Chapter 41 - Rachel #3
That was clearly some kind of inside-joke because warmth filtered into Link’s expression and he bowed down, whispered something in her ear, then pressed a kiss to her lips.
“On that note,” he intoned, “I’d better be going.” His gaze caught mine and he smiled. “Good to know you’ll be keeping these reprobates out of jail, Rach.”
Amused by how different his reaction was to Nyx’s, I shot him a smile in return as he wandered away, taking a different exit to the one I’d come through.
“He’ll be going to see Maverick,” Lily explained as she walked over to me. Her hand came to my arm and she squeezed gently. “There’s a drink station set up in the living room where we’re going to be sitting if you need a refill. Want to come with me?”
I nodded, surprised by her gentle tone.
“It’s okay, Lily. You don’t have to be watchful around me. I won’t run off.”
She squeezed. “I know, but it can be intimidating. These women are…” She shrugged, and while her smile was impish, it was also loaded with a genuine caring. “They’re strong and forceful. I don’t doubt you’ll fit in, but it could be nerve-wracking to wade into the fray.”
“I appreciate the thought.”
And I did.
I smiled at her as she murmured, “We’re sitting in this room.”
“Not the glass room?” Giulia complained. “I like the sofa.”
“Not today,” Lily countered. “The pink room’s in a loose circle. I figured it might ease Rachel in better.”
“You don’t have to make any changes for me,” I argued, feeling the flush of heat burn a path along the crest of my cheekbones.
“No, it’s a smart move for your first time.”
Amara grumbled, “Why was my first time not smart?”
“Because you’re dangerous,” Giulia sniped. “You need comfort not structure.”
Amara pondered that. “I see this.”
“She’s a loaded gun,” Lily drawled with a soft laugh as she tugged me toward the ‘pink room.’ “But she means us no harm.”
I had to snort at that.
“But the rest of the world isn’t so safe?”
Shooting me a smirk, Lily agreed, “Exactly.”
The pink room lived up to its name.
Magenta armchairs, stylized with hard edges and lines to give them a cubic shape, gleamed under the glow of a large golden chandelier.
They were spaced in a loose circle with a kind of extended glass table between them.
It was lower to the ground than a regular dining table, made for the armchairs, I guessed.
Hell, it was pretty much an upper-class version of the new clubhouse bar.
“It’s a weird room, isn’t it?” Lily confided. “But I couldn’t change it.”
“Why not?”
“I like the chairs too much.”
She guided me to one and I took a seat, understanding why when the chair seemed to suck me in.
Placing my glass on the table, I watched as the others drifted into the room too.
Amara stormed in, Giulia pretty much surged in on that wind of hers she seemed to be generating on her own. Alessa, living up to her old nickname, Ghost, seemed to float in, Tiffany like she was a catwalk model, Indy stomping in in her Doc Martens and Stone rushing in, a hectic color on her cheeks.
No one seemed surprised to see me, but I was surprised to see them.
Indy and Stone had been friends since they were younger, and I knew Tiffany and Lily were the same. Alessa and Amara had been through similar trials by fire but I could see they weren’t close.
Giulia and I weren’t the odd ducks, no one was, even though connections had been made years earlier and friendships forged before these women had become Old Ladies.
It was a surprisingly poignant sight.
We came from so many different walks of life yet we all knew what it was like to survive something heinous.
Of course, that wasn't our only connection.
A gathering of women who were strong enough to tame the Sinners’ councilors, a rowdy bunch of bastards who’d been wild and free until they’d all been snagged up by their Old Ladies.
Okay, who was I kidding?
The Sinners would never be tamed.
I knew that from seeing Nyx with Giulia.
She dampened down the wildness in him, but it still raged on—she just never got burned by it.
As everyone took a seat, Tiffany made to close the door, but Lodestar sneaked in before it snickered to a close.
Giulia arched a brow at her. “What are you doing in here?”
“Might not be an Old Lady but I’m an honorary Sinner,” Lodestar groused.
Giulia didn’t argue, so her presence wasn’t a problem, but it made me wonder if Lodestar had never attended one of these group meetings despite her past.
Either way, Tiffany moved a chair from beside an expensive vanity table that had an even more expensive bronze looming over it which sat pretty beside a drink tray with glasses and an ice bucket for anyone needing refreshment. She passed the seat to Lodestar who sat down with a sigh.
Her injuries from the clubhouse blast had been extensive, and I knew she’d only been released from her casts and the wheelchair recently. Her stiffness indicated that she wasn’t back to normal just yet.
As everyone settled in, a weird bundle of nerves unfurled inside me.
I didn’t belong here.
This wasn’t right.
I had no place here—
“Okay, Posse, new faces are with us today so I think we all need to agree that we’ll keep that in mind and won’t scare them away.”
Amara grinned. “Scaring is what I do best.”
Giulia, who was seated to her left, shoved her in the side. “Shut up, you.”
It wasn’t bitchy, more amused.
Jesus.
Amara and Giulia—kindred spirits?
The other woman had been living at my place too, so I knew what she was like. Knew that her caustic tongue had only been exacerbated since Hawk and Quin had become her Old Men.
“You don’t have to temper yourselves for me,” I stated calmly. “I deal with your men on the regular.”
Tiffany just smiled. “You might do that, but this is different. This isn’t ‘business Rachel,’ this is the ‘real Rachel’ we’re going to be talking to.”
“I guess,” I said uneasily, not appreciating the comparison.
Who the hell was the ‘real Rachel?’
Sometimes, I spoke business like it was its own language.
I don’t belong here—
Tiffany hummed as she took a seat. “I’m not going to make you talk, Rachel.
If anything, you don’t have to say a word.
You can listen. But if you have questions, feel free to ask them.
Just raise your hand, okay?” She beamed a smile at me, one that was supposed to put me at ease but made me more nervous.
How could someone expect so little yet it made me feel like she was asking for the world? “Anyone got anything on their minds?”
Giulia shot me a glance. “Is it okay if I tell them?”
I darted her a look then stared fixedly at the table. “Yeah. It’s fine.”
Maybe it’d be easier—her saying what had happened without me having to actually tell the story.
“I found out yesterday that my dad was a rapist.”
Her words settled amid the women like fallout from a nuclear bomb.
Lodestar grunted and cracked her knuckles. Fitting seeing as she’d been the one to ‘recycle’ Dog.
The act came without apology, as if Giulia had merely confirmed that she’d been right to handle Dog.
“That’s a lot to process,” Tiffany said softly.
“Damn straight it is,” Giulia snarled, slamming her hand against the glass. Amara jumped at the sound, so did Alessa, but no one else appeared shocked by Giulia’s outburst. Not even myself, and I didn’t really know her that well, just knew she was volatile. “I-I can’t get it out of my head.”
“You found out yesterday?” Indy asked, and her voice housed a quiver that made me cement my gaze to the table.
She’d known Dog all her life.
Grizzly too.
They were familiar faces; Grizzly had even held a position of power on the council.
The terror was as real now as it ever was.
Would they believe me?
But… why would they?
My mom was a whore. Why shouldn’t I be one too?
“Yeah. Last night,” Giulia breathed.
“Well, it’s still fresh. That’s why it’s in your head—”
“No, Indy. It’s not that. Did he rape my mom too? She was a cunt, don’t get me wrong, and if he hit her, she hit him back, but this is different. They wouldn’t always have been like that.”
I thought back to my childhood. Axel had brought us to West Orange when I was nine, and there was an eleven-year age gap between Giulia and me. I’d babysat her, Hawk, and North, so I’d been around to see their rocky relationship a lot more than she had.
“Lizzie changed,” I said slowly, gaze fixed on my glass now where a bead of condensation dripped down the side of it.
Stone nodded. “She did.”
“In what way?” Tiffany questioned.
“She wasn’t always like that—so quick to fight back,” I muttered, reaching for my water now.
Giulia swallowed. “Do you think he—”
“I don’t know. How could I know?” I sucked in a breath.
“They were high, Giulia. Both of them stank of weed. To this day, I can’t—” I choked on the words.
“That smell. God, I hate it. I hate it so much.” My spare hand tightened into a fist and I pressed my knuckles into the table.
“But they were stoned. I’m not even sure if they remember what happened. ”
“Who was your other attacker?” Tiffany queried gently.
“Grizzly,” I said grimly, eyes on my knuckles which were a bright white.
“Sin’s dad?” she demanded, her tone sharp.
Shoulders hunching, I nodded. “Yeah.”
“He’s Bear’s brother?” Alessa rasped, her damaged voice soft and low.
“Yes, he was. He’s dead now.”
“Sin beat him to death,” Tiffany remarked, her focus on me. “Weed doesn’t trigger memory loss.”
“Maybe they were on something else—”
“Would it be easier on you if they’d forgotten what they did?”
I had no idea why the question hit me on the raw. “Does it matter?”
“Yeah, it matters,” Indy concurred. “I mean, they didn’t leave, did they? They stuck around. Their lives weren’t impacted. It’d be easier to think that they didn’t remember, because how could they act as if nothing happened if they did? But they were dicks. Grizzly more than most.