“Safer down there,” Tack muttered as Hop walked into the room.
“Nowhere is safer than Chaos,” Rush replied.
“That didn’t take long,” Hop butted in.
“Brief when we get back,” Tack told him.
Hop nodded.
Daisy stuck her head in.
“Anyone wanna watch a movie?” she asked.
“Hell no,” Rush answered.
“Fuck no,” Tack answered.
“What movie?” Hop asked as answer.
Daisy let out another of her ringing-bells laughs.
Eight thirty that night . . .
“Come back, bring your man, hit a hog roast,” Rush invited Sixx as they all stood outside the security area at DIA, Rush saying goodbye to Sixx, giving Rebel time to say her goodbyes to Diesel and Maddox.
“Seems I’ll have an active social agenda when I’m back in the Mile High City,” Sixx replied with an amused smile.
“Club’s indebted to you, Sixx,” Rush said in all seriousness. “Way he’s used women to get fat and sassy over the years, poetic justice he got taken out of the game by two of them. Only way it doesn’t hurt, Chaos didn’t get that honor. Still, it’s a relief it’s done, so anything you need we can get you, you call on us.”
“I’m mostly out of the game, Rush. Only take on special jobs like this one. But I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Good.”
Sixx moved closer. “You get to tell her.”
“Sorry?” Rush asked.
“The gift the boys wanted her to have. They haven’t shared. They want you to tell her.”
Slowly, Rush smiled.
Sixx smiled back.
They shook hands.
Then Sixx moved to Rebel as Maddox and Diesel moved to him.
More hand shaking, this time with some shoulder pounding, though through it Diesel growled, “We’re trusting you, bro.”
“I take that serious,” Rush replied. “Only thing I take more serious is lookin’ after her.”
D stared in his eyes and gave him another shoulder blow that almost took Rush a step to the side. Then he let him go for Maddox to move in.
“This gets done, come down,” Maddox said, his hand holding Rush’s in a monster grip. “Molly’s put out, she hasn’t met you. Don’t make our woman wait long.”
“Do my best, man,” Rush promised.
They let go, Rebel came in for one more hug from her brothers before Rush claimed her and they moved into the chute for premier passengers.
“This part always sucks,” Rebel muttered.
He held her tight and did it awhile, lifting his chin after they’d fully moved through security and the men looked back before they lost sight of them on the escalators down to the train.
He guided Rebel out to the truck and held her silence but kept alert to their surroundings as he did it.
Rush and Rebel had followed their rental cars in, did that whole rigmarole for the drop off, loading their bags in the back of his truck, Rebel and Sixx in the back of his cab, crunched in with Maddox, D riding shotgun as he drove them up to DIA.
There’d been a lot of chatter and ribbing on the way there.
Right then, he felt Rebel’s gloom that the energy in his cab wasn’t as animated as the last time they were in it.
“Gonna be okay?” he asked, guiding them to a kiosk to pay for parking.
“Glad I got to introduce Sixx to Las Delicias before they left town, still pissed I couldn’t make you dinner.”
She wasn’t pissed she couldn’t make him dinner.
She was upset all the family she had left was about to get on a plane and fly eight hundred miles away.
He paid for parking and they were on Peña Boulevard when he shared, “They left you something.”
He knew she was looking at him when she asked, “What?”
“And the brothers had a sit down this afternoon. Talk about the state of play with Valenzuela out of the game. I brought it up and they’re cool with you filming if you don’t open any closed doors. And don’t even knock, babe. And if one of them sees you comin’ and warns you off, you don’t get close. Yeah?”
“You’re kidding me,” she breathed.
He glanced at her before putting his eyes back to the road.
She was fucking beside herself.
He liked that.
He liked he gave her that.
“No,” he answered.
“Seriously?” she cried. “Ohmigod, Rush! That’s amazing!”
He grinned at the windshield, advising, “Buckle up, babe. It gets better.”
“What?” she asked.
“Sixx, D and Maddox maneuvered Valenzuela into deeding Bang and Luxe to Chaos. We’ll have title on the premises and all the equipment and property in them. The brothers voted to liquidate Bang. They wanna chat with you about what you wanna do with Luxe.”
He got nothing from that.
He skimmed his gaze her way, saw she was looking out the side window, which he thought was weird, so he called, “Babe.”
Nothing.
“Rebel.”
Nothing.
He opened his mouth to call her again when he heard a hushed sob.
He closed his mouth.
Gave her time.
She took it.
When they were on I-25, nearing his exit, she said softly, “I wanna finish the film I’m doing as Tallulah Monroe. Then close down the porn part and use the proceeds to fund the Chaos documentary and my indie.”
“We’ll need a plan, budgets, info on royalties,” he replied in her tone. “And we’ll need your script.”
“I’ll take my laptop into Ride tomorrow and draft something.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” he muttered.
He pulled off and negotiated the city streets toward her cottage.
Rebel broke the silence.
“You did that,” she whispered.
“Sixx and D—”
“Chaos would liquidate it all. They want the Club clean. It was you that engineered that.”
He didn’t confirm.
But he had.
“For me,” she finished.
He reached out to claim her thigh, but he didn’t get there.
She claimed his hand in both of hers and held tight.
“Thank you, Rush.”
“Make good movies, baby.”
Her hands tensed around his.
Then she said, “I will, honey. Promise.”
Rush figured that was a promise she’d keep.
But he also figured, with Rebel, she didn’t make any that she wouldn’t.
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled in Essence’s back drive, and it didn’t strike Rush as a good thing that he hadn’t even gotten the truck stopped when Essence was flying out the back door, her face set to panic.
Or maybe it was ticked.
One quiet night.
That was it.
Now they had . . .
What?
“No,” Rebel breathed, and her fucking door opened.
“Rebel!” he shouted, his heart jumping, his mood rocketing instantly to pissed as fuck when her seatbelt slammed back, and she was out before he got to a full stop.
She slammed the door and was racing to Essence when Rush cut the ignition, threw open his door and angled out, seeing Speck had followed Essence.
Well there was that.
And Speck looked ticked.
But he didn’t look bloody.
Rush prowled to Essence and Rebel, his focus on Speck.
Speck just shook his head.
“What?” Rebel shrieked.
He barely made it to her before she was flying toward Essence’s back door.
“God fucking dammit,” he bit out, glancing at Essence, reading from close the woman looked far from happy before he took long strides to Speck, checking the jog when Speck opened his mouth.
“Her mother and brother are here,” Speck snarled, and Rush took from that, however l
ong their visit had lasted, they hadn’t made a good impression.
That was when he broke into a jog.
They were in the parlor and he knew that because that was where he tracked Rebel’s shouting.
“You don’t get to do this!”
“Fuck you, Reb,” a male voice said. “Where is that fuck?”
“That fuck, your brother, is not here,” Rebel snapped back as Rush entered the room.
Her oldest brother, a man who looked a lot like Diesel, but smaller, less in shape, nowhere near as good looking (all of which could explain a lot of things) with spiteful eyes and an ugly twist to his mouth was facing off on Rebel.
“We know he’s here, Rebel,” a woman who didn’t look like Diesel, or this man, or Rebel, all she looked was small and . . . nothing else.
If she walked out of the room, he couldn’t have told a soul what the woman who was Rebel’s mom looked like.
“He’s not,” Rebel bit.
“Who’s this guy?” her brother, Gunner, bit back, yanking a thumb Rush’s way.
Rebel looked behind her then turned back to her brother. “Get out of here.”
“I want to talk to my son,” the woman said, and if he remembered rightly, her name was Verna.
“He’s not here,” Rebel fired back.
“We know he’s fuckin’ here. Fuck. What a goddamned homo. Sending his baby sister to protect him,” Gunner sniped.
Rush felt something stab in his chest.
“He’s not here,” Rush growled. “We just put him on a plane.”
“Again, who the fuck are you?” Gunner demanded.
“Not sure you got call to ask who the fuck I am, asshole. You’re the one’s standing in a room where you’re not welcome. And now I’m givin’ you five minutes to say goodbye to your sister, then you’re out.”
Gunner sized him up, wrongly, finishing it stating, “Bring it on, douchebag.”
“How did you find out he was here?” Rebel cut in their exchange to ask her mother.
“As humiliating as it was, in order to find a time to see my own son, I had to ask a friend to call Molly and pretend she was an old acquaintance in town and wanted to have lunch. We were going to Phoenix, but Molly shared Diesel was visiting his sister. So we came here,” Verna answered.
“Is Dad here?” Rebel asked.
The woman lifted her chin. “Your father is done with your brother. Completely. We’re here to try to salvage the situation.”
“Well that works, since D’s done with him too,” Rebel retorted. “And just to say, there’s no situation to salvage. You’re you. He’s him. You’re fucked up. He’s happy. The end.”
Well . . .
Shit.
He was falling in love with her.
Yeah.
He already knew he was doing that.
But he was doing it hard.
“Right, we got that hashed out,” Rush said as her mother stared at Rebel like she had no idea who she was. “Now you both are gone.”
“I need to speak with my daughter,” Verna spat.
He looked to Rebel.
She took a step back, shaking her head.
He looked back to her mother. “She’s not feelin’ that. That means time to go.”
“Fuck you, assho—” Gunner started.
He didn’t finish that.
Rush had him by the collar of his tee. He jerked him, snapping his head back, then whirled him around and took a grip on the back of his shirt, another on the waistband of his jeans, and he frog marched him out of the room.
“Oh my God! What’s happening?” Verna shouted.
Gunner tried unsuccessfully to twist out of his grip. “Get your hands off me, motherfucker.”
Speck raced by them so he could open the door.
Which was good. Once Rush got him there, he tossed him right out.
He then barred the door, hands on his hips, legs planted wide, Speck at his back, as the man stumbled, righted himself and shot forward, bumping chests with Rush.
When Gunner got in position, he didn’t step back.
“We on, asshole?” he asked in Rush’s face on another bump.
Rush felt cold sting the back of his neck.
Another chest bump.
This was Rebel’s brother. He was a piece of shit. He still was her brother.
So with some effort, Rush held his shit.
“We on? You got somethin’ for me, fuckwad?” Gunner asked.
“Go,” Rush rumbled.
“Mom, go. Just take Gunner and go,” Rebel encouraged urgently from behind him.
Another bump and taunt. “You got nothin’ for me. All talk. You take cock too, dipshit?”
“Get out of the way,” Speck growled. “I want this asshole.”
“No! No fighting!” Rebel’s mother yelled.
“Peace, love and all things rainbow, but I’d like to see a fight,” he heard Essence call.
Gunner got tight in his face, brushing his nose.
“You and that guy there, yeah? Boyfriends?” Gunner asked, a snide smile in his eyes. “That patch you wear, is that a homo MC? You suck his cock, or he suck yours?”
“Rush, get out of my fuckin’ way,” Speck warned.
“Take . . . your . . . mother,” Rush said low and slow, “and go.”
“Faggot,” Gunner bit, stepped back, wound up to swing, and took his shot.
Rush ducked, the punch whiffed over him, and he came up with a blow to the ribs that sent Gunner back half a foot.
Rush followed.
His next was an overhead roundhouse to the cheekbone that sent Gunner staggering down to a hand.
Rush caught his face with his boot and that had Gunner flying to his back.
Verna screamed, “No!”
Rush moved to stand over him.
“You gonna go?” he asked.
“Stop fighting!” Verna screeched.
Gunner rolled to his side, spat at Rush’s boots and answered, “Fuck you, motherfucker.”
Rush glanced to the street, then bent to Gunner, jerked him up by his tee, landed another to his cheekbone. One more.
Then he dragged him to his feet, his head rolling, and half marched, half towed him down Essence’s steps to the rental at the curb.
He slammed him over the hood, making the man’s forehead ricochet off the metal. He reached into his front pocket, yanked the key fob, beeped the lock, then hauled him off the hood, opened the door and shoved him head first into the car.
He tossed the key on his back.
Gunner rolled to get his ass in the seat, the foot of one leg still out the door.
Rush slammed it and Gunner howled.
He yanked open the door and bent in.
“You gonna go?” he asked.
“Blow me,” Gunner groaned.
Rush landed a punch right to the nose, feeling the cartilage break. Gunner grunted. Blood streamed. Rebel’s mother again screamed.
“You gonna go?” he asked.
Gunner was blinking.
“Are you gonna go?” he pushed.
“Yeah. Fuck you. Yeah. Get out of my face, asshole,” Gunner slurred.
Rush stepped back and turned to see Speck close, Rebel in Essence’s arms on the sidewalk, her mother racing around the hood.
“You’re an animal!” Verna yelled at Rush.
“Do not come back,” he advised.
She stopped at the driver’s side door and threatened, “We’ll come back with the police!”
“Try that. See how it works for you,” he invited.
“You do that, Mom, I swear to God.”
Rebel was now at his side.
He shifted her behind him.
“You swear to God what?” her mother taunted.
“Nothing. Not a thing. You’re already dead to me,” Rebel replied.
Shock registered on the woman’s face, and Rush couldn’t believe that emotion from that stupid bitch considering the recent insanity, before her expression tu
rned nasty.
“You and that son I refuse to claim deserve each other,” she spat.
“Yeah,” Rebel agreed. “We do.”
“Now we’re all done. Hear this, Rebel. Done,” her mom declared.
“Sayonara, Mom. Thanks for the memories.”
She gave her daughter a glare, opened the door, got in the car, scrambled to grab the key fob from the floor while Gunner slammed his door holding his face with his other hand.
Five seconds later they peeled away.
Rush took huge air through his nose.
He let it out, turning to Rebel to see her staring down the street.
“Baby—”
Her gaze sliced to his.
“You are oh so totally getting a blowjob that’s gonna scramble your brain.”
“Sweet,” Speck muttered.
“Anyone want iced tea?” Essence called.
Rebel stared up into Rush’s eyes.
Rush pulled her into his arms, felt hers close around him, looked at Essence and said, “That’d be great.”
Essence beamed at Rush.
And she wasn’t beaming about iced tea.
Guess flower children were down with using force on bigots.
Good to know.
She then turned and practically skipped up the walk.
“You good?” Speck asked.
“Yeah, brother,” Rush murmured.
Speck nodded and followed Essence.
Rush held on to Rebel.
Rebel held him back.
This lasted long beats before she mumbled into his chest, “He can’t know.”
Rush tightened his hold on her.
“They can’t know,” she amended. “They can’t know, Rush. They can never know.”
His Rebel girl, protecting the ones she loved.
He dropped his lips to her hair.
“They’ll never know, sweetheart.”
She pressed harder into him.
He breathed in her hair.
They stood like that for a while.
He ended the moment, saying, “We need to have a chat about the proper procedure for exiting a vehicle.”
He heard her giggle.
And that was when he knew it was good.
She tipped her head back and totally ignored his words.
Though he didn’t mind the subject change.
“Let’s go get iced tea. I need the caffeine rush for your blowjob.”
Rush looked into her pretty blue eyes.
And he smiled.
Tawny Kitaen
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