Unbeloved by Madeline Sheehan Read Free Book Online Page B

accent. Which meant . . . this man was mafia. Cut from the same damn cloth Hawk was.
    Behind him, ZZ burst out laughing. “To think all those fuckin’ years I was livin’ amongst mafia royalty.”
    Hawk said nothing. He didn ’t move, didn’t breathe, too busy trying to compute what was happening. Or better yet, why it was happening.
    “ You no remember me, do you?” the old man asked.
    Hawk stared at his face, his features, trying desperately to place him, but for the life of him, he couldn’t. Not until he looked directly into the man’s eyes, such a dark shade of brown that the pupil was virtually indiscernible from the iris. Not only were they a mirror image of his father’s eyes, but of his own as well.
    “ Yenny,” he said flatly.
    As t he man’s smile grew, so did Hawk’s anger.
    Yevgeniy Polachev was Hawk’s uncle and had been his father’s second-in-command. Hawk had been under the impression that Yenny had died along with everyone else in his father’s company.
    But Yenny hadn’t died, he’d lived, and from the look of his expensive clothing and the armed men behind him, had prospered.
    “ You,” Hawk spat. “You turned on my father, didn’t you? You took everything he’d made for yourself!”
    In answer, Yenny simply shrugged. “Your father was greedy, Luca. He would have fallen eventually.”
    Hawk said nothing, the silence stretching uncomfortably between them. In the background, the shouts of the spectators could still be heard, along with the low hum of a plane flying overhead. But predominant was the sound of Hawk’s own heart, fast paced and erratic, his blood thundering violently through his veins as he fought the urge not to reach out and strangle the man he’d once called Uncle. Something that would undoubtedly end badly for him, seeing as he was the only unarmed man in a room full of guns.
    “ Luca!” ZZ continued laughing. “I still can’t believe this shit.”
    Ignoring ZZ, Hawk focused on Hammer. “You set me up? You set this up?”
    Whereas every Hell ’s Horsemen chapter had their own president, their own business dealings, and their own way of doing things, Miles City was the mother chapter and Deuce was ultimately in charge. Hammer’s involvement in this wasn’t just disloyal, it was traitorous. Once Deuce found out, the Nevada chapter would be gutted and rebuilt from the ground up, if it even was rebuilt at all.
    A body slammed unexpectedly into Hawk from behind, forcing him flat against the wall. He felt a gun pressed into his cheek, causing the soft skin on the inside of his mouth to grind painfully against his teeth.
    “ I set this up,” ZZ hissed, his breath hot across Hawk face. “Deuce has been buyin’ less and less Russian metal since teamin’ up with Preacher and those Chinese fucks.”
    Hawk cut his eyes toward Yenny. “Deuce hasn’t been buyin’ less. Fact, this isn’t about Deuce at all, is it? You want Preacher. You want the East Coast.”
    “ You always were a smart boy, Luca. Such a shame what happened to you . . .”
    Yenny ’s gaze ran up and down the length of Hawk as he eyed his leathers and his cut with nothing short of disgust. Once upon a time, Hawk would have done the same, way back when his name was still Luca. But he wasn’t Luca anymore. He was James motherfucking Hawk Young, he was Deuce’s boy, and he was unfailingly loyal.
    “ I’ll never help you,” he gritted out.
    Hawk found himself suddenly spun around and face -to-face with a smiling ZZ. No, ZZ wasn’t smiling, he was mocking him with a crude and ugly grin.
    “ Brother,” ZZ said with a sneer. “You already have. Now we wait to see if your prez gives a fuck about you.”
    “ Enough,” Yenny demanded. “The car is waiting. Shoot him already.”
    The declaration caught Hawk by surprise, but he had little time to dwell on it as a shot rang out, and his left leg bent suddenly and then gave out entirely. Searing pain shot up and down the limb as he stumbled