my red mist. But I only pushed past him and rushed down the stairs. As soon as I hit the fresh air, I held my head and fucking screamed. Adelita was gone. She was fucking gone!
I was too late.
I heard Tank come out of the door behind me. Yanking on my arm, he pulled me around and gripped my face. “We’ll get her. We’ll tell Styx and go in after her. We’ll get her back.”
“They’ll kill her,” I rasped, as the truth of those words started to hit me. “They’ll fucking kill her because she’s with me . . . and she knew it. She went knowing they’d kill her.”
“It might not be too late,” Tank said, trying to be convincing, and pushed me to my bike. “We’ll go tell Styx.”
I got on my bike and pulled out of the airport, heading back toward the compound. But I fucking knew. She’d be killed. Some dark kind of intuition tore in my gut, telling me so.
The minute we got back to the compound, all the Austin chapter brothers were in the bar. Tank must have called them from his bike. I hadn’t seen him do it. But then I hadn’t noticed much of anything on the way back. All I was thinking about was Adelita. About her face as she told me goodbye. All to save the club. This club . . . and me.
Bitch was wrong. Without her, there was no fucking me. Everything I’d done so we could be together was for nothing.
We entered the bar, and all the brothers looked my way. Styx and Ky got to their feet. “She’s gone,” I said before anyone else could speak.
“We just checked. She left on a plane this morning to Mexico,” Tank added.
I could see the suspicious looks on the faces of my brothers. Apart from Smiler and Ash. Smiler just looked fucking dead inside. Eyes lifeless. And Ash looked like he was about to stab any fucker that pissed him off.
“She didn’t leave because she wanted to.” I made sure all my brothers were listening. “She left because she knew if she didn’t go they’d be coming for her.” I met Styx’s and Ky’s eyes. “She wanted to protect your old ladies from getting hurt. Your old ladies and your kids.” I fisted my hands. “And she did it knowing she’d fucking die the minute Diego got her back.”
“She did it to protect us.” Tank backed me up. “She risked her life to help us. To protect our families. To try and stop another cartel attack on us. So we gotta go and get her. She’s Tann’s old lady. She’s one of us now. It’s what we do.”
I couldn’t read Styx’s face, couldn’t tell what the fuck he was thinking. He raised his hands to say something, when Wrox and the brothers from his chapter came bursting through the door. Wrox plowed past us and flew his fist straight into Flame’s face. Flame launched off his chair. Vike and AK were beside him in seconds. Flame rushed at Wrox and knocked the stupid motherfucker on his ass. Flame jumped on top of him and started smashing at his face. AK and Vike charged at Wrox’s men who had tried to rip Flame from Wrox.
Rudge was next to dive in. Only this fucker had fists that could kill with one punch. In a matter of minutes, Rudge had knocked two of the chapter out cold, smiling as they slammed to the floor. The commotion brought more brothers from the camp outside rushing in.
A loud whistle cut through the room, then Ky, Bull, and Tank started pulling the brothers apart. AK yanked Flame off Wrox, whose face was nothing but swelling and blood. But Wrox rolled to his feet and spat at Flame. Flame’s eyes were savage, promising Wrox a slow and painful death.
“What the fuck do you think y’all are doing?” Ky asked, standing between our chapter and theirs.
Wrox’s men held him back. “He killed him.” As the words fell from Wrox’s mouth, the room grew in tension. “That psycho fucking killed Hick.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ky demanded.
Wrox held up his hands. I noticed his cut and shirt. They were coated in blood . . . and it wasn’t his, or Flame’s.
Styx walked next to Ky. The prez eyeballed the fuck out of every brother in the room. Nobody moved as Styx silently promised that anyone who did would be under his knife. Styx raised his hands.