Page 90 of Queen of Anarchy (Dirty Broken Savages 2)

I don’t get how normal they’re all acting. How they’re treating it like there was no other choice.

Because of course there was. Forthem, there were plenty of other choices. They could have countered with something else, and even if Julian had turned that down too, they could have said that they tried and that would have been good enough. Hell, they could have just fucking walked away. Said it was too much and it wasn’t worth all that. Wasn’t worth such an unequal trade in their eyes. I would have understood. I wouldn’t have blown up at them. Hannah is worth everything to me, but I’m not the one who will be giving something up with this stupid plan of Julian’s.

I’ll do whatever it takes to get my sister back. I’ve always known there’s no limit to what I’ll do for her, and this isn’t any different. The guys, though… they could walk away at any time.

It’s not their fight. Not their family. There’s nothing in it for them, other than having to look over their shoulders and be on their guards when it comes to how close Julian and his shit will be to theirs.

Gage almost killed me for shooting that man outside the club, what feels like a lifetime ago now. That’s how much he cares about keeping his little family safe. I wasn’t there that night to fuck with him or their business or his brothers, but he didn’t know that and wasn’t willing to take the chance. He told me then that he doesn’t allow anything to put them in danger.

So what is he doing now?

Why is this any different? Sure, Knox can handle himself if he needs to, against Natalie, and probably against Julian if it comes to that, but it would be a shit show from start to finish. Marriage is huge. It puts them in so much closer proximity to each other and their businesses.

Why? Why are they doing this?

That’s the question that swirls around and around in my head every time I think about how Knox just shrugged and said sure, why the fuck not, I’ll marry Natalie goddamn Maduro.

Why, why, why,why?

The more I think about it, the harder it is to come to terms with it. My heart is racing, my breathing is heavy, and I feel like I’m drowning in all the questions.

And finally, it’s just too much.

“Stop the car,” I rasp, cutting into whatever Priest was saying. I don’t even know.

I don’t even really care.

“River—”

“Stop the car!”

Gage slows the car to a halt, pulling off to the shoulder on a quiet stretch of road. There’s a cemetery on one side of us and several abandoned buildings on the other side of the street. I don’t even wait for him to put the car in park. As soon as we’re not moving anymore, I shove the door open and practically hurl myself out of the vehicle. I walk away from it with long strides, pacing the pavement.

My chest hurts, and I can barely get a deep breath in. It’s all shallow little gulps of air, not enough to be useful at all. It makes me lightheaded, the world spinning around me. I can tell I’m spiraling into a panic attack, but that doesn’t do me a lot of fucking good when I’m caught up in it like this.

I can taste my own heartbeat, feel it pounding in my head, and I just keep pacing the same few feet of pavement, walking one way and then turning to walk the other way like I want to wear a hole in the pavement.

Because they care.

They care so much about me. They’re willing to put all this on the line. To risk their business, their livelihoods, their position within the bigger structure of the city and the people who run it from the shadows.

For me.

No questions asked.

Not one of them stood up and said no to Julian. Not one of them said it wasn’t worth it to save my sister, who’s just some woman they’ve never even met. They didn’t come back with another offer or put limits on the marriage or anything. They justagreed.

I’m so stuck on that.

It means I really am one of them. It’s the same level of devotion they’d give to each other if they needed it, and they’re extending it to me just… just like that.

It’s so much that it overwhelms me. It rises up and threatens to drown me. Before, I could shrug it off or try to pretend it wasn’t happening, but there’s no way to deny this.

This is a fucking declaration in bold ass letters.

I’m freaking out, and I don’t know how to stop. I feel like it’s pressing down on me, cutting off my air, making it hard to do anything other than think about how all of this wasn’t supposed to happen and I don’t even really knowwhenit happened.

I clutch at my face, at my hair, trying to get a deep breath in, trying to combat the lightheaded feeling that threatens to send me to my knees at the edge of the road.

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