Page 90 of Vicious Souls

It doesn’t escape me that neither one of us has mentioned love. We’re going to be married, and yet we still have not uttered the words. As though there are no words to describe the overwhelming feeling that commits our hearts to one another. I know how I feel about her, and I know how she feels about me. Yet I wonder why we have not put a label on our feelings.

“What would you call it, Dante?” She asks, her voice barely a whisper. She continues to mesmerize me in all the ways that could signal my undoing. We may not have said the words, but Kingsley is my world. Without her, I’d cease to be. Without her, I’m nothing.

Each ragged breath lifts my chest, my eyes devouring her with a reverence that sends a shiver down my spine. It’s as if she’s the prayer I cling to, my last tether to hope. The way she looks at me—like I’m her whole world—I never want that to fade. Never want that unwavering devotion to dim. Because if her gaze reflects the storm inside me, it means she can’t imagine a life without me in it. Anymore than I can imagine mine without her.

77

DANTE

For my online meeting with Claymore, I log in to the app and the seconds tick by until Clay finally appears on the screen. A fraught Stella is in the background, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her as worried as she seems to be right now. I know something is definitely wrong when she doesn’t even ask me about Kingsley, but instead starts jotting down notes on a pad, as is her usual practice. It is all business today.

Clay called the meeting so we could discuss Tate and what he’d found out about the man so far.

“What we do know so far isn’t good, Dante. You should be aware before we go any further.”

“I’m listening.”

“The story is a little more convoluted that we thought. We’ve found out who the men are that broke into your home.”

I sit up in my chair and move toward the screen, as though it will provide me with a quicker way to the answer I am looking for. I look impatiently at Clay, willing him to speed things up already. I’ve told him about the contents of Maddog’s letter to his daughter. We’d identified that Tate was more of a threat than originally perceived – after all, he’d killed my brother and tried to kill King’s father. That in itself put him on my hitlist. I am just unbelievably glad that he hadn’t hurt Kingsley when he’d had the chance. It was a miracle that he’d kept her alive, and I believe there is a reason why he had; obviously he wanted something he couldn’t get his hands on unless she was alive and under his control.

Claymore’s voice comes through the speaker and I once again turn my attention to him.

“Your man Tomas Wojcak has a best friend, who’s also a member of the Savages. He also happens to be best friends with Lucas Gables’s brother, Adam.”

Clay pauses for endless seconds, and I feel compelled to ask him why that is important to us.

“It’s important to us because it seems like someone tipped off Wojcak to your location the day of the meet with Lucas Gables. That someone could only have been Adam Gables; apparently, Lucas feels a need to constantly sing like a canary, so there’s no telling what else he’s spilled his guts about.”

I mutter a curse and feel like I can kick myself when I realize where this is going. This is what I mean by not letting a woman interfere with my head; because it stops working. Claymore is now telling me the ambush in which I got shot was not merely a case of opportunity – it had in fact been a planned attack.

“It gets worse. After he lost Wojcak, Tate upped the bounty to ten million dollars, but he wanted professionals.”

“And Wojcak’s best friend wanted him back,” I guess. Clay nods in a way that tells me he is delighted that I’ve caught on so quickly.

“With a ten million dollar bounty, more money than a club will ever see in its lifetime, and the added clout it would bring them to capture your girl, Lucas Gables himself decided to take the contract.”

“Motherfucker,” I spit.

“This is where the situation gets smelly. Lucas enlists the help of Wojcak’s best friend, who’s an ex navy seal and has many like minded friends. That’s where the mercenaries came from.”

“So Lucas was behind the whole thing.”

“For the most part, but it gets interesting. Whilst he commissioned Samuel Ford’s team of mercenaries, they’re all yet to be paid. Tate was depending on Kingsley’s money paying for her own bounty. Lucas has now gone missing with the one million that hewaspaid, the mercenaries are up in arms searching for LucasandTate, and Tate is now pressed up against a wall. I don’t think there’s any need for me to tell you that a desperate man will do desperate things, Dante.”

“He needs Kingsley’s money – it’s the only way for him to get himself out of the hole he’s dug himself into,” I say.

“The danger here is that this may affect you adversely, Dante. And the mercenaries may take it upon themselves to try to ransom Kingsley for the money they’re owed. It’s happened before.”

“How sure are we of these facts?” I ask him, my mind already springing into action and formulating a plan.

“Ironclad.”

“I want more than a hundred percent sure. Then I want a direct line to Samuel Ford. Call me when you have something concrete so we can finish this once and for all.”

* * *

I findSamuel Ford in a little hole in the wall burger joint that’s seen better days. Now that King has become the main focus of my life, I feel I have to shift my priorities and make things work in our favor. I will not lose her just when I’ve found her. So I have to make a deal with the devil. I must shift my alliances and utilize any means possible to keep her out of harm’s way. And I’m going to do whatever is necessary to eliminate Tate once and for all.

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