“Yo! Bro? We’re gonna take Brantley home, dawg. He needs to rest and shit,” Ace called out, throwing open his car door. Hunter and Jase had long since left, what with Hunter in a shit about Madison being his sister. So from what I saw here, the rest of the guys were jumping in with Ace and Eli.
I nudged my head. “Yeah.” I’d deal with Brantley tomorrow, see where his head was at. I’d been worried about him for a while now because he was always trigger happy. I never really understood why, but because our training covered how to conceal our opaque pasts, I figured that was what he was doing. I never knew the depth of his scars until tonight.
“B?” My eyes closed at that voice and my jaw transmuted to stone. “B, please—”
“Shut the fuck up!” I yelled, cutting her off and finally allowing my eyes to go to her. “Both of you!” I gestured to her and Elizabeth. “Do you both have any idea the shit you’ve caused just now?”
“Actually, me.” My dad stepped closer, slicking his hair back and popping the collar on his suit. “They’ve both been back for weeks now, waiting for you to make a mistake. Tonight, you decided to go on a rampage and shoot up my club. You can’t get away with it that easy. Son or not.” He came closer to me and leaned into my ear. “You may be a monster, son, but remember the beast you learned from.” Then he leaned back. “Now, your mother is away filming in Costa Rica, so Khales will be staying with us.”
“The fuck she is!” I roared, fighting the rage that threatened to be unleashed. “No way in hell.”
“Actually, yes, she is,” he answered matter-of-factly. I watched as he slowly made his way towards the Range Rover. “Get in the car, son.” Something wasn’t right. There was something he wasn’t telling me.
We all got into the SUV, and once the clean-up crew had arrived, we pulled out onto the road. I found myself struggling to bite my tongue the whole way to Madison’s house. I wanted to know what the fuck had gotten into my dad, but I knew that there was one person walking this earth who I couldn’t read—and that was him.
Elizabeth got out, shutting the door, and I pressed my middle finger against the glass window. “I’ll talk with you soon, Hector.”
He looked toward her out of the corner of his eyes, and then slowly nodded. “Sure. You have my number.” Anyone that doesn’t know dad would miss what happened there, the silent exchange charged by lack of eye contact.
We pulled out of the driveway and I cranked my head slightly to face him. “So when did you and Elizabeth start fucking?”
13.
Retribution
It had been many months since I had last written a paragraph in this book. I hoped that one day, it fell in the right hands. In the hands of a silver swan. I pray it does not become the crux of all things to do with the Kings. For days, I’d been conducting a plan to bring retribution to Humphrey, but I’d been struggling with my anger toward him, which had me making not very good decisions when it came to the plan.
“Elizabeth…” My maid, Maree, entered the room, carrying my recent bundle of joy. “Ma’am, Humphrey is back from hunting.”
My face fell, as with my gut. “Oh.”
I wasn’t ready to see him. I headed to Maree and put my hands underneath my son.
“Hello, my dear. Are you ready to meet your father?” I just hoped he liked the name Hector.
What? I slammed the book closed so hard the dust particles from the previous century skyrocket to the ceiling. But, it did make a lot of sense. So Hector was related to Humphrey and Elizabeth—we already knew that. Hector was a far too strange name to bring it down to pure coincidence if you didn’t already know.
A sharp knock on my door pulled me out of my thoughts. “Come in!”
It opened, and Nate popped his head around the corner. I relaxed, all my muscles loosening. “Since when do you knock?” Flopping back down, I wriggled under the fluffy feather down cover, pulling it up to my mouth. He sauntered in shirtless with nothing but his Calvin briefs on, his glorious muscles tensing with each step, and then he did exactly the kind of thing only Nate could get away with doing—he slipped right under my blanket.
“Nate!” I whacked him with the back of my hand. “I didn’t invite you into my bed.”
He sunk in deeper and tugged the blanket up farther. “Since when do I need an invite.”
“Why are you here?” I’m still reeling from the events of last night. Nothing made sense but I could slowly feel myself growing stronger, mentally. Slowly, being the key word there.
His arms came out and tucked under his head, just as his eyes connected with mine. “Oh come on, there’s a thunderstorm happening outside.”
“So?” I argued, casting a quick look at the alarm clock beside my bed. “It’s eight a.m, haven’t you got some sort of King business to do?”
His eyes narrowed, and then a smirk slowly touched the corner of his mouth. “No, Kitty. I’m all yours. All day.” He pressed each word with the syllables rolling off his tongue.
I groaned, reaching for the remote on my bedside table. “I’ll make you watch The Notebook.”
He laughed, staggering up farther on the bed, his arm hooking around my body. He pulled me closer to him. “You hate The Notebook.” He knew me too well.
I pressed play on Banshee, snuggling into his warm hard chest. Circling the skull tattoo over his rib cage, I whispered, “Why couldn’t it have been you.”
His arm clenched around me and I gazed up at him, his eyes searching mine. “You don’t think I ask myself that same question every day? Fuck, Kitty…” He fixed his focus ahead of himself briefly, and my eyes greedily took in his sharp jaw and soft lips. Why am I looking at his lips? Because I knew how they felt pressed against mine? Because I want to feel them against mine again? It was then that I realized he was back to glaring down at me.
“Kiss me.”
“Mads, I—”
“—Nate?” I breathed out heavily. “Kiss me.”
He let out a throaty groan, then hooked his finger under my chin, tilting my head up to his lips. They softly pressed against mine, and my heart thudded in my chest, butterflies roaring deep in my belly. My hand went to the back of his neck as I opened my mouth, allowing his tongue to slip inside. I tilted my head to give him a little more access, then he groaned again, his arm tightening around my neck. That feral sound shot straight down to my lower regions. I inched my leg toward his until it was pressing against his thigh, testing how far he’d let me go before ordering me to stop. Only he grabbed onto it and pulled me on top so I was straddling his waist. Without thinking twice, I quickly searched his eyes and he mine. It was a fleeting moment of pause. A quick second guess. But before either of us could protest, our lips were colliding, my fingers were tangled in his hair and my shirt was coming off. He threw it onto the floor and halted, leaning back to take in my naked chest. “Damn, Kitty.” My cheeks heated briefly. For some reason, it was different between Nate and I this time. We sort of always knew it was sexual, there was always something there, but we hid behind our family and Bishop to simmer the tension down. Thinking of Bishop had me squirming, so before I could explore that any further, my lips went to his neck. I sucked on his skin, biting down on his flesh in my retreat. He moaned, his hand tugging at my hair to bring my face back down to his.
“We doing this? And choose your next words very carefully because I’m about to tear into that forbidden territory with no fucking shame.”
I pulled my bottom lip into my mouth and nodded. “He hurt me. Too much, Nate. He’s done… too much.”
“This a revenge fuck?”
“What?” His question was valid, but I asked ‘what’ just to give myself a few beats to decide how to answer, but I didn’t have to think hard. “Of course not!”