Their Queenpin (The Ridge MC #6)

Chapter 1 Adelina

The blazing Nevada sun beat down on me, frying my bare shoulders and making me want to rip away the layers of tulle, silk, and lace. At the front door of the Guardian Angel Cathedral, I stood at the center of bikers, the egg-shaped vibrator in my cunt now silent.

Still.

As in shock as me.

At least the motorcycle club had stayed when Papà dragged my family from my wedding, along with a few lesser members of La Famiglia. If my father had a hand in Sas’s arrest, he would answer for it one way or another.

With my bouquet dangling from my left hand, I gaped at the flashing red and blue lights. So many police cars had come to arrest one man. And for what? The officer slammed the door with Sas hunched in the back seat. My eyes fell to the ground next to the back tire where the small pink remote control had dropped from my husband’s hand.

The vibrator remote felt like the Earth’s poles, a connection to my husband that kept me in orbit as the egg-shaped toy rested silently inside my core.

The police car pulled away from the curb. The bikers looked toward their Prez for cues on what to do next. Wilde had his chin jutted out, and his eyes were narrowed, watching the cops swarm like ants over the bikes, picking through saddlebags and inspecting the gas tanks.

“They can’t do that.” I pointed at the police, but I wasn’t sure what I was saying or who I spoke to.

The Prez focused on the club problem now, his icy blue gaze set on business. He wouldn’t spend time to worry over me or what this did to my reputation among the Mafia families. But I felt the scandalous stares prickling my exposed skin like tiny daggers.

And the gossiping whispers chirped like crickets waking up for the night.

My furtive stare darted over to a group capos’ daughters, who stood off to the side. One of the bolder ones tried to hide it when she snapped a photo.

I could read the headline on social media now: Mafia princess turned prison wife.

The slander that would flow into the comment section would turn me into an outcast. While I hadn’t cut myself off from my upbringing thus far, this might have had me severing my roots as a Parisi, a bloodline that ran all the way back to Italy where Nonno Ivo spent his childhood in the olive grove and then married Nonna Petra. This embarrassment, and my father’s abandonment, in front of my extended family made it official.

I had been dethroned.

Rafe was still on the phone with my father, but he’d turned his back on me and started pacing at some distance. He had given me an apologetic look as he stepped away, but I was grateful for the reprieve and not having to listen to Papà.

And the other bikers . . .

My vision blurred as I scanned over them. Until I spotted Graff. I focused on him, but he wasn’t looking at me. I needed to get his attention and get him to answer me. But when I moved toward him, Rafe appeared back at my side and locked his hand on my wrist.

“Don’t,” he said in a low tone.

“We have to do something.” Desperation clung to my words.

Tears burned my eyes, but I wasn’t going to cry. I didn’t care about Sas that much, or so I told myself. Maybe it was a lie, but the wedding I had theoretically never wanted had been officially ruined. Sas—my husband; God that word felt loaded—wouldn’t be fucking me tonight like he promised.

I threw out an arm toward the meddlesome cops. “They can’t look through their bikes like that. They’re private property.”

“They can if they found something.” Rafe brought his cell phone back to his ear. “What did you do, Massimo?”

I ripped the cell phone from my uncle’s hand and yelled, “Papà, che cosa hai fatto? 1 ?”

Instead of offering any calming words like a father should, Papà admonished me in tone of voice alone. “Adelina?—”

“No!” I snapped, not liking the exasperated way he said my name. “Why are the police here? You knew!”

“Adelina, this is not my doing,” Papà said.

“Then why did you leave in the middle of my wedding?”

“There are bigger things at play here than your wedding, mia figlia.”

Bigger things? His own flesh and blood wasn’t a big enough deal?

“Why did you take Mamà and Caterina and the capos,” I asked, “but leave me and your so-called business partners in the MC to face the cops alone?”

“Enough, Adelina,” growled my father on the other end. “I didn’t think you cared that much about your future husband.”

I couldn’t tell him that I did, because he would use it against me. “Does that matter?” I rolled my shoulders back. “I’ll only get one wedding, and you ruined it. It’s not about my husband, but your daughter.”

Would he believe that this was about some fairytale wedding most little girls dreamed of?

“No consummation,” he said. “You can get an annulment and marry another.”

“You’re un-fucking-believable!”

“Put Rafaele back on the phone,” the Don demanded, his tiny amount of tolerance for family matters gone.

“No. You wanted me to get married. You chose the groom. Then you go and do this?”

“I didn’t do anything,” snapped my father. “You know I have friends?—”

“So, you did know ahead of time?” I asked.

Rafe gave me a worried look and flicked his gaze over his shoulder, then back to meet mine. The police were around us, and they may have been listening to the phone call now. I didn’t hear the click or whatever was supposed to give away a tapped line, but it was loud outside. In my shocked and emotional state, I hadn’t been paying attention.

I needed to be smart, despite how impossible that felt as the butt of this sick joke.

Someone blew out a low whistle, and Wilde jerked his head to the side. Suddenly, his bikers were moving. With the cops searching their saddlebags, they couldn’t claim their motorcycles, so they moved on foot. Sas not included. I reeled back, staring at Graff, and he sent me a torn frown before he disappeared with his club.

They left me here, proving again that I didn’t belong with them. We would see about that, though. This shitshow had become my life, and I needed to figure out how to own it pronto.

I spat into the phone, “You have to do something, Papà.”

“What do you expect me to do, daughter?” he asked, playing with me now. “I can’t do anything. The police found five kilos of coke in your husband’s saddlebags.”

“And how did you hear that,” I asked through clenched teeth, “if you weren’t even here?” I played this game too. After all, I’d learned at the heels of the master.

“That amount of drugs,” continued my father without answering my question, “is a serious crime in Nevada. And you know that we steer clear of police business.”

“Bullshit,” I snapped.

“I see your new husband has turned your mouth foul,” said my father.

“I knew how to swear long before Sas got a hold of me.” I never would’ve never used words like that toward my father before now. “Long before you fucking sold me to the MC!”

I never would’ve fought him more than acting like a brat to get my way. I’d feared him for too long, knowing what he did to people in his inner sanctum. Apparently, Alessio never told him when I’d accidentally walked in on one of his little torture sessions in his Red Room. But I had seen my daddy-dearest drag skin off someone’s body while they were still alive. I knew the stain of the blood on Papà’s hands.

“Don’t worry about it, mia figlia dolce,” said Papà. “I forgive you. And you’ll forget this. Enjoy your wedding day.”

My father hung up on me, leaving me with my jaw agape ready to rail at him for calling me his sweet daughter.

Rage cut through my silent shock, a violent storm blasting through the core of me.

I screamed, raising my fist above my head to throw the cell phone down on the ground, but Rafe grabbed my wrist in his strong grip.

1 ? Translation: What did you do?