Destroy For Her - R.B. Hilliard Page 0,19

to her,” he repeated.

“Did he . . . rape her?” she whispered.

There was a reason Lucy was the club’s lawyer. Not only was she intuitive, but she had street smarts. Like a chameleon, she changed to fit her environment. One minute she was arguing law and the next, she was whooping Arson’s ass in darts. He wasn’t surprised she’d figured it out. “Answer me,” she tearfully commanded.

So not to break Sage’s confidence, he carefully considered his words. “The fucker beat the shit out of her and threatened to kill Petal. He’s part of a drug cartel. You do the math.”

Her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes bulging in shock as she hinged forward and let out a painful groan. After a few deep breaths, she straightened back up and gave him a contemplative look. “He’s not going to let this lie, is he?”

“Nope.”

“Are we going on lockdown?”

“Not yet, but my guess is it’s coming.”

“Damnit. I have a job, important clients, I can’t keep doing this shit.”

Ax smiled at her. “That’s what you get for marrying an asshole biker, sweetheart.”

She let out a half-laugh, half-huff. “No kidding. Alrighty then, on that note, I’m going to the store.”

“Here.” He handed her a credit card. “Anything they need.”

Lucy smiled. “I knew you had a heart.”

“Yeah, yeah. Grab a cake while you’re at it.”

“Sorry, sugar, that’s your gig,” she replied before disappearing out the door.

Gut twisting, he lowered his elbows to his knees and scrubbed his hands through his hair. Tomorrow was the bonfire. He’d invited Emma because he wanted her to finally meet his family. Now, he wasn’t sure what he wanted. No, that wasn’t fair. Just because Sage was back didn’t mean things had changed. Fuck, who was he kidding? Sage being back changed everything.

He found Sage and Petal outside Steele’s office.

“I was just about to take them down,” Steele said.

“I’ve got them.”

Steele smirked. Ax gave him the middle finger. Fucker.

“Wait ‘til you see what LuLu did with the downstairs,” Ax told Sage and Petal. “I especially like Steele’s new throw pillows.”

“Ha-Ha,” Steele mocked. Ax and Sage both laughed.

When LuLu discovered she was pregnant, she didn’t go into a nesting phase, she went into a redecorating phase. Steele presented it to the club as a “Luciana would like to clean the place up” kind of thing. The vote was unanimous because, well, the place was kind of a dump. The next thing they knew, decorators were in their space deciding color patterns, walls were being torn down, carpet was being torn out, and they were being gassed out by toxic-smelling paint fumes. Some of it Ax liked and some he didn’t. He hated the new living room but he dug what she’d done with the basement. The basement housed the control room, an old wine cellar left over from The Cave’s days as a hotel, and four bedrooms. Only two of the bedrooms were occupied, one by Steele and the other by their control-room operator, Grover. When LuLu caught wind that there were two unoccupied rooms, she morphed into Susie Homemaker. This led to the basement overhaul, which included new carpet, more lighting, and two new guest suites.

Ax led them into one of the two suites and smiled when Sage began oohing and aahing. He had to admit, LuLu had done a good job.

Petal ran off to find Grover while Sage checked out the bathroom.

“Wow, this is amazing. I had no idea this was even down here.”

Pulling her to his side, he wrapped his arm around her. “Grizz used it for storage. Steele was too lazy to clean it out. You wouldn’t believe how much shit was piled into this one room.

Sage laughed. “How much does Steele hate this?”

He chuckled. “A fuck of a lot.” Her head dropped to his shoulder and he caught a whiff of her shampoo. His cock stirred in his pants. Touching her felt good. Too good. Time to go. He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, then took a step back and started for the door. “Lucy will be back shortly with some things for you. Get some rest and we’ll talk later.”

He’d barely opened the door when Petal came barreling through it. “Mommy, I got to ride on Uncle Grover’s wheelchair!”

“That’s great, baby. Are you ready for a bath?”

Petal ran to Ax and he picked her up. “Are you leaving?”

“I am, but I’ll see you later.”

“Promise?”

The anxious look on her face made his chest ache. “I promise. Now, give me a hug.”

A few minutes later,