Raine Falling (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club)

by Marinaro, Paula

  “Get off her now, you woman-beating sonofabitch!”

  Gino let go of my skull just long enough to turn around and scream at the pissed-off blonde.

  “Shut up, cunt, or you’ll be next!”

  I felt Gino slump on me then. I pushed him off and looked up to see the blonde heaving with the exertion that came from clocking Gino with the butt of the gun. That coming after shooting the hell out of the ceiling.

  She extended her hand to pull me up and said, “The guy is pure bastard. Now get your sweet ass out of here and never come back.”

  Gino started moaning. The blonde and I looked at each other and ran like hell.

  CHAPTER 5

  I wasn’t sure if I could make it home. My head was pounding and my cheek felt slick with blood. I wondered if I would need stitches on my face. I was sick with the knowledge that Gino would come after me now and vaguely wondered if I needed to worry about Jamie as well.

  My hands were trembling so hard I could barely drive. I decided to pull up to the back of my house and go through the cellar as a precaution. My eyes welled up with tears. I wasn’t a crier. Self-indulgent tears had been one of the luxuries I wouldn’t allow myself. I had learned early to keep my feelings bottled up until the emotion passed. The few times I had allowed myself tears, I had cried for so long and hard that I couldn’t stop for hours. Opening those floodgates was a bad idea for me. But it had been a really shitty few days.

  I fumbled with the keys as I felt huge drops of water begin to form in the corners of my eyes and flow freely down my cheeks. I looked down as the tears began to drop on my white tank and wondered briefly why they were pink. How much was I bleeding? My mouth was starting to swell, and I had been tasting blood all the way home. I took the edge of my shirt and spit blood into it on my way to the bathroom. This was not good.

  I looked in the mirror. My blue eyes were so dark they looked purple. The side of my face was beginning to swell. Still sobbing, I washed my face carefully and threw my bloodied clothes into the laundry basket. Then I changed my mind and threw them out in the trash. I wanted no reminders of this night. I picked up the cardboard box that had nearly cost me my life and painfully made my way up the stairs.

  It was a full moon and I jumped at every long shadow cast by my wornout furniture. Still afraid to turn on any lights, I cried my way into the kitchen. I needed a shot of booze for my nerves and a bag of ice for my face. Mostly I needed to get a damn hold of myself and stop crying, but I just couldn’t seem to manage it.

  Carrying the box towards the table, I stopped when I saw him.

  The stuff of nightmares.

  There was someone very big and scary shadowed against the outline of my kitchen cabinet. He saw me at the same time I saw him. The badass biker who wanted my thirty grand or wanted me dead, and he was two days early. I let out a shriek. He moved fast but I was faster. I turned and ran down the hallway, knocking things in his path as I went. I heard him swear loudly behind me as a chair came crashing down in front of him. I felt something swipe at me and miss. I was glad I didn’t have much on because it meant that he couldn’t grab my shirt to pull me back. I was almost at the door when he got me.

  With steel arms, he pulled me tight against him. I went crazy. I bucked and kicked and bit and scratched. He just held on tighter, avoiding my kicks and blows. I knew I wasn’t doing much damage. However, with all that fighting, my bra had somehow managed to work itself towards my neck. I felt his hands move to my breasts, squeezing.

  That struck a terror of a different kind in me, and I suddenly went still. My back against a solid wall of muscle and my breasts being firmly kneaded by big warm hands. I moved my hands to cover his in an attempt to pry them off. When I felt each one tweak a nipple I felt a rush of wet go straight through to my panties. I was so humiliated that I wanted to die.

  “Please,” I whispered.

  “Please what, baby?” He whispered against my hair, still holding on to me.

  “Please let me go.”

  “Please let me go, Diego,” he said against my hair.

  “Diego?”

  “Yeah, baby.”

  “Please, Diego. Let me go.”

  Suddenly I felt my lace bra fall back onto my bruised breasts. Diego turned me around to look at him. His face went from mild amusement to instant shock. I heard his sharp intake of breath.

  “Who?” he roared and it felt like an accusation.

  I jerked my face out of his big hands and looked into his black eyes.

  That was a good question. Who really had done this to me?

  The answer made me sad, and I smiled slightly at the irony. I looked him in the eye and said, “I did this to myself.”

  Then I walked straight past him to get the money.

  I needed to put some clothes on, but more than anything, I really just needed this day to be over. I decided to forego the extra two seconds it might have taken me to go and throw on a pair of sweats. Plainly speaking, I just didn’t give a shit. Besides the bastard had already seen everything I was showing anyway. I stood with my back towards him as I unlocked the metal box containing the envelope that held the money. My outstretched arm was shaking so much that I thought the cash was going to jump right out of the envelope onto the floor. But it didn’t.

  Diego was standing against the doorjamb with his arms crossed against his massive chest, staring at my face. He didn’t make a move towards the money, so I jabbed at him again with the envelope. My head was throbbing, I was bone tired and on the verge of tears again. I wanted him to take the damn money and leave. I really didn’t want to vomit in front of this man, but it was dangerously close to happening.

  I headed towards him all bloody and bruised. I was wearing nothing but bloodstained pink lace. My hair was matted with gore and draped around me like a weird cape. I was woozy from my headache, making it impossible to walk a straight line. Waves of nausea kept swirling around me. I fought with everything I had to maintain some sort of dignity.

  I was the undead.

  He watched me carefully as I approached him. Unfolding his arms, he let his hands rest casually on his hips. His black eyes never left my face. Avoiding his gaze, I reached down and grabbed his hand. He gave it up willingly. I pressed the envelope deep into his big paw and then looked right into his eyes.

  “This is finished.”

  With as much dignity as I could muster, I wobbled past him down the hallway. Once in my bedroom, I gave the cheap lock a satisfied twist. Then I sat on the edge of my bed to take stock. I trusted that having gotten what he came for and two fucking days early to boot, Diego could find his own way out. I forced myself to relax. Taking a deep breath I summoned what was left of my courage and gently began to examine my face. With infinite care I pushed determinedly past the tenderness searching for fractures on my cheeks, jaw, and nose. Thankfully, I found none. Thanks to one mean-ass, quick-thinking sistah, I wasn’t sporting a split skull.

  Because of my extreme nausea, I went through a quick checklist. I wasn’t disoriented, definitely had no memory loss, hadn’t lost consciousness, and my speech was fine. I hadn’t eaten since supper last night, and I supposed that was where the nausea was coming from. I tore off my underwear, pulled on a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top. Then I started to crawl into bed. That’s when the first wave of nausea hit me full force. I ran to the bathroom and proceeded to dry-heave my way into what I hoped would be oblivion.

  CHAPTER 6

  Diego pulled himself away from the wall and watched Raine make her way to the bedroom. The envelope of cash was still in his hand. Friday. She was supposed to go get this on Friday. What the fuck had happened? He had worked this to keep her safe, and it fucking all blew up.

  Twenty minutes after the cops left in disgust with Jamie refusing to go to the hospital or file any charges, Gunner was back. And he had brought a few of his brothers with him.
All it took was seeing them to make Jamie give it all up. The all being the mother lode.

  There had been about five hundred grand in cash, four nines, a good amount of uncut coke, and a shitload of H hidden in that shit hole. As to who he had fucked over to acquire that tit stock, Jamie sang that tune like a sweet canary. That took about fifteen minutes to put together. The rest of the hour was spent teaching Jamie exactly what it meant to hold out and then spit in the face of a Hells Saint. No one bothered to check if he was still breathing when they left.

  Given the amount and variety of the recovered stash, it had taken a couple of days to sort out. Wars had been started over less. Because it was suspected that at least some of the green had come from his territory, Diego had been sent up to investigate. The drugs belonged to Los Diablos Rojos, but the green was something that the Saints definitely had a stake in.

  Today at church, they had discussed Raine and Claire. Not sure how deeply they were involved in this whole shit storm, Diego had Gunner put out some feelers. When he reported out, the general consensus was that Claire wasn’t a bag bitch, but just another stupid little piece that got caught up with the wrong guy.

  They knew from their people that Raine had driven Claire to the hospital right after she had taken her from the junkie’s shit hole. They knew about the bogus police report and that Claire was in rehab. They knew that Raine lived in a shitty little shanty on the outside of town that had belonged to her grandmother, and that there was no extra floating around. They knew where she shopped for groceries, and that her car was thirteen years old. They knew she was a pediatric nursing student who had just finished up with honors. They knew she didn’t fuck with the drugs she had legal access to. They knew she was clean.

  The vote was taken and the shit with Claire and her junkie boyfriend was considered a settled issue. The only thing that remained was to let Raine know. When Diego said he would “take care of that,” the members of the Hells Saints smirked, thinking they knew exactly what that meant.

  On his part, Diego couldn’t get Raine out of his mind. He got hard every time he thought of her. Unbelievably gorgeous. Every guy in that fucking kitchen held his breath when they saw her. Brave too. Christ, just walking into that room took some guts. Then as cool as anything, she had put herself between her sister and a loaded gun. Tight little body when he held her against him. Plenty of long dark hair, smooth tanned skin, and deep blue eyes. Her little sister not bad either, as Gunner had pointed out several times. He had called them exotic little pieces. Diego had to agree.

  There was some other information that Diego had gone after but that was personal. He had paid a lot for the file, and it had Gino Abiatti’s name on it. As soon as Jamie let it out that the piece of shit holding Raine’s money had beaten and raped her, Abiatti was a dead man. Knowing that Friday night Raine was going to be putting herself in the path of that psycho, Diego had put a plan in place. But Raine going there early had fucked up his plan. And Gino had hurt her again. Abiatti had a lot to look forward to. Diego was gonna make sure he spent a whole lot of fucking time dying.

  He picked up his cell.

  CHAPTER 7

  I laid my head on the cool tile after some totally nonproductive retching. My ass was up, my head was under the toilet, and I was clutching my stomach. Between the throbbing in my head, the hurt in my face, and the pain in my stomach, I thought I was going to die. The next wave of nausea hit me. I was clutching the sides of the toilet dry-heaving my innards out, when I felt a blessedly cool cloth on my forehead. For one insane desperate moment, I let my head lean against it and memories of my mom came washing over me.

  “Here, drink this,” said a voice that was definitely not my mom.

  A glass of something cold was gently pressed against my lips. Thickly shaved ice and water coated my throat. It tasted like heaven. I knew who was standing next to me, but I was too exhausted to give a shit or even wonder at the absurdity of it.

  Shakily I handed the glass back to him. When he reached down to fold me in his arms and carry me to my bed, I went with it. He gently covered my hot, dry body with the cool sheet. Then he held out a small white pill that I recognized as a Valium.

  “This will help you sleep.”

  I so wanted to end this day. Knowing that the little white pill would help that to happen, I took it and closed my eyes.

  I woke several hours later to a moonlit room feeling something warm touch my stomach. It was light and feathery. Just enough to wake me up, but not enough to keep me awake. I started to drift back to sleep. Sudden realization hit me. I shrank against the wall. My scream came out like a whimper, and I realized distantly that I was still punchy from the drug I had taken.

  He put his two fingers gently to my mouth and said, “Shhh. Easy, baby.”

  My whole body stiffened, and I put my hands out to stop him. He pulled me fast against him and wound his hand in my hair.

  “Relax. If I was gonna do you, it would have already happened.” Then he paused and added, “Many, many times over.”

  I stopped breathing and willed my mind to bring me somewhere else.

  “Look at me, Raine.” He tightened his hold on my hair and pulled my face towards him. His black eyes smiled down at me. There were two dimples denting the light scruff on his face.

  I got very still. Reaching back into the defenses of my mind, I did as I was told. I watched him watch me. His eyes touching every corner of my face. He took his thumb and ran it gently across my lips. When I instinctively ran the tip of my tongue across it, his eyes grew dark. He moved in closer. His eyes moved to my mouth, and then his lips slowly followed. He rained soft little kisses on the sides of my mouth, and that I didn’t mind at all. I began to respond to the gentleness. He began to make gentle circles on my stomach with his hand. I arched slightly against him, and he moved over me, pressing his lips deep against mine, opening me to him. I felt an instant burst of sharp pain and pulled away hard.

  “What is it?” He had stopped the kiss dead in its tracks.

  “My lip,” I whispered.

  “Show me,” he whispered back.

  I reached up and rolled down my bottom lip, gently exposing the ragged cut that I knew was there. I released my lip and watched. He watched too. He watched to make sure I didn’t pull back when his big body moved over mine. He reached for something from the bedside. Then he rolled back over on his side, one hand on my waist and the other hand moving to my mouth. I felt it before I saw it. The cold clean sensation of the sliver of ice sliding up and down the sore place on the inside of my lip felt so wonderful that I sighed against it. The remainder of the Valium worked its way back into my system.

  “That’s it, baby. Let it work its magic. Close your eyes. Nothing else is going to hurt you tonight.” He was speaking from somewhere far away . . .

  I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. So nice . . . so nice of him . . . so nice . . .

  My thoughts began to drift together as I fell into a soft, gentle sleep. But not before reaching for his hand and holding it lightly in mine.

  “Thank you,” I whispered through the haze.

  Diego pulled me close. “Sleep, baby.”

  And I did.

  CHAPTER 8

  When he heard her breath grow even and felt her body mold into his, he pulled her even closer. He felt her warm and soft against his chest. He had smoothed her hair. She smelled like spring. Her scent was clean and fresh. She felt even better. He wondered what it would be like to be loved by a woman like this.

  Diego had seen the damage up close. He had winced at the torn lip, the swollen eye, and the bruises covering her chin, chest, and neck. She had taken a pretty bad beating. It was because of him that monster had whaled on her. He had put her in harm’s way.

  If that wasn’t enough, Diego had broken into her house, waited for her in the dark, chased her, fondled her, and had taken all her money. He had scare
d her and not just a little. He knew terror. He had seen it in her eyes when she first saw his shadow, and then later when she had woken to him. He had caused the fast beating of her heart. And not in a good way.

  Diego had watched Raine retreat and go perfectly still. She had wrapped her arms around herself and pulled them in tight. Her eyes had grown dark with fear, and something undefinable when she thought he was going to hurt her. Then she had responded so fully when he showed her gentleness and kindness that he wondered how little of it she had known. He was curious about her. He wondered what kind of woman she was. Then instantly he knew. If he wasn’t real careful, she was the kind of woman a man could get lost in . . . for as long as they both shall live. Raine was that kind of woman.

  Diego held her and watched her sleep through the night. She slept fitfully, sighing and murmuring, alternately pressing against him and pulling away from him. He shifted her a couple of times to watch her face and had felt the soft skin of her belly warm the palm of his hand. The Valium had cast its spell and she slept deeply. He wondered at the demons that invaded her dreams, and he found that he didn’t want to leave her to them. As dawn began to break, the first rays of light touched her face, revealing the deepening purples, reds, blacks, and blues of the beating she had taken. The one he hadn’t stopped.

  Diego had to go meet with his brothers to discuss the shit with Jamie. There was a lot that had gone down with that deal, including the intel on the H and coke. Shit that had to be revealed and boundaries that had to be redrawn because of it. Club business was fully on his mind when he left her sleeping. It wasn’t until two days later that Diego realized he had forgotten to tell Raine that she could consider all debts to the Hells Saints MC paid in full. And by then it was too late.