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