Page 122 of Heir

No matter how you look at it, killing always fucked with your mind.

But I would always come back to him. And to Gemma.

I nodded and stood.

I walked out the door and drove my bike to the King’s Men’s warehouse, greeting the bastard who fucking dared target my girl.

Regret would be the last thing they felt before they met their maker.

20

GEMMA

I wokeup with a pounding headache.

My eyelids felt glued shut, or perhaps they were just swollen from all the crying I had done.

There was no reprieve from the previous day’s events.

Not when Mom and Kenton had showed up and tried to get me to come home with them.

Not when I realized I could no longer trust my own mom—or perhaps I had never really trusted her to begin with. But this was the first time I had ever admitted that to myself.

I closed my eyes.

Even knowing what I knew, thinking those words was enough to break my heart.

I shifted on the bed so I could see my hand. The one Kai had tied to the headboard last night.

The rope he’d used was soft and velvet, so it didn’t bite into my skin or cut off circulation as I slept, and it was long enough that I could move around in the bed while I slept.

I had freaked him out last night.

There was something off about him when he took me home and cared for me right before he brought me to bed. He had stayed with me while I slept, but I had a feeling he hadn’t gone to bed until much later.

I turned over on the mattress and found his side of the bed empty. I touched his spot.

It was still warm, so wherever he had gone to, it must not have been that long ago. Sure enough, just as I finished my thought, Kai walked in the door with two coffee mugs.

I smiled at him, even when everything in me wanted to run away.

I didn’t want to have to explain to him about my fucked-up issues, and I supposed he probably knew that.

That was why he’d tied me up in his bed.

There was no escape unless he let me.

I sat up on the bed and clung to the sheet. He sat down on the edge of the bed beside me.

“Is that for me?” I asked, pointing to one of the coffee mugs, even if it was obvious he had poured one for me.

“Yeah, pretty girl,” he said, handing me one.

I smiled my thanks and looked down at the black coffee swirling around. Just the way I liked it.

I blew on it a little and took a small sip, feeling his eyes on me the whole time.

There was something different about him this morning, something I couldn’t put my finger on, and Kai was so good at hiding his emotions I couldn’t really tell what it was.

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