Page 65 of Forsaking All Others

The Satan’s Knights of New York are a bunch of stress eating criminals.

“Thanks,” I mutter, although I have no fucking idea what a capicola is and the idea of any kind of food, much less‘hot honey’, turns my stomach.

The chairs scrape against the floor and the New York charter who welcomed us by pointing their guns to our heads leaves us to convene in their chapel. My men pull up their chairs, silently gathering around a table that isn’t ours. I can feel their eyes on me, but they’re either too fearful to speak or just as much at a loss for words as I am.

I reach for the photograph Parrish pulled from a file and stare at the woman with the long dark hair. Parrish said her name was Valeria and that she affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel—a drug trafficker with a penchant for red lipstick and my vice president’s dick.

“How didn’t I see this coming?” I ask no one in particular.

“You want a real answer to that question?”

My gaze cuts to Shady and I raise an eyebrow.

“Holly.”

My fingers tighten around the photograph and I narrow my eyes on my brother.

“Warned you a long time ago to keep her name out of your mouth. Bitter wasn’t a good look on you then and newsflash—twenty years later, it still isn’t.”

He slams a hand against the table and shakes his head.

“Man, I don’t want Holly,” he snaps. “Stopped wanting her the minute she fell on your dick. You got guilt over taking her from me, that’s your problem, but all I see when I look at her is the woman who has you twisted inside out. I respect her, she’s the mother of my niece and nephew and she’s been good to all of us. Honest to God, that woman did her time, paid her dues and earned that respect. Held us together when we were on the balls of our asses. But I do not envy you, brother—not even a little.”

“He’s right,” Ghost interjects. “It’s been a long eight years and the last six have been the most brutal.”

Eight years ago, Holly handed me the divorce papers.

Six years ago, she married Colt.

“Straight up, no disrespect, you know there is nothing I wouldn’t do for Holly, but, man, you need to hear this—hell, you needed to hear this eight years ago but we were all too fucked in our own heads to give a damn—you ain’t shit without that woman and neither are we,” Ghost continues. “You bury it, brother, or at least you try to, but Vivi’s cunt can’t wipe Holly from your bones and until you realize that, your head is gonna stay jacked and we’re gonna be headed for death row.”

I don’t respond mainly because he’s a hundred percent right. A man is nothing without his queen and that’s something I have tried to ignore. I just didn’t realize I was doing such a shit job of it.

“King, being closest to you, saw what was happening. Took advantage and now here we are,” Ink interjects.

Yeah, here we are, sitting around a bunch of restaurant grade tables, in the back room of bar that’s been converted into a chapel while our host fetches us some cold cuts after revealing the man I trusted most sold both of our charters to the cartel all because he’s got a hankering for some Mexican pussy.

Parrish didn’t show up in North Carolina by coincidence, he was fucking planted there by King. The man saw his opening to get in his woman’s good graces, and he used Shady’s alliance with the New York charter to set the bait. The cartel striking Parrish’s club was not a lie or a manufactured part of the plan. The cartel did want revenge on the New York Knights, but they failed at getting it and that’s when King stepped in. He knew the Bastards got their drugs from the cartel and their guns from us.

The Cartel wanted Parrish dead, and so with King’s help they set the plan in motion. They sent the Corrupt Bastards to hijack that truck, assuring they received their guns and made it look like Parrish and his posse were to blame. That they didn’t trust me to deliver what they paid for, so they took it themselves. And they did it hoping I’d seek revenge on Parrish.

King helped the cartel pin one charter against another, but while he had my number—he missed the mark with Parrish. He thought the rumors were true, that the man was a fucking quack. But it’s the ill-minded man who prevails against the darkness of treason.

“Colt’s blood is on King,” Ghost says, breaking the silence and pulling my attention back to the table.

Another wildcard King didn’t see coming but managed to push to the bottom of the deck.

“We leave here, and the first order of business is making that right,” I say, lifting my head. My gaze sweeps around the table. “Give Holly what she needs to lay that part of her heart to rest.”

No one argues and so I continue.

“Then we send a message to the Corrupt Bastards and we do that shit with the guns they took from our coffins. If Parrish and Wolf want to wipe them off the grid, then we assist with that. Either way we make it clear that New York and North Carolina are not to be played as a pawn in anyone’s fucking game.”

They all straighten at that.

“What are we gonna do with her?” Shady questions, pointing a finger to the woman in the photograph.

“We’ll send her something too,” I clip.

---