“So,” I exhaled, hushing my thoughts. “Where are we going?”
She looked up at me from her phone. “Just to LA. Trust me, if the baby had a passport, we would be flying out of here.” She went back to tapping on her phone as the limo continued to drive us toward the airstrip. With every mile that we took, it felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest.
Resting my head against the headrest in the chair, I looked over at Tillie who was with the baby opposite me. We still hadn’t had a chance to talk, I guessed I was just waiting for the right time. Hopefully I’d get that time in LA. The jet engines fired up and I pulled my ear pods out, putting them in my ear and opening up a text.
Just about to fly out. I miss you
Seconds pass and I don’t get a reply, so I turn my phone into airplane mode and open Spotify. Pressing play on Luav “The Other,” I sink into the tune and engulf myself in the lyrics. The smooth sound of heartbreak. Looking down, I quickly add it to our playlist. That’s song one in my song a day. Hitting repeat, I let it put me to sleep like a soft lullaby.
With Nate riding shotgun and Daemon in the back of my Maserati, I drove us back to my house. I’d been running away from this place because I knew Khales was there, but I needed to call a meeting with Dad to get to the bottom of whatever the fuck was happening within the Kings.
“A Lambo? Like, really?” Nate hadn’t stopped going on about my present to Madison since we left the house.
“Yes, really,” I deadpanned.
“Why do you have to show us up like that? Now it’s going to make my one look shit not to mention Hunter and Jase, and I heard Saint, Eli, Chase, Brantley, and Cash all got her something too.”
“Nate, it’s not a competition.”
“Oh but it is, though! You know I’m an overachiever.”
I sighed, hitting the indicator to my street. I looked in the rearview mirror. “Bonum est tibi?” Asking if the kid was okay seemed like the least I could do—since he was stuck with us for however long. I still wasn’t sure how to characterize him yet, and if it wasn’t for his relationship with Madison, I’d kill him myself for shooting her—but I couldn’t. When it came down to my rage, there was only one other feeling that trumped it. Her. I didn’t trust him, I couldn’t. I trusted no one outside of my circle.
He nodded, then took his glare back out the window. “Ne putes illa erunt discedite?” Asking me if Madison would stay away was a given. You didn’t have to be a Madspert to know the girl goes down with her own. I open my mouth to answer, but Nate cuts me off with a scoff.
“Ney!”
He was fluent in Latin as we all were, he was just being a smart ass—per usual.
I shrugged, pulling into my driveway. “Nos autem non scire nisi runs.” Because I would know if she did. I’d have my mother grilling me. I jumped out of the car and my feet hadn’t even hit the asphalt when I heard Khales’ voice.
“B?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Nate slammed the passenger door after letting Daemon out. I turned to face her and watched as her eyes widened on Daemon.
“Holy shit, is that?” Her attention followed them as they passed her and headed to the side of the house.
I shut my door. “Daemon? Yes.”
“I’ve heard so much about him. They call him Six.”
“Who are they?” I narrowed my eyes.
She crossed her arms in front of herself, finally looking back at me. “Everyone in The Circle.”
“The Circle is full of shit, and what the fuck do you want?”
“I was coming to say hi and to see if you were ok. You haven’t been home—”
“When do you leave?” My eyebrows rose.
“Um, well—”
“She’s not,” Dad interrupted, walking down the steps with his hands in his pockets.
“What the fuck do you mean she’s not?” I threw my head back.
His arm rested on her shoulders as he pulled her into him. “She’s staying, son.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking shitting me,” I deadpanned, and then grinned. “You’re getting more senile with old age. You don’t buy her shit, do you? And what about Mom?”
“Son, you know deep down that your mother and I haven’t exactly been together for some time, and you’re grown. Swallow the fucking pill so we can move on.”
My eyes flew to Khales before they went back to my dad. “Huh.” I stared off into the distance, and then smirked, looking back to Khales. “And how do I taste? Since she’s licked my balls more than once…”
Dad chuckled, pulling out a cigar and lighting it up. “About the same as I do, apparently.”
I shook my head in disgust.
He blew out a cloud of smoke. “Now back to business, get in the office so we can talk.”
I looked at Khales one last time, and she watched me in worry, but her shoulders were relaxed under Dad’s handle. She wasn’t faking it. I knew this girl inside and out, and she seemed to genuinely love my dad. My eyes slid to him, but there was no use in me trying to analyze him. He hid his emotions better than me. I can decipher and read any human walking this earth, but not him. He trained me to be like that. I think the only person who could read him was my mom.
I shot Khales an evil glare and shoulder barged past her. I didn’t give a fuck that she had moved on with my dad, but I gave a fuck that she was now going to be around a lot more than I ever wanted her to. I saved her all those years ago because she was a friend. As much as I hated her now, I wouldn’t pretend that I hated her back then, because I didn’t. I didn’t love her, but I didn’t hate her. She was just there, and I cared about her, so I saved her. Now I wish I hadn’t. Now that I see what’s going on between her and Dad, though, I’m thinking there’s a lot more that he isn’t telling me either.
I sunk into one of the leather chairs in Dad’s office as he watched me from behind his heavy mahogany desk. “What happened?”
I leaned back. “Well, a fucking lot, but first I need to ask you if you knew about the underground tunnels on Perdita?”
“Yes.” He nodded, leaning forward to flick off his ash in the ashtray. “Of course I knew.”
“And you used them?” I shot back, watching his reaction.
His eyes squinted from the smoke. “Yes.”
“What for?”
“Why all the questions?” His eyebrow quirked.
“Why all the secrets?” I shot back.
He sighed and ran the palm of his hand over his slicked-back salt and pepper hair. “There are no secrets.” He flicked his ash again, and I watched as his suit jacket rode up to display the edge of his sleeve tattoo. He had swagger for his age, I’d give him that, and girls—of all ages, apparently, gravitated toward him. The smart ones ran after sex, the dumb ones like Khales stayed and thought they could tame him. He could never be tamed. Before him, was my pops. He rode a Harley until the day he died and ruled the underworld just as my dad does and as I will when he passes. Some days I miss my pops though. He was the only one who really understood the shit that I felt. He was still hard like Dad but wasn’t cold like him. He had a heart when it came to family, but was ruthless with everyone else—my dad wasn’t like that. He was just flat out ruthless to everyone, fuck family.
“That underground pathway is used for a lot of things. Weapons, bodies, and anything else there may be.”
“Drugs?” I asked flat out because I needed a straight answer from him. I’d never known the Kings to be in drugs, and Pops would turn in his grave, but the way my dad was, one could never be too sure.
“No. You know that.” So money, trafficking woman, and other “things,” I thought to myself. I wasn’t going to press the issue anymore, so I continued with the conversation at hand. “Katsia got away.”
“I see that, but why was she running?” he asked, tilting his head. “She’s sacred, son, you can’t go around killing everyone who threatens Madison.”
“It had more to do with Nate.”
Dad sucked in more smoke. “What of Nathaniel?”
“He has a kid.”
He faltered, only slightly. “And?”
“And it’s a girl.”
His eyes closed, his nostrils flaring. “Jesus. Who’s the mother?”