She became bolder with her crush, making my grip on morality slip.
I’ve wanted to fuck her spoiled ass six ways to Sunday since she was fourteen. I was young too and still much too old for her. Not to mention self-destructive and out of control.
But not so out of control I’d cross a line that I couldn’t uncross. Especially, behind bars, which was where I would have belonged if I did all the things that crossed my mind when she tempted. Oh, how she had tempted…
“How do you know her?”
“She’s Theo’s kid.”
His eyes flashed hatred when I mentioned my father’s killer. “Bullshit.” I shook my head and waited. He sat up and beat his fist against his chest. “Why the fuck would you let her go?”
“I told you.”
“You didn’t think she would be useful to us now? I don’t feel like playing. I feel like making Theo suffer.”
“And he will. They both will.”
“How, man? She’s gone.”
“You escorted her home last night?” He nodded slowly. I could see the wheels in his head already turning. “We make a move when it’s the right time, not before. She can’t hide and she sure as fuck can’t run.”
He shook his head, but I could see his muscles relax one by one. “I didn’t know Theo had a kid.”
“I first met her when I was sixteen and she was ten. Her mom had just died that same year, and Theo didn’t want the burden of facing his daughter.”
Lucas swore.
“So where did that fit you?”
“I’d been asking for an in and my father finally gave me one. My first job was a fucking babysitting gig. He moved me into the brownstone against my mother’s wishes and left her alone out there in the country.”
“Is that why Z and I couldn’t come around anymore?”
I nodded. “My orders were to keep her protected but mostly isolated. Her mother never wanted her involved in his other life. I guess it was his way of keeping his promise to her.”
“Damn. Why didn’t you at least say something?”
“We both know my father. One fuck up and that was it. I wasn’t taking chances.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
I swallowed back pain. “Three years ago. It was a couple of months before her father murdered mine.”
On my fucking birthday.
“Shit,” he mumbled.
I decided not to share that our brief separation was mostly due to what an asshole I had been to her. We had a falling out after I stomped all over her feelings for good. I could still remember the look on her face when I walked away…
“So, you haven’t seen or spoken to her since then?”
I shook my head. “I called so she could wish me a happy birthday.” His eyebrows bunched, and I could tell he was about to dig deeper in shit I didn’t care to share so I quickly changed the subject.
“The book is gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean gone?” Alarm and disbelief wiped away any confusion he’d had about my past.
I shrugged as if she hadn’t run away with the past, present, and future of the Knights. “She got in the safe.”
“Fuck!” He rubbed at his forehead and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I have a man on her. He can grab her and have her here in less than two hours.”
“No.”
“No? What do you mean no ?”
“I mean we do this my way.” As we always do.
He stared at me for a beat before exploding. “Are you fucking serious right now?”
“Deadly.”
“She could—”
“I want her to make her next move, and we’re going to be there when she does. Even if her father didn’t send her, which I highly doubt, I don’t think she’s working alone.”
“She could be.”
I shook my head sharply. “She had information that only a Knight should know. She’s not a fucking Knight.”
“Your father is dead. Who else could it have been?”
“Theo.”
“You said only a Knight—”
“My father trusted Theo with more than just his life. It was a mistake that cost him his life.”
A mistake I had no intention of repeating.
I saw Lucas flinch and knew he knew exactly what I left unsaid.
I didn’t have the patience to assuage his feelings or sense of security regarding our friendship right now. He was my brother. I’d die for him but not by his hand. Not like my father.
He trusted the wrong man.
History would not repeat itself.
He sighed and locked his gaze with mine. “So, this is your plan?”
“We make her think she’s safe and then we take it all away.”
“What about her father?”
“He’s in prison. He can’t protect her.” He’d already done a shit job at it anyway if he was behind last night.
“Do you think she knows why Theo killed pops?”
“Her presence here last night gave me a pretty good clue.”
Lucas’s nostrils flared. “Art’s death by Theo’s hand never added up. When we take her, I have no intention of letting her keep secrets,” he warned. I stroked the light scruff on my chin and considered his threat.
He wanted Theo dead.
I wanted him to suffer.