XANDER (The Caine Brothers Book 2) (4 page)

The idea of heading to the Ravagers’ clubhouse splashed cold water on the lingering effects of the sex, but she turned the car in that direction, anyway. Someone there would have heard about Hank by now, if there was anything to hear.

On top of dealing with Lily and Hank, Gracie still needed to tell her family she’d accepted a job offer in Florida and would be moving, soon. As much as she just wanted to turn her back and walk away, there was still a hint of obligation. Sure, she was the baby of the family, but she’d always been different, more mature and responsible, almost like she didn’t really belong. Then, of course, there was her mother’s deathbed plea to a then-five-year-old Gracie to watch out for Lily. Gracie was trying, but it wasn’t easy.

Pulling into the lot, she put the car in park, shut the engine off, and sat for a moment. If anything required mental preparation, talking to Prez was it. He’d always been Prez, never Dad or Daddy or even Father. He took his position as founder and president of the Ravagers very seriously, so much so that even after her mom died, Prez still put the club first.

She sighed and released the seat belt. She’d learned a long time ago that trying to change Prez was like trying to redirect a hurricane. She just had to take it or leave it where he was concerned, and when she’d turned eighteen, because Lily had already made her choice to stay with the club, Gracie had chosen to leave.

She left the car and headed into the first floor of the Ravagers’ warehouse, steeling herself against the experience.

Inside, some of the guys worked at the club’s legit business of distribution of custom bike parts. Somewhere in the warehouse—where, Gracie didn’t want to know—others worked at the business that made the bulk of the club’s money—drug running. Prez’s insistence that he and his club were above the law had been another reason she’d left. She couldn’t stomach that her father was more interested in profit than the ethics of perpetuating drug culture in Houston and the rest of Texas. Since there was no chance in hell she’d ever be able to stop him, she did the next best thing which was remove herself from it all.

She passed everyone by, holding her head high and walking with purpose. Maybe, if she was lucky, she’d make it through without any interaction.

She’d been so excited when she’d been offered a job for an organization that promoted Florida tourism, and so excited to get away to a place that would be all hers. All she had to do was get through the goodbyes, then she could make a clean, permanent break.

At the back of the warehouse, she pushed through a door into a common room with a pool table, a few couches, and a big screen TV. A couple guys lounged around watching football, and another guy popped a beer can open as he left the kitchen at one end of the room. At the other end, the door to Prez’s office stood open.

She didn’t even pause, but headed over to the office, hoping he’d be in there.

“Might not want to go in there, Gracie,” one of the football watchers said. “He’s all kind of pissed.”

“When isn’t he, Buck?” Gracie asked, shooting him a grin. “But thanks for the warning.”

“Good to have you back,” Buck called after her.

I’m not back.

At the office door, she took a deep breath and girded herself before knocking on the door frame.

Inside, Prez, Gracie’s brother, Troy “Titan” Buckner, and a battered Bug all turned their gaze her direction. She couldn’t be sure Bug could even see, given the degree of swelling in his face.

“Grace,” Prez said.

“Well, if it isn’t little baby Gracie,” Titan said. He closed the distance between them in two of his enormous steps and swept her up in a sweaty, leathery hug. Since he’d been a teenager, Gracie had literally never seen him wear anything but a leather jacket.

“Okay, Troy, you can put me down now,” she said.

“It’s Titan,” he said, placing her back on the ground.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Should have been Tower, or Behemoth, or Colossus. Or even Tiny, just for the irony.”

“What are you doing home, Grace?” Prez asked. “You haven’t honored us with your presence for a while.”

Gracie glanced over at Bug and did her best not to spit in his face. “Lily called and asked me to come. Apparently her asshole husband beat the shit out of her again, but it looks like for once he got what was coming to him.”

“Fuck you,” Bug said.

“Charming,” Gracie said.

“Those fucking Huntsmen.” Prez pounded a fist on his desk for emphasis.

“What is it with you and the Huntsmen, anyway?” Gracie asked. It had been a longstanding feud that had lasted at least her lifetime, if not longer. Prez and Mel hated each other, but nobody knew why, for sure.

Prez looked her up and down, his face a blank mask, as if really seeing her for the first time. “None of your goddamned business.”

She didn’t know what to make of his words, other than she still had no idea what the feud was about.

“So what’re we going to do about them?” Titan said, clearly oblivious to the tension between Prez and Gracie.

Prez turned to Titan. “They think they’re so fucking holy, dispensing their own justice. They don’t get to make those decisions. Nobody messes with a Ravager without paying for it.”

“Yeah,” Titan said. His eyes glittered with savage glee.

It never ceased to amaze Gracie that the IQ among males in a room dropped proportionately with the rise in testosterone. It seemed to be doubly true in the biker world.

“They broke our agreement when they beat Hank,” Prez said. “They’ll suffer the consequences.”

Gracie couldn’t let his dismissal of Hank’s brutality go. “Seriously? Did you see what your precious Bug did to your
daughter?
You ask me, the Huntsmen did what anybody with balls and a conscience should do when a man beats his wife,” Gracie said.

Prez came out from behind his desk and stepped to within a couple of feet of Gracie. Titan may have towered over Prez, but Prez still stood tall over Gracie. Her heart stuttered in her chest and she held her breath. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to poke the bear, so to speak. He’d never hit her before, but she had vague, cloudy memories of him hitting her mother. But Gracie had stepped out onto the ledge, fueled by her righteous rage at Hank, so she’d go the distance.

“My job is to protect my men from attack by our enemies,” Prez said. “Lily made her choice, and if she didn’t want to get hit she should have left the first time he did it.”

“Glad to know you’ve got your priorities straight as always,
Dad
.”

Bug made a self-satisfied noise behind her. She whipped around and shot him a glare that would melt paint, and he had the decency to look surprised at the very least, if not cowed. “You keep your filthy mouth shut, Hank,” Gracie said. “Lily may think you’re hot shit, but I think you’re just plain shit, and if you touch her again what the Huntsmen did to you will look like a picnic compared to what I’ll do.”

Not that she had any idea what she could—or would—do, short of killing him. He was about her height, but strong and wiry. If they tangled, he’d probably beat her up, too.

“You’d better watch your mouth, Grace. You could benefit from a firm hand, you know,” Prez said.

“What?” She spun to face him, unable to believe he’d even suggest such a thing.

“There are plenty of single Ravagers to choose from. Dallas has always been sweet on you. You’ve sown your oats. It’s time for you to settle.”

Gracie’s blood boiled. “Lucky for me we live in the twenty-first century, and you don’t have a say in how I live my life.”

“I’m your father. Of course I have a say.”

Gracie just rolled her eyes. “You couldn’t pay me enough to marry Dallas or any other Ravager. Or any biker, for that matter. I came back to be sure Lily was okay, and to try to talk some sense into her, but I also came back to say goodbye. I’ve got a job offer in Florida, and I’m going to take it.”

Prez’s face turned stony with disapproval, but despite his desire to control everything and everyone around him, he had to have learned long ago he couldn’t tell her what to do and make it stick. “You never did have any respect.”

“Ugh.” Gracie grunted her disgust. “Fine. I’ll let you know when I’ve moved, if you even care. Have fun at your rally. Try not to end up in jail.”

She spun on her heel and headed for the door. She had no hope the entire Ravagers club could remain out of jail over the course of the rally, and for the most part she didn’t care as long as neither Prez nor Titan called on her to bail them out. It wouldn’t be the first time they had no other use for her.

She’d said her goodbyes to them, and by way of bonus she’d confirmed that Hank had got his due. Now she needed to see her sister again, and she’d be done.

Back in the car, she peeled out of the parking lot and headed for the hotel where she’d stashed Lily.

Her sister had sworn she’d stay until Gracie returned, but Gracie guessed a fifty percent chance Lily stuck to her word. At least she hadn’t been at the clubhouse mooning over Hank.

Gracie made it back to the hotel, and when she slid the key card into the door and opened it, she was almost surprised to see Lily sitting on the bed watching Cupcake Wars.

“Hi Lily,” Gracie said. “How’re you feeling?”

“Good. Where you been?”

“I had some business to take care of. I had to go see Dad and Troy.”

That got Lily’s attention. “You went to the clubhouse?”

“Yes.”

“Was Hank there?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ask about me?”

“No. Dad did, though. He said you made your choice, and you must like getting hit or you wouldn’t keep going back.”

Gracie spat the words through clenched teeth. She’d had variations of this conversation with Lily for the last couple of years. Nothing seemed to make a difference.

Lily looked down at her lap where she picked at her nails. She sat silently for a few moments—something new in their talks. “I’m so tired,” she said.

When she looked up, her face echoed her words. The swelling had gone down, but the bruising shone deep, bright purple. It made Gracie sick.

“You should be,” she said.

“Prez is right, you know. I did make my choice. When I first met Hank, I loved him. He was wild and I liked my men wild. The wilder the better. He didn’t hit me until after we were married, and then only a small cuff here and there. It kinda turned me on at first. But then it got worse. I thought exactly like Prez said. I’d made my choice and I was stuck with it. It’s not easy to walk away from this life, and I still love Hank. But I can’t do this anymore.”

Something inside Gracie popped, like an anchor springing free of a mooring. She couldn’t believe her ears. She hurried over to Lily and hugged her tight. “Lily, this is so good. You’re making the right choice.”

In all the times she and Lily had talked about Lily’s situation, Lily had never confided in Gracie. It had mostly been Gracie railing against Hank and Lily crying. Gracie had never understood the attraction between them, even at the beginning. At first, Hank had been relatively respectable, though he reminded Gracie of a weasel. Gracie liked wild, too, but beyond that she and Lily had much different taste in men.

But it had been clear they were happy. At first. Then everything went downhill as Hank got more involved with the Ravagers and their business.

“I don’t know if I’d have the strength to do it just for me,” Lily said. “But now that I’m pregnant, I can’t put a baby through this.”

“Wait, what? You’re pregnant? That’s wonderful!”

If it took being responsible for another life to finally get it through Lily’s thick skull that Hank was a dangerous scumbag, then Gracie was all for it.

“I have to tell him, though. To his face. He deserves that much.”

Gracie’s heart sank. If Lily got within Hank’s presence, he’d charm her back in. “He doesn’t deserve anything, Lil. If it’s clear to you how dangerous it is for him to be around a baby, then he doesn’t deserve any respect.”

Stubborn as Lily was, she skipped past Gracie’s concerns and said, “Come with me to the rally? Hold my hand? I’m going to need you. You’ve always been so much stronger than me.”

“You want to tell him at the rally? Jesus, Lily. That’s the worst place in the world to tell him. It’s like walking into a hornet nest and stabbing it with a big stick.”

“I can’t do it at the club, but I can do it at the rally if you’re there with me.”

Gracie sighed. The last thing she wanted to do was go to a biker rally, but if it meant finally getting Lily out of Hank’s grasp, she’d walk through hell and back.

“Okay, fine. Pack your things and let’s head out.”

The next morning Xander flew down I-45 heading for Galveston to meet up with the rest of the Huntsmen at the rally. The simplicity of the sun and wind on his face, and communing with the open road was what appealed to him most about the biker life. Despite the drama and conflict between some of the clubs, it still felt simpler than the way some of his brothers lived. The thought of spending his life behind a desk like Hunter made him queasy, and he couldn’t comprehend Jaxon’s desire for musical fame.

As the bike ate up the miles, the tension of the last couple of days melted away. The hum of wheels on pavement created a sort of Zen bubble where he could work out problems or just relax.