Page 75 of Desperate Victory

I suppressed a chuckle because King yanked at his tie. He fought with his shirt, like he could make the air come more easily. The struggle was real.

Milo traced his fingers down Lainey’s cheek. “Mayhem…”

“You’re welcome,” she said, her voice as low and confidential as his own. “I promise you, it was very much my pleasure to deal with him.”

I flicked a look to where Emersyn stared at the man who wanted far too late to be her father. Her grimace at the blood dripping down his face didn’t offer a shred of pity, only disgust.

“You don’t have to stay, Hellspawn,” Liam said, not quite blocking her view. They trusted her to handle it.

“I feel like… maybe I should?” Her hesitance echoed beneath the words.

“Ivy…” King choked out as he shoved his way forward. Liam snapped his arm back, his elbow catching King in the face and it knocked him on his ass.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Rome told her. “If you don’t want to see this, you don’t have to.”

A chair shrieked as Freddie dragged it over the wooden floor and out of his way before he leaned against the back of the sofa.

“They’re right, Boo-Boo, Liam will make sure he’s pushing up daisies… I’d offer to hurry it along but this all feels dramatic and kind of fancy.” Freddie flashed a grin at Lainey. “Ball Cracker’s got style.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, then switched her attention to Em. “You really don’t have to stay. I promise you, he’s a dead man. The antidote… it’s effective, but it has a narrow window.”

She shot King a smug look.

“A very narrow window.”

King could barely stand, and seemed to be leaning on the wall to keep from collapsing. Didn’t stop him from glaring at her. “It’s like my body is on fire…”

“I’ve read that’s the way junkies feel when they are going through detox. I imagine that’s how their mother felt before she died… Seemed fitting.”

Beautifully, epically, poetic.

“I’m staying,” Doc said, then looked at Milo. “Your girl is right, you and Little Bit don’t need to see this. But I will make sure he’s dead and gone. No more worries about him.”

It was the strangest sensation. No more worries about King. I’d cut ties months before, but… for the first time in a long while, I took a deep breath.

My father was gone.

Wallace Graham was gone.

Now King would be gone.

Our lives were our own again.

In the end, Em did go. She and Lainey hugged, then Em left with about half of her guys. Us? We stayed. King kept shooting looks at us when pain didn’t crush his expression.

Liam and Ezra watched King a lot like I did. We didn’t want to miss a thing. For years, he’d jerked us around. Pulled my strings. Pulled theirs. Made us dance for his amusement.

No, I wanted to soak in this moment. Doc seemed to be of a similar mindset. Milo was harder to read. He sat on the arm of Lainey’s chair, one hand braced behind her and his expression impassive.

Bodhi was positioned halfway between Lainey and King. He was also working on his phone, but it would be a mistake to think he wasn’t paying attention.

Arms folded, Ezra let out a long sigh and I cut a look at him. “What?”

“Thought this would be more interesting. But he’s almost as fucking boring dying as he was at trying to make dinner conversation.”

I couldn’t tell if he was serious, but then he slid a grin at me and I shook my head. “Don’t be a brat.”

“Can’t help it,” Ezra said. “I’m good at it.”

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