Page 61 of The Kings of Kearny

Jakob ignored her, looming over me, mouth set in a hard line. “If you start to fall, I’m throwing you over my shoulder. I’d rather deal with you being pissy than being hurt.”

“So chivalrous,” Amanda said in a dreamy voice.

Jakob shot her an unamused look.

I snickered and started to hobble away, glad that she’d broken the tension. Funny that I could keep a cool head when faced with a belligerent drunk, but the second Jakob started to order me around, the brakes on my temper malfunctioned. I hadn’t been lying to Gran when I said we might end up killing each other.

Amanda winked at me as I passed.

“First round is on me next time you come in,” I told the two women.

“We’ll hold you to that,” Amanda said.

I didn’t know if it was my pain or if the party’s energy had changed, but as we left, I no longer felt the temptation to join the debauchery. Even the sight of two people fucking against a wall, half-hidden by the shadow of the porch, didn’t turn me on. I just wanted to get back to Jakob’s parents’ house and sleep for the next twelve hours straight. Thank God I didn’t have to work tomorrow.

Since we’d arrived, the house had gone from dirty to trashed, and despite myself, I felt bad for Daniel and Eva. Who was going to clean all this shit up in the morning? Would Daniel pull rank and order the new recruits to do it? If so, I didn’t envy them the job.

I glanced into the dining room as we walked past and instantly regretted it. Someone had thrown up in there. Like, projectile vomited à laThe Exorcist. It was all over one of the walls and ground into the carpet like people had stepped in it. I shuddered and kept my eyes trained straight ahead from that point on. My leg screamed at me, and I walked with slow, halting steps. Only the thought of the painkillers stashed away in my bag in the back seat of the car kept me from throwing in the towel and letting Jakob carry me out of there.

I breathed a sigh of relief as we rounded the corner of a hallway and the front door came into view. A collage of pictures lined the wall to my right, Eva and Daniel King’s lives spread out before us. There were photos of a teenage Eva in a gorgeous, floor-length quinceañera dress, surrounded by what must have been her family. She looked young, beautiful, and blissfully happy. Nearby was one of her and Daniel at their wedding, the two of them grinning ear to ear as they shared a slow dance.

My gaze slid to the next frame over, and I came to a staggering halt.

Jakob stopped behind me, his hand slipping around my waist, bracing me up. “You okay?”

Two bikers leaned against the wall near the front door. They glanced over when they heard him. I needed to be careful. I didn’t know them, and I sure as shit didn’t know where their loyalties lay.

In answer, I turned in Jakob’s grip, putting my back to the men. I stood on my toes and kissed him. I’d meant it to be quick, but then his lips opened beneath mine, and he did something with his tongue that short-circuited my brain.

Eventually I made myself pull back.

Jakob’s brows drew together, shading his eyes. “I thought I was a bossy asshole,” he said, voice low.

“You are,” I told him. I wasn’t one for public displays of affection, but I needed to sell this right now. My hands landed on his upper chest, and I dug my fingers into his leather jacket and pulled him down, kissing my way up his neck so I could whisper into his ear, “Look at the picture next to us. The one to the left of Daniel and Eva’s wedding photo.”

He slid his hands around to cup my ass and turned his head a little, just enough for me to nip at his earlobe. I knew the second he saw the picture I meant. He stiffened, fingers digging into me before he forced them to relax. Then he turned back to me and ghosted his lips over mine. To anyone watching, we must have looked like we were making out, but our mouths barely touched.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” he whispered.

I nodded and pulled away, glancing at the picture one last time before we walked out the front door. It was a photograph from Daniel’s time in the service. He stood with a group of other soldiers, their arms around each other’s shoulders. They wore the light camo of the Army’s desert uniform, and behind them, sand dunes rolled away toward the horizon. The men and women filling the frame looked haggard but happy, like they’d just won a hard-fought battle. Daniel had his arm around a baby-faced soldier who couldn’t have been a day over eighteen. Add ten years to him, pack forty pounds of muscle onto his wiry frame, and fill out his face a little, and he’d be a dead ringer for the Magnolia Hills manager I saw at the police station. The name tag on his chest said Redding. Jakob must have seen this picture a hundred times while passing through Daniel’s hallway. That’s why the man looked familiar.

We walked to the Mustang in silence. The night was hot, but a chill slipped down my spine that made me want to shiver. Jakob unlocked the car when we reached it, and I climbed in and dug my phone out from where I’d stashed it in the glove box.

“What are you doing?” Jakob asked.

I held up a finger and dialed the nursing home.

“Hello, you’ve reached Magnolia Hills,” the night receptionist said. “How many I assist you?”

“I’m trying to get ahold of Mr. Redding,” I told her. “What time will he be in tomorrow?”

“He should be in around eight.”

“Thank you so much,” I said and hung up.

I turned to Jakob. His face was carefully blank.

“Just so it’s out in the open,” I said. “The leader of your motorcycle club served in the same unit as the man heading a rival gang’s drug operation. A drug operation that’s encroaching on King territory, destabilizing your hold on Kearny, and has the potential to drag you into open conflict with each other.”

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