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DANTE
I can’t remembera time when I wasn’t able to stay detached about death and violence. Dad started teaching me the art when I was so fucking young that some of my earliest memories are of helping dismember and dispose of some of his hits. It never bothered me, and this isn’t any different.
It’s fucking necessary.
So I snuff out the fact that it damn wellisdifferent and refuse to let myself feel what I’m feeling about my brother, the man I’d fucking die for, or the way Riley looks so fucking shell-shocked right now.
I want to remember her the other way. Blissed out and stuffed full of cock, down by that stripper pole she loves so much.
I want a lot of fucking things, but if I’m going to pull this off—and I am—then right the fuck now is when I need to start keeping those things on lockdown so I can do everything I need to do.
“Wait, you guys are going to do this right now?” Riley asks, her eyes going wide when Logan leaves the room to get the pipe cutter.
She’s still too fucking pale, looking like she’s about to be sick, and her voice rises with the kind of panic I’m not used to seeing on her. At least, not since we finally got Chloe back.
“Yeah, it’s gotta be now, princess,” I tell her, wanting to take back the last word the moment it slips out.
I’m so damn in love with her I’d burn down the world for her, but from this moment on, I need to cut myself off from my heart and trust my brothers to take care of her so that I can take care of business.
I turn to Maddoc, a little part of me dying inside over not taking Riley in my arms when she so clearly needs it. Hell, I need it too. There will be time for that shit later, though. I’ll make sure of it by getting the intel we need to take this motherfucker down.
“Who are we going to bring in on this?” Maddoc asks, his eyes flicking back and forth like he’s mentally reviewing our entire organization to figure out who we can trust.
I’d like to say all of them, and to some extent that’s true, but there’s trust and then there’s what it’s gonna take to pull this off, and that definitely means keeping the truth limited to just a few key players.
I name my top picks, and when Maddoc nods, I add, “We gotta keep the lower-level members out of the loop completely. All of them. We can’t slip up or it will get back to McKenna.”
He narrows his eyes, but I can tell he’s thinking through all the ramifications of that, not doubting my call. Part of the reason he’s the kind of leader and man I burned all my bridges to follow is because he knows when to rely on the strengths of others, and one of mine has always been the planning and execution of what my old man used to call “strategic deceit.”
“Agreed,” he finally says with a decisive nod. “We’ll let the organization think I really died.”
“What? No!” Riley bursts out, glaring at us both before focusing her outraged panic on Maddoc. “If they think you died, they’re going to think Dante betrayed you!”
“That’s right,” Maddoc says calmly, holding her gaze. “We need to be careful about who knows the truth. That’s how this works. It’s the only way it works.”
She’s always been strong, and I’m so fucking proud of her for not breaking down.
I also don’t blame her one damn bit when she finally says, “I… hate that. God, thatfucker. I hate this!”
“I know, baby,” Maddoc says, palming the back of her head and staring down at her. “But it’s necessary, and we’ll make McKenna pay for it. That’s what this is all about.”
She swallows hard, then nods. “Who will… um, who will step up if you can’t act as the leader anymore? Logan, right? What if there’s, like, a power struggle? Will the rest of the Reapers follow him?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? What if they don’t?”
“They will.”
“But—”
“Butterfly.” Madd doesn’t get loud, but he gets his point across. This is happening, and it’s happening now. Life doesn’t wait for any of us to be ready before fucking us over. The bitch never has. “They’ll follow Logan. He’s my second. No one will challenge him. We’ll put the word out there that he’s taken over. No one’s gonna question that.”
“Okay.” She takes a shuddering breath before straightening her spine and repeating it. “Okay. I get it.”
She looks so fucking gorgeous that my resolve to keep my distance, necessary for getting into character, almost cracks. Logan returns before that happens, handing me the pipe cutter without a word.
And handing Maddoc a bottle of whiskey.
