“Sorry?” Rush asked.
“The gift the boys wanted her to have. They haven’t shared. They want you to tell her.”
Slowly, Rush smiled.
Sixx smiled back.
They shook hands.
Then Sixx moved to Rebel as Maddox and Diesel moved to him.
More hand shaking, this time with some shoulder pounding, though through it Diesel growled, “We’re trusting you, bro.”
“I take that serious,” Rush replied. “Only thing I take more serious is lookin’ after her.”
D stared in his eyes and gave him another shoulder blow that almost took Rush a step to the side. Then he let him go for Maddox to move in.
“This gets done, come down,” Maddox said, his hand holding Rush’s in a monster grip. “Molly’s put out, she hasn’t met you. Don’t make our woman wait long.”
“Do my best, man,” Rush promised.
They let go, Rebel came in for one more hug from her brothers before Rush claimed her and they moved into the chute for premier passengers.
“This part always sucks,” Rebel muttered.
He held her tight and did it awhile, lifting his chin after they’d fully moved through security and the men looked back before they lost sight of them on the escalators down to the train.
He guided Rebel out to the truck and held her silence but kept alert to their surroundings as he did it.
Rush and Rebel had followed their rental cars in, did that whole rigmarole for the drop off, loading their bags in the back of his truck, Rebel and Sixx in the back of his cab, crunched in with Maddox, D riding shotgun as he drove them up to DIA.
There’d been a lot of chatter and ribbing on the way there.
Right then, he felt Rebel’s gloom that the energy in his cab wasn’t as animated as the last time they were in it.
“Gonna be okay?” he asked, guiding them to a kiosk to pay for parking.
“Glad I got to introduce Sixx to Las Delicias before they left town, still pissed I couldn’t make you dinner.”
She wasn’t pissed she couldn’t make him dinner.
She was upset all the family she had left was about to get on a plane and fly eight hundred miles away.
He paid for parking and they were on Peña Boulevard when he shared, “They left you something.”
He knew she was looking at him when she asked, “What?”
“And the brothers had a sit down this afternoon. Talk about the state of play with Valenzuela out of the game. I brought it up and they’re cool with you filming if you don’t open any closed doors. And don’t even knock, babe. And if one of them sees you comin’ and warns you off, you don’t get close. Yeah?”
“You’re kidding me,” she breathed.
He glanced at her before putting his eyes back to the road.
She was fucking beside herself.
He liked that.
He liked he gave her that.
“No,” he answered.
“Seriously?” she cried. “Ohmigod, Rush! That’s amazing!”
He grinned at the windshield, advising, “Buckle up, babe. It gets better.”
“What?” she asked.
“Sixx, D and Maddox maneuvered Valenzuela into deeding Bang and Luxe to Chaos. We’ll have title on the premises and all the equipment and property in them. The brothers voted to liquidate Bang. They wanna chat with you about what you wanna do with Luxe.”
He got nothing from that.
He skimmed his gaze her way, saw she was looking out the side window, which he thought was weird, so he called, “Babe.”
Nothing.
“Rebel.”
Nothing.
He opened his mouth to call her again when he heard a hushed sob.
He closed his mouth.
Gave her time.
She took it.
When they were on I-25, nearing his exit, she said softly, “I wanna finish the film I’m doing as Tallulah Monroe. Then close down the porn part and use the proceeds to fund the Chaos documentary and my indie.”
“We’ll need a plan, budgets, info on royalties,” he replied in her tone. “And we’ll need your script.”
“I’ll take my laptop into Ride tomorrow and draft something.”
“Okay, sweetheart,” he muttered.
He pulled off and negotiated the city streets toward her cottage.
Rebel broke the silence.
“You did that,” she whispered.
“Sixx and D—”
“Chaos would liquidate it all. They want the Club clean. It was you that engineered that.”
He didn’t confirm.
But he had.
“For me,” she finished.
He reached out to claim her thigh, but he didn’t get there.
She claimed his hand in both of hers and held tight.
“Thank you, Rush.”
“Make good movies, baby.”
Her hands tensed around his.
Then she said, “I will, honey. Promise.”
Rush figured that was a promise she’d keep.
But he also figured, with Rebel, she didn’t make any that she wouldn’t.
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled in Essence’s back drive, and it didn’t strike Rush as a good thing that he hadn’t even gotten the truck stopped when Essence was flying out the back door, her face set to panic.
Or maybe it was ticked.
One quiet night.
That was it.
Now they had . . .
What?
“No,” Rebel breathed, and her fucking door opened.
“Rebel!” he shouted, his heart jumping, his mood rocketing instantly to pissed as fuck when her seatbelt slammed back, and she was out before he got to a full stop.
She slammed the door and was racing to Essence when Rush cut the ignition, threw open his door and angled out, seeing Speck had followed Essence.
Well there was that.
And Speck looked ticked.
But he didn’t look bloody.
Rush prowled to Essence and Rebel, his focus on Speck.
Speck just shook his head.
“What?” Rebel shrieked.
He barely made it to her before she was flying toward Essence’s back door.
“God fucking dammit,” he bit out, glancing at Essence, reading from close the woman looked far from happy before he took long strides to Speck, checking the jog when Speck opened his mouth.
“Her mother and brother are here,” Speck snarled, and Rush took from that, however long their visit had lasted, they hadn’t made a good impression.
That was when he broke into a jog.
They were in the parlor and he knew that because that was where he tracked Rebel’s shouting.
“You don’t get to do this!”
“Fuck you, Reb,” a male voice said. “Where is that fuck?”
“That fuck, your brother, is not here,” Rebel snapped back as Rush entered the room.
Her oldest brother, a man who looked a lot like Diesel, but smaller, less in shape, nowhere near as good looking (all of which could explain a lot of things) with spiteful eyes and an ugly twist to his mouth was facing off on Rebel.
“We know he’s here, Rebel,” a woman who didn’t look like Diesel, or this man, or Rebel, all she looked was small and . . . nothing else.
If she walked out of the room, he couldn’t have told a soul what the woman who was Rebel’s mom looked like.
“He’s not,” Rebel bit.
“Who’s this guy?” her brother, Gunner, bit back, yanking a thumb Rush’s way.
Rebel looked behind her then turned back to her brother. “Get out of here.”
“I want to talk to my son,” the woman said, and if he remembered rightly, her name was Verna.
“He’s not here,” Rebel fired back.
“We know he’s fuckin’ here. Fuck. What a goddamned homo. Sending his baby sister to protect him,” Gunner sniped.
Rush felt something stab in his chest.
“He’s not here,” Rush growled. “We just put him on a plane.”
“Again, who the fuck are you?” Gunner demanded.
“Not sure you got call to ask who the fuck I am, asshole. You’re the one’s standing in a room where you’re not welcome. And now I’m givin’ you five minutes to say goodbye to your sister, then you’re out.”