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My pepper spray is in there, and if I can get to it, I can disable him just long enough to escape. I reach my arm out, grabbing the purse with my fingertips. I slip my hand in and finger the contents, but before I find the spray, a hand wraps around my ankle and yanks me back.
“Hold her,” I hear my brother say just as a pair of extra-large hands yank me to my feet. I can’t tell who it is but it’s probably one of my brother’s loser henchmen hooking his arms through my elbows to hold me at a disadvantage. “Now what, sister? Nothing to say?”
“You’re a dead man, brother.”
Emiliano shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not. But you will not lay down with that fucking biker ever again.”
My eyes go wide when he produces a syringe of clear liquid. “You know Papa will not stand for this, Emiliano. You will pay dearly for this.”
He shrugs again, those wild eyes not processing my words in the slightest. “Don’t worry about me, Valentina. Just obey me,” he whispers as he stabs the needle into my arm.
I squirm away from him even as I feel the cold liquid seep into my body. Suddenly, my limbs grow heavy. “I hate you, and I hope your death is slow and painful.”
His mouth splits into a grin, and then it starts to melt, and I realize that whatever he’s shot me with is affecting more than my limbs. He speaks again, but it sounds like I’m underwater and falling slowly before everything goes black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Dix
“Dix, it’s me. I need you to know that Emiliano is still trying to kill—” Valentina’s voice is quiet, almost a whisper, but I can hear the panic in her voice before it cuts off.
“That’s it. That’s the whole fucking message,” I growl at Ace, my gaze bouncing around the room at the rest of my brothers. “I’m sure this is her fucking brother, and I can’t get her on the phone. He’s done something to her. I just know it.”
“You expect us to believe you now?” Shades glares at me with a fierce intensity, arms folded across his chest and glasses perched on his head.
I snap back, right in his face. “You know me better than that, Shades. I’ve never given you a reason not to trust me or doubt my loyalty to this MC.” Still, I feel my anger rising that a brother would doubt me.
“Really?” he says with a scoff. “So you haven’t been lying to us about screwing the cartel princess?”
A surge of rage boils to the surface. Who does Shades think he is after the shit he’s done? I bark back, “You mean the way you lied to us about fucking Letty? Remember when hundreds of thousands of dollars of club money went missing, and not one of us thought you were behind it? Wasn’t even an option.”
“Letty would never betray us,” Shades growls, and I know I’ve got him.
“Neither would I, goddammit! And if you can believe her, you sure as fuck can believe me,” I shout, feeling the tension building between us. “I already told you I was seeing her. What more do you want?”
Then Ace shouts over us, “Calm the fuck down!” He places a hand on both of our shoulders, but his gaze lingers on me. “This isn’t the same, Dix.”
“Isn’t it?” I shoot back. “Letty was in charge of our money, and when it went missing, we believed her without question. Gia was forced to work for Hector, and we still believed her. But because Valentina is a cartel princess, suddenly, I can’t be trusted?” I know Ace isn’t my main target, but I don’t let up.
Coop takes a long sip of his beer and sighs. “Cartels are a different kind of animal, man. How do we know she’s not playing you?”
“She’s not,” I grit out between clenched teeth. “I kept my relationship with her a secret for this exact reason. Arturo is just like Hector or Nogales. He may be more ruthless, but he’s no different.”
Then Shades comes after me again, still accusing me. “You met her under false pretenses.”
“I did,” I admit. “But right now, Valentina is in trouble, you know what? I’m fucking in love with her. There. I said it.” I blow out a breath and continue. “I wasn’t pumping her for information. I was fucking her. We just wanted to spend time together. No secrets, no cartel and no MC thinking I’m a traitor!
“And she was pumping you for information?” Coop adds.
“Jesus Christ! I told you, she wasn’t,” I shout. “We didn’t even talk about anything that has to do with the business until she told me Emiliano hired someone to kill me and that he still wants Willow dead.”
“What?” Banger jumps to his feet, glaring at me like I betrayed him. “Why didn’t you say anything, bro!”
