Page 89 of Queen of Anarchy (Dirty Broken Savages 2)

Because it’s bullshit. It’s all bullshit. They’re risking so much. Putting it all on the line and getting basically nothing out of it.

Forme.

Because I want my sister back and pretty much every other option puts me in danger. They’re willing to go so fucking far for me, and it’s just…

A lot.

It’s so much, and it’s hitting me hard.

Gage was upset at first, grim and resigned, but now he seems to be in planning mode. “We’ll have to lock some things down,” he says. “I don’t know how much Julian and Natalie expect to be a part of our business, but there are some things they’re going to have to be in the dark about. I don’t want to give them any openings or opportunities we don’t have to.”

“Can I be the ring bearer in the wedding?” Ash asks. “I’ve always wanted to be in a wedding.”

“Yeah, sure,” Knox throws back, sounding amused. “But only if you carry the little pillow. Maybe put a bow in your hair.”

“Done and done.”

“Can we focus, please?” Gage asks, cutting into their joking. “This is actually serious, hard as that might be to believe.”

Apparently, it’s not. Apparently, it’s all fine because it’s just a piece of paper and it doesn’t matter in the long run. Apparently, risking Julian fucking Maduro having access to their business and being able to ruin them if he wants to badly enough is just something we can all shrug about.

I’m freaking out on the inside, tuning out most of their conversation about logistics and whatever. My emotions are rising, and there’s no shoving them back down. It’s just too much all at once. I can see a million ways this could go wrong. A million ways for it to be my fault when it all falls apart and someone gets hurt.

I feel like I’m spiraling out of control, trying to hold it together but doing a pretty shitty job of it.

The more I try to not think about what’s happening, the more I end up thinking about it. I keep replaying everything from the meeting over and over in my mind. Giving Julian Maduro access to their business was already such a big thing. That wasalreadythem going out of their way for me in a way I never have expected them to.

Then Julian said no.

He rejected their initial offer because he wanted something bigger. Something that was worth more. Which is fucking garbage, because I’m pretty damn sure the guys treat their club a hell of a lot better than Julian treats my sister. But still. He wanted more.

And if I’m being honest with myself, I didn’t really think Julian was going to agree in the first place. There’s too much of his dad in him. Too much of that sick, twisted need to be better than everyone else, to hold on to things and people when they don’t want to be held on to. To take and wreck and ruin.

Even going there to try to negotiate with him in the first place was giving away a lot about how important Hannah is to me. So it makes sense that he wanted to up the ante for it. Because even if Hannah doesn’t mean shit to him, she means something to me. And clearly, that matters to the guys, for whatever reason.

Julian didn’t need a reason, though.

He just needed to know it mattered.

I picture him sitting there, knowing he held all the fucking cards, staring down the five of us with just his sister at his side. At the very least, I can say he’s got balls to ask for something so big. I wonder if he expected them to say yes, or if he thought we would walk away.

IfIdidn’t think they’d say yes, then there’s probably no way he would have expected them to, right? He’s not so wise or all-knowing that he sees something there that I don’t. He probably just couldn’t let the opportunity pass by. He’s probably been looking for someone to marry his terrible, frigid sister for a while now, and the guys just happened to hand him the opening he needed.

Or something.

I don’t know.

I feel like I don’t know anything anymore. Everything went so fucking differently from how I was expecting it to. I’m not used to being that caught off-guard by shit like this, and it’s making it even harder to swallow everything that happened.

I wouldn’t have blamed the guys for saying no. For saying that this was a bridge too far and Julian was asking for too much. I was sitting there, already coming up with a new plan, and I would have managed to do it. To figuresomethingout. Nothing stops me when I want something badly enough, and right now, there’s nothing I want more than having Hannah safe. I would have marched right back to Julian’s house and faced him, his sister, and any of his goons that were around if I had to.

But I won’t have to do that.

Because the Kings of Chaos said yes.

I just don’t understand it.

They saidyes. Knox said yes, and Gage backed him up, and none of the others jumped in to say that they were both out of their fucking minds.

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