Hail No (Hail Raisers Book 1)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  A warning that I hadn’t realized was a warning. Ramirez, Balthazar’s minion, had informed me that I’d gone to the police, which had expedited Balthazar’s timetable—meaning that he’d taken the risk at visiting us himself, bringing Walter as backup. What he hadn’t expected was such a fast response time by the police, or for Evander to have a freakin’ bat.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Evander growled against my neck. “Worry about me.”

  “You don’t have anything that I need to worry about at this point…” I countered cheekily.

  His mouth turned up into a grin. “No?”

  I didn’t like that grin. It was his ‘I’m about to do something you won’t like’ grin.

  Then he started toward my Lovesac.

  “Evander, no,” I growled. “We’re not doing it on my Lovesac.”

  My precious baby that I’d seen on Facebook and had cost an arm and a leg. A beautiful piece of furniture that still didn’t have a cover on it.

  He ignored me.

  Then started running to take a flying jump, with me in his arms curled around him like a monkey. He came down hard on the Lovesac, but I didn’t so much as jolt.

  The air left my lungs as my wedding present took the brunt of our fall.

  “Goddammit, Evander!” I said, laughter tinging my voice. “What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

  We were both sunk down in the beast of a bean bag. We were cocooned on all four sides, and it was glorious.

  In a few months, however, when I was further along in my pregnancy, it would definitely be a bitch to get out of it.

  “We’re supposed to make love.”

  I laughed, thinking that he was joking.

  We couldn’t make love on my Lovesac! How cliché!

  Except he was perfectly serious and went about showing me how very serious he was moments later.

  By the time he was finished showing me, I was totally on board with Lovesac lovin’.

  My face was buried in the canvas cloth, and my arms were sprawled out above my head.

  The lower half of my body was supported by the rest of it.

  I felt like a human hotdog.

  “I brought a towel,” he said, handing me the towel. “Grabbed it on the way over.”

  The minute I saw it, I shook my head. “I can’t use that. I cleaned up bacon grease with it, not to mention that there’s bleach and kitchen cleaner on that towel.”

  He flipped the towel over. “This side is dry.”

  I was already shaking my head. “No! I swear to God…do you know how bad yeast infections suck?”

  He dropped his forehead to my shoulder.

  “Well, I can’t really just pull out. It’ll go everywhere…including onto your Lovesac.”

  I immediately shot my hand down between my legs to hold him there as I started laughing.

  He joined me, and we were both laughing so hard, tears were pouring out of my eyes.

  “Oh, God,” I wheezed. “Jesus.”

  I could feel his cock deflating inside of me as he laughed, and moments later, he slipped free.

  I caught it as best as I could and started to roll as Evander went up on his knees.

  That’s when I got caught in a low spot in the bean bag. I was turtling in the deep gully and couldn’t roll any further. “Van, help me!”

  He took a hold of my feet and practically tossed me off the bag. I rolled off the side and straight onto the floor with a soft thump.

  Luckily, my hand was still covering my vagina and successfully catching the stray fluids as I continued to laugh.

  I felt something standing over me and opened my eyes.

  “What?” I giggled.

  Evander held out his hand for me, and I took it…with the wrong hand.

  “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “You still love me, Van?”

  He pulled me in tight to him, uncaring about all the fluids that were now making our bodies slip against each other.

  “There is one thing on this Earth that has the power to destroy me. That’s you,” he declared. “I love you, and I can’t imagine a life without you. There’s not a single moment that goes by throughout the day that I don’t think about you. So yes, I love you. It doesn’t matter if you break my heart for all to see…I’ll love you forever and always.”

  My lip trembled as tears started to trail out of my eyes.

  “And the baby you’re carrying?” He ran the backs of his fingers up the side of my barely there bump. “My life.”

  I drew in a shaky breath.

  “I love you, too, Van,” I told him. “So much that I don’t even have the words to describe it.”

  He winked and then lifted me into his arms once again.

  “Now, let’s go shower and do it all over again.”

  I started to giggle.

  “As long as it’s not in my Lovesac, I’ll do just about anything.”

  And I forever would.

  What’s Next?

  Go to Hail

  Book 2 of The Hail Raisers

  Chapter 1

  I want to be a nice person, but everyone is just so stupid.

  -Travis’ secret thoughts

  Travis

  I looked around the house, wondering how this had become my life.

  Three years ago, everything was okay.

  Three years ago, I was living the dream.

  I had my own business that my brother and I had purchased with help from my father. Dante was my partner. We opened a club together. I had a wife and kid.

  And now…nothing.

  My wife was no more. I had a kid that hated me because her mother poisoned everything that came out of her mouth.

  Then, there was Dante who was so far in the deep end, head barely above water, that I wasn’t sure whether he was going to sink or swim.

  I was short a few drivers at our business, working fourteen-hour days at minimum. I needed at least three more workers and about ten more hours in the day, to cover the workload that Dante had left behind.

  And then there was Hannah…and my son, Travis Junior, also known as TJ.

  “Anything?”

  I looked over to find my other brother, Reed, standing in the doorway.

  “He’s gone.” I said, sounding as tired as I felt. “Either he took my advice to heart, or he got out of here before I could give him any more of my recommendations.”

  Reed grunted something.

  “You need to give him time.”

  I looked over to find my other brother, Baylor, standing there. He had a white piece of paper in his hands, and he was holding it out to me.

  “I’ve given him time, Baylor,” I told him, taking the paper. “We’ve all given him time. Hell, I know he needs more time, but I can’t do this on my own. I know y’all are helping, and it’s nice. But he’s co-owner of this business with me. I can’t do anything without his consent. It’s the law…”

  I trailed off as I got the first look of the paper he’d handed me, and the moment I saw it, my heart sank to around my knees.

  “No.”

  The word was pulled from the deepest part of my belly, and so angry and upset that it was a wonder that the walls of Dante’s house didn’t crumble around me.

  “You need to give him time,” Baylor repeated.

  I looked up at the huge floor to ceiling fireplace. It was gorgeous. Made of rough cut stone, it was something that I remembered Dante and his dead wife building to this day.

  It’d been something to see, because his wife could barely even lift up the rocks as she handed them to him.

  In the center of that fireplace was a photograph of Dante’s family. His wife. His two kids. Him.

  They all looked so fuckin’ happy.

  There was no way for them to know that a mere week after taking that picture, they would all die in a car crash caused by our very own sister.

  That Dante would have t
o listen to his wife and two kids scream in panic until the line went dead and the car fully submerged, while he sat in the tow truck next to me, alive and well.

  “Tobias found the woman.”

  We all knew the woman that Reed was talking about. The woman was a woman that Dante had slept with. Once he’d done the deed, he’d said words, she’d packed up, and he’d gone back to the falling apart man that we were left with after his wife and kids were killed. Only, he hadn’t realized that he left a little piece of himself behind in the woman.

  “Well maybe that’ll be the lifeboat in this sinking ship of a life we have,” Baylor murmured. Then, the words we weren’t meant to hear, came. “But I doubt it.”

  “Let’s go,” I said, looking away from the photo. “With this, I might be able to get shit done, and remain out of jail. But I don’t think this is the end. This is only the beginning.”

  ***

  Four hours later, I was walking into the house that Hannah didn’t know that I owned.

  Hannah and her daughter, Reggie, from a previous relationship, were on the floor putting a large puzzle together.

  The second I came through the door, Reggie was up and running at my legs.

  “Hey there, girly girl,” I murmured to the little tot that looked so much like her mother that it hurt. “How are you doing tonight?”

  Reggie was a six-year-old bundle of energy that was the absolute cutest thing that I’d ever seen in my life. And that was saying something, because I had some cute kids.

  TJ was all me, from the top of his brown curly haired head to the bottom of his long toes. My other daughter, Alexandra, from my first marriage, was also my mini-me, only in female form. She had beautiful long brown hair, piercing brown eyes, and skin the color of mocha chocolate thanks to her Puerto Rican mother’s heritage.

  But Reggie?

  God, she was all Hannah. Long. curly blonde hair, bright blue eyes, skin like porcelain. She was literally what you would think about when you thought of a beautiful child.

  There was no doubt in my mind that she would grow up to be a breath-taking adult.

  And when that day came, my heart would literally ache.

  “I made a one hundred on my sight words,” she declared. “And I can read like Mama!”

  I looked over to Hannah, who was staring down at the puzzle instead of looking at me, and my heart squeezed.

  God, I was ruining everyone’s lives.

  I didn’t know what to do!

  I was stuck…and it was all Allegra Levaux’s fault.

  “Maybe you can read to me instead of me reading to you tonight.”

  Reggie’s face lit up with wonder. “I can do that?”

  I started to chuckle, and then dropped a kiss onto her head.

  “Yeah, baby. We can do that.” I winked at her, and she giggled.

  “Come help me and Mama finish this puzzle,” she ordered. “It’s a five hundred piece one of Elsa. Mama says she hates them.”

  I knew she hated puzzles.

  I was a puzzle.

  One she couldn’t figure out.

  The only problem was that there was no puzzle to figure out. I knew what was wrong with me.

  She knew what was wrong with me.

  It was something that I couldn’t fix…not and continue seeing my other kid.

  Allegra, my other child’s mother, was a vindictive bitch.

  The moment I met Hannah, she’d started turning Alex against me.

  What had once been my baby girl, my mini me in everything that I did, now hated my guts.

  And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

  Either I left Hannah and TJ, or I didn’t get to see Alex.

  It was a lose-lose situation. One that I wasn’t sure that I could ever possibly win.

  “I can help,” I offered, walking to the back of the couch and placing my hand on the back to steady myself. “Just let me get my boots off.”

  They were covered in grease and grime from the shop.

  One of our new trucks had been damaged during a call, and I’d had to help fix it up to get it back into service.

  It’d taken an hour out of my approved time with Alex, and at this point, I couldn’t say that it was bothering me.

  There was only so much you could take of your daughter saying she hated you before you believed her.

  Walking into Reggie’s warming embrace was like summer compared to Alex’s winter.

  You’d never be able to tell that Alex and Reggie were the same age.

  Alex was quiet, withdrawn, and quick to rile.

  Reggie was loud, rambunctious, and never met a stranger.

  They were both six years old, and neither one of them had their father in their lives.

  Though, that wasn’t my doing on Alex’s part.

  I tried to have a part in her life. Even though the last year Alex had done nothing but spew nasty words at me the entire time she was with me, I still picked her up on Wednesdays, and took her out to eat. I still picked her up on the weekends, and took her to Dante’s place to spend the weekend with her.

  I couldn’t take her home, though.

  Hannah, Reggie, and TJ were in my home.

  We may not be together, Hannah and I, but we were a family.

  I wanted Hannah more than my next breath, but with Allegra’s threats, and Alex’s proof that she wasn’t threatening me, I didn’t have much I could do.

  So Hannah was just my roommate.

  Hell, I was barely ever here.

  TJ was now two months old, and in day care because both of his parents worked.

  I wanted to be able to give my child the time and devotion I’d shown Alex when she’d been a baby, but at this point in my life, it just wasn’t feasible.

  An hour after I put TJ to bed, Hannah stopped by the couch with an armful of laundry, and asked me what I knew she would ask me.

  “How did your night with Alex go?”

  I looked up from the paperwork that I was filling out at the coffee table, and saw her beautiful eyes on me.

  God, it was like a shot straight to the heart.

  “She said she hated me no less than a hundred times. Screamed that I was hurting her while we were out having pizza, and told some lady that I’d kidnapped her.”

  Hannah’s mouth fell open in shock.

  “You’re joking.”

  I closed my eyes, dropped my pen, and let the remembrance of the hellish night sweep through me.

  “No, not kidding at all,” I moaned into my hands. “I guess I’m just lucky that the police department is still under construction.”

  Two months ago, corruption had been discovered in our local police department, and it’d been shut down pending further investigation. A month ago, the choice to reopen, but hold an election for the chief of police, had been decided. They’d also concluded that everyone in the department was being terminated, even the ones that weren’t convicted of any wrong doing. They’d still sat idly by and let whatever happened, happen.

  The next Chief of Police would be the one to choose his staff.

  The election had been a week ago, and the new chief was building his department. It took time, though, and thank God for that.

  “What happened?”

  Hannah dropped the clothes on the back of the couch and circled it, stopping beside the chair that was at an angle to the couch, and planting herself in it.

  I tried not to watch the way her shorts rode up her thighs, or the way her breasts that were full of milk for our child practically spilled out of her shirt.

  She wasn’t wearing a bra, either.

  I swallowed and looked back down at the coffee table.

  All the numbers that I was crunching were blurring together.

  “The lady at the counter that had checked us out knew me. Knew that Alex was my child.” I sighed. “Since she’s the owner, everyone was a whole lot more forgiving. Plus, you know how Tan
ny is. She’s so freakin’ grandmotherly that nobody would dare challenge her word.”

  Hannah’s mouth twitched, but just as quickly, that humor fled.

  “You need to do something here, Travis.”

  I knew it.

  She knew it.

  We all fucking knew it.

  I just didn’t know what to do.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I admitted. “I’m literally hanging on, doing everything I can, but it’s never enough.”

  She didn’t come to me. Didn’t put her hands on me. Didn’t even twitch.

  God, I wanted that so badly.

  But Allegra had already proven that she would do just about anything to keep me exactly how she wanted me.

  If there was an award for most awful ex-wife, Allegra would win it twice.

  She didn’t want me. She divorced me a year after Alex was born, and that was a shocker.

  I’d thought that everything was going great. Sure, I was a distracted man at times since I was helping grow a business with Dante, but I was still home every night by five, home on the weekends. She had a nice house, good clothes covering her back, and a cleaning lady that came in once a week to make sure Allegra didn’t have to stress herself.

  Then, one day out of the blue, she’d decided to leave.

  There’d been no convincing her to stay, and I’d been left feeling incredibly confused.

  Alex had been, too.

  And for her, I’d decided that the best thing to do was not to fight it. To get our lives back to normal—or as normal as two adults and a child could be when they were no longer a family—and make sure that Alex never wanted for anything. But she did that staying with her mother.

  We’d worked out a visitation schedule without lawyers. We’d split as amicably as a man could when he didn’t want to leave his wife, and things had become our new normal.

  Only Allegra was a bitch. This I found out over the next five years as I started to get out in the world. To be happy again.

  The moment that I slept with my first woman after Allegra, Alex missed her first Wednesday visitation with me. Because Allegra, supposedly, ‘forgot.’

  It only got worse after that.