my monitors, I tried to bring up the cameras in the hacienda. My heart fucking stopped when I saw the connection was gone. The cameras had been cut. There was nothing but black screens . . .
What did that mean?
What the fuck did that mean?!
I tried to think. To fucking get the vision of Adelita dead and cold out of my head. I jumped to my feet and paced. I needed to get across the border and into Quintana territory. I needed to get to her before they killed her . . . if it wasn’t too late. I needed to get there even if it was.
Diego was going to die.
An email came through. I looked at the screen to see it was Wade.
I clicked on the mail.
We’re all en route to Mexico. Will be there soon. Diego has killed Quintana and has taken the house and his men.
My eyes fucking widened. Shit. SHIT! That meant Adelita was now under that cunt’s control.
Adelita was dead, I knew it. . . A pain so great stabbed in my stomach that I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My chest was too tight, my fucking heart struggling to function.
Adelita would be dead. Numbness spread through my body like poison, slowing my heart. Filling me with nothing but the need for revenge.
Diego has called us all down to plan the final attack on the Hangmen. Beau is here. Your father and uncle arrive in a couple of days due to some business in Texas. It’s everyone in one place. Diego wants blood . . . even that of the kids. He’s planning on wiping them all out—no Hangmen left at all. This is personal.
But most of all, he wants you. And he’s not the only one. The Klan. The fact you stood against us with the Hangmen at the exchange . . . all the brothers want you punished. They want you dead.
I stared at the fucking screen. At the fact that the cartel and Klan were all joining together to kill me. They both wanted me. And I thought of Adelita. Thought of living in a world where she didn’t exist. I’d left the Klan for her. I’d changed my life for her.
Without her, what was the point?
I hit reply.
My fingers hovered over the keys. They were fucking shaking, and my chest was so tight I found it too hard to breathe.
Did Diego kill Quintana’s daughter too?
I stared at the screen, my throat so tight I was sure it was closing. When the email came through, I couldn’t open it. Like a fucking pussy, I waited and waited, until I forced myself to press on the message and just fucking be delivered the truth.
He killed them all.
I read and reread the sentence. Slowly the words began to travel through my body, one by one shutting everything down inside. My hands, which had been shaking, folded into fists. My muscles tensed until there wasn’t a part of me that wasn’t aching. And then the stab fucking hit. The agonizing slice through my fucking heart that brought me to my knees. My lungs turned to iron, refusing to work. I gasped, fucking trying to take in air, fucking something. But it was useless. My palms slammed to the floor and a fucking roar ripped from my throat. It was all my fault . . . Adelita was dead because of me. Because she came back to me. Because they believed she was never meant to be mine. Fucking tears fell from my eyes when I pictured her dead, on the floor, those fucking brown eyes I loved so much frozen open in death.
I fucking drowned in agony, until anger and rage replaced the hole in my heart. Until every inch of me filled with the need for revenge. To see Diego dead. To see my father and uncle bloodied under my knife.
And Beau. Even Beau would die. I would fucking kill them all . . . and pray that they would fucking kill me too. I was done.
Climbing off the floor, I emailed back.
I’m giving myself up. I’m coming to Mexico. The Klan—Beau, my father and uncle—and Diego can have me. They can kill me.
I hit send.
Why the fuck would you do that? It’s suicide.
I read his response, and a strange kind of peace settled in me. Good.
Arrange it. Tell me when and where. I’m coming in.
Wade gave me what I asked for, and I closed down all my computers, wiping anything that would lead