I swallow. “Who?”
“Silas Harper. He was the bishop of the sect my family belonged to. He thought Brittany belonged to him, he thought she’d been promised.”
My skin prickles. My mind flashes to being trapped, to someone deciding they own you. It makes bile rise in my throat.
“So Silver told him where Brittany was?” I ask, voice tight.
“More than that,” Queenie says. “She teamed up with Tusk’s ex-wife and the pair of them kidnapped Britt from the Savage Legion clubhouse and handed her over to Harper.”
Christina swears under her breath.
Tessa’s baby fusses. She soothes him with a gentle sound, but her eyes are flashing. “She used men like weapons.”
My hands are clenched in my lap. “How could she do something like that?”
Queenie’s expression turns grim. “Power. Money. Leverage. Revenge. Pick your poison.”
I take a shaky breath. My voice comes out thin. “Did they… did they take the baby too?”
Queenie’s eyes snap to mine. For a second the whole room feels like it stills.
“No,” she says, her voice clipped. “They didn’t get Victoria. Brittany wasn’t holding her when it happened.”
Relief hits me so hard I almost sag. It doesn’t erase the horror, but it changes the shape of it.
“What happened to Brittany?” I ask.
Queenie’s fingers curl tighter on her mug. “That’s where we came in. We knew Harper was after her, and that Savage Legion was after him.” She pauses, jaw working. “So Rock, who was Prez back then, offered our services. We’d protect him against the Legion.”
My chest tightens again. “Protect him?”
“We figured that way we’d get close,” Queenie confirms, her voice turning to steel. “Get her out before all hell broke loose.”
“Did he not recognize you?” I ask.
“I sent my boys,” Queenie corrects immediately, sharp as a whip. “He had no idea I was married to Sons of Rage’s Prez. And we got her back.”
I glance down at my plate, my appetite gone. The story is sitting inside me now like a stone. My mind keeps catching on one thing, circling it like it needs to understand.
“And Silver?” I ask.
Queenie’s eyes go flat. “By rights, Silver should’ve been put in the ground for what she did.”
The chill returns, crawling up my spine. I believe Queenie means it. I believe it was discussed. Considered. Not as a threat, but as a consequence.
“But you didn’t,” I say, because Silver is still alive, still sitting there, still drinking coffee.
Queenie’s mouth tightens, and she looks over at Silver again. Silver’s head is bent towards Heaven now, listening, her face unreadable.
“No,” Queenie says. “We didn’t.”
“Why?” The question comes out before I can stop it.
Queenie’s gaze snaps back to me. Her eyes are fierce. “Because killing someone is easy,” she says. “Living with what you’ve done and becoming better? That’s hard.”
Christina lets out a low whistle. “You really went the ‘teach a lesson’ route.”
Queenie makes a sound like she’s not amused. “Don’t act like I’m some saint. Part of it was practical.” She taps her finger on the table. “Silver had information. She had connections. She knew exactly who she’d talked to, what she’d traded, who she’d used. We made her talk.”
