“Where exactly is she in the warehouse?” I pushed my hand through my hair. “So I know where to point the cameras.”
Tank stepped closer to me. “When you’re in there, don’t mention shit about Adelita. Right? Keep quiet. Don’t piss Styx off. We’ll work out a way to get Adelita. Now ain’t the time.”
I nodded and went into the warehouse. Bull showed me where he’d dumped the stuff, then left to stand guard with Tank. Tank had warned me . . . but I didn’t fucking intend to keep my mouth shut. I needed to know about Lita.
The three prospects were standing outside the small room I knew the cousin was in. I tipped my chin to them. Slash and Zane came over. “Bull told us to help you,” Slash said.
I tore my eyes away from the closed door of the back room. “Good.” I cleared my throat. “We’ll start over here. I show you one, then y’all can split up and do some of the others.” I led them to the far side of the warehouse. Ten minutes later I was installing the first camera, talking them through it, while Slash held the ladder I was on.
“You learned all this in the army, right?” Slash asked.
I looked down at the kid. He looked like Smiler. I knew he was Smiler’s cousin, around nineteen. Didn’t know more of his story than that. “Yeah, communications.”
“Cool,” he said. “Been thinking about the army too. Smiler thinks I shouldn’t bother. Just work on bikes and stay with the Hangmen.”
“My uncle said the same,” Zane, AK’s nephew, said. I watched the kid as he ducked his head and looked away. Because it wasn’t just AK who had served. It had been his old man too. The guy who, because of a fucked-up mission that led to his kidnapping and a truckload of PTSD, killed Zane’s mom and then himself. Kid was raised by his aunt, fucking orphaned.
When I got off the ladder, I said, “I served because my old man told me it was my patriotic duty.” Zane put his hands in his pockets, but both he and Slash listened. “I learned a lot in the army. But I’ll tell you now, kids. Don’t go into war unless you fucking believe in the cause you’re fighting for.”
“Like now, you mean?” Slash asked. “This war we’re in now with the cartel and the Klan.” Slash’s eyes widened. “I mean, you . . . them . . .”
I put my hand on Slash’s shoulder. “It’s all good, kid. I know it’s fucked up with me and the Klan.”
“But you’re a Hangman now, right?” Zane asked. I smirked, seeing a mini AK staring back at me.
“I am.” I let my eyes drift to the door of the back room again.
“She’s fucking loud,” Slash said, running his hands through his hair. “Bitch hasn’t stopped shouting in hours. I got a fucking headache.”
“She’s quiet now,” I said.
“Beauty probably muzzled her.” Ash stood off the door, smirking as he finished his smoke and tossed it to the floor. “My fucking ears hurt from all the noise. I need a fucking drink.”
Turning to Zane and Slash, I said, “You saw how I installed that last camera?” They nodded. “Go do the same in the other rooms.” I turned to Ash. “You go too. I gotta get these cameras up fast. They’ll show you how.”
“Good luck.” Ash followed his brothers to the far-off room. Taking hold of a camera, I knocked on the door.
Beauty answered. She looked flustered, but when she saw me she painted on her smile. “Hey, darlin’,” she said, holding the door ajar. “You here to set the camera up?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Then I’m taking a break. I need a fucking drink. Watch her while you work—she’s one feisty bitch. I usually respect that in a woman, but right now I wanna punch my fist into her teeth just so her mouth’s too full to keep screaming. She’s working my last nerve.” She smiled wider. “I won’t be long!” Beauty walked out of the warehouse.
The door was open, but the room inside was dark. Taking a long breath, I pushed through the door. The back room was small, with only a dim lamp as the light. But I saw the cousin in the corner, covered in shadows. Her head was down, and her dark hair was blanketing her face. Her hands were tied with rope, as were her feet. The wedding dress she wore covered most of her body. I squinted, trying to make her out, but in this dim light, it was impossible.
Checking no one was in the main body of the warehouse, I shut the door and bolted it. My hand tightened on the knob, but then I manned the fuck up and turned. I walked straight to the bitch in the chair, and she must have sensed me, because she lashed out with her bound legs and spat, “Cabrones! Los odio!”
Her head snapped back as she thrashed to get near me. I stood my ground, waiting for her to calm the fuck down and stop. Her long dark hair flew back off her face, her mouth opened to spew more shit my way, then her eyes locked on mine and . . .
I froze.
Couldn’t fucking move.
Every cell in my body went rigid. I wasn’t even fucking breathing.
My heart started smashing against my ribs, and my muscles tensed until I thought they might snap. And I never moved my attention from those eyes. Dark brown eyes, long-as-fuck lashes, and those lips . . . those fucking full, perfect lips.
My chest squeezed my lungs like an iron fist, and my damn hands started to shake . . . because I didn’t trust my eyes. Didn’t fucking trust myself to believe who sat before me.
Her eyes widened, and I watched as her face drained of blood. She blinked like she couldn’t believe it either, then her eyes filled with tears . . .
“Tanner?” she whispered in disbelief. I had to shut my eyes as the sound of her voice hit my ears. “No . . . it can’t be . . .” she cried. My breathing and heart synced to one beat, both of them drumming in my ears. Opening my eyes, I shook my head. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be her . . .
“Ad . . . Adelita?”
The rasp of her name off my lips filled up every inch of the silent room like a thick smoke. Her eyes closed, and a tear fell down her cheek.
Then I looked at her . . . really fucking looked at her, and shit filtered through.
She was in a wedding dress. The shock that had kept me in its chokehold started to fade. And like hot blood off a sharpened knife, the shock, the fucking relief that it was Adelita sitting before me, melted away . . . and in its place came confusion, disbelief . . . then anger. Red-hot fucking anger. Because it hadn’t been Adelita’s cousin who was getting married . . . it had been her.
“Tanner?” Adelita’s voice was shaking and quiet and just as perfect as I remembered. But that sweetness wasn’t enough to dilute the bitter taste that was building on my tongue.
I met her eyes, those eyes that had once promised me in return everything that I had promised her. The eyes that told me to trust her like she would me. That she’d wait for me while I figured out a way for us to be together. While I fucking left and tried to work out a way for us to escape all the shit that kept us apart.
All this time. All these months of planning and scheming for a way to leave my family, to leave the Klan unscathed, protected by someone stronger and more powerful. To prove my worth to the Hangmen so they would take me on as one of their own . . . all for her. All for this bitch who had upturned my life and fucking changed me, made me want nothing but her. All so we could be together and escape our fucking families that would never let us—would rather see us dead.
As I looked at the woman I loved, the one who had governed my life since the first time I laid eyes on her, all I felt was a fucking thunderstorm of rage, filling my muscles and bones down to their cores. The rage I used to wear every fucking day, the rage I’d learned to control for her, started to break free . . . and I did nothing to fucking stop it. I did nothing to hold it back. Instead I let it flood me, my veins bursting with the darkness that had always lived inside me, put there by my old man and the Klan and all the fucking hatred and venom I was infected with as a kid. And I fucking embraced it.
No deep breath was working. Nothing was gonna stop this. As I looked at that wedding dress, at the white lace covering her arms—arms that ha
d held on to me as she’d promised to someday be my fucking wife—I fucking snapped.
“It was you,” I snarled. My fists clenched so tight I knew they’d draw blood as Adelita’s rose scent filled my nose. That scent I’d dreamed of for two years. The scent I remembered every time I lay in bed. The scent I kept with me all this time. “It was fucking you getting married!” I didn’t phrase it as a question. I didn’t have to. She sat in front of me in a motherfucking wedding dress.
Adelita’s eyes said it all. The guilt was written all over her face. She’d betrayed me. Betrayed us. Her mouth opened, but I didn’t hear what she had to say. I didn’t even know if she actually spoke. My brain shut her out, drowning in the thick fog I was letting in. Taking me back to the day I returned to Mexico. The day I threw everything away. The day I set all this in motion.
The day the White Prince voluntarily fell from his fucking throne . . .