the notion of unleashing if I received one more complaint about the way I was changing things.
“I’ve been running distribution through Constance Street for eighteen months, if J.T. starts using a different route, there are going to be questions,” he stated.
“Let there be questions. Who gives a shit? Whoever questions you, give them my number, and tell them to call me so I can give them some of these curse words. What you fail to understand is that they need us more than we need them. If we cut them off, they have nowhere else to go but outside their territory. Are they willing to risk a war because we are improving our game?”
He dropped his head without replying, knowing I was right.
Was it possible to restore the empire I had longed to run, or had my uncle made too many mistakes and cut too many raw deals for it to be salvaged?
3
Arjen
This was not what I had envisioned for my wedding day. I had racked my brain for days, attempting to figure out how I would punish my brother and my fiancée.
After spending a few weeks under my brother’s protection, my beautiful innocent-looking bride-to-be, Desiree Evans, had slept with him. Khane, the one person I had believed would never betray me, had willingly participated in the betrayal.
Sure, I was using Desiree and our marriage was nothing more than an arrangement, but the betrayal had still delivered an impacting blow to the bond I had with my brother, as well as my ego. This situation had knocked me off the high horse I had gotten used to riding.
Marrying Desiree would have been the ultimate punishment for her betraying me. Now that I was standing here in front of her and the pastor, I was having serious second thoughts.
The volume of sadness she gave off while standing in front of me spoke to my compassion. Each tear I watched slip down her cheek was a telling sign of how much she cared for my brother.
I had seen the way they looked at each other, and although I didn’t believe it at first, the most skeptical mind could see that they shared a strong connection. They had betrayed me, so why was I the one standing here, ignoring the pastor while I contemplated one of the noblest gestures to ever run through my mind.
Because you love your brother more than you care about getting revenge. Because you know that Desiree actually cares about him too. Because other than you, Khane has never had anyone else that cared about him.
I lifted my hand, stopping the pastor while he was asking me, for the third time, if I would take Desiree as my wife. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t marry her, knowing it would only leave us all in a raw state of bitterness and pain.
After scaring the guests by stopping the pastor in the middle of my ceremony, I stepped down from the stage, plucked Khane from the audience, and pulled him up on stage with me. Based on the tension in his posture and his pinched brow, he had no idea what I was about to do.
Mecca
The four-inch heels I wore worked overtime to keep up with my quick stride to the stage when it appeared Arjen Vallin was about to do some shady shit and embarrass my cousin.
Desiree had cheated on him with his brother. So, the fuck, what? It wasn’t like they were in love and getting married for any respectable reason. We were all using each other.
We were all raised in a world where illegal was the norm, and wrong was right. This shit was about business, a shady ass arrangement brokered by men devious enough to use humans as bargaining chips.
“I can’t marry this woman,” Arjen stated.
At that statement, the gasps of the crowd sounded like a bunch of pissed off cats as the guests sat frozen in awe, some with their mouths wide open. Hands went over chests, and some whispered behind their fingers to the person next to them.
“Pastor, I can’t marry this woman because I’ve realized that I love someone else more than I care about her.”
As soon as I made it to the foot of the steps that would take me up on the stage, Arjen started up again.
“This person that I love. I care about their feelings more than my own. Therefore, Pastor, I can’t marry this beautiful woman because I can’t bear to break my brother’s heart.”
Those words stopped me dead