Page 71 of The Kings of Kearny

The quickest way to make that happen was to get rid of the man standing in his son’s way. Daniel King wasn’t great to Jakob. Maybe Liam had seen that and didn’t like it. Maybe Liam thought he’d have greater influence on Kearny and the Kings if his son headed the club.

Liam must have known how loyal his son and the other members of the club were to Daniel. So how would he go about dethroning Daniel without the Kings suspecting his involvement?

The answer was obvious: by framing him. By bringing in a man from Daniel’s past and setting him up as the head of a rival drug operation right on Kearny’s doorstep to make it look like Danielhadto know about it. That hehadto be involved.

And I had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

Jakob glanced over at me, feeling my regard, and I started to look at him in a new light. I’d been thinking of him as the strong, silent type, but what if I was as wrong about him as I’d been about his father? He’d grown up in the MC world. How young was he when he first dipped his toes into the politics of the bigger clubs? Had Liam spoon-fed him a steady diet of paranoia and coercion all his life? Taught his son how to toy with others? How to stand in the background and manipulate events like a puppet master pulling the strings of his marionettes?

How long had Jakob suspected his father’s involvement? Because from everything that had happened over the past few days, it was pretty obvious that he didn’t think Daniel was behind everything.

Had he known since that first night in the bar? Jakob was the one to approach me and strike up a conversation, and later I’d learned that he’d looked into me when I moved to town. Had he already known that Gran was in Magnolia? Had he dropped that cryptic comment about her safety, hoping to reel me in?

Jesus, had he intentionally trapped me in his apartment and seduced me all so he could use me to weasel his way into Magnolia and get a look at what was going on for himself?

I leaned away from him, feeling sick to my stomach. Because it seemed... possible.

Don’t get ahead of yourself, Krista.

I took a deep breath and tried to shove my anxiety down. I’d jumped to conclusions about Daniel, and look where that had gotten me. After everything I’d been through with Jakob over the past several days, the least he deserved was the benefit of the doubt.

I turned to frown out my window, setting my unease about Jakob aside for a minute. There was still the problem of my apartment. If Liam was behind everything, had he ordered someone to trash it? Or had Redding and his goons done that on their own?

I circled back to an earlier question I’d asked myself: Who had the most to gain in this situation? By trashing my apartment, the goons would send the message that I wasn’t safe and that I should stop sticking my nose where it didn’t belong, but Liam...

If Liam was anywhere near as manipulative as I was starting to think he was, then it was plausible that Redding had told him about his son showing up at the nursing home and who his son had been with. Had he also told Liam that I said Jakob was my boyfriend? If so, what better way to keep his son away from Magnolia and Kearny than by making him believe his alleged girlfriend wasn’t safe there? After all, Jakob’s initial response was to pull me out of Kearny and bring me home, placing us right beneath Liam’s thumb. My trashed apartment would ensure he stayed right there.

My head started to spin. If Jakob had already suspected Liam’s involvement by then, he might have known Liam could be the one behind my trashed apartment and had brought me home because he wanted to play right into Liam’s hand. It meant Jakob could keep an eye on Liam while simultaneously making Liam believe that Jakob had no idea what was really going on. Because if Liam was willing to have my apartment ransacked and maybe even go so far as to have Dr. Perez attacked, what was next? Ordering someone to hurt me? Or Gran?

The blood drained from my face. Oh God, I left her there with him.

I could wait until we got to Kearny before I started interrogating Jakob, but the question of Gran’s safety had to be answered now.

As we wound out of Hill Country and descended back into civilization, I pulled my phone from my purse and punched something into my note app in caps, waiting until we rolled to a stop at a light before shoving it beneath Jakob’s nose.

It read, IS MY GRAN REALLY SAFE WITH YOUR PARENTS?

Jakob reached out and gripped my shoulder, dropping his shades so he could look me in the eyes. “Yes” was all he said, and from the conviction in that one word, it was clear that he believed she was.

But did I? If Liam was willing to destroy my apartment just to get his way, how far would he really go? Who else would he hurt?

And for that matter, how far would Jakob go?

Had anything between us been real?

One thing was for certain; Jakob and I needed to have a long conversation once we got out of this van.

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