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“Antonio sent his most trusted man to watch me. Jules was never my boyfriend. It was all an act.”
For the first time, probably ever, you could have heard a pin drop in church. All eyes were on Stel with the bombshells that just seemed to keep coming out of her mouth.
“Antonio and I both thought his enemies would try for me again, so I stayed out of the public eye, safe at home with Jules. But there wasn’t another attempt on my life, and I couldn’t hide forever, so we gave them the perfect opportunity at Antonio’s club. I don’t know what happened to the additional security he hired for the night. Jules was the only one there.”
She stared down at her hands as she said, “So, they drugged and took him, same as me.”
“Do you know why they didn’t just leave Jules there?” Ryder asked, scrubbing a hand down his face.
It was the same question I’d been grappling with for a while.
Stel never looked up, her body rigid in the seat beside me. “No, but they questioned Jules. The only thing he could tell them about the club was that Tweak watched me like a hawk. When I laughed and said that he watched every girl with a pulse, Mateo said he no longer needed Jules and shot him.”
She grew quiet after that, and I gently nudged her knee with mine as I asked, “What happened then?”
“They left him to rot in my cell, hoping that would make me more docile. When that didn’t work, they took me to anew location. It was there I saw Delilah and knew she looked too much like Jules for them not to be related. That’s why I asked Hunter to bring her with us. I couldn’t stand to leave her behind when I’d already gotten her loved one killed with my smart mouth.”
“Stel.” I cradled her chin in my hand, raising it until she met my eyes. “They were always going to kill him once he’d outlived his usefulness. That isn’t on you, that’s on them. Trust me. They will get what’s coming to them.”
Her chin trembled in my grasp, but she nodded.
Ryder cleared his throat. “What exactly is Antonio involved in besides guns?”
“Underground fights, call girls, and gambling, mostly,” Stel said, breaking my hold to look over at Ryder. “But the primary source of his income doesn’t come from any of those things. He supplies weapons to the Middle East. Rocket launchers, missiles, grenades, guns, you name it, he ships it.”
“Jesus,” Gunner muttered under his breath.
His time in the deserts of Afghanistan did a number on him, and we were wading into dangerous waters with this subject matter. If the dark look on his face was any indication, Gunner would gladly take out Antonio on Stel’s behalf.
“Have you been in contact with Antonio since you’ve been back?” Ryder asked, his fingers drumming on the tabletop.
The thought she might want to be in contact with one of her old—there was that word again—boyfriends hadn’t even occurred to me. Now that it had, my stomach tightened painfully, waiting on her response. If she asked me to let her go, I wasn’t sure that I could.
“No,” she said, looking over at me as she answered.
My fist unclenched in my lap. Good. There was no way I was letting her get anywhere near that fucker.
“Until we know more, it’s probably best if he thinks you’re still MIA. For now, at least, you’ll have to avoid your apartment, the club, and your bike.”
“I get my apartment and the club, but why wouldn’t I be able to ride back to Hunter’s on my bike?”
“Shit,” Tweak muttered from the end of the table. “That’s my bad, Stella. If I’d known it was going to be a problem, Ryder and I never would have tried to surprise you.”
“Where is my bike?” Stel bit out.
Oh shit. If those boys had fucked with her bike, she was going to lose her shit and burn down the club. Nobody, and I mean nobody, came between Stel and her bike. The bike she and I spent hours working on. The same piece of shit bike her father gave her.
“Down in the garage.”
She was out of that folding metal chair so fast she tipped it over, the door banging off the wall with the force she used to open it.
“What the fuck did you guys do?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“She’s going to love it.” Tweak waved off her reaction like it was nothing. “Honest. I just wanted to get her out of here so we could discuss what we’re going to do about this shitstorm we got brewing. The last thing we need is for her to go allGI Janebefore we’re ready to make a move and wind up getting herself killed.”
“Good thinking,” Beast said from beside him. “Better we know what we’re walking into before we let her loose on those fuckers. And right now, there are too many hens in the henhouse for my tastes.”
“Agreed.” Ryder’s fingers paused in their drumming. “Hunter, how do you know that guy the girls ID’d was with Los Sepultureros?”
