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

had hit him so hard in the chest it had pummelled him backward. His first thought was to get to her and to get her the fuck out of there. Then she kicked at him, pushed at him, and walked up to Cage. Cage being easily the biggest badass in a room of very big badasses and said some shit about needing to see the guy behind the bar. Who everyone in the room knows is the go-to guy.
    Jules tells him to back off. Back the fuck off?? He had to be shitting. Had to be. Then the shit about Prosper and her lighting into him.
    Making no sense.
    Then making all the sense in the world.
    Diego could definitely see where Raine got the money thing. He had gone to explain it, but he had gotten so caught up seeing her beaten like that, honest to fuck, it had dropped from his mind. He got caught up with her in a different way. No shit, that the message didn’t get relayed. So she had gotten a different message. And it had scared the shit right out of her. Then she was raging at him.
    Raging. At. Him.
    Then Raine had started crying.
    Diego watched as his brother, Jules, had made her a drink and made her smile. He watched as Jules put his hand in her hair and leaned in close.
    Really close.
    Too fucking close.
    Then seeing her with Prosper. Raine not being able to look at him. She had looked so fucking beautiful and broken pulling herself in like that. It moved Diego right off the chair. If it hadn’t been for Jules pulling him back, it would have been him holding her. Not Prosper. It would have been him. Whether she wanted it or not, it would have been him.

CHAPTER 19
    T he Hells Saints compound consisted of a few buildings and a large clearing. There was the main clubhouse where Prosper and I sat talking into the night and half the next day. The room that had been “cleared” was a large room that housed a long, fully stocked bar, several tables and chairs, a couple of pool tables, and a variety of big worn couches and deep, soft seats. To the right of the main area lay a set of heavy wooden double doors that had the Hells Saints insignia carved into them. They led to a meeting area.
    There were two other long buildings. One was a warehouse. I wasn’t sure what was in that. The other was a dormitory-style building. It was similar in size to the clubhouse, but it held a large kitchen with several industrial-size appliances. It had one very long table down the middle and several other small tables and chairs. Off the kitchen were two long hallways built shotgun-style with rooms off the main corridor to the left and a back entrance. Those belonged to the brothers and were for their private use. Whatever that meant.
    Just to the back of the buildings was a large outside gathering area. There were several picnic tables, Adirondack chairs, grills, and a big fire pit. A huge stack of wooden pallets and logs covered with a tarp was not too far from the pit. There was also a concrete slab with some more picnic tables that was covered by an open porch and wired for electricity.
    The whole compound was surrounded by woodlands. If it were not for my GPS getting me close to it, I would never have found my way.
    Prosper and I talked and talked and talked. I could not stop. Once that door was open, the words came flooding in. He wanted to know everything about Claire and me. Everything I had to say, he was interested in hearing.
    So I shared and watched. I watched, taking my lead from the expressions on his face. When his eyes grew soft and his mouth curved into a small smile, I continued. When something I said made his eyes grow dark and hard, I hurried past that to the next thing. After a while he sensed that, and kept his face open and neutral, which made it both harder and easier to share. But I told him everything there was to tell. Letting him in, keeping nothing back. Eventually all that talk brought me to the events of the past week. Claire, Jamie, Gino, the fragile-looking blonde who saved my skull from being cracked like an egg, and finally