Page 47 of Ruthless Reign

Suddenly, I wasn’t in the closet with Alba anymore. I was back in my room at my old house, getting ready for the day. Several men who had worked for my family for years burst into my space, grabbed me, shoved a pillowcase over my head, and dragged me out of my home. They put me in a car and took me somewhere, and as they hauled me into a freezing, dank room, Irealized I had been found out. The beatings came, and I couldn’t stop it. It was my own family, my flesh and blood, that had done this to me. Just as it had been Gabriella who took Hugo from me and my father who killed Vittori. Was it any surprise that I had started leaking information to the Roses? Could anyone blame me for wanting to escape?

Gunshots brought me back to reality, where Alba stood next to me, firing off rounds into big, hulking men as they tried to get into the closet. I blinked, swallowing down the rancid fear threatening to choke me, and aimed. I didn’t care who I hit. If they were trying to get in, they were enemies, and they had to go.

“How dare you!” Alba shouted, but the bang of the guns was almost too loud for me to hear her. “You fucking traitors.”

I hit a guy in the shoulder, and he went down, but then a hot slicing pain went through my leg and I winced, dropping to my knee.

“Stop!” shouted Stallion from the back of the frenzy. “Stop shooting at her! We want her alive!”

I tried to keep up with the number of guys barreling toward me, but it was only us two, and we couldn’t rattle off the bullets fast enough to keep all of them away. A man I didn’t recognize rushed in and I tried to shoot him, but I’d run out of ammo. I grabbed my knife on my thigh, holding it out as I dared him to come any closer.

He raised an eyebrow and laughed. “You think that pigsticker is going to hurt me?”

“Why don’t you come find out?”

Alba had grabbed another gun from my dresser, holding it out like she meant to fire at them, but more men filed into my room, and we were entirely outnumbered.

“Come on,” I roared.

He raged toward me, and I tried to stab him in the midsection, but he caught my wrist and twisted me around somy hand was behind my back. His massive arms scooped around my waist, picking me up like I weighed nothing. It took two guys to get Alba to stop fighting, one grabbing her arms, the other grabbing her legs. We’d managed to take down six of them, bodies lining the ground of my once pristine bedroom. Now, blood soaked the walls and the carpet while several other men held their wounds with angry scowls.

Good.

“Now, now, you little Caputi cunt. Calm down. We’re not going to hurt you too much, not yet anyway,” Stallion said, grinning as his men wrestled me out of my room and down the hall, Alba right behind me. Stallion, Reaper, and Lunchbox trailed after us, wearing new cuts that readHell’s Knights.Had they already been patched into a new club? How did that even work?

“You fucking traitors,” I shouted, fighting the hold the guy had on me. If I could just get loose, if I could get outside, I could run to get help. Bear and my brother were on their way, but judging by the delay in hurting me and Alba, perhaps that was what they wanted.

“Oh, quite the hypocrite, huh?” Stallion laughed and raised his hand, bringing it down on my face so hard, I saw stars. Pain exploded through my cheek and that side of my body, and my vision blackened for a few moments. When I came to, we were in the living room. I kneeled in front of them, Alba at my side. They’d restrained our hands together behind our backs with zip ties and wrapped cloth around our mouths so we couldn’t talk.

“Now, we’re going to sit here and wait for your…husband…to rescue you,” Stallion said from his spot perched on Roman’s recliner, his disgusting boots on our ottoman. I seethed with hatred for him, my body trembling with adrenaline and my chest aching with nerves. “In the meantime, let’s have a little fun, shall we?”

He glanced at Reaper behind me, a middle-aged man with disgusting teeth and horrible body odor. The former Rose rubbed his hands together and raised his eyebrows, looking down at us. “Oh, I can’t wait for him to walk in on what I have planned for you both.”

13

BEAR

The drive between the clubhouse and my house normally took ten minutes, maybe fifteen if we got stuck at a red light. After the call with Julia, I made it there in five.

We’d been welcoming the officers from the New England and Ohio chapters, who had driven in for a meet and greet and my upcoming nuptials. Even though we were about a month out from that, they’d arrived early to help us plan. But after hearing my wife’s panicked voice, everyone raced to my place.

Rage boiled through my veins, my entire body scalding with fury when I parked my truck down the street from my house. KC hopped out of the passenger seat, the hatred in his gaze matching mine. This had been a coordinated attack. They knew we’d be held up with our other chapters, but they made a mistake. Roses banded together, no matter what. Even if they had the Hell’s Knights with them, we were rolling three chapters deep, and we had enough guys to decimate them.

Thor, Hollywood, and Wheels walked up behind us, followed closely by Titan, the president of the New England SRMC, and Copter, the president of the Ohio chapter.

“I’m going to tear their fucking throats out,” KC said, his body tense as he stalked toward my house.

“Leave some for the rest of us,” Leo said from next to him, his bodyguards already armed and ready to go. He cocked his pistol, his limp barely noticeable with all the adrenaline pumping in his veins.

I understood. I wanted to rush in there and rip off all of their heads.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Thor said, grabbing KC’s shoulder to stop him. “They’d be idiots to not know we’re coming. They haven’t left the house.”

“So?” KC asked, wide eyes glaring at Thor.

“This is a trap,” Wheels said, rubbing his hands over his bald head.

“How are we going to do this?” I said.

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