Chapter 11
Scarlett
Another gift from Aspen to Alexis? Homicide and adrenaline claw my insides apart, making me twitchy.
I lost tonight. I lost. I lost. I lost. Lexi made a fool of me in front of everyone. Again. Again. Again.
Widow follows along behind me in the Stingray, parking on the street because there’s no room left in the driveway. He’s here to protect my back from knives, literal and metaphorical. To watch my six.
Can’t say the same for Alexis, parading around Prescott in a shiny new ride after I just ordered her not to drive. One of my girls called about five minutes ago to tell me how Lexi parked right in front of the house, got out like she owned the place. Marking her territory. Pissing on it.
When I should be wrangling fuckboys, I’m dealing with this. When I should be murdering the mayor or appeasing the mob, I’m dealing with a disloyal dog. Never have I seen a girl so outta line in my own neighborhood. For that bitch to be my own family, how fucked is that?
I press the front of the Pantera into the back of the Khamsin, blocking it in.
And then I climb out with my keys clenched between my fingers, struggling to see through a haze of red.
There’s only so much I can take. I loved Lexi enough that I let a lot of things go that I would’ve never done with anyone else.
I made mistakes with Lemon, so I overcompensated with Alexis.
Ugh.
“Look at me, princess,” Widow barks as I ignore him, storming up to the house as he jogs across the grass.
He’s trying to help me, I get it. The commanding note in his voice is enough for me to sideline his sound advice.
“Tonight has been a lot. Why don’t we go somewhere else for now and deal with this tomorrow? ”
I throw my grandmother’s front door open so hard that the knob slams into the wall and cracks the drywall. No big loss. I’m not the only person in this family with rage issues. We have plenty of holes like this throughout the house, courtesy of my mother.
Alexis rises from the couch like she was not only expecting a fight, but like she’s craving one.
“Why are you still here?!” My voice is a roar. There’s nothing in this world that digs at me like betrayal. To give another person your love, that takes a lot of courage. There’s not much of that in South Prescott.
Know what else there isn’t much of here?
Forgiveness.
I throw a right hook that takes Lexi in the jaw before I realize that my grandmother is sitting in her favorite armchair.
She surges to her feet like a woman possessed, and she does all that while being seventy, overworked, and without spilling a drop of coffee.
Patricia Force is a southside girl, born and raised. How could I ever forget?
“Scarlett!” Her voice alone is enough to snap me out of my fit.
My eyes go wide and I stumble back into Widow’s strong arms, his fingertips gripping my elbows and keeping me from falling to my ass in an undignified sprawl.
I don’t want him to be a source of comfort for me, a strength at my back that I instinctively feel like I can trust, but…
he is. I trust this parking space thief more than my own sister.
I love this parking space thief more than my own sister.
The fuck is my life right now?
“Oh, Gram. I should probably explain first,” I mumble, allowing Widow to keep hold of my arms so that I don’t redzone and attack my scumbag sister again. “I don’t—”
Alexis throws herself at me, and both Widow and I dodge, ducking aside so that she falls into the wall beside the front door.
We’re Prescott girls. We’re hot-blooded and angry at the world, and that manifests physically. Forks and fists. We’ve fought like this since we were kids. No, not like this. Not this vicious. Not with so much heat.
A dominance war, different from the one I have going with Bohnes. Males fight for breeding rights, but females fight for breathing rights. Bitches battle for blood.
Lexi grabs a lamp to throw at me, but Widow snatches her wrist in his tattooed hand. He barely exerts himself when he shoves her back, sending her stumbling and slamming into a decorative side table. Grandma’s lamp falls from her grip and shatters. Poor Grandma.
“Girls!” She sets her coffee down on the table and moves around the sofa to get between us.
Nobody on this green and fucked-up earth tells me what to do, but I raise my hands in surrender anyway. I love Patricia. I love her more than anyone else, and I would die for her. I respect her, too. I respect her in a way I respect virtually nobody else. “There will be no violence in this house.”
Well, now, that gives me pause. Not a great time to mention that I used one of her kitchen knives to kill the mayor’s goon, eh?
“You’re a demon!” Alexis screams, cheeks red and curly hair frizzing around her face like a madwoman. I try to give her allowances, I do. She has serious mental health problems, drug addiction problems, got curbstomped by her cocksucker boyfriend. But although I love her, I’m out of patience.
I am done.
Stealing my clothes? Fine. Cursing my name? Whatever. Slapping me? I can grit my teeth and deal.
Selling me out to die? I don’t know why out of all the people in this world, I had to be backstabbed by my own sister. The only sibling I have left. One of very few people that share the Force blood. Where is her sense of loyalty? Of family?
This blatant disrespect in front of Gram is the straw that’s snapping the camel’s spine as we speak.
“Oh yeah? You think?” I laugh hysterically. “Maybe I’m not just a demon, but the devil herself. You seem determined to find out how hard this bitch can sin.”
I turn back to Widow. His pupils have swallowed his amber irises, and his lower lip is bloodied from gnawing at it while he stalked the edges of the parking lot and watched me pretend to have a good time tonight.
I’m going to ask him to get me out of here before I do something in front of Patricia that changes the nature of our relationship forever. I need out of here now.
My grandmother cries out as Alexis shoves past her to grab at me, hands reaching for my hair.
Widow intervenes again by reaching around on either side of me and snagging Alexis by the wrists.
He gracefully lifts one of her arms over my head to free me from the violent embrace, and then he pushes her back into the wall and pins her there while she screams. His arm muscles aren’t bunched, no sweat dots his brow.
He’s not even trying.
“He’s raping me!” Alexis shrieks manically as I kneel down and help Gram to her feet.
Patricia’s panting hard, and her dark eyes are like obsidian, sharp-edged and war-ready.
I’m not the only person in this room who can see that my sister isn’t in her right mind—and that she’s dangerous. “Your garbage boyfriend is raping me!”
Poor fucking Adrian. I can see how much her words hurt him, each one a needle shoved deep inside his heart.
I want to kill her. Out of everything she’s ever done, this might be the worst.
“Ash won at the track, Scar,” Widow whispers dangerously, pushing Alexis harder into the wall. Unlike last time, he keeps himself in check. He doesn’t run away, not even with her insane accusations. “Don’t touch her.”
My right eye twitches like a crazy person’s.
“You take everything I want,” Alexis pants, glaring at me over Widow’s shoulder. “And you don’t care. You storm through the world like it owes you. I’ll give you a little secret: it doesn’t!”
“Like it owes me? Bitch, it does owe me. I got my bag, and the only reason you can’t get yours is because you’re too busy lusting after mine.” I spit on the floor at Alexis’ feet. “You disgust me.”
My hand reaches unconsciously for my knife.
“Don’t break track rules.” Widow’s voice cuts into my murderous thoughts. “We’ve already done that, and it doesn’t feel good.”
My man is speaking sense. I know.
I can’t kill her because of Ash. He won the race. He won, and I didn’t. My hands are tied with yellow caution tape.
I drop my knife at my side, flexing my fingers around the hilt.
“Alexis Force.” Patricia takes over, and I let her out of pure respect. Something bad is going to happen to Alexis, and it’s going to happen soon. If Ash waits too long, I will be the next Force sister to snap. This is Gram’s last chance to deal with her granddaughter. “Go walk it off.”
The air cools. I put my knife away. Alexis sags against the wall, like all the fight’s gone out of her.
“Give me a cigarette, and I’ll get out of here.” Alexis stares at Gram when she says that. Maybe she’s just realized that Patricia is her one and only ally in the world? I hope so.
“Young man.” Gram takes a step toward Widow, lifting her chin proudly. “Please let go of my granddaughter.”
Widow and I exchange a look, and I nod. Alexis is not my problem. She’s Ash’s problem.
He will handle this.
Widow releases Alexis and steps back, hands raised to show he has no intention of touching her so long as she doesn’t touch him or, more importantly, me.
“I’m warning you: if you go for my woman again, I won’t be quite as nice.” His voice is that warm, tumbledown Prescott growl. A voice made for radio.
She spits at him and misses; Adrian just swipes his spiderweb hand over his face and looks back at me. All yours, he says with a wry twist of his porn star mouth. For a brief second there, I’m not mad at him. I’ll remember to be pissed later.
I throw my heavy braid over my shoulder and exhale, closing my eyes and taking control of my breathing.
Alexis is lucky that Ash won the race.
If not, she’d be a bloody mess on the carpet that Bohnes would need to clean up.
Villains in Prescott don’t tie you up and throw you in a room with one inept guard. Ain’t like that. They shoot first, and the only time they don’t do that is if they’re torturing or raping you first.
Alexis is a villain.