Chapter 20 Rachel
TWENTY
RACHEL
“Where the fuck is he?”
Tiredly, I rubbed my temple where the headache from hell was attacking my brain.
The guys had cut Rex some slack until New Year’s had come and gone without any updates from him.
Not even a phone call.
They were growing concerned, but I’d been worried since Christmas Day.
“You’ve spoken with Storm?” I rasped. “Checked he isn't in Coshocton?”
Nyx grunted. “What the fuck do you think, Rachel?”
“Watch it,” Link grumbled. “This ain’t Rachel’s fault. Rex just… He needed to get away. Fuck, I can’t blame him. I want to get away too.”
“You can’t escape grief,” was Steel’s somber retort as he shuffled the deck of cards in his hands.
I wished he were wrong, but he wasn't.
I also wished he'd stop with the damn cards.
With a sigh, I murmured, “If he doesn’t check in soon, do we file a missing persons report?”
Nyx snorted. “It’s almost like you don’t know us at all, Rach.”
“Fuck off, Nyx," I snapped. "We have to do something.”
“No, we don’t. He’s just lost his dad.” Nyx scrubbed a hand over his face.
“He just needs a fucking break. He’s not gonna get himself killed.
This is Rex we’re talking about, not me.
We should be talking about the deal the Irish just struck with the Russians and the Italians, not a grown-assed man who can do whatever the fuck he wants with his time while he’s grieving. ”
Silence fell in Rex’s new office.
An office I didn’t think he’d even sat in yet.
So far, we’d only been using the bar, but when discussing Rex’s absence, we’d moved in here for privacy.
It didn’t feel right.
Not at all.
My phone buzzed.
Parker: The Valentini sales contract has come through.
Rachel: I’ll check it later.
Parker: Still with the hotties?
Rachel: I won’t tell them you said that. It’ll make them more impossible than they already are.
“He is a grown-assed man,” Link concurred, breaking into my conversation with Parker. “But… this is Rex. The MC is his life. His lifeline. He wouldn’t just go without leaving orders, Nyx.”
“He didn’t have to. I’ve been running point with him since the compound blast. He’s not been as on hand since then anyway. He deserves some fucking time to himself without us calling in the pigs to make sure he’s not MIA.”
Ignoring that, Sin’s knuckles cracked as he pressed down on them, rumbling, “You know what he’s like…”
“He’s got a better handle on his temper than before.”
“He still snaps,” Link pointed out. “His control ain’t gone off the rails for a while, but it does happen. You can’t deny that, Nyx.”
Sin, unperturbed, tacked on, “It’s in our blood, Nyx. There’s no getting away from that.”
Steel eyed him. “You can’t say shit like that. Not with me around.”
“Steel, there’s a massive difference between being a goddamn child-abusing piece of fucking shit and having anger issues.”
Maverick, being Maverick, didn’t get distracted by the argument that snapped to life between the two of them, and he focused on me. “You sure he didn’t say anything?”
Uncertainly, I licked my lips.
What could I say to that?
Their attention felt more threatening than a grand jury’s.
In regular circumstances, I wouldn’t have been affected, but this was my fault.
My anxiety soared as I felt their concern for Rex surge around the room. Trying to hide from it, I stared down at the wooden grain on the expansive table that was more befitting a boardroom than an office in an MC compound.
This room was a lot swankier than the last one.
I was pretty sure that Bear’s council would have taken the piss out of Rex’s decor choices, never mind all the goddamn pink in the bar. But this was a different generation.
This was my generation.
Not Bear’s, not Grizzly’s.
Mine.
I clenched my hands into fists as I pressed them into the table, but before I could say a word, Steel rubbed my shoulder. I hadn’t expected it, so I flinched so hard that there was no way the assholes wouldn’t notice it.
God, I hadn’t done that in months.
Closing my eyes, I waited for them to comment, but instead, silence fell.
Silence that had more nuances than an orchestra.
“When I was seventeen, I babysat Giulia.”
I felt their confusion, but they didn’t question the start of my confession. Link’s voice was soft, however, as he said, “I remember. You used to sit for most of the Old Ladies.”
“Yeah. Quin and Indy too, right?” Nyx tacked on.
Swallowing, I finally opened my eyes, and this time, I looked at Link.
I knew he’d keep me going.
Knew he’d be my… link.
That was how he’d gotten his name, after all. He kept us together.
“What is it, Rach? You can tell us anything,” he coaxed.
“I’m only telling you this now because I pushed Rex away. I’m the reason he left.”
I didn’t need to peer around the table to know that the brothers were all looking at each other. To know that they were shooting questioning glances back and forth.
Except for Link.
He kept his gaze locked on mine like he understood that he was the only thing keeping me from bolting out of the room.
“Do you remember Dog and Grizzly used to hang out?”
“How could I forget? Two dipshits together,” he mocked, but his smile faded as he reached out and slipped his hand into mine. I clenched down around his fingers.
“One night, they came back stoned. They saw me… They raped me.”
Link didn’t react, but I heard Sin hiss, just as Nyx let out a snarl.
Steel grated out, “Those bastards.”
I jumped when a fist smacked into the table, the noise overly loud as I blurted out, “You believe me?”
I didn’t look away from Link.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Nyx demanded. “Those fucking pieces of shit.” Both hands slammed against the table this time before he picked up his coffee cup and hurled it against the wall.
Steel snapped, “Back off, Nyx. Calm the fuck down.”
But his anger helped me. It was cathartic. I needed that. I needed anger. Not disbelief.
“Grizzly said no one would believe me.” With my free hand, I swiped at my eyes. “He said I was just like my mom—”
“We would always have believed you,” Link chided softly, leaning over so that he was closer to me. “Just the once or more…?”
I bit my lip hard enough to feel the pinch. “Just the once,” I choked out. “By them. I-I stopped babysitting.”
Link froze as he read between the lines. “It happened again?”
“In college.” I sniffed, wiped my eyes some more. “But that isn’t related to this conversation—”
Before I could finish the sentence, the table, the heavy walnut expanse that was cut from one tree, went flying.
Nyx upended it.
Papers, glasses, pens, computers all went soaring through the air.
Link knew his brother too well because he'd dragged my seat quickly away, his own too so that we weren’t in the danger zone.
Nyx tossed over the table like it weighed nothing, and he let out a roar that reminded me of Rex’s on Christmas Day.
It was pain-filled.
Hurting.
For me.
That was when I sobbed.
“You believe me,” I whispered, sitting amidst the chaos that Nyx had created; a chaos I didn’t even know I needed.
Nyx dropped to his knees in front of me, papers crunching, glass smashing as he did so. His hands went to either side of my seat cushion and he stared into my eyes, his face moving uncomfortably close as he rasped, “I’d kill Grizzly and Dog for you if they weren’t already dead.”
I could feel my face crumple at his words, but I shook my head and pressed my hand to his shoulder. Squeezing down, I rasped back, “You made a promise that I intend for you to keep.”
“The only people I care about… Why?” His mouth worked and his fingers tightened to the point where the chair groaned under the pressure of his hold. “Any brother who touches a woman against their will, I’m going to saw off their cocks in the future. I'm the VP now. This is our motherfucking MC.”
He said it like he was telling me he was going to punish Prospects by sending them to clean the gutters.
Like it was an everyday point of conversation.
Instead, it was candid. Raw.
He meant it.
“Then, I’m going to make them watch as Cruz melts it in his chemicals.”
I gulped. “Y-You can’t do that.”
“I sure as fuck can and I sure as fuck will!”
A tissue appeared in front of me, and I shot Steel a grateful look as I snagged it and blew my nose. Gingerly, he patted my shoulder.
It was such an unlikely move that I whispered, “You don’t have to treat me like I’m a delicate flower. I’m the same Rachel. I-I just—”
“Is this why you’re such a bitch?”
“Fuck’s sake, Mav,” Link ground out.
I was almost grateful for the question. I didn’t want them to behave differently around me. “You had guns to protect you. I had ice.”
My flat response had Mav nodding. “Makes sense. Wish you’d told us. Nyx wouldn’t have been the only one lynching those bastards.”
“I’m glad Lodestar got to Dog now,” Steel muttered.
Mouth tightening, I nodded. “That was a very nice gift.”
“She didn’t make him suffer enough,” Nyx snarled. “I’d—”
“You don’t own torture,” Link grumbled. “I’m sure he didn’t want to die. I’m sure she made it nice and painful.”
I blinked. “I shouldn’t be hearing any of this.”
“If you think Lodestar’s ever going to get caught, you’re crazy,” Mav said flatly. “You don’t need plausible deniability for her.”
“Stop being a prick, Maverick,” Sin snapped. “This is Rach. We’re not talking statistics—”
Maverick narrowed his eyes at Sin. “Fuck you. Do you have any idea what I do for this club? The shit I’ve trawled through to get Nyx his evidence? His righteous kills? The things I’ve seen would get that temper of yours really fucking firing.”
“This isn’t a competition,” Steel tried to placate. “We’ve all been through the wringer.”
I swallowed. “I didn’t mean to start an argument. I just wanted to explain—”
Nyx peered up at me. “Giulia said you’re pregnant.”
A shocked breath gusted from me. “She wasn’t supposed… How the hell did she know?”
“Saw the pregnancy test.” In his gaze, I saw that feral side of him that he was struggling to contain soar to the surface. “Is the kid Rex’s?”
“Yes.”