Page 52 of Axel (Belles & Bratva Beasts #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

AXEL

“You look like holy hell.”

My pastor brother sounds like a divine dick.

“No, shit. He looks like shit. Like royal shit.”

And Nash has to triple down on everything.

“Are we grilling burgers tonight or me?”

Sitting on the patio beside Nash’s pool, I sip chilled vodka in the September heat, but it’s nothing compared to my sweltering misery.

“Quit giving him shit, y’all.” Jace reclines in the Adirondack chair beside me. “All he’s eaten for a month is his heart out.”

“They’re just friends ,” Nick stresses it for the umpteenth time but I don’t give a fuck. “It’s just a show for the press. To keep them distracted until we make our big announcement.”

“And yet…” Grant grimaces for me. “It’s a big fucking knife in his heart. Face it. Colton Hawke is the NFL’s finest, and he creams panties. Delphine sure is a big fan.”

I wince, groaning, “Fuck off. All of you.”

“Colton Hawke loves Beau Bronson and Blair Monroe.” Nick sits up, pointing his beer bottle at me.

“They’re a loyal throuple, and Ruby’s just helping them.

I’ve fucking told you this a million times.

She’s Colton’s beard, or whatever the fuck you want to call it, until we all come out together and?—”

“Damn,” Nash huffs. “It’s brilliant. You have to admit it. A group of NFL players are forming a movement and coming out together so that one won’t be targeted? Fuck yeah, leave it to our queens to come up with that middle-finger to homophobic Americans.”

Am I proud of Ruby for helping the closeted NFL players who’ve decided to come out together before the Super Bowl? With half of them being bribed by that irate, piece-of-shit rental owner, Halstead?

Yes. I’m so damn proud of her it hurts.

Everything about her hurts.

Does she still love me? Yes.

Does she sleep with me and let me hold her and want to fuck me sometimes, too? Thank fucking god, yes.

Do all the kings and queens know about her now? They’ve started a Ruby fan club.

But is there a distance between us?

Yes. It aches, maddening and silent, and I don’t know how to fix it.

Like the strong woman who captivated me at first sight, Ruby’s proud. She said she wants to put it behind us. That it’s for Alena to reveal the secret and for us to move on.

But I know Ruby thinks about it every day, and it’s haunting our future.

I won’t propose to her like this. I won’t make her my queen officially. It feels wrong, and I’m desperate to make it right.

I asked Ruby what I could do, and she said to let her run this mission. This one with Nick, Zar, and Vale, Nash’s queen .

Because of course, put strong women together and they’ll figure out a way to help others and fuck over the assholes.

Assholes like the homophobic and biphobic fans and press keeping NFL players closeted. Players like Beau Bronson and Colton Hawke, who, yes, are in a loving throuple with Vale’s twin, Blair.

Vale and Ruby formed an alliance and a plan, and got my mother on board.

Did my mother jump at the opportunity to help her son, Nick, a closeted NFL player, and anyone else being shamed?

Does a dominatrix crack a whip?

The queens have identified every player being extorted by Halstead, the vile rental owner.

Nash is watching Halstead’s accounts and tracing the deposits back to the parties being bribed.

And one by one, Ruby makes contact with them, inviting them to join the movement being led by Nick and backed by us.

They even meet about it. The queens, including Ruby, walk right past me, standing at the bar in my mother’s club, and go upstairs into my mother’s office to hold their weekly strategy meetings.

Are the kings involved?

Nick is.

The rest of us? We’re on the sidelines.

We tossed the body of the sex trafficker who was chasing Nash and Vale into the Atlantic. It’s my favorite graveyard.

But The Queen still doesn’t know who betrayed us, and I still don’t know who sold me and my son out. Though I’ve got eyes and ears on Lev now.

Roman’s mother and grandmother, my father’s terrorized staff, are on my payroll, too.

They’re sending me pictures and videos of him.

They’re the sweetest torture. Ruby was right; Lev looks just like me.

So I’m getting maps of my father’s new compound.

Schedules of their movements. All the intel I’ll need to get my son soon.

In the meantime, my mom ices me out of her meetings with the queens.

Why?

Because my mom can sense a woman’s pain a mile away, and she knows I hurt Ruby.

To Ruby’s credit. To her soul-crushing loyalty and heartbreaking love, she hasn’t told my mom what I did.

She hasn’t told anyone.

Ironically, she’s protecting me.

And it’s killing me.

Ruby’s professionalism is regal. She doesn’t bitch or fight. She still works on my staff. For safety reasons, she agrees with me—all work remotely, while none of them have any idea that she lives with me in my hideout by the river.

Her loyalty to my family is noble. She’s grown so close to the queens and The Queen. She loves helping Nick and Zar, and now the kings adore her too.

And me?

I love her too much.

It kills me when I see the paparazzi photos of Ruby “dating” Colton Hawke.

Nick can insist it’s fake. That her double dates with Colton, accompanying Blair Monroe with Beau Bronson, the NFL’s number one quarterback, are really a disguise for Colton’s relationship with Blair and Beau … but you can’t convince my heart.

Those pictures of Ruby with Colton? The man is a hot, inked mountain of NFL muscle. And the way he hugged Ruby, protecting her, shielding her from the throngs of paparazzi cameras waiting outside an Atlanta restaurant?

It broke something inside me .

Something that probably feels almost as broken as what I did to Ruby.

I deserve it.

It’s my karma.

“Come on, man.” Grant nudges my shoe. “It’s lady ballsy as fuck what Ruby’s doing for us. So, when are you gonna make her our queen?”

“You can’t force a queen to be ready.” Jace jumps in. “Sometimes, all you can do is wait for her.”

Curious glances dart, including mine. All of the kings wonder who Jace is talking about.

Jace has been so cryptic about his love life, but I know he spends a lot of time with Nash and Vale.

Funny, how Nash fought so hard against Jace, or any king, being Vale’s second king, but now, the three seem close. It’s like Nash and Vale bring Jace some warmth while he’s waiting in the cold for some mystery woman.

Everyone thinks Ruby’s not ready to be initiated because of Katya. That she’s still getting over me not telling her about my first wife.

Only Sire knows the truth.

And he’s taken Ruby’s side. He agrees that I shouldn’t tell Loch and Nash. That Alena should.

Which is odd for a man so devoted to the truth, but I guess he fears what it will do to our family.

Normally, I’d do whatever the fuck I want. I’m the first king. But since I’ve fallen in love and fucked up, my instincts are off. I can’t tell when I’m being selfish or selfless.

I just know I’m so goddamn in love with Ruby and I need her back, fully. I don’t want a show of her standing by my side, like it’s her duty.

I want her heart, body, and soul.

As much as she has mine.

“Tell him she’ll be ready soon. Right?” Nash asks Nick. “ Ruby’s going to your parties with Zar. She’s recruiting more closeted players. She and Vale have some big meeting planned and?—”

Nick shakes his head. “We don’t talk about our queens. Period.”

“Come on. Give him a hope and a prayer,” Sire insists. “The meeting is soon, right? Then the mission will be done, and Ruby will be ready. We’re all ready for her to be a queen. Wren fucking loves her.”

Yeah, I love her, too, and Nick and Zar’s parties are my hell.

Because deep down I know that Ruby’s imagining my one time with Alena.

And without intention, she’s giving it right back to me.

Because all I can imagine is how she’s the fiery seductress, the only woman allowed at Zar and Nick’s intimate parties for closeted players, and it makes me sick with jealousy how some of those men want to score with her, too.

But I trust her.

I know she’d never cheat.

Still, I can’t shake this feeling that something bad is going to happen.

“Why is everyone so damn worried about Axel and Ruby?” Loch huffs. “They’ll be fine. She fucking loves him. She kneels for him, and he worships her. In the meantime, Alena won’t even talk to me, and it’s not my fucking fault.”

He glares at Nash, then at me.

“What, man?” I answer him. “Nash was just trying to protect his daughter, and I apologized to her, like you asked. I told Alena the truth; you love her. You weren’t forced to marry her.

You already had a ring. So, did we order you to protect her?

Yes. But you can’t make a man love a woman. So now, fucking fight for her.”

Like I’m secretly fighting for Ruby .

What will it take to win her trust again?

For now, Ruby insists that I stay out of this drama between Alena and Loch, and I understand. Alena’s hurt and angry, and I won’t pour salt on her wound by telling Loch and Nash about us.

I’m too focused on how I hurt Ruby.

“Don’t give up on her,” Jace urges Loch. “We’re all here, alive and well as brothers, because we’ve seen how love can conquer all.”

“Good God in heaven.” Sire rolls his eyes. “Who the fuck has you talking like a goddamn Hallmark movie?”

“What?” Jace booms back. “Don’t preach as if you don’t worship Wren more than God.”

“At least my woman has a name.”

“At least mine is none of your goddamn business.”

“Aha.” Nick grins. “At least we know it’s a woman.”

“Who is she?” Grant grins, too. “Come on. Give us a name and we’ll shut the fuck up.”

“Goddamn. Leave him alone,” Nash defends Jace. “We’ve all hidden secrets until it was time to tell them.”

“No.” Loch shakes his head. “We should know better by now. Secrets can kill us.”

“And yet,” I finish my vodka, “they’ve kept us alive, too.”

When you spend most of your life hiding who you are. When secrets and lies have kept you alive. When the truth is your greatest threat.

You have to hang on to one thing that’s real.

That’s always been my brothers, our mother, our family.

Blood and bonds have kept us together.

But now?

It’s Ruby. It’s our love. It’s the only thing I can trust.

Because I stare at the wide, inky water, snaking beside Nash’s new home with Vale. He chose this place for its strategic location, just as I chose mine. We live by the water for rapid escape.

It affords a sense of safety.

But now all I can wonder is…

What if one of those yachts, anchored for the night on the river, is our father or one of his henchmen, who’s been watching us the whole time?

And who in this circle helped him find us?