of muscles with a few muscles thrown in for good measure. His hair was blond, long and loose around his face. A thin scar ran from the outer corner of his left eye to his mouth. He looked like a Viking God.

“That fifteen years, us knowing each other, just bought me not sticking a knife in your belly for that remark. You know me to ever hit a woman, Jules?” Diego grew hard and tense beside me.

“That’s why you got the assuming part, friend.” Jules’s eyes were steely blue. “Now, little lady,” he turned to me, “What can I do for you?”

This was it. Make or break it. This was the game-changing moment that it all depended on, and I was running out of brave.

“I’m Raine and I’m looking for Prosper,” I said like it meant something.

Quiet but not just quiet. Absolute dead silence.

Then “Holy fuck” from someone at a table.

“Say again, sweetheart?” Jules stepped closer.

“My name is Raine and I need Prosper.” Voice trembling. My brave spilling on the floor.

Diego still clutching my arm. Quiet and furious.

Jules’s eyes were locked on mine. He broke away a millisecond to nod almost unperceptively towards the door. Then he was back on me.

“You’re gonna want to step back, Diego.”

“No fucking way, Jules.”

“She belongs to Prosper, and you are going to step the fuck away.” Jules crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Prosper’s? You telling me that Raine is Prosper’s old lady, Jules?” Diego held his ground.

“No, Diego. I’m telling you that Raine is Prosper’s
family.
You going to make me keep telling you to get that vise grip off, Brother?” Jules looked him in the eye.

“Prosper here?” Diego asked and I held my breath waiting for the answer.

Jules nodded once.

Diego didn’t let go, but he visibly loosened the death grip. I tried to yank myself away from him.

He looked at Jules. “This doesn’t make sense, man. Are you telling me that Raine is family, as in daughter?”

“Not sure myself, Brother. But there’s been a note hanging behind that bar for as long as I’ve been in the MC, and from what I hear longer than that. As far as anyone knows, it has been there a good twenty. That light outside? Shines all night long. Prosper pays that.”

“What’s the note say? Exactly?” Diego was looking at me.

My eyes were glued to Jules. Holding my breath.

“Note reads that if a chick named Raine ever comes in that door looking for Prosper, it means she needs safe. And she gets safe. If Prosper’s not here, he’s found. No matter where. No matter when. No matter what. Brother minding the store takes care of that. Prosper not around permanently, whoever’s minding the store takes care then too,” Jules replied, looking at Diego’s hand still on my arm.

“Look, D, I see you got some kind of stake in this. But the way I see it, twenty years the brother has kept a light burning, and the chick has not used that out. Now she shows up with a face that looks like a punching bag, and you looking like you got something to do with it. I know you. I like you and I respect you. Just step the fuck back before this gets ugly, Diego.”

“You come here to be safe, Raine?” Diego’s eyes were on me, furious. “You come here because you feeling you’re not safe? Me coming to your house and fucking tending to your wounds. That shit was me keeping you safe. Me arranging it with the club so it’s settled. You keep the green, and Claire gets a pass. You tell me you don’t think that’s me keeping you safe?”

Then.

“You setting me up, Babe?” He dropped the hold on my arm.

I took a step away from him and reached into my pocket. My anxiety was so bad that my whole body was a mass of hard shaky movements. I shoved the money at him.

“You left this on the table.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “Yeah, my point.”

“You brought it
back.
I got it for you. I got the shit beaten out of me to give it to you to keep my sister safe.” I was heaving, my chest ready to explode. I was confused and scared and my brain was still all
what the fuck was the man I was running from doing in my safe place
?

“Yeah.” Diego was watching me.

“It was over.
It was over
. Then I go into my kitchen and there it was. All of it. You came two days early and waited in the dark. Then you left it. Like it was no good. Not enough.”

Big heaves now.

“You said that if the MC ever found out that Claire’s involvement was more than what she told you, then the money wouldn’t be good enough anymore. You never told me different. You never told me anything had changed. You never said
safe
. You never said
settled.
You never said
pass
.”

I went on with my heart beating in my chest. But I was getting some of my brave back.

“You were waiting for us in the dark two days early! You came after me when I ran. You took that money. You took it then you left without
saying a word
about bringing it back. Then it was back
. It was back. And Jamie was in the papers. Jamie was beaten to death, and you left the money. You told
me. You said it goes wrong, you would be looking for a different color payment.”

I was breathing hard now trying to get it all in.

“So that color to me means red. And red is the color of blood. So if the green was not enough, you were coming back for the red.
You said that
. You said it and you never told me anything different. So don’t sit here in
my
safe place
making it seem like I’m out of my fucking mind. I came to the only place I know that might stop the ‘killing my sister’ thing from happening.
So yeah, damn right this is me not feeling safe.”

Goddammit. I had started to cry. Damn him.

“Un-fucking-believable.
Un-fucking-believable
.” Diego was running his hands through his hair.

Looking at Jules, he said, “That MC shit I came down here to settle.”

“Got that,” Jules answered. He was looking at me.

No one moved. In the whole place. The Hells Saints clubhouse was rocking a silence so loud it was deafening. Diego was shaking his head. Jules was by my side and I was looking towards the bar. There was
a note.
There was a
light on.
My heart was so full it was close to bursting with the gladness of it. The spell was broken when some slut (yeah, my first thought) came up to Diego. She made sure I watched as she stretched in her six-inch stilettos to press against him and whisper something in his ear. She linked her arm through his and pulled him away from me.

He shook his head and muttered, “Jesus, Raine.” Then Diego walked away with her.

All tits and short tight
everything,
the woman did a hair toss. She flashed a look back at me that clearly said,
You’re out of your league here.

She was not wrong.

“We’re gonna get you something strong, doll.” Jules put his arm around me and steered me to the bar. He sat me down on a stool. He put down two double shot glasses, splashed something amber into them, and poured out two glasses of beer. Handing one glass to me, he lifted the other. We tipped them back. He splashed some more and we tipped back again. The heat hit my belly and my eyes teared up. The second one was a killer.

“Drink the beer, honey.” Jules said to me, “It’ll wash away the burn.”

“There’s a note.” I looked at him.

He nodded.

“And a light.” I grinned at him.

“Sure is, honey.” He smirked.

Because there was
a note and a light
and because the Viking God and I were having a moment, I did my own version of a hair toss. I did it, because even though I hardly ever worked it, I knew how much I could really rock the whole tossing-the-hair thing. And I did it because the light and the note and the Viking God standing next to me were all making me feel that maybe I was not out of my league.

Not even a little bit. Not even at all. So I shook out my long hair, and I smiled a smile so wide that I almost split my torn lip open again. And Jules smiled right back.