I left Tank in church, left the clubhouse and walked to the woods. The minute I had the cover of the trees, I let my fist fly into the nearest one. My knuckles ripped open, but I didn’t stop. I hit it again, seeing Adelita’s face, Beau’s face, and the faces of all my fucking Hangmen brothers when I’d told them about Lita. I punched it and punched it until I was out of breath and blood dripped from my hand.
A twig snapped. I swung around, ready to smash in the face of whoever was here. Whoever had a death wish. Hush stood watching me, his arms folded across his chest. My balled fists relaxed. If it had been anyone else . . .
“What do you want?” I said, voice fucking rasped.
“You okay?”
I stared at Hush, at his ice-blue eyes staring me down. My mixed-race brother standing near a tree, the branch hanging low near his neck, made me think of all the fucking faceless men I’d seen swinging from nooses. The work of my old brotherhood, done to anyone who wasn’t white, who was a Klan deserter or who was an enemy to the cause.
“You didn’t tell him.” I was talking about Styx. Hush had kept my secret.
Hush raised his eyebrow. “No.” He stepped closer. Lighting up a smoke, he offered one to me. I took one and lit up, taking a long drag. “Wasn’t my story to tell,” Hush eventually said. My stomach untwisted. “Who you’re fucking ain’t my business.”
Who I’m fucking? I thought. She’s my fucking fiancée! I almost snapped. But I held it back. No one knew that. No one but me and her. Christ. At times I didn’t even know if it was still true. If she still had the scrap of a makeshift ring I’d given her. If she still even wanted me.
“We’re gonna be taking her cousin,” Hush said. I took drag after drag of my smoke, hoping the nicotine would stop the pulling feeling in my stomach. The damn rope that was coiling around my organs, tearing them apart. “Your old lady gonna forgive you for that?”
Truth was, I didn’t fucking know. But she’d already forgiven me for worse . . .
Hush flicked his smoke to the ground, standing on it to put it out. With one last silent look, he walked back toward the clubhouse. The minute he was out of sight, I slumped to the ground. Back against the tree that was now stained with my blood, I closed my eyes and let the sun that was slicing through the trees warm my face.
I thought of Adelita sitting, waiting for her cousin to marry. Having her not show. Panicking when she realized she’d been taken by the Hangmen, Valdez, or whoever the fuck else her old man had pissed off. I blew out a breath. I didn’t fucking know what to do. I didn’t know how to be in this club with all this shit hanging over me. The woman who owned my heart, now the enemy. I had to protect her, but I had to protect my club too. And then there was my brother, my fucking little brother . . .
Needing something to think of that wasn’t this shit, I let the sun heat my face and thought back to Adelita. To the days when she made me lose my mind. The days when she started knocking down walls I thought would never be destroyed . . . especially by someone like her . . .
I sipped at my water. I needed whiskey like I was a damn alcoholic, but I hadn’t touched liquor since we’d arrived here a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t trust anyone here. Not fucking one of them. I was keeping my head straight, my eyes clear.
I glanced up at the sun. It was hot as fuck. And another day had come when my old man had kept me out of whatever he was planning with Quintana. Another fucking day where I had to sit around and count down the days when we got to go back to our Texan lands.
Beau: How is it?
Me: Shitty. How’s back home?
Beau: Same old same. Landry taking care of business. Be good to get you back.
Beau kept checking in while I was here. He didn’t trust Quintana; that was obvious. I’d give anything to be home. Instead I was here. In this hell.
Looking at the jokes that were Quintana’s guards, I barely heard the click of a door opening to my left. I froze when Adelita walked through, holding a book, dressed in a short see-through robe of some sort, showing off her tight body. Her black hair hung down her back in loose curls. Her eyes were covered with massive black sunglasses. She came toward me, her red high heels clicking on the path. I’d sat around the ridiculous-sized pool this morning hoping the bitch wouldn’t find me to drag me around with her. I was fucking done with being around her. Her husky voice grated on my nerves. I was twenty-seven. She was quite a bit younger than me. I’d guess late teens or early twenties. But somehow had every fucker here wrapped around her finger. She clearly thought she could do the same with me too.
Bitch was sorely mistaken.
The empty bottle of water crackled. I hadn’t realized my fists had clenched around it, cracking the plastic, until the noise echoed around the pool. And I didn’t realize my eyes had never left Adelita until she lifted her sunglasses and smiled at me. “Enjoying the view, Señor Ayers?”
My lip curled as she waited for my response. “Don’t flatter yourself.” I turned my head, trying to ignore her. I had no idea why the fuck she even wanted to be around me. No, that wasn’t true—I’d guessed pretty quickly. She knew I didn’t like her. And she was just trying to piss me off.
And, despite myself, it was working.
Seeing her move in my peripheral, I turned, only to see her shedding her robe, revealing a red bikini underneath. If it could be called a fucking bikini. Adelita sat down beside me, on the lounger right next to mine.
I could smell that fucking perfume again. “I know what you’re doing,” I said, seeing that asswipe Vincente eyeing me from across the pool.
“Yes?” she said. “Care to enlighten me? To make me aware of my master plan?”
I turned my head to find her amused dark eyes already on me. “Yeah,” I hissed. “You’re trying to piss me off. Have been since your daddy told you to watch the Nazi.” Her nose flared, even though she kept her face expressionless.
There. There was the fucking tell that she was hating this shit as much as I was. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Vincente moved out of sight to take a call. Taking advantage of her distraction, I leaned in and snarled, “You don’t do anything for me. So you can stop acting like I’d ever find you appealing. I won’t ever stick my cock in your pussy.”
Adelita swallowed, as always trying to fight back her anger, but this time she couldn’t. Her brown eyes flared, and I saw the fucking fire ignite. I saw it before it happened. Adelita tried to take advantage of my closeness and struck out with her hand. Just before her palm sliced my cheek, I caught her wrist and yanked her toward me. With my nose almost touching hers, I said, “Nice try, princess.”
“Get off me,” Adelita hissed, trying to pull her hand back. I squeezed it tighter.
“I can’t wait for my father to be done and to be back on American soil. Out of this fucking place.” I moved so close to her that I could feel her warm breath flow over my face. She smelled of mint and the coconut from her hair and the sunscreen that was slick and shining on her tight body. Her tongue ran over her red lips. That lipstick. That motherfucking lipstick she always wore was pissing me the hell off more with every day that passed.
“Release me,” Adelita said, calmly. Too calmly. I knew it was bullshit. I could see the hate for me in her eyes, could feel her wrist shaking in my hand.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” I warned. Our foreheads were practically touching. I needed her to get the message. To get the fucking message that having her beside me every day was no longer gonna work. I wanted her gone. Her brown eyes and long hair and long lashes out of my motherfucking life. “You’ll stop speaking to me. You’ll leave the fucking room if I’m in it, and you won’t even look my way. I’m the White Prince of the fucking Ku Klux Klan, the institution that’s gonna save America. From the freeloaders and the impurists and—”
Suddenly, Adelita smashed her lips to mine. I froze, still holding her wrist tightly in my hand. I tasted mint, and when Adelita pushed her tongue inside my mouth it was sweet and addi
ctive and—
Adelita pulled back, wrenching her hand from my wrist only to slice it across my face. My head snapped to the side, the sting from her palm the gasoline to the fire I already had blazing inside. Slowly, I turned my head until I met her seething eyes. “You, Tanner Ayers, do not appeal to me.” My chest rose and fell with my rapid breaths. Adelita leaned forward, and a piece of hair fell over face. It made her look different, normal. She never looked anything but perfect. A perfectly put together princess whose daddy kept her locked away in his ivory tower built on blow.
I could smell her. I could smell the coconut. It was on my fucking skin. My hands. My face and lips. I sat up when I felt my dick getting hard. Needing to hit something, needing to pour out this rage she’d made me feel, I jumped up. I swung to Adelita, tasting the mint from her mouth. “You,” I hissed. “You’ve fucking done this, you’ve—” I grabbed her shoulders and wrenched her to me. She weighed nothing, and my hold was too strong. Her chest crashed into mine. Her hand struck my face again and again, until I threw her to her down to the lounger and pinned her down by her two slim wrists. I sat between her legs and leaned down until I was all she could see. “You fucking whore. You touched me. You don’t get to do that. Your impure hands don’t get to touch—”
The sound of voices made me freeze. It wasn’t until I forced the rage aside that I realized my mouth was hovering just above Adelita’s. Her skin was flushed and her tits were pressed right against my bare chest. Big Mexican tits pushing against my solid black swastika tattoo.