Page 78 of Devil's Queen

“What?” she recoils on me. “After all this, you want me to sign away the shop?”

“We don’t have a choice, baby.”

“Listen to him, Remington,” Ameline pleads. “The shop isn’t worth this.”

Wolff slides a stack of papers with a pen attached toward us on the table. It barely stops when it reaches us. With a heavy heart, Rem sighs and looks at the paper in front of her, knowing what she has to do. She takes a deep breath and signs her name on the dotted line. Wolff shifts from his seat at the table and stalks toward us, his fingers wrapped around his handgun.

“Here’s the paper,” Rem says, her voice wavering with emotion.

Wolff takes the paper, inspecting her signature closely. So closely that he doesn’t catch me sliding my handgun off the table and tucking it into the back of my pants. I reach for Rem’s, but he looks up too quickly.

“Good girl. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Give me our kids.”

“I said they’d go free, sugar. I never said they’d go free to you.” A man appears behind my mother, his hand drawing a knife against her throat. “I may have agreed to give them to my friend here.” Ameline squirms against the blade at her throat. Beaux cries out for her as blood begins to trickle down from the pressure of the blade.

“Hello, Ms. Laveau.”

Rem looks to me, eyes wide.

“Diaz,” she hisses with venom, her body tensing up.

“The one and only.” He shrugs nonchalantly, but I can see the hunger for revenge seeping through his casual façade.

“I don’t understand. He took your bike. Why are you working with him?”

“He took the bike on my orders, Ms. Laveau.” Diaz smirks, enjoying the confusion and distress in Rem’s eyes. “Your father has owed my family money for a very long time, and Wolff came to me with a proposition that was mutually beneficial for us both. It’s ironic, really. Your father lost my family’s drugs, and you lost my bike. Now, I have your family. Coming full circle, isn’t it? I mean, if anyone is to blame, it’s your father. He set all of this in motion.”

Wolff nods in agreement. “He’s not wrong.”

Rem’s hands tighten into white-knuckled fists, her voice trembling with a potent mix of anger and fear. “I’ll end you, you disgusting excuse for a human being. Do you hear me?”

Wolff sneers, his expression cold and calculating. “No, Rem, I own you. And there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

The roar of motorcycles comes from outside. The Heaven’s Rejects have arrived, and unbeknownst to Wolff and Diaz, the playing field has been leveled. They look at each other. Wolff’s eyes widen, his composure shaken, but not for long. He smirks. “It seems our little meeting has attracted some unwanted company.”

Diaz chuckles. “Don’t worry, my old friend, I anticipated this. They won’t be a problem.” The knife goes slack against Ameline’s throat while Diaz’s attention is drawn to his other hand as it reaches into his pocket to pull out his phone.

It’s now or never. The scales are momentarily tipped in our favor, and we have to take our shot. Any longer, and we won’t have the advantage.

“Go,” I order Rem.

“Own this, asshole.” Rem reaches behind her back, pulling her secondary weapon—the weapon Wolff would have known about had he actually paid enough attention. With a fierce swing of her arm, Rem unleashes a shot from her gun. The deafening sound echoes through the air as Diaz stumbles backward, blood blossoming in the middle of his forehead like a dark flower.

“Run, Beaux! Run!” Rem screams, her eyes wide with panic.

Ameline screams as Diaz falls forward, her hand grabbing the knife and throwing it away from her. Wolff grabs Ameline, dragging her against him.

“Get the kids,” I order. “I’ll get your mom.”

Beaux runs left, narrowly dodging Wolff, all the while dragging Birdie with him. Rem shifts toward them as I focus on Wolff. I fire at him, advancing forward and keeping his attention on me and not the kids as Rem gets them out of the room.

I throw myself at Wolff, not caring about the gun he holds. He stumbles, surprised at my sudden move, and I grab Ameline away from him. “Get out of here,” I order her. She runs for the doorway where Rem took our kids.

“Just you and me now, Wolff.”

He reaches for his gun, but I stomp my foot onto his hand. A sickening crunch accompanies it. “You don’t need that.”