by Sierra Rose
Selene? No. There was no way they’d be dumb enough to leave a resourceful woman like herself alone. Surely not.
Fuck, I could only hope it was true.
“Alright boys, I’m here… Now what?” I wondered out loud and turned my bike off, pushing it to rest against a large tree just outside the parking lot.
There were seven vehicles parked on the lawn of the church with several more left idle in the gravel parking lot. I didn’t notice any movement, but I didn’t trust the silence, either. I’d learned a long time ago in dealing with the Delgados not to trust anything. Those mother fuckers knew how to play in the shadows.
Removing a Glock from its holster, I took off the safety and held it up in front of me. I snuck toward the dark underbelly of the side yard. Edging to the starboard side of the building, I honestly expected to find at least one or two Black Hearts to take practice shots at, but in the shadow of the cathedral, I saw no one.
“What the fuck is going on?” I muttered as I peered around in utter confusion.
There was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing even remotely strange, and yet everything was wrong. If it wasn’t for the cars outside and the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, I would have thought nothing was amiss. But something was most certainly wrong. Everything in my body screamed of a different reality than the one I could see. I had every intention of getting to the bottom of it, and walking away with my beautiful fiancé largely unscathed.
“I hope she’s alright… she’d be better fucking be alright.”
***
A door slammed shut loudly, putting me on high alert. I pressed my back to the wall beside me and took a shallow breath. I wasn’t alone. I waited a minute, then started to move quietly toward the source of the sound.
I was hell-bent upon going unnoticed into the church, but something told me it was a pipe dream that I’d have a much better time smoking than anything else.
Quietly, I crept around the walls of Saint Monica’s, diligent in staying cloaked in the darkness under the shadow of the building. Peeking around the wall of the church, I could make out the large silhouette of a man standing on the steps. He was dressed elegantly in a suit and nice leather shoes, which wasn’t very telling. Raphael requires all of his guys to dress like mobsters. The man cracked his knuckles and let out a strange laugh, a dark laugh. I recognized the odd idiosyncrasies immediately.
“Dante,” I said in a grating voice under my breath. I glared at him in the darkness with a venomous expression on my face. I hated him more than all the others. Dane’s words about him touching Selene or roughing her up raced through my mind. He was going to die, and I hated the fact that I was going to enjoy watching it happen, but I did. Immensely.
“Nobody fucks with my girl,” I whispered angrily as I squeezed my Glock tightly.
I’d been defending Selene from the danger of the Black Hearts MC and the Stone Wolves for the last three years, and I’d have done it much sooner if she’d have let me in. Nothing was ever going to change that. Not even if she decided that she didn’t want to be with me anymore. My heart belonged to her, and with that came my desire to insure that she was well and happy.
Though the Stone Wolves were my brothers in arms, they would not think twice about kidnapping Selene to get to Raphael, but hurt her? Never. They rarely ever played the villain. We were the good guys, and nothing was going to change that.
On the other side of the coin, Raphael Delgado only looked out for himself. Well, himself and his bottom line. He was willing to use his own little girl as a pawn in his sick, twisted game. I wanted to do for the rest of my life like I’d done for the last three years. I wanted to defend Selene, to protect her and love her. I wasn’t about to let any harm come upon her now, nor in the future. How things had gone so poorly up to this point was beyond me, but it was time to flip the switch and light these mother fuckers up.
Dante stiffened and turned toward me, though I knew he couldn’t see me. I was far too hidden by the shadows. The tall grass swayed under the ancient sycamore trees that lined the garden with a gentle wind that blew down from off the mountainside, which caught my attention.
The big guy turned and surveyed the land in front of him as he took another long drag of his cigarette. I could tell he was edgy. A sadistic man on edge was a man that you didn’t want to come face to face with in the dark.
I didn’t intend for Dante to see me until it was too fucking late. Shooting him in the back would be too easy, though. I wanted a moment at the end of his life for him to recognize me and know without a fucking doubt why the reaper had come to collect.
You mess with my woman, you taste my wrath.
The ugly bastard had to know that I was out there. That a sleeping dragon was lying in wait just feet from where he stood. A sleeping dragon awakened by the Black Hearts and their cruelty and malice. As if it wasn’t enough that people were dying. The Black Hearts threatened Selene, and nothing could calm the beast inside me now. I wouldn’t stop until she was safe from the harm they intended to do to her. He was a damn idiot if he didn’t know that.
As Dante turned to go back inside the church, I charged after him, moving quietly but swiftly through the brush. I cut a stealthy figure through the weeds, and moved as quick as a fox, closing the distance between the two of us. Dante didn’t even hear me approach as I caged his thick neck and pressed my gun into the thickness of his back where his black heart rested.
Pressing my mouth beside my greatest foe’s ear, I smiled and let the victory that was mine dance through me. Dante stiffened and his breath caught in his chest as I chuckled. He had no choice but to listen carefully to my words.
“You made a grave mistake putting your hands on my girl, mother fucker.” I spat as rage quaked within my body. Just knowing that Dante had touched Selene was enough to send my sanity spiraling out of control.
I let my gun trail the length of Dante’s spine, traveling along the fine material of his suit jacket until the gun reached his thick neck. Mashing the nose of the gun into the back of Dante’s head, I wasn’t about to give Dante the benefit of saying any last words.
Instead I asked, “How lucky do you feel now, asshole?”
He elbowed me, doing some fancy karate move. The next thing I knew I was on the ground. Dante pointed his gun at me.
“Just know this, asshole. After I kill you, I’m going to fuck Selene tonight. Is she a good fuck?”
“Fuck you!”
“No, thanks. I’m doing Selene tonight. Why, I even have her daddy’s permission. She’s going to be screaming from the way I’m going to give it to her. Now which way does she like it best? Doggy style? Or should I give her the rough stuff?”
“Don’t you dare touch her!”
“She’s not your girl. She’s mine. She always has been.” Letting out a dark laugh, he cocked the gun. “Now die, motherfucker.”
In a flash, I pointed my gun at him and was a second faster. In self-defense, I pulled the trigger. Crazy what a man was willing to do when someone messed with his future – his woman.
A shot rang out, clear and furious, causing a flock of black birds to escape in the dark of the night. As Dante dropped to the ground, a sharp breath rushed from my mouth.
“Nobody messes with Selene Delgado unless you want to meet the reaper,” I spat as a dark feeling took over me. Removing his coat, I threw it over Dante’s lifeless body. It was time to get my girl back, and to lay waste to anyone who got in my way when I did it.
Chapter 21
Selene
One shot rang out in the night, but it was all they needed to start moving. Elec slipped out the back of the church as my father clapped his hands together and let out a loud laugh.
“Lucky, my boy! Come on in, son. We have been waiting for you.” He turned and smiled at me in a way that shot ice-cold water through my veins. My father was sick on a good day, but today… he was off the deep end.
“Dad. You don’t have to do this,” I said, voice w
avering. “Just let him go. Take my life instead. I know you hate him and me, too. Just leave him be. There must be some part of you that’s not a monster. Some part that remembers letting me dance on your feet, or snuggle next to you when I was scared. Please, Dad. I’m begging you. Please.”
He moved toward me slowly as his expression softened. The hint of insanity that was in his eyes moments before was all but gone.
I wanted to let out a sigh at the thought that maybe, just maybe, everything might be okay, but I couldn’t. I knew him too well.
He reached for me, and though everything inside of me said to pull back and run like hell, I needed him focused on me. I loved Lucky Morrison more than anything. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, to have his children and turn his house into a home, but if that wasn’t to be our future, then I would die for him just as well.
Blood was going to be spilled. I had no doubt at all of that. I just prayed that it was mine or my father’s, and not Lucky’s. I couldn’t live in a world where he wasn’t there, too. That’s not how things would play out. No matter what, he was coming out of the drama ahead of us alive.
“I know that look in your eyes.” He smiled and slid his hands into my long hair, pulling me toward him and pressing his forehead against mine. “I wanted a son so fucking bad. Selene, I wanted you to be the king pin of this great empire, but you can’t. You’re a wayward little girl with pipe dreams of being someone’s sweetheart. You’re nothing like I raised you to be, and where I wish I could be okay with that… I’m not, sweetheart.”
“Dad, I can’t help that I have a heart.” I reached up and locked my hands around his forearms, pressing against him as tears filled my eyes. “I’ve tried to be hard, to do what you wanted me to do, but I wasn’t built to be a villain.”
“A villain? Is that what you think I am?” He pulled back and turned his attention to Tom for a minute. “Go upstairs and get the gift I brought for my daughter. I don’t know where the fuck Dante is, but I assume that was him outside, taking out the riffraff that stole my pumpkin’s innocence.”
“Of course, boss. Elec just went out the back door. No need to worry until we hear the rest of the Stone Wolves show up.” He cleared his throat, and all I could hear was the sound of his shit-kickers ascending the stairs.
“You’re not going to make it out of this alive, Daddy. You need to go, to run now.” I tugged on his arms, half pleading the cry of my heart, and half knowing I was lying. He deserved to die, but to know that a lot of other good men would die alongside him was too much to consider.
“I am going to reign supreme in this because my boys are loyal, Lena. Why weren’t you, baby? Why did you decide to turn your back on all that I’ve provided for you? All that I’ve offered?” He brushed his hand through my hair and smiled as someone struggled behind us.
I was almost too scared to turn around, so I didn’t. There wasn’t much I could do, and getting a bullet to the skull for turning into a total spaz wasn’t going to do anyone any favors.
The soft mumbling belonged to a woman, and the way Tom spoke to her left me with no question at all who it was. My grandma.
“No!” I screamed and tried to jerk from my father as Tom dragged my little old grandmother to the front of the church. Her hands were tied behind her back, and her mouth taped shut, as mine had been only a few minutes earlier.
“So I wanted to wait until Lucky got here, but something tells me he’s been detained.” My father kept me locked against him as I screamed again.
“Let her go! Take anything you want, but don’t hurt her, Papa. How could you? She’s all I have left of momma.” I jerked violently before I began to kick at him. A bullet to the head didn’t sound to terribly bad. Watching anything happen to my grandma would kill me anyway.
Lucky and I made our choices in life, but she’d done nothing. We somewhat deserved the drama that had fallen in our laps, but not Grandma. She’d been kind and loving, the perfect replacement for the mother that I missed so desperately.
“Shut the fuck up and listen to me carefully.” My dad twisted me around before locking his strong arms around me from the back. “If Lucky is still alive, you get to choose between him and your mother’s mother. That understood?”
I had no fight left in me as a painful sob rose from deep inside of me. There was no way to choose. Convincing him to kill me was the only way out. Besides, my father didn’t really think I was idiot enough to believe he wouldn’t kill Lucky after he killed my grandmother if I chose her instead of him.
Lucky was going to die either way. My grandmother being there and at the mercy of my sick father was just another sign that I was powerless. We both were.
I looked up the aisle of the church to see my Grandma watching me, a warm smile barely showing above the tape as her eyes told me everything I needed to know.
She loved me, and she was willing to die for me, just like I was for her.
Chapter 22
Lucky
Lena’s scream lit my ass on fire, and there was no more being stealthy. I jerked back as Elec jogged down the stairs and stopped in front of me. Lifting my gun, I readied myself to pull the trigger as the crazy mother fucker stared me down.
“Don’t. I’m on her side.” He nodded toward the church. “Rafael has Selene’s grandmother tied up front. She’s going to be used as a pawn to make Sel suffer. I’m honestly not sure how we get her out of this, but my uncle cannot know of my deceit. Understood?”
It was as if someone had splashed cold water in my face. I stood in shock until the asshole reached out and popped me in the face. “Wake up, Lucky. Fuck. There isn’t time for your shit tonight.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I moved past him. “I’m going after Lena.”
“Let me take you in there like I have you under control. I’m serious. He’s not going to kill you until Sel makes a decision on who has to die.” He moved up behind me, and though everything inside of me warned against doing anything with a Delgado, something in his eyes told me that he was my only chance at not getting shot point blank.
I nodded and he moved us into the church, pulling the hand holding my gun behind me. It was smart move on his part, but I didn’t like it, not in the least.
“Look what the cat dragged in, uncle.” Elec spoke loudly, but I ignored him.
My heart broke in two at the scene before me. Selene was losing her shit, crying and kicking wildly as her father held her tightly. I pulled against Elec’s hold as he tightened it.
“Not yet, mother fucker. Don’t play hero. You’re insanely outnumbered,” he mumbled behind my head.
Selene’s Grandma stood at the front, her little shoulders pulled back and head lifted up. She was the toughest little thing I’d ever seen. She’d been so good to me and Selene over the years and was one of the few people who knew the truth of our relationship. I’d come to love her and treat her like I would my own grandmother if I had one.
The fact that Rafael was willing to hurt her shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. The bastard honestly had no soul. He’d sold it years ago, and by the manic look in his eye, he was willing to do anything necessary to keep his power.
“Nice. Now the party can truly start.” Her father shifted, dragging Selene around to stand facing me as one of her smaller cousins held onto her grandmother at the other end of the church.
“Let’s start off with two simple questions,” her dad said. “Selene, do you love your grandma?"
“Yes more than anything,” she answered. “You know I do.”
“Next question. How long do you want your relationship with Lucas Morrison to last? And don’t give me a bullshit answer. I know when you’re lying. Be honest with me. Now answer the question.”
“Forever,” she answered.
“Forever. So you love your grandma more than anything, and you want to love Lucas forever. You are in a difficult dilemma, little girl.”
“What does that mean? Is this one of your sick j
okes?”
“Would you like me to explain what’s going on in my head?”
“Yes.”
“My beloved daughter is a rat,” Rafael said. “She betrayed me, the father who raised and loved her. And now she will face punishment. I’ll spare her life and forgive her. But she must pay a price for her deception and betrayal. She must feel the sting she made me feel. When I learned what Selene did, my heart was ripped out. Now, she needs to feel that, too. And we’ll be even. An eye for an eye.”
“Dad, why are you being like this?” Selene asked.
“Because you belong to me.”
“Remember the fish and the butterflies? On all our special camping trips. Remember what you said? You can’t keep what’s not yours. I’m a grown woman. You need to let this butterfly spread her wings and fly away. And you have to give her a second chance when she screws up. I am so sorry, Daddy. You need to punish me, and me only. Make me pay. Just let Grandma go.”
“You’re rambling, Selene. And bringing up our camping trips… Really? Don’t try to bring sentiment into this. Asking for forgiveness? It won’t get you very far. Especially after what you did.”
“Selene,” I said.
“Baby? Lucky, they got you, too. We have to do something. Anything.” She reached for me, but her father slapped her hands down hard. I jerked against Elec again, quite glad that the bastard was as big as me, if not bigger. Otherwise, I’d have pulled lose and there would be nothing left of Selene’s father.
“Here is how the game is played. Selene must choose one person to live. Who is it going to be?” Selene’s father asked her. “Your precious grandma who fights me every step of the way or your slimy boyfriend?”
“Neither! What kind of sick game are you playing?”
“Oh, Selene. One must die for your transgressions.”
“How can you kill an old woman?” Selene shouted. “Daddy, you’re not that cold!”