Raine Falling (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) by Paula Marinaro Read Free Book Online Page A

men are the ones who go to sleep next to you at night, wake up next to you in the morning, and hold you in their hearts all the hours in between. You make sure when it’s your time to choose that you pick a man like that.”
    Yeah, I thought wryly. Good luck with that.
    The sun was low in the sky when I finally walked into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. It had been a good day. I had started the day off thinking my life was a train wreck. By the end of the day, I was comparing it to more of a derailment. My life hadn’t crashed and burned, it had simply gotten off track.
    I pulled the screen door open wide ready to face the next thing. When I walked into the kitchen the next thing hit me like a bullet. How could I have missed that? The envelope bag was sitting on the table and must have been there all day. Or had it been? I walked towards it praying to sweet, sweet Jesus that it was empty. Hoping against hope that Diego had grabbed the cash out of it. Why would he want a stupid bulky bag anyway, right? He wouldn’t. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to worry about. Don’t worry. Nothing to worry about. At all.
    When I picked it up and saw the cash sitting like a heavy stone still in the bag, I sank to the floor. This couldn’t make sense in any way that was good. Diego hadn’t taken the money. Which meant . . . what? Or after having taken it, had he come back while I was outside singing it up in the garden thinking the worst was over?
    Shit, they had even sent him to come two days early for it. Why leave it without a word? Unless maybe he forgot it. Oh, of course that was it. How dumb of me to worry. He had been so hypnotized by my bloody, beaten face and so enthralled by my puke fest that he simply forgot about the thirty thousand dollars that I owed his MC.
    Why had he been here sitting in the dark, waiting for me, and then had not taken that money? Unless it wasn’t the money he had come for. So what had he come for?
    I was pacing.
    Think. Think. Think. Think.
    They had said that the money wouldn’t be enough if . . . if . . . if . . . what?
    Oh, sweet Jesus.
    If there was something Claire was involved in that basically fucked over the MC.
    I had grilled her on the way to the hospital. She had said over and over that she had had very little involvement in Jamie’s business. But that night she had tried to tell them that Jamie had the money. How had she known that? How would she have known anything at all about his money if she wasn’t involved?
    Had my baby sister been able to look me straight in the eye and lie?
    Had Diego come here last night for Claire?
    I had driven her straight to the hospital, but the MC couldn’t have known that. And I had told them that she would be here with me. Or did I? I was getting so confused. Had he come to kill Claire and my fucked-up face played on his sympathy? What had Diego been doing in my house before I had come home? What had he been doing when I was getting sick, and I thought he was gone? Had he searched the house? Oh my God, did I talk in my sleep? Was Diego trying to find Claire right now to shut her up?
    And that was me. On and on and on and on. For hours. Just like that.
    Then out of nowhere, something banged hard against the screen door. I dropped to my knees and covered my head.
    “My bad!” a familiar voice yelled out. “Missed again, Raine!”
    Tommy Adams had overshot the morning paper.
    I let out a rush of air and rose unsteadily to my feet.
    Wait, what? I looked at the clock and it was seven a.m. I had been so deep in thought, so worried and filled with fear and despair, I had sat in my own darkness long after the sun had come up.
    I could see no way of getting us out of this one. Claire was safe for now. No visitors for the first twenty-eight days of rehab. But what about after that?
    And what if they came for me? They must have wanted something instead of the thirty grand, or they never would have left it. When would