CHAPTER ONE
Seventeen years later...
Raine shook his head and sighed. As long as he lived, he would never forget it. Her lying there in a pool of blood and his brother also lying in his own blood, put down like a rabid dog.
“Never…ever forget it,” Raine whispered to himself as he sat in the main room of the clubhouse. He sighed heavily as he stared at Cassie’s tiger paintings on the clubhouse wall. Tigers…A white Siberian and a Bengal. Cassie and Melora had said they, or rather their spirits had protected them during the bad times. He tilted his head with a sudden thought. Reva hadn’t had them. He shook his head and a smile spread across his lips. Maybe the first smile he’d had in days. But she did have a Gator. He tilted his chair, so he could look into the kitchen.
The only one in there at the moment was Reva. She was busy making coffee. He watched as she moved around the room, her movements stable and steady, so unlike they were all that time ago. Back then, she didn’t bring attention to herself, but then they all found out later that she had a very good reason to hide from the world.
Raine looked around. It was a different day back then, a different time. Yet everything was coming around to it again.
The whole clubhouse was decorated for Sam’s wedding, a wedding that hadn’t happened because Sam had taken off to pick up his daughter from another town. Then he barely got back when Melora had gone into labor. Everyone else had gone to the hospital with Sam and Melora but Raine had something else to do. He knew labor took time and he needed to warn Reva and Gator.
He, Sam and five other men had been there a little over a year now and he and the others had been accepted and a new club formed. The six men from the MC Satan’s Bastards had come from Bangor, Maine when Sam wanted to meet the woman his son Deke was going to marry. Sam felt time was running out for him and he almost blew his only chance to get to know his son.
But fate and Cassie had come through for Sam and now, they were living here in Troy, New York.
Which led to another problem. Raine lifted his eyes and stared at the woman in the kitchen. She looked older than the last time he’d seen her but it had been seventeen years. The bruises and blood were long gone but her eyes remained haunted to this day.
“Stop staring at my woman.” Came a growl from behind him.
Raine didn’t bother turning to face the threat. The hairs on the back of his neck told him who was standing there. “Why don’t you sit down?”
Gator pulled out the chair and sat. “What the hell do you want here Raine?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I just want peace between us?” Raine said softly.
“Not bloody likely.” Gator scoffed.
Raine looked up and asked, “Why? I never did anything to you or to her.”
Gator’s hands fisted and the rage buried deep inside him rose to the surface. “That’s right you and your family didn’t do anything to stop your brother from hurting her. You stood there and watched as he beat the hell out her of time and time again.”
Raine nodded. “That’s true enough, we didn’t stop him. Hindsight is a bitch isn’t it? But then, we all had our own problems to worry about, didn’t we? It wasn’t like she ever said anything until it was too late, did she?”
“I don’t want you here, she doesn’t want you here, why don’t you just go home and leave us alone?”
“I can’t,” Raine admitted. “I live here now. For better or worse, this is my new home.”
“Bullshit.” Gator growled. “Go back to Maine with the rest of your family.”
Raine shook his head. “I have too much to make up for. The past haunts us all, not just you or her.”
“She’s the only one I care about,” Gator admitted. “I would put my life on the line for that woman and I won’t stand here and watch you destroy her.”
“Man, I don’t want to destroy her,” Raine tried to explain. “I want the chance to help her. I want her to know that while I wasn’t there for her in the past, I want to try and help her now.”
“She doesn’t need your help.” Gator growled. “Just get of out here, go away and never let her or me see you again or things could get very ugly between us.”
“Things are going to get ugly very soon anyway.” Raine stared directly at him.
Gator leaned closer as his eyes turned to blue steel. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Bulldog is getting out of prison soon and you and I both know he’s going to come looking for her when he gets out. I don’t want him to find her or you.”
Gator paled. His words were like a death toll in his heart. Snapping his head around, he found Reva in the kitchen. His eyes searched over her body and he took a deep breath. Looking back to Raine, he asked, “When?”
“He has another parole hearing in less than a month. He’s been keeping his nose clean this past year or so and his attorney thinks he might have a better chance this time.”
Gator sat there for a moment then asked, “Do you really think he’d come after her?”
Raine snorted. “Oh yeah, he will come after her. I got a letter from him before we got here, and that was over a year ago. Bulldog wants her and you dead. He ranted and raved about the fact the he’s spent the last seventeen years behind bars because of you two and he’s going to get his revenge.”
Gator snarled. “He’s spent the last seventeen years in jail because of what he did. It had nothing to do with anything we did.”
Raine nodded. “True enough, but he never thought she would press charges.”
Gator scoffed. “She didn’t have much choice. He never gave her a choice. He destroyed something inside her that night. He shattered her spirit and stole her child. What the hell did he expect?”
“I don’t know.” Raine shrugged. “He was truly out of control.”
“Don’t you dare sit there and defend what he did to her that night.” Gator sneered. “Not to me and certainly not to her.” He got to his feet and stood over the other man. “If he comes here looking for trouble he’ll get it and this time…I will kill the bastard.” Gator turned and stomped into the kitchen. He took Reva into his arms and held her close. Gator turned his head and glared at Raine.
Raine lifted his cup and acknowledged the glare. He finished his drink and got to his feet. He did what he had to do and now, it was time to go to the hospital. He wanted to be there when Melora had the baby. He wanted to see the look on Sam’s face when his son was born.
He looked over at the kitchen area again. He knew why Reva and Gator didn’t go when everyone else left and he was genuinely sorry for that. Reva would never know the joy of having another child, she would never know what it felt like to grow huge with a child in her belly, all because of his brother. But she wouldn’t have to run this time.
Making his way through the streets of Troy, Raine had time to think again, about what happened all those years ago. They knew something had been going on with Bulldog but they hadn’t realized it was as bad as it was. But Reva knew and she didn’t say a word. Bulldog had her living in fear for years and no one in his family knew it.
They should have known it but they didn’t. That was on them, even though Reva paid the price.
When Raine entered the hospital and made his way to the maternity floor, he found everyone waiting, just as they had waited when Cassie had the twins. The only ones missing were Melora and Sam.
“So how are things going?” he finally asked Deke.
“She should be delivering any time now,” Deke replied.
“Already?” Raine was surprised. “That was a short labor.”
“The silly woman has been in labor all day,” Deke explained. “She just didn’t tell anyone.”
Raine looked around the room and found Mountain looking pale and just a little bit shaky. “Her dad don’t look so good.”
“I’m pretty sure he’d like a drink about now.” Deke laughed softly.
“Yeah, all of them look like they need one,” Raine noted.
“Well, it’s not every day you become a grandfather.” Cassie joined them.
“How is Adriana handling all of this?” Raine asked after he spotted Sam’s young daughter huddled in the corner.
Cassie rolled her eyes. “She couldn’t have gotten here at a worse time. And Sam hasn’t said why he had to bring her here, today of all days.”
“Well, there had to be a good reason,” Raine defended his friend. “Sam wouldn’t have missed his own wedding, not when he was the one pushing for it.”
“I know,” Cassie agreed. “Which leads me to believe the girl or her mother are in some sort of bad trouble.” She nodded toward Adriana. “We just have to hang on to her until Sam is able to explain himself.”
Raine studied the girl. “Shit, she looks scared to death.”
“Yeah, she does,” Deke agreed. “It doesn’t help that the minute Sam got back, Melora was in labor. He didn’t even have time to introduce her to anyone.”
Raine left them and went over to where Adriana was sitting.
When he sat down beside her, she stiffened and refused to look at him.
“Hi, my name is Raine.”
Adriana turned her head. “What the hell kind of name is Rain?”
Raine chuckled. “It’s only a name.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Chris.”
“Ok, Chris, what the hell is going on?”
Raine chuckled. “Sam and his old lady are having a baby.”
“So how many kids does Sam have anyway? Besides me, I mean.”
“Well, there’s Deke.” He pointed her brother out. “And there’s Quinn.” He motioned to her other sister, “Then there’s you and now, the new baby.”
“Sweet Jesus! Doesn’t the man know about birth control?” she whispered. “I know about it and I’m only fourteen.”
Raine chuckled but didn’t say anything. If she only thought about it on another level, she would feel stunned: If Sam had used it, she wouldn’t even exist.