Page 3 of Breaking His Exile

She let herself enjoy it for one breath, then she went into the next one, the one with more drive, more teeth, because she needed an outlet for her frustration.

You got to leave

And somebody had to stay…

Her voice cracked on stay, and she leaned into the crack instead of hiding it, because the room liked it better broken. And because she was only forty miles up the road from the only person who’d know exactly what the line meant, and he didn’t know she was coming.

She was halfway through the second verse when the door hit the wall hard enough to shake the building. Her hand jerked off the strings, breath catching, but her mind lagged a half-beat behind.

Then everything came rushing in, every nerve awake, adrenaline flooding her system.

She knew what that sound meant.

They’d found her.

Three men in leather cuts walked in, Sons of Sin, California in an arc across their backs. But the man in front wasn’t the one she’d expected to see. Broad through the shoulders, shaved head, gray coming into his beard, he was an older, more grizzled version of her ex.

Mal’s father.

Rux Granger.

She didn’t recognize the younger of the two men behind him, but his cut told her he was from the Montana chapter, not California. He spread wide toward the pool tables without being told, trapping her on the stage.

But the other man—leaner, older, meaner—she knew all too well. Hobbs. He was the one the SoS called in for dirty work. He drifted to the door, blocking that exit, and waited.

Rainey’s fingers curled around the neck of her guitar. Her heart slammed against her ribs, a frantic, trapped rhythm.

Get up. Move.

But her legs wouldn’t listen.

Oh, God. This was it. She was dead.

Her shoulders came down, and she closed her eyes for one heartbeat, letting the resignation flow through her.

She’d known this was coming. She’d known since the sink in the bathroom four states back. She’d just wanted a little more road first.

“Rainey, sweetheart.” Rux was grinning. She didn’t have to open her eyes to know it; she heard it in his voice. “We’ve been looking for you.”

The room had gone silent, everyone holding their breath without knowing why.

She forced herself to open her eyes because closing them wouldn’t stop any of it, and she’d promised herself she was done cowering.

He took two steps toward the stage.

The guitar strap bit into her shoulder. She could throw it. Swing it. Maybe buy herself three seconds.

She caught movement at the edge of her line of sight—something dark and low to the floor—but she didn’t dare take her eyes off Rux to see what it was.

Rux came up onto the stage. He was big, close up. Big enough that he’d never once had to wonder whether he’d win in a fight. He closed a hand around her upper arm, and she flinched. The guitar slid off her knee and hit the floor with a hollow thud and a thrum of strings that sounded, absurdly, like the saddest thing she’d ever played.

“Did you really think you could hide from us?” He hauled her up off the stool by the arm.

No. She wouldn’t make this easy.

She swung with her free hand and got the heel of her palm up under his chin. His head snapped back, and the grip loosened, and for one wild second, she thought she’d done it—thought she’d bought herself a window.

Then his fist came from nowhere.