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“Ah. A complicated love story. My favorite.” Raine smiled and looped her arm through mine. “I was just going to go down to start a fire for the kids to roast marshmallows in later on. Come with me, and we can talk. My kids tell me I’m a pretty good listener. But then again, it’s probably because with that crew who can get a word in edgewise!”
And true to her word, Raine was a good listener. She must have been because once I began to talk to her, I couldn’t stop. I told her all about Liddy, and because Raine wanted to know everything, I started from the very beginning.
When I was done there was a six-pack of drained beer bottles and a crushed package of cigarettes lying at our feet. While I was sharing all that happy horseshit about me and Liddy visions of a strung-up Principe Sievas flashed through my mind and created a messed-up dichotomy.
When I was done talking, the last thing I expected to come out of Raine Montesalto’s mouth was this.
“When I first met Diego, I was pretty sure he was going to kill me.”
“You’re kidding right?” I choked on that last gulp of beer.
“Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, the fear of Diego murdering me in my sleep is what led me back to Prosper.”
I had heard a few versions of that story over the years. It was a legend in the outlaw nation. Now, to be here and able to hear the story from Raine Winston Montesalto herself was a real rush.
“Was there really a magic phone number and an outside light that Prosper kept on for you for years?” I knew that I sounded like a little kid begging to hear the rest of a really good bedtime story (which is not a good look on a grown-ass, two-hundred-and-thirty-pound biker) but I couldn’t help myself.
“Yes and yes.” She nodded with a rueful grin. “I’ve heard the stories going around too, but trust me, they just tip the edge of the iceberg. Throw in a few murders, a kidnapping, a surprise pregnancy, a thirty-thousand-dollar debt, a would-be love triangle, and you still only get half of the story of Diego and me. Volatile probably wouldn’t be too strong a word. And even without all the added drama that D and I had to endure, there is always the simple matter of the club itself. It’s not an easy life for a woman. It takes a whole lot of patience and trust, courage, and commitment. The commitment thing is a big one. Not only is she committing to the man, but she is also committing to the lifestyle.”
“Love the man, love the life,” I muttered.
“An unfortunate widely accepted cliché. But trust me—there aren’t a lot of usthat love the life.We accept the life because we love the man. There’s a lot of fear and danger that comes with that. And that is just a part of it. There’s always something…someone…waiting in the wings to take what’s ours. Either it’s another woman, club business, law enforcement, or the good old Grim Reaper.”
“Damn. But you made it work, right? I mean all this….” I waved my hand in the air. “It’s living proof that the two of you found a way to make it work.”
“Yeah, we made it work, but not without working at it. And we still work at it every day. Diego is not an easy man.” She said honestly. “We love each other, and we love this wild, crazy, beautiful family that our love created. But this life is a hard one, and a dangerous one. Claire and I …we stumbled into it early on. Then again, we had nowhere else to go. And still, we were both almost killed more than once because of what that brought to the table.” Raine sighed. “It’s not a life I’d want for my girls. Willow? She had her eyes on Jet Mathison since she was an itty-bitty thing. Butcher, baker, beggarman, king…poor guy never had a chance. No matter what, Willow was going to be by his side. And so far, she’s handling the life like a boss, but then again, she grew up with the Saints literally in her backyard. And she has her father and me to lean on, and to help navigate her through it.”
Just at that moment, the door to the house swung open and all the kids started running towards the fire. Diego walked behind them with the youngest grandchild in one arm and a big bag of marshmallows in the other. When she saw him, Raine’s face transformed, and she let out a low sigh. It was the sigh of a woman well-loved and a life well-lived. It was a sigh of contentment. I hoped that one day I would see that look on Liddy’s face. The conversation with Raine not only gave me a lot to think about, but it also scared the hell out of me. Because if Diego Montesalto hadn’t been able to keep his woman safe then how the hell would I?
The next day I met with Jet and his executive board. That meeting led to a bunch of other meetings with other chapters over the course of the next couple of weeks.
The takedown would involve navigating through an intricate labyrinth of well-executed, finely tuned movements that would take place over a matter of weeks and months. But before I made the commitment that I knew the club needed and expected from me, I was going to go home and see Liddy.
Liddy
“Go Away!!” I was jarred awake by banging at my door. It was themorning afterin the truest sense of the word. I was back in my trailer sleeping it off. My mouth was dust-dry, my head pounding, and my bladder was painfully full. There was a small lump just under my hairline from where I had been punched by Tillie Coldwater. After the showdown at the hospital, we were all thrown out. Deke took his crew and rumbled out without another word, and Melody took the on-site shuttle bus to be with Boo.
Truly and I went out for what we told each other would be just one drink at Savages. It was all kind of a blur after that.
After I relieved my bladder, I stumbled to the door and blinked my eyes as the bright sun shattered what was left of my brain into thin slivers of blinding pain. I took one look at Kid, let out a yelp of surprise, then puked off the deck. Moaning, I stumbled back inside and got sick again in the bathroom. I felt a cool, strong hand cradle my head as I vomited chunks of everything I had eaten in my whole miserable life. After that part was done, my stomach lurched into the next galaxy courtesy of the dry heaves that wracked through my aching belly. After it seemed like my intestines had stopped twisting and turning and spinning my insides in and out, Kid picked up my weakened body and set me against the wall. But when my legs went all rubber on me, I slid back down and landed flat on my ass with a thud. The next thing I knew I was standing at the sink with a mixture of Listerine and cold water, swishing and rinsing, rinsing and swishing until the rancid taste in my mouth was blessedly gone. Kid put a toothbrush in my hand and started running the shower for me. Within seconds he had pulled off my vomit-soaked pajamas, shoved a washcloth and a bar of soap in my hand, and pushed me under the water. When I finally stepped out of the shower, Kid was waiting with a large warm towel and a wary look on his face. I felt I had to say something, but I didn’t know what.
Finally, I settled on… “You’re back?”
He raised an eyebrow.
I grimaced out with accusation just as another small cramp hit my belly. My mouth was once again dry as a dust bowl and my head was still pounding. That’s all I wanted to do was to lie down on the couch and stop the world from spinning out from under my feet. I had waited all this time for Kid to come home, and now all I wanted him to do was go away.
“This is what you get for going out all night drinking when your man is away.” Kid’s tone was full of disgust. But even as he growled at me, he moved to the bathroom and returned with a cool cloth that he folded and put on my forehead. Next thing I knew there was a cup of chamomile tea and some dry toast on the coffee table. I took a sip then moved slowly to the bedroom to get dressed. When I came back out, the look on Kid’s face told me he was dangerously close to being out of patience.
“What’s going on Liddy?” Kid was sitting opposite me. His body was leaning forward and his hands were resting on his knees. The morning light shone through the windows. For the first time I realized how tired he looked.
“So, you haven’t gone to the clubhouse yet?” I sat up slowly, tucked my legs underneath, and reached for the tea and toast.
“No. Went right up to the house, saw you weren’t there, and came here.” Kid scrubbed a hand over his face and then asked again. “What’s going on, Liddy?”
“Last couple of days have been a roaring shitshow.”
“You, okay?”
