“Hello, Talon.”
Those two words hit me like a goddamn freight train. The past slams into the present, and my breath leaves my lungs. What the fuck is she doing here? How the hell is she involved withthem? Did she marry Samuel? Is this some revenge shit? Is she here to take me down?
“What the actual fuck is this?” I snap.
She justlooksat me. Calm. Detached. Like I’m nobody.
I look at her.
Then the boys.
Then back.
Twice.
Three times.
And itclicks.
Those are my kids.
Rage consumes me. Not anger. Rage.
My chair crashes to the ground as I leap up. My hands slam onto the table—flip.Wood, metal, and coffee fly. My roar shakes the fucking walls. Brothers rush me. Nitro grabs my chest. Axel locks my shoulders. They’re yelling, trying to talk me down, but I can’t hear them.
Thatbitch. Thatfucking bitch.
Seventeen years of silence. Seventeen years of regret. And nowthis?
I can’t breathe. My chest’s on fire.
She keptthemfromme.
And I swear on everything. If she thinks she can walk in here and play this game, she will end up on the wrong side of the grass.
It all happened so fucking fast.
The meeting hadn’t even started. No intros. No formalities. Just two words out of her mouth—and boom. Talon detonated like someone lit a fuse inside his chest. Next thing I know, he’s shouting, “You fucking bitch!” shit goes flying, and he tries to climb over the goddamn table like a feral animal. Church, wherewe handle business, where we don’t bring bullshit—turned into a war zone in seconds.
And her?
She didn’t even blink.
She just sat there. Calm. Unbothered. That bored expression on her face made it worse. Like she’s seen this show before. Like my brother, losing his fucking mind was expected. And those three motherfuckers with her? Locked in and ready for war. The two younger guys looked like they were itching to make a move, like theywanteda reason. The big one—Armand—just sat there, still as stone, watching like this was a game of chess and he was ten moves ahead of us.
Talon’s in full-blown rage mode, and I’m the one trying to keep his six-foot-three frame from throwing himself over the damn table. He’s pure muscle and fury when he gets like this, and I’m using everything I’ve got to keep him in check. I glance at Nitro—he’s on the other side, just as confused as me, and just as ready to throw hands if it comes to it. But neither of us knows what the fuck this is. That’s what makes it worse.We don’t know.
And if there’s one thing I hate more than chaos, it’s chaos I can’tread.
I’ve seen Talon pissed. I’ve seen him lose it. But this? This is different. This ispersonal. This is years of something buried, unearthed in one second flat. He’s not just mad. He’swoundedlike she cut him somewhere deep a long time ago, and just twisted the knife by walking in.
Then I hear it—clicks.
Guns.
The boys flanking her stand up, draw their pieces, and train them right on us. No hesitation. No bluffing. Trigger fingers areready. And my heart doesn’t drop—but my temper surely spikes. My brothers? They don’t have shit on them. House rules. No weapons in church. And now I’m thinking we should’ve made an exception today.
But my brothers still rise. Unarmed, but not unready. That’s the difference between us. We don’t need metal to kill. Wearethe weapons.
