I pull the gun from my cut and cock it. Then I crouch and hurry across the road as quietly as I can, using the cars to hide me from view. I peek around the butt-end of the vehicle. Some arsehole has her pinned to the ground as she sobs. His dick is out, and her jeans are down around her knees. Her perfect, lily-white arse is exposed to the street, and she’s bucking to unseat the dead man on top of her. And he is a dead man. Whether he actually got his cock wet or not, I’ve never seen a deader fucker.
I step around the car and come up behind them. This arsehole’s too busy getting his rape on to notice me. I lean down and shove the pistol into the base of his skull.
“Get the fuck off her,” I say quietly. He stills. I grab the back of his hoodie with one hand and yank him upright. “Drop the fucking gun.”
“Okay, okay,” he says in a thick Russian accent. He drops the pistol and holds his hands up in the air, as if I could be placated with a simple gesture after he just tried to rape the woman I love. “We were just fooling around, man.”
I kick the gun away from us and glance at Raine. She’s trembling so bad she may as well have Parkinson’s. There are grazes on her face and hands, her knees too, but I don’t see any blood between her legs.
“Raine, babe, you okay?”
Okay? O-fucking-kay? What kind of stupid-arse motherfucker asks a question like that?
Her baby blues meet mine, and her face crumples as a timid cry escapes her throat. She scrambles to pull up her jeans, but her body tremors and sobs wrack her frame as tears and snot run down her face.
That’s all the confirmation I need. I slam the arsehole up against the fence, shoot him once in the dick and then again in the head. Blood mists my face, and I wipe it off with the hem of my shirt as his body slumps to the ground.
Raine staggers to her feet. She screams, but covers her mouth as her wide eyes spill more tears. I glance around to make sure we haven’t been seen, then I grab her bag from the ground and take hold of her elbow, tugging her down the street. No way has no one heard that commotion.
I move us into the shadows beside my bike. She’s shaking so hard she has to lean against the dilapidated brick building to stay upright.
“What the fuck are you doin’ walking home after midnight? Where the fuck’s your car?”
“It’s in the shop. Damn it, Grim. I just had a gun put to my head and a man trying to rape me, and you’re yelling at me?”
I scrub a hand over my stubble. “You’re right but, babe, what the fuck is your car doing in the shop? Didn’t you just have it fixed a month ago?”
“It was more than I thought it was going to be. The guy’s an arsehole and wants an extra grand for it.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone—Jett? Kick? Fuck, why didn’t you tell me, Raine?”
“Because it’s no one else’s business.”
“Oh, it’s our fucking business. You’re club property.”
She stiffens. “I am not one of your whores.”
“No, but you work for us. You clean up our shit and pour our drinks, and listen to those other whiney fuckers go on about their pathetic sex lives. You’re family—that makes you club property.”
“Stop yelling at me!”
I hold up my hands in surrender. “Get on. We gotta go.”
“But my apartment—”
“Have you got any idea how close you just came to having your pretty head splattered all over the footpath? You’re not going home until I say you’re going home. You’re coming with me. Get on the bike.”
I grab the helmet from the handlebars and step closer. After placing it on her head, I fasten it under her chin. She stares blankly up at me, her whole body trembling.
“Get on the fuckin’ bike, Raine. Please?”
I straddle the seat and she slides on behind me. I close my eyes, feeling her shaking hands glide around my waist. This is torture. I always thought the day I got her on the back of my bike would be fucking heaven—her tits pressed against my back, her tiny hands splayed on my waist—but it’s torture. Sick, twisted torture.
I drive the fastest route possible to my apartment in Alexandria. It’s a converted loft. But as I slide the key in the lock, enter the security code and push open the door, I’m suddenly nervous she’s in my space. I’m not like the other Savage slobs—I keep my shit clean and orderly.
I gesture for her to go first. I know it’s clear because my alarm would be going off if it wasn’t. Speaking of alarms. A scruffy furball comes hurtling towards us. She’s blind and deaf, but there ain’t a goddamn thing wrong with her nose. She sniffs at Raine’s feet, sucking in a noisy breath through her little nostrils. Her tail flicks back and forth at a rapid pace. I know how she feels. My tail would be wagging too if I was given the chance to sniff around Raine’s skirts. Lola paws at Raine’s thigh, coming up on her hind legs and snuffling to be picked up. I never thought I’d be jealous of a dog, but here we are.
Raine’s trembling hand reaches out to pet Lola, but she’s shaking so hard she seems to think better of it.
As she walks farther into the room, her eyes study everything. The minimal furniture, the stacks of books all over my apartment, and the lack of complete and utter chaos. What the hell is she thinking right now? I place my hands on her shoulders and she flinches. “Go on inside. It’s not safe out here in the hall.”
Raine shuffles forward like a fucking zombie. Shock will do that to a person. I close the door behind me and slide all of the locks home.
“Grim, what were you doing at my apartment tonight?” She’s shaking as she stands in my living room, watching me.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“How did you know about my car?”
“I don’t know. Did you tell someone at the club?”
“No. I didn’t tell anyone.”
“I don’t fucking know. What does it matter—be thankful I was there to kill that motherfucker.”
She grips her elbows, hunches in on herself. “Have you been following me?”
“Don’t be fuckin’ stupid.”
She flinches and guilt worms its way through my gut. “Grim, have you been following me?”
“Bitch, I already told you once—”
Lola lets out a sharp bark, and I move around Raine and into the kitchen to avoid her penetrating stare.
“Tell me again,” she says, her voice shaking as hard as her body. “And this time, look at me when you tell me no.”
I exhale through my nose and glare at her. “Yeah, I been watching you. That what you wanted to hear?”
“Why have you been watching me?”
“Because we got a lot of enemies,” I say impatiently. “We got a fucking dick-tonne of people who want us dead, or wanna hurt us by killing off family members, and I can’t stand the thought of you being one of ’em. So, fuck yeah, I’ve been following you. You don’t like it, too goddamn bad, because I ain’t stoppin’.”
“Okay.”
My eyebrows practically fly off my goddamn face. “Okay?”
“Okay.” She nods. “Do you have a bathroom I can use?”
“Down the hall on your left. You know it’s a four-storey drop from the window, right? You’d break your pretty neck just tryin’.”