Leaning in, I kissed Beauty’s cheek. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
Beauty smiled. “She’s gorgeous, Tanner. I can see why you left the Klan for her. I couldn’t stop looking at her when she was all cleaned up. She’s that stunning.”
She was. Adelita was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen. And in that wedding dress . . . in white . . . My chest tightened just thinking about it. Thinking of her and what she looked like. What I always dreamed she’d look like when she was walking down the aisle to me. Giving herself to me. Not some other cunt.
“We’ll give y’all space,” Tank said and put his arm around Beauty’s shoulder.
“Holler if you need me for anything,” Beauty added.
They walked away into the mass of activity in the club. The noise from the bar was deafening when the door was opened. My hand sat on the doorknob, when I saw Viking coming toward me. He stood beside me, leaning against the wall. I raised an eyebrow.
“I’m on guard now.” He smiled, then pointed to the room where Adelita was. “So . . . you like the Latinas, huh?” Fucker nodded like I’d just answered him with yes. “Those red-blooded bitches do something real special to my cock as well, ya feel me? Like when they shout and scream in that language, and that accent. Shit, brother. It’s like a personal mating call to my dick. Bastardos!” he imitated in the shittest Mexican accent I’d ever heard. He pointed to his crotch. “See?” I wasn’t fucking looking at his cock in his jeans. “Like a damn mating call.”
Exhaling a slow, measured breath, I turned the knob and opened the door. Viking grabbed my arm before I could enter. “Feel free to be loud, brother.” He winked. “I’m not shy.”
“No shit,” I countered, then slipped into the room. It was dark but for a lamp in the corner. Adelita was on the bed. She was dressed in a black dress like some of the other Hangmen bitches wore—Beauty must have got it from her store. It did something to me, seeing her in it. Ever since I’d joined the Hangmen, I’d imagined her in something like this. I’d imagined her wearing my cut.
Walking to where she lay, I glanced down at her and my chest tightened. She was as beautiful as I remembered. Her hair was damp, but still as long and as dark as the day I met her. And even with no makeup, her signature red lipstick missing, she looked just as stunning as she ever was. More so, in fact.
Taking a seat on the armchair in the corner, I watched her. I never moved my eyes from her face. I thought about it all. The first time I met her until the morning I left with my makeshift ring on her finger and her cross in my palm. That and a whole fucking load of nerves about whether I could get away from my father and the Klan. Whether I could find a place where we could be together without her father and my Klan brotherhood putting targets on our heads.
She looked older than the last time I’d seen her. But I hadn’t seen her in so long that she almost felt like a dream to me. Someone I manufactured in my brain. Yet here she was, asleep before me. And I was free. I was out of the Klan and she was in my club. Away from her old man and that fucker Diego who I hated pretty much more than anyone I’d ever met.
It was all a mess. Everything stood to go to shit. But she was here with me, and for the first time in years, I felt like I could breathe. The noose that had been tight around my neck for two years slackened some.
I ran my hand down my face, my head throbbing as I tried to think about where the fuck to go from here. I slumped in the chair and waited for her to wake. The noise from the bar was drowned out by the sound of her soft breaths. It helped me calm down. She’d always had that effect on me.
Calm.
Centered.
And even knowing she was marrying someone else, everything inside me told me she was still mine.
And it was about time she was reminded of that fact.
*****
I woke up to the sound of rustling from the bed. My eyes fixed on Adelita as her head rolled on the pillow and her eyes started to open. My hands balled into fists on the armchair. I didn’t know how the fuck this was going to go. I didn’t know if I could keep my calm.
When her dark eyes opened and fixed straight on mine, I knew I couldn’t. I kept my mouth shut. It was the best option. Adelita was slow to pull herself from her sleep. Christ knew if she’d slept at all these past few days. I watched her, waiting for any sign of where this reunion would go. I had my answer when she shot upright, her dark hair flicking over her shoulder and her face filled with fury.
“You told them,” she hissed, and swung her bare feet off the side of the bed. She pointed at my face. “You told them about the tunnels. You told them about the secret passages in my father’s hacienda!” Her accent was thicker than it had been years ago. But I knew why. Her anger caused her perfect English to slip.
“You broke your promise,” I accused, coldly, roughly. My blood started to heat in my veins, boiling me up from the inside. “I fucking did everything I said I would.” I got to my feet and started pacing before I lost my shit and put my fist through the wall. “I fucking left the Klan. I worked hard to make it in with the Hangmen, proved myself to this club so we could be safe—so you could be safe when I got you out.” I laughed, but there was fuck-all humor behind it. “And I come to find you’re getting fucking married. Married! After everything we promised each other.” I ripped the collar of my tank down and bared her necklace. “I kept this with me always. Kept it with me to remind me you loved me. That’s what you said, right? That all I had to do was look at it and know you loved me, even though you weren’t here with me?” My eyes caught sight of the ruined wedding dress that now hung on the closet door. I stopped dead and stared at the fucking thing. Turning to Adelita, I asked, “Who was it?” Adelita blinked, then her face flushed. She was hesitating to tell me. There was only one person who would make her reluctant to say.
The blood that had been heating in my veins surged to fucking piping-hot lava, when I growled, “Tell me it wasn’t him.” Adelita’s eyes dropped for a split second. My body shook with fury. “Tell me!” I demanded, my voice rising too loud. “Tell me it wasn’t that cunt Diego!”
“YES!” Adelita yelled back. I couldn’t fucking take being in this room one more second with her. Turning on my heel, I made for the door, but Adelita stepped in front of me before I cou
ld get there. Her hands planted on my chest and she shoved me back. She weighed almost nothing. I stepped back as she came for me again.
“Hijo de puta!” she hissed. I had no idea what the hell she just said, but I knew it wasn’t good. It only served to piss me off even more. Her hand came up out of nowhere and sliced me across the face.
I was fucking done.
When she came for me again, I grabbed her wrists and shoved her back until she slammed against the back of the door. She tried to fight me, but I lifted her hands above her head and got right in her furious face. “Stop, bitch!”
“You stop!” she snapped. She fought against my hold but she couldn’t move. She screamed in annoyance and I smiled. “I hate you,” she spat. She thrashed in my arms, but I held her tightly. “You have no idea what it was like with you gone!” Her voice cracked and she fought hard to breathe. “I hadn’t heard from you. I didn’t know if you still wanted me, needed me. My father and Diego decided for me that I would marry. I had no choice!” she shouted. “I was trapped, with nowhere to go and no one to go to for help!”
“I was coming back for you! I just needed fucking time! I was almost ready!”
Adelita’s chest rose and fell with how fast she was breathing. Her tanned cheeks were red with anger and her eyes were wide and furious. She leaned forward and snarled, “You told these men—my father’s enemies, my enemies—how to find me. You led the wolves straight to my door. How is that protecting me, Tanner Ayers? How is that helping me?”
“We were told it was some fucking random cousin who was getting married. They came for her. I never for a second believed it would’ve been you!”
Adelita shook her head while I tried to regain some kind of sanity, before I smashed my hand through the door. “My father trusted you. I trusted you, and you join the men at war with my people?” Freezing, I laughed. I fucking laughed. Adelita’s lips grew tight. “Do not laugh at me!”