“Tanner?” Adelita’s voice was shaking and quiet and just as perfect as I remembered. But that sweetness wasn’t enough to dilute the bitter taste that was building on my tongue.
I met her eyes, those eyes that had once promised me in return everything that I had promised her. The eyes that told me to trust her like she would me. That she’d wait for me while I figured out a way for us to be together. While I fucking left and tried to work out a way for us to escape all the shit that kept us apart.
All this time. All these months of planning and scheming for a way to leave my family, to leave the Klan unscathed, protected by someone stronger and more powerful. To prove my worth to the Hangmen so they would take me on as one of their own . . . all for her. All for this bitch who had upturned my life and fucking changed me, made me want nothing but her. All so we could be together and escape our fucking families that would never let us—would rather see us dead.
As I looked at the woman I loved, the one who had governed my life since the first time I laid eyes on her, all I felt was a fucking thunderstorm of rage, filling my muscles and bones down to their cores. The rage I used to wear every fucking day, the rage I’d learned to control for her, started to break free . . . and I did nothing to fucking stop it. I did nothing to hold it back. Instead I let it flood me, my veins bursting with the darkness that had always lived inside me, put there by my old man and the Klan and all the fucking hatred and venom I was infected with as a kid. And I fucking embraced it.
No deep breath was working. Nothing was gonna stop this. As I looked at that wedding dress, at the white lace covering her arms—arms that had held on to me as she’d promised to someday be my fucking wife—I fucking snapped.
“It was you,” I snarled. My fists clenched so tight I knew they’d draw blood as Adelita’s rose scent filled my nose. That scent I’d dreamed of for two years. The scent I remembered every time I lay in bed. The scent I kept with me all this time. “It was fucking you getting married!” I didn’t phrase it as a question. I didn’t have to. She sat in front of me in a motherfucking wedding dress.
Adelita’s eyes said it all. The guilt was written all over her face. She’d betrayed me. Betrayed us. Her mouth opened, but I didn’t hear what she had to say. I didn’t even know if she actually spoke. My brain shut her out, drowning in the thick fog I was letting in. Taking me back to the day I returned to Mexico. The day I threw everything away. The day I set all this in motion.
The day the White Prince voluntarily fell from his fucking throne . . .
*****
“Only a few more trips like this, Tanner, and we’ll be done,” my father said as we pulled through the gates of the Quintana hacienda. My eyes were fixed on the guards that surrounded the place, just like last time. I tried to focus on them, on what my father was telling me. But my fucking sick head went to only one place.
Adelita fucking Quintana.
Two months. I’d been gone for two months. Two months of being back with my people, my family. I’d fucked pure WASP sluts, trying to remember who the fuck I was. Two months of taking down enemies and burning the fiery cross.
And two months of trying to rid myself of the shame that I’d fucked Quintana’s daughter. And two months to school myself for this moment. The moment I saw her again.
I had to stay the fuck away.
The car stopped and we were led into the hacienda. My hands were balled at my sides as I kept my face staring straight forward. When we arrived at Quintana’s private quarters, I sat down next to my father, then Quintana came into the room. “Gentlemen,” he said in his fucking thick accent. Adelita didn’t speak like he did. Daddy had clearly educated his daughter better than he had been.
I got to my feet and shook his hand. My father and Quintana started making small talk that I quickly zoned out of. I glanced around at the art in Quintana’s office. It was shitty. Too-bright colors that made fuck-all sense . . . until my eyes fell on a painting above his desk. Brown eyes that had been burned into my skull stared back at me. And just like I remembered, they fucking taunted me with a superior glare. Challenged me to take her on.
Told me to take her pussy again.
“Tanner?” My father’s harsh voice pulled me from my head. I looked at him. “We’ll join Alfonso soon for dinner. Yes?”
“Yes, sir,” I said and got to my feet after my father.
As I walked to the suite I stayed in last time, I scanned the hallways, but there was no sign of Adelita. Her rooms were around here, I knew. My skin prickled as if it could sense her close. I hoped I wouldn’t see her the whole time I was here. Prayed she was out of town, so I could get in and out of this shithole without casting one glance her way.
I showered and changed for dinner. I never once stopped moving; I paced my room until it was time to go. I couldn’t turn off my fucking head. I banged my fist against my skull just to take the memory of Adelita falling apart under me from my thoughts. Of realizing I’d just taken her virginity. Of how she slapped me, fought me, then kissed me like she couldn’t stand not to.
There was a knock on the door. My father stood there in a suit. His eyes ran over my slacks, fitted white button-down shirt, and black tie. But they fixed on the full-body tattoos that crept out from the collar and cuffs of my shirt. His lip lifted in disgust. Mine curled in victory. It was the one thing in my life I’d done against his wishes. Fucker had made me pay for it with my flesh. But it had been worth it to see his perfectly groomed heir no longer the all-American boy he wanted me to be. “True Klansmen are invisible, Tanner. They don’t wear their beliefs on their skins like heathens.” His message had been drummed into my head all my life. But when Tank left the Klan, I left the army, I spiraled, and I did exactly what the great Governor Ayers hadn’t wanted me to do.
It was the best decision I’d ever made. I wasn’t meant for political office like my pop. I was meant for war and violence. For blood and guns and glory.
I was created for the darkness.
“Let’s go.” My father led us to the veranda where dinner would be served. He leaned in close. “Keep your mouth shut. I’ll do the talking.” It was fine by me. I was useless here anyway. He had no intention of cluing me in on the contract he was building with Quintana. I was here for fucking show. And as witness.
Quintana was waiting at the table. We had only just been given drinks and directed to our seats by a maid when Quintana broke into a smile and stood from his place at the head of the table. I kept my eyes forward, I knew who had just arrived.
“Tanner, you remember my daughter, Adela.”
Clenching my jaw, I stood and reluctantly lifted my gaze to Adelita. Her brown eyes locked on mine, and I immediately saw something flare inside them.
Then my eyes fell to the man standing beside her. The man whose arm she was on. “And this is Diego,” Quintana said. “He’s my second.” Quintana looked at my father. “He will be joining us tomorrow as discussed. He’ll be heading the project with me.”
Anger burst inside me. My father saw it in my face; I knew it. I also knew he thought it was at being excluded from his meetings when this motherfucker was going to be there. But he was wrong. He was fucking dead wrong. My fury came from this dick’s arm holding Adelita’s.