“And I didn’t ask for yours,” Mishy retorts.
“Well, nobody asked for yours either.” Now it’s Holly butting in, her eyes narrowed on Elle. I can barely make sense of what the actual hell is happening right now.
“Do we have a problem?”
“We’re about to,” Mindy says in a deadly cool manner. Ian’s wife is gorgeous. Beautiful blonde hair, bright, glowing eyes. She’s got a great figure and she’s kind as hell— when she wants to be— but the woman is as twisted as her husband. She slides up to Holly, standing protectively over her cousin.
“I can defend myself,” Holly gripes to Mindy.
“What is your problem lately?” Nic shouts at Holly from the bar stool she refuses to abandon.
“Okay, enough!” Ruby shouts. I probably should have shut it down sooner, but truth be told, I was kind of enjoying myself. There’s too much history and trauma here for these bitches to keep playing nice when just below the surface, we’re all about to fall apart. “You’re grown ass women, not little fucking girls, so start acting like it. You can pull each other’s hair out later. Right now, we have shit to take care of.”
“We’ve talked about this. They’re going to get themselves killed if they go alone,” Mindy says, staring at her mother-in-law with sorrow filling her eyes. “They need the numbers we can provide. They need to rest easy knowing people they can trust have their backs. Even if those people have pussies.”
“I know, baby,” Ruby says softly.
“What the hell are we going to do?” I say with wide eyes, staring at Ruby.
I almost miss Alex backing up, her sweaty, exhausted body lumbering toward the hall. She throws her arms up in the air and shouts, “Don’t give them a choice.”
And with that, she turns around and hauls ass down the hall toward the chapel. All I can think is “oh shit” as I chase after her. Ruby and Mindy are on my heels, the three of us fighting to get to Alex first, but it’s too late. By the time we round the corner to the hallway, she’s already kicking at the solid wood French doors to the chapel.
CHAPTER 22
I’m not thinking clearly. Okay, I’m not thinking at all. I just react, and once my feet are in motion, I can’t seem to stop myself. This club, this family—they’ve turned me into someone the old me wouldn’t recognize.
And I love her.
The old Alexandra Mancuso would never dream of barging in on a meeting among men. She was too timid, too scared. But that was before a group of unruly bikers showed up and whisked me away to a life I never dreamed possible. That was before she had to find a way to forgive her brother for the unforgivable. That was before men died and women were hurt in a war that began all because of a promise a man made to a woman years ago. And my big mouth is what lit the match.
The new Alexandra Mancuso isn’t afraid to be rude when she needs to. No, she does what she has to in order to protect her family.
All of her family, and that includes the thick-headed idiots who think they can take on the Italian mafia without backup they can trust. It means being the bad guy when the rest of the club’s women are trying to manipulate their way into getting what they want. It means loving a family enough to refuse to let them get themselves hurt.
The double wooden doors fly open before I can kick through them. I jump back at what meets me on the other side. Grady, Ryan, Ian, Duke, and Diesel all stand in front of Wyatt, the club’s new president, with their guns trained on me. Even Michael and Leo are in the background, behind the rest of the club, with their gold Desert Eagles in hand. Only Torque is missing.
The men are not supposed to take their pieces into Church, but this isn’t Church. If it were, they wouldn’t have two Mafiosos in there with them. They weren’t talking business. They were sitting in there figuring out how to slip past their women without us noticing. So I don’t cower. Two years ago I would’ve flipped out and needed a week to recover. But not now. Ryan taught me that. Don’t cower. Men smell weakness and they prey upon it. I just hope he knows what he’s done.
“What the fuck, babe?” Ryan shouts at me, his expression livid. I ignore the rest of their fuming faces and focus on my man. Slowly, they all lower their guns and start shouting at once. Less than a minute passes before I’m joined by the rest of the women. They chased me down the hall, likely trying to stop what I just did. They were fast, but I’ve spent my entire life running from things I fear, so I’m faster.
“Shut up!” Amber screams from my right. She’s only a few inches taller than me, but her presence is mighty. Amber Wallace was born a princess in this world, much like I was in my old world, but nobody ever tried to extinguish her blaze. They nurtured it, gave her a voice, showed her how to be strong, and they demanded she be fierce in everything. That’s what Forsaken women are—they’re fierce.