Page 29 of Exile & Lula
“He saved my mom,” Dillon said from the kitchen. “You should thank him.”
Glancing over her shoulder at Dillon, Sabrina said, “I will thank him, right before I kick him out of town.”
Dillon replied instantly, “Your ego is clouding your common sense.”
I smiled at my daughter’s refusal to back down. Though Sabrina usually intimidated people, Dillon knew her aunt was often full of hot air.
Sabrina insisted, “Kid, you’re allowing your childlike innocence to blind you to danger.”
“I don’t see how.”
“We don’t know if Exile’s club was behind what happened.”
Everyone frowned, except for me. When Dillon looked to me for reassurance, I shook my head.
“Exile wasn’t involved,” I explained to my daughter. “He’s too obvious about his feelings to hide something so big.”
“You don’t know,” Sabrina maintained.
“Exile isn’t a cool cucumber like Clint. If he were, I’d agree that I couldn’t know. With Exile, his feelings are obvious.”
“Exile saved my mom,” Dillon insisted and shot a dirty look at her aunt.
“Maybe hewasn’tin on the plan,” Sabrina said, refusing to give up. “But that Zodiac is sneaky. Everyone says so. He might have hired those fuckers to attack you.” When Vanessa lowered her head and started crying, Sabrina sighed deeply. “She keeps doing that.”
“She’s sad,” Elle muttered as I hugged Vanessa to me. “You know how tight she is with the twins.”
Cher and Stevie were “Irish twins,” having been born less than a year apart. They looked so much alike, people oftenfigured they were actual twins. This was originally why they dyed their hair different colors, but outsiders still couldn’t tell them apart.
“They shaved Cher’s head,” Vanessa mumbled against me. “Her green hair is all gone.”
“Stevie is awake,” Xandy told me in her raspy voice while hugging a crying Moe. “She ate orange jello and pissed in the toilet. The doctor thinks she’ll be able to go home in a few days.”
As tears welled up in my eyes, I noticed Dillon struggling emotionally in the kitchen. I gestured for her to join us on the couch. Elle shifted over, so Dillon could cuddle with me while Vanessa buried her face against my chest.
Sabrina stood deflated in the middle of the family room. Her rage couldn’t protect her from the grief dragging her down. Elle got up to hug my sister.
“I still think we shouldn’t trust the Black Rainbow,” Sabrina muttered as she gripped Elle. “It’s bullshit to believe they’ve conveniently got a snitch feeding them info.”
“On paper, I agree with you,” Clint said as he held Ivy. “The Black Rainbow arrived in Rawlins too quickly after that attack. They found Lula within hours. That’s suspicious as fuck.” Before I could defend Exile, my cousin continued, “But Exile’s sister was shot. Devin got hold of the police report, and the shooting looked targeted. None of that was fabricated by the Black Rainbow.”
Sabrina shook her head. “That doesn’t prove they didn’t attack Lula and the twins.”
“But expand on your theory,” Clint said, refusing to be irrational. “You think the Void attacked the Black Rainbow. Then, a year later, Zodiac decides to use the Void as a way to get closer to our club. They attack Rawlins, killing low-level guys with no connections to anyone currently in power. Then, they send two teams of hired guns to attack Lula in a publicplace. Then, they ride to a secret location and save Lula. Then, they send Exile here to seem smitten with Lula. That’s a lot of fucking effort to get close to us when we had already agreed to an alliance.”
Despite Clint’s good points, Sabrina refused to agree. My sister needed a tangible enemy to punish. The Void was a shadowy group. They hired local thugs to do their dirty work. There was no face to put to the enemy. Meanwhile, Exile was a dangerous stranger with ties to a club she didn’t trust. Sabrina would rather be wrong about the Black Rainbow than accept how we couldn’t defeat our enemy yet.
“So, Exile’s just here to bang Lula?” Sabrina mumbled, sounding overly confused.
Xandy sized me up and smiled. “That makes sense to me.”
Though I shared her grin, my heart hurt. Exile’s earlier arrival was such a perfect distraction. My guilt and fear over what happened could be shoved to the back burner for a short time. Now, the pain returned, and my perfect distraction was miles away.
EXILE
Rowdy returned with his dog, who strutted over to me and barked again. Once the little shit decided I was sufficiently terrified, he strutted away. I glanced at Rowdy grinning at me near the fridge.
“Don’t even think about stealing my dog. He won’t love anyone like he loves me.”
