Page 70 of Vicious Souls

“Saul Hammersmith called me.”

It is my turn to frown. My father doesn’t usually speak in cryptics. Saul is our lawyer and financial advisor.

“Problems?”

I can feel him shaking his head in response. My father and I are so in tune with one another, we can literally predict the other’s reaction before it even happens.

“Regarding the reading of Maddog’s will.”

Saul was also Maddog’s lawyer.

I know, keep your friends close and your enemies closer and all that jazz. But Saul had never once, in all the years we’d known him, crossed that line of client privilege between his two top clients. And I could see why the two men had both opted to use the same lawyer – he was the sharpest in the industry, and a bulldog when it came to going to war.

“What does that have to do with you?” I ask. Then as an afterthought, I add “Why haven’t they read his will yet?”

“You can thank Kingsley for that,” my father tells me. “And it’s probably a good thing she kept delaying it, because Saul assures me the timing is perfect.”

“I still don’t understand what this has to do with you.”

“Not me. You and me. He wants us both there.”

Fuck. Me.

I had only ever met Maddog fleetingly on the rare occasions that our businesses overlapped in some way due to a third party or when we coincidentally bumped into one another at functions. He’d always been appropriately polite, with myself and my father, but had otherwise kept his distance.

“When?” I ask, running a hand through my hair. Sometimes I wished that jet lag would claim me and carry me away from the burdens of every day life.

“This afternoon. Don’t be late.”

61

KINGSLEY

“Did you know your father’s will was going to be read this afternoon?” Dante asks, coming into the living room, holding his phone aloft.

“Yes, I spoke with my father’s legal team a short while ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He seems angry. I give him a blank look. I do so because my brain can’t catch up with the reason why he’s so unsettled and I can’t formulate a response. Why is he angry atme?

“I’m sorry,” I say, rising to face his bristling body, my own anger coming out of nowhere as I bellow at him. “Did you not get the memo that I sent out to the world announcing the reading of my father’s will? Mydeadfather?”

His face softens at my words. Dante can be a real asshole about things at times. Stella had mentioned that about him.Go easy on him when his asshole rears his ugly head.

“That was harsh, I’m sorry,” he apologizes.

“I wasn’t trying to railroad you, Dante. Dealing with my father’s will isnotsomething I want to do. But my advisors – the team you hired, I might add – insisted I had to before moving on. They had nothing to advise me on, otherwise.”

He hangs his head in apology then looks down at his phone again. “I’m just trying to stay one step ahead of Tate, that’s all. Unscheduled trips across the city pose a risk. You know I like to plan things well in advance.”

I nod, and shuffle my feet closer to him. “I do. But this has to be done.”

He doesn’t disagree.

Dante has a need to control things. He doesn’t deal well with unknown variables or matters that are out of his control. I understand this better than even he does, because control is what I stake my bets on when I’m playing cards. But his security measures are causing my anxiety to flare up in ways it hasn’t in a long time. Part of why my father had sent me to be schooled in Switzerland was so I wouldn’t have to deal with the panic attacks that I was having at the security that was a constant in our lives. That cloying fear revisits me now as I recall those memories, long buried but still lurking in the background.

“Any news on Tate?” I ask him. He doesn’t respond, as if he doesn’t hear me as he types out a text and pockets his phone. My eyes follow his hands as he tucks them away in his pockets. I give him a questioning look and he seems puzzled. I was happier when we were on the same page.

---