Page 16 of Heir

“Might be time for me to take a step back. Take Emmy to Europe like she’s been wanting.”

I shook my head, smiling. “Oh, yeah. You’ll only do that when she forces your hand, and we both know it.”

Like me, Dad liked control over everything, including his business. So I doubted he would want to be away from Sacramento for so long, not unless it was to make his wife happy.

He was married to Emmy shortly after the twins were born. They went to Las Vegas for the weekend with Braxton and me in attendance as witnesses because he wanted her to wear his last name as soon as possible, but Emmy was also planning a large and elaborate wedding ceremony herself.

It would be a small one, considering we didn’t let a lot of people into our circle, and perhaps her parents might come, but it would be months from now.

We still had Roman and Ryleigh’s wedding coming up.

Roman was the VP of the club and one of the best men I knew. He and his brother were the only men I would trust with my dad’s and my brothers’ lives, which said something because I didn’t trust many people.

It seemed everyone was moving on with their lives while I was still fucking stuck, trapped in the same nightmare that had haunted my thoughts for years.

I was happy for them. I really was.

I looked back down at Maddox’s blue eyes. Identical to my eyes, and my dad’s eyes. But his eyes expressed a sort of innocence that had long ago died in mine.

I was happy… content, even.

But sometimes—most of the time—it felt like there was a huge hole in my heart that I didn’t know how to fill.

And I didn’t know what to do about it.

4

KAI

I usedto spend most of my days on a college campus, trying to get through school and not let all those fake fuckers get to me daily.

A lot of the time, I ignored them, pretending they weren’t hanging out with me simply because they wanted a taste of what it would be like to hang out with the King’s Men.

Those people were easy to ignore, and I hadn’t had any contact with them since I’d graduated.

Mostly, they’d been a good distraction.

Drinking alone was fucking miserable.

Drinking with entitled fucks was onlymarginallybetter, and most of the time, it kept the demons at bay.

The only one I stayed in contact with was Noah Arrington, also known as Blue, the newest patch member.

The dude was pretty cool.

He had demons of his own that he didn’t want to talk about, which was perfect because I didn’t want to talk about mine.

He was loyal, and after graduating with me, I brought him around to hang out with the club before he pledged.

He was one of those guys who had my back, no matter what. He was older than my twenty-five years by five. Didn’t go to school until he was twenty-six, so we were in the same graduating class.

I got my degree in computer science, which taught me shit.

Most of my skills were self-taught, but Dad hadn’t wanted me to pledge until I got my degree, so I picked the easiest one that could get me what I wanted.

Blue got his degree in business management, which was why we put him in charge of inventory management—a fucking good decision, by my count.

He knew what he was doing, and he was fucking loyal to the club.

---