Chapter 40 Rachel
RACHEL
The deadly silence in the clubhouse entryway was all the starker for the rowdiness of before.
The corpse on the ground snatched my total attention, until I realized Rex was… leaving.
Eyes wide, I grated out, “Cruz, are you going to deal with this?”
“Yes, Rachel,” he said calmly.
“Rachel, go,” Nyx urged me. “We’ll handle this.”
“Who the fuck is she?” someone muttered behind me.
I stood up straighter, my shoulders flying back as I declared, “I’m your First Lady.”
I didn’t wait for a reply.
I rushed out of the clubhouse and saw Rex, from the back, kicking the stand down on his hog.
“King!” I shouted, running over to him, trying to get there before he took off. He remained in place, frozen until I reached him, my arms sliding around his waist from the back as I pleaded, “Please, don’t leave me.”
A hard breath escaped him. “Are you frightened of me?”
“No.”
It was a difficult truth to admit.
But I knew what he was capable of, knew that his control was strong and that it took an act of God to break that control.
How fitting that thought was considering what had triggered that… I couldn’t call it a fight.
It was one-sided.
An evisceration.
Swallowing, I repeated on a whisper, “No.”
“Grizzly, Bear, Sin, we all have it. We all share this fucking temper—”
“I know you do.”
“You do now,” he said grimly, his tone still as cold as ice.
Fuck, that was my job.
He wasn’t supposed to freeze me out. Especially not anymore.
I squeezed him, then I threw out the words that might have meant the end for us: “You killed my mom, didn’t you?”
He tensed.
“If you lie to me,” I rumbled, “I’ll walk away. Here. Now.”
Snarling, he twisted around in my hold. His hands went to cup my cheeks, and though the position might have been threatening, I went toe to toe with him. Head tilted back, chin tipped up as I glared at him defiantly.
But there was no need for that.
No need for defiance. Not only because I knew Rex would hurt himself before he hurt me, but because he gave me the answer I’d known without needing to ask.
“She was going to leave you.”
I swallowed. “She did that a lot.”
“She was going to take Rain and leave you behind.” He shook his head. “She did that before I was around. No one leaves you, Rachel. No one.”
Tears pricked my eyes for the ten millionth time today, but it wasn’t from the pain his words caused, just from his devotion. From his love. It wrapped me up so tightly that it’d have strangled another woman, but for me, it was perfect.
Still, I had to choke out, “Rain’s going to leave for the army. You’re not going to kill him, are you?”
“She wasn’t coming back,” he said grimly. “Rain will. Whether it’s in a fucking coffin or in a cage, he’ll come home. No one leaves you, Rachel, no one. Not on my watch.”
The tears spilled down my cheeks at that.
Behind me, I could hear the grunts as Anchor and River collected Lever, while Cruz, Storm, Nyx, and whoever the hell else got roped in, stomped around on clean-up duty.
But they ignored us, much as we ignored them.
I placed my hands on his waist again, letting one shift around to slide up the center of his back.
“Come home with me.”
He shook his head. “I need to ride.”
“I want to come with you.”
“The road—it’s too cold. It’s—” He heaved a sigh and pressed his forehead against mine. “Your safety, I can’t compromise—”
“My safety is with you,” I told him. “I want to come with you.”
He gritted his teeth but slowly nodded. I didn’t think my words convinced him; if anything, I thought he didn’t want to be without me.
Rex pulled back to climb onto his bike, and I was almost certain he’d ride off without me, but he didn’t. He stayed there, as still as death, waiting for me to get behind him.
The instant I was settled, I squeezed his waist, and he took off.
He didn’t go right toward the road but left toward our place. I almost argued but he’d never have heard me over the roar of his engine.
As we pulled up outside the house, he rasped, “I promise I won’t leave without you. Go and change into something more suitable. Leather, if you have it.”
I ambled off the back of the hog, and because I trusted him, just kissed his cheek.
He didn’t let me down.
As I rushed into the house, I didn’t keep my ear cocked for the sound of his bike. I just changed into a sweater, dragged on a leather jacket, and deep in the back of my closet, I found the leather pants I’d bought years ago for rides with him.
They still fit me in the legs, but not around the waist or the hips, but it was better than nothing if we took a tumble.
I dragged them on, leaving the zipper gaping wide, then pulled on some ankle boots. Absentmindedly, I grabbed two hair ties. One tied my hair back, the other I looped around the button on my fly and fastened my pants that way—I remembered that trick from the ‘good’ old days.
My mind tumbled from thought to thought as I changed.
The repercussions of killing a brother in front of so many, the knowledge that Rex had killed Mom, the aftermath of another death in the clubhouse—they blurred into one, fading as my urgency became directed on getting ready fast enough.
Once I was dressed, I rushed down the stairs, practically burst through the door, then ran over to his side. He’d moved the bike around so he was staring out of the gates. When I climbed on behind him, he waited for that squeeze before he took off.
We rode for hours.
Hours upon hours.
It was cold and exhausting, but I clung to him as my mind raced and he burned off his temper, as he let his rage slip through him, as he grieved in privacy and let the wind take away his emotions—emotions that a man like him, in his position, wasn’t supposed to have.
That he let me be there was, I knew, yet another turning point.
Another bend in the road of life that we had to work through together. Because, if I didn’t bend with him, move with him and the bike he steered, we could crash, and I’d spent enough of my life like that.
Tonight, with its many revelations, should have torn us apart, but it had brought us closer together than ever.
I was ready for the open road now.