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“It’s late. Let’s gets some rest. We regroup tomorrow at 0700 hours. We’ll formulate a plan of action in the morning. Meeting adjourned.”
“HOOYAH!”
Maceo steps forward with me wrapped around him. His men part the way as we head upstairs. I catch a glance at my parents. My dad looks relieved, but my mom is stoic.
Hades runs ahead of us and bunts the door open with his head. Ebony is still passed out on the couch, sawing logs. Simone is still asleep in our bed. And Opal and Red sit on the end of the bed, holding hands, waiting for news.
“There’ll be no war tonight, ladies. You can go rest now,” Maceo says with reassurance.
Opal lets out a long sigh of relief and Red nods.
Gauge comes in behind us. “Come on, gorgeous. Let’s hit the sack.” Opal looks at me for confirmation. I smile to put her worries at ease. She takes Gauge’s hand and follows him across the hall.
Red heads out too, but before she makes it a step toward hers and Candy’s room, Reaper wraps his heavy arm around her and pulls her the other direction to his suite.
Tony walks in and appraises Ebony, sprawled out and snoring. He shakes his head, yanks her up, and throws her over his titan-size shoulder, all without waking her. “Where’s her room?”
“Three doors down to the left,” Maceo says.
Tony salutes and heads out with Ebony.
I turn to look at my sister and nearly jump out of Maceo’s arms. Chase somehow snuck past without me knowing, and he’s holding my sister in a threshold carry. Simone curls into his chest, clinging to his shirt, making Chase rumble with approval.
“Behave yourself,” I warn.
“For her, always,” Chase says with a wink.
Maceo doesn’t wait for the door to fully close before he’s walking toward the bed and sprawling me out.
Silently he removes his clothes, making my heart sputter. With his eyes ablaze, he reaches for me and helps me out of mine. He crawls on the bed, wrapping his muscled arms around me, pulling me to his chest. Maceo’s heady woodsy-fresh scent smells stronger without his clothes on. I breathe him in, letting his scent saturate my senses.
I feel his tears slide over my forehead, and I blink my own away. This moment calls for tenderness, for apologies, and words of acceptance.
“Baby, I’m sorry—it’s not enough to rid you of the pain Gianna and Bianchi put you through, but it is sincere. If I believed she wasn’t coerced into doing it, I would have turned her over to Luke without helping her. I never wanted to hurt you on top of everything,” he whispers against my head.
I sniffle, all my sadness coming to the surface. “I understand and accept it, but I’m hurt. By her, by you. I understand when someone is under duress, they can do things they normally wouldn’t. Not knowing the person makes it easier to justify their actions. This is what I suspect Gianna was facing, but I can’t see past the betrayal right now.
“What Jacob did to me was horrible, and having to go to counseling to talk about it is like reliving the nightmare all over again. Revealing my fears and vulnerabilities is extremely difficult, and having it revealed to a man who has no good intentions, makes me feel defenseless on a level that messes with my head.
“What Candy did was wrong, but I could relate to her fear since I’ve been assaulted myself. What Tom did was wrong, but we always knew there was a risk of being caught having sex in public. If we didn’t take those risks, Tom would never have been recruited.
“I know Gianna is a victim, and her family was threatened, but I feel she was Lorenzo’s puppeteer. Had she cut the strings, she would have saved us all this trouble. Obviously, she’s smart. Why didn’t she figure out a way to reach out to us?”
Maceo holds me tighter. “Fear has a way of preventing us from thinking clearly at times. Perhaps she was paranoid she’d be caught, not realizing the only one who could uncover what she did was herself.”
The truth is we’ll never know what she thought because we didn’t live what she went through. She’s another pawn in Lorenzo’s game, and all my anger should be direct at him. “He isn’t going to leave us alone.”
“You know I’m overprotective as hell about you,” he chokes out. “Every time I think of Bianchi coming after you, I lose my shit. This is fucking déjà vu with Jacob all over again. I can’t go through that another time. I can’t die another death, Pixie.”
I gulp. “I know.”
Maceo tilts my chin ‘till I look at him. “You need to understand I have to end him. I won’t risk putting you or our family in danger any longer. Please, tell me you understand?”
I nod because I do understand. Lorenzo needs to be stopped.
Maceo gaze smolders as he looks between my eyes and mouth. “I protect what’s mine, you hear? I need you on your best behavior. You need to do your part. Don’t give the guys a hard time when they guard you. Let Jared and your dad finish Lloyd’s build. You can work on-site on our home near the club, where we can put you in the panic room if it comes to an all-out war.”
I start to cry, worry gripping my intestines and making me nauseous.
