Crux Untamed (Hades Hangmen 6)

“STOP!” We snapped our heads across the room. Sia, tears streaming down her face, moved to stand in front of her brother, meeting his fucking eyes head-on. “Stop, Ky!” She shook her head. “Christ, I’m a grown-ass woman! If I want to fuck, then I’ll fuck whoever I want!” Sia’s eyes fell to me and Hush, and I saw her eyes soften. Bitch hit me harder in that moment than her brother’s iron fists ever could. Because we didn’t just fuck. The three of us. It wasn’t just fucking, and all three of us knew it. Then her eyes moved to Hush, my brother fighting hard to calm. To not show his secret to this club. Her lip wobbled. “I’m falling for them,” she whispered, and stopped my fucking heart beating in my chest.

Hush stilled underneath my palm. I heard the brother let out a long breath. Only to be ruined by—

“Falling for them?” Ky spat, pulling Sia’s attention back to him. “Have you fucking heard yourself?”

“Why?” Sia argued. “Because there’s two of them?”

Ky laughed, but there was fuck-all humor in it. “Yeah, let’s go with that. Two brothers, Sia? Thought you fucking hated the club? Yet the minute you get two bikers in your house, you open your legs and let them use you as their personal cumbucket.” He leaned in close. “Didn’t learn your lesson from fucking a sex-trafficker, huh, little sis?”

I had to stop Hush from launching at Ky again; fuck, I had to stop myself. But we weren’t needed anyway. Sia struck out and slapped her brother right across the cheek, the sound echoing off the walls. “You asshole!” she bit out, her body shaking as Ky righted his head and stroked along the red skin. “You’re just like him,” she said, venom dripping from her words. “You’re just fucking like Poppa. A cold-hearted bastard who doesn’t give one shit about me or what makes me happy, as long as it’s on your terms.” She laughed in his face. “And let’s not forget about Tiff and Jules, Ky. You remember them? Don’t you? The two fucking club sluts you used as your ‘cumbuckets’ for years.” She pointed at Lilah, who had gone deathly white, holding the wall for support. “Sorry, Lilah. I don’t mean to hurt you, but the reason you met me in the first place was because those two bitches kicked the shit out of you, because of him!”

“Shut the fuck up, Sia,” Ky warned. “Now!” His teeth gritted together and his eyes were hard.

Sia stepped closer. She tipped her head up at him. “Must run in the family, brother. Liking two in our bed. A Willis trait. Fuck knows good ole Poppa won’t have just stuck to one slut.”

Ky shook, his hands fisting at his sides. “And I’d say that as much as you hated him, Pop did right not letting you near this place.” He glanced at me and Hush, then said to Sia, “You’d have just become another whore who spread her legs for any brother that threw her scraps of their attention . . . like mother, like daughter.”

Sia stumbled back like Ky had just struck her. “Ky!” Lilah said. “Take that back!”

But Ky ignored his wife.

I should have known that would be what broke Hush. The minute Ky called Sia a slut, I should have predicted my brother would break.

The minute Ky mentioned Sia’s mother . . . fuck, mentioned her that way, he broke from me and cupped Sia’s face. “Don’t listen to him,” he said in Cajun French. Sia didn’t understand shit-all French, but the brother was fucking showing he was there for her. That he had her. “Ignore what he said.” My damn chest cracked. Hush knew what comments like that felt like. “You’re not a slut. Neither was your mamma.”

Sia gripped Hush’s wrists like he was her lifeline. I moved behind her, wrapping my arm around her waist. I met Ky’s furious gaze over Sia’s shoulder. I didn’t care anymore. “You’re nothing to me,” Sia whispered. Lilah sobbed across the room. Sia ignored it and stared down her brother. “Don’t come near me again. Stay away from my ranch. Stay the fuck away from me, period. What you’ve said to me today . . . about Momma . . .” She ducked her head, and then lifted her chin, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I’ll never forgive you.” She took Hush’s hand, then mine. “Let’s go.”

We went to move, but Styx pushed Ky out of the way and lifted his hands. I couldn’t read sign; neither could Hush. But Sia, even though completely broken, translated, “You’re both suspended from the club. Church will be held next week, when the brothers will decide if you can stay.”

When Sia had finished blankly relaying Styx’s words, she turned on her heel and stalked out of church. I looked at Hush, who was paling with every minute that went by. I knew he couldn’t be in a good place. As if he sensed me looking, he lifted his dulling eyes and nodded. He needed to get home, and quick. He was too stressed. We ignored the fucking looks from the people in the bar and got into the truck. Sia curled against Hush as I turned on the engine and raced home.

What the ever-loving fuck just happened?

*****

I knew this day would come, I thought as I watched Hush pacing the living room. I’d always known the day would come when something broke him. When something would happen in our lives that made all the shit from his past come back with vengeance.

From the minute I saw Sia, realized how we both felt about her, I knew she was gonna be what caused his fucking high, impenetrable walls to come tumbling down. Brother couldn’t shut off his emotions forever.

I got in front of him and placed my hands on his shoulders. “Calm down, Val. You’re gonna fit.”

His face crumbled. He turned away and headed upstairs for the bedroom. Sia brushed past me and chased after him. I followed too. Hush was sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. He was rocking back and forth.

Sia dropped to her knees in front of him and pulled his hands from his face. “Hush,” she whispered. “What’s wrong?” Her eyes searched his face. “This can’t be all because of Ky. Please . . .” she begged, eyes glistening. “Tell me.”

Hush stared into Sia’s eyes. I was a statue as I held my breath, waiting for what the hell he would do. He opened his mouth, but then his face fucking collapsed and his head dropped.

My chest cracked. Because I knew he wanted to tell her, but where the fuck did he begin? Why would Ky calling Sia a slut wound my best friend so bad? Why would the fact of us three—like this, how Hush needed to be—not being accepted stab the fucker right in his heart?

There were reasons for it all.

I watched as Hush tried to pull his shit together to tell her. His leg was bouncing, and I knew if he kept going this way, he would end up in a seizure.

So, I straightened my shoulders and started, “I met Hush when I was sixteen.” Hush froze, but Sia turned to look at me, eyes wide. Hush’s eyes focused on the floor, lost in what I was about to say, I was sure. Fuck, I didn’t want him to go back to those days. But Sia deserved to know.

We’d just been suspended from the club. We’d known the minute we made Sia ours we could lose our patches. We hadn’t said the words, but the minute we’d all ended up in bed, we’d made our choice.

It was time to let her in.

I folded my arms across my chest. My muscles ached with how tightly they were bunched. I took a deep breath and continued. “I told you before that we’re from a small town in the middle of nowhere, Louisiana. A place where everyone is exactly the same. Mostly successful, old money . . .” I shrugged. “White.” I ran my hand through my hair and loo

ked down at my arm, at a picture of Hades. Because I knew what had sat there before.

“Aub, you gotta get this, man,” Jase said, after we’d just competed in another rodeo. He slapped me on my back. “Gonna be pro by eighteen, I know it. We all will. That’s the fucking life!”

I nodded and sat back in the tattoo artist’s chair, giving him my arm. Skinhead dude leaned over us, covered in Klan shit, and started spreading that ink around my skin. I watched as he marked the Celtic cross on my arm. Jase, Pierre, Stan, and Davide had already had theirs. I was last. Davide had gone to get us all burgers from the diner across the road.

Jase’s hands were on my shoulders, but they suddenly froze. I followed what had got his attention. The new kid, Valan or some shit, was coming out of the diner with his papa. “Fucking half-breed,” Jase spat, his fingers digging into my shoulders. Valan and his papa were getting into their car. Valan’s face was like thunder. His papa looked broken watching his son.

“Can’t believe they’ve come to this town,” the tattoo artist said, never moving his eyes from my ink. “Fuckers will soon know that we don’t accept their kind, or the white traitorous slut who married that black bastard and had that abomination of a kid.”

Valan’s car skidded away, just as Davide crossed the road, eyes fucking lit. He burst through the door, burgers in hand. “You should’ve seen that shit!” Davide put down our food. “You see the coons that just walked into the diner?”

“We saw ’em,” Jase confirmed.

“Fucking walked in there, trying to get a table.” He shook his head. “No idea what the fuck they were thinking. But Bastien refused them service. They sat there, refusing to move. Bastien threatened them with the cops until they eventually got up and left.” He laughed. “Best bit of entertainment I’ve seen in a fucking long time.”

I stared down at the tattoo that was starting to form. An hour later I had my new tattoo. Had booked in for the next. We all did, and we went the fuck home.