Page 4 of The Biker’s Guilty Pleasur

Gena burst out laughing. “Oh, bless you, you’re reminding me of exactly how I reacted the first time he showed up with a beaten woman and two kids. I saw the patch and the leather jacket, as well as that angry scowl. The two kids that were practically wrapped around him didn’t register and I was one button away from calling the cops. Of course, my brain finally caught up with everything I was seeing, and, well, the rest is history.”

“He comes by often?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s often. When I need his help, no matter when or where, he’s always there. He tries to stick to my schedule. If we’re having a problem with a couple of the husbands or partners, he’s happy to be here. He’ll help with funding as well as security. He’s a really good guy. I don’t know his story. We’ve never sat down and had a heart to heart. I know his intentions are good, and whenever I need anything, it miraculously turns up.”

Grace took a deep breath. “So, I was completely wrong.”

“About Reaper, yes, but everyone else, that’s for you to judge.”

Grace nodded.

“I doubt he’ll harbor any ill will toward you. He’s not the type. At least, not from what I’ve seen.”

This did not make her feel any better. “Did the woman settle in, and the little girl?”

“Yes, they did, and I believe we’ve got one leaving tomorrow, but everything on that case has been handled.” The women’s shelter was always so busy. In rare situations they were able to get some lawyers to help do the work pro-bono to gain restraining orders, divorces, or even put the men responsible behind bars. It was messy work, but someone had to do it.

“I better be off then. I’ll be back day after tomorrow,” Grace said.

“I’ll see you then. Do you need any help getting home?”

“Nope, nope, it’s all good.” Again, she offered a quick smile, left Gena’s office, and made her way toward the exit. The moment she left, she made sure the door was locked. She never wanted to give anyone a chance to get inside.

It was dark outside, and usually she hated walking in the dark, but she was not going to put a time limit on helping others. She did so for the memory of her sister, or maybe it was for herself, too. She wanted to be the person that could help someone else.

Cutting the pain off before it could take hold, she made her way across the street. She lived a twenty-minute walk from her apartment to the women’s shelter. Most of the time, the walk was pleasant, but today something felt off, and she didn’t like it. This tended to happen whenever they had a new woman, certainly one as afraid as the one Reaper had dropped off. She’d been hysterical, convinced she was being followed.

New admits usually only confided in Gena, and once they felt safe, they were able to open up a little more. Grace had helped Heidi and her daughter Jane on the night they’d come in. She’d helped her with paperwork and got her some supplies she’d need from the donation closets. The stories were all the same, and yet completely different.

Usually, it was a nice guy who suddenly just got angry, and what started as shouting turned into a slap, and before they knew it, they were in the hospital. It was awful.

She arrived at her building and trudged up to her apartment on the third floor. Once inside, she immediately slid the bolts into the locks to keep the darkness out. She flicked on the lights, illuminating the whole apartment.

She didn’t own much, but she was only twenty-seven years old and hadn’t collected much. Material things weren’t important to her, which was even easier when she had no free money. Her parents were gone. The death of her sister had broken down their marriage, slowly and painfully. It ended up sending them to an early grave. She was the only one left. It was why she’d moved out of her small town, to the big city. It was a chance to escape all the horrible memories there. Memories of a sister who was never going to return, and the parents gone forever.

Also, she couldn’t keep up with her parents’ mortgage repayment. They remortgaged the house, attempting to do whatever they could to get her sister away from those monsters. They thought they were paying for a private investigator. Instead, they got a crook who took all their money and didn’t help her sister once.

The only way for her to escape her parents’ crippling debt was to sell everything. All she had now were her mother’s photograph albums. The jewelry, including her mother’s engagement and wedding rings, had to go. And all the furniture. She had absolutely nothing.

Grabbing a soda from her fridge, she made her way to the only chair she had, and grabbed the photograph album she’d been looking at the previous night. Her cat, Bob, was lying on the coffee table. Lifting the album onto her knee, she opened it and was immediately greeted with a picture of herself, her sister, and their parents. They were so young. She took a deep breath, exhaled it, and the tears she tried so hard to ignore came rushing back.

This was her family.

She was all that was left.

It was surreal.

The first year or so had been the hardest. She’d break down in the grocery store aisles and zone out constantly. Although, the emotions weren’t as painful now, it didn’t take much to set them off again. Especially when she was lonely.

Pressing her fingers against the picture, she wished she could go back. Rather than screaming at her sister that she hated her for being stupid enough to get hooked on drugs, she’d go back and just hug her. Hindsight was amazing.

No one ever knew the true value of time, or their last actions with someone, until it was too late.

****

The club was not the target for the latest contract, so it had no concern for Reaper. The information was not hard to find, just needed a few hours to collect it. The hit was on a mafia capo who had been caught stealing. Nothing to do with the club.

Reaper didn’t like finding Heidi’s ex, the woman he released to the women’s shelter, in the files. Gena asked him to do some digging, as a few notices had been made against the shelter, as well as a sudden hike in rental fees.