Page 93 of The Kings of Kearny

My trust for Nick only went so far. He and I had history. Hell, I’d damn near saved his life once when he tried to touch something on the plane that would have fried him to a crisp. The man owed me, and I believed he wouldn’t fuck me over. But Jakob? I’d left him out of my conversation with Nick for a reason. An enforcer for the Kings and the son of a founding member of the Specters might be too juicy a worm for Nick to resist. If Jakob showed up now, I worried that Nick might find some way to drag him into this, get photos of him, blackmail him into playing ball with the feds.

“I knew it,” Jakob said. “The second Mom started acting evasive, I knew you were doing something stupid.”

“I’m not doing something stupid. I’m doing something logical and calculated, and youcan’tbe here. Turn the hell around.”

“No.”

I was going to kill him.

I pulled the phone from my ear and took several deep breaths. How did I get him to back off right now? It was clear that he’d gotten it into his head that I either needed saving or that he needed to be in on whatever I was doing, and he had that intractable sound to his voice that told me there wasn’t anything I could do to change his mind.

But maybe there was one thing that would, one thing that would make him never want to come to my rescue again: the truth.

I put the phone back to my ear. “Iammeeting with an old friend,” I said, dropping my voice so passersby wouldn’t overhear me. “I wasn’t lying about that. His name is Nick, and he works for the FBI.”

Dead silence came from the other end of the line.

“I lured Redding here with some bullshit about not going to court and letting our lawyers figure it out instead,” I said. “And yes, I know that’s probably not why he really agreed to meet me, and he likely has some ulterior motive for wanting to sit down face-to-face, but it was a risk I had to take. Nick is a known entity at the Bureau. As I speak, federal agents are taking pictures of him and Redding inside a coffee shop. We’re going to send the pictures to the Jokers and make them think that Redding has been a mole this whole time and that the feds know all about their little operation inside Magnolia.”

More silence.

I took a deep breath. “It’s a smart plan, Jakob. The Jokers will freak out and pull out of Magnolia. If we’re lucky, they’ll put Redding down themselves.”

Still more silence.

“Jakob, say something.”

“Have you been a mole for the feds this whole time?” he asked, his voice deceptively neutral.

“No. Nick asked me to work for him when I moved here, and I turned him down. If you don’t believe anything else I’ve ever told you, believe that. Trust me like I trusted you in the car yesterday.”

“If you’re lying to me, Krista...”

The fucking nerve of this man.

Calm descended on me then. It was the calm of battle. The kind of calm I only achieved when someone pushed me over the edge of pissed off and dropped me into real anger.

“I’m in this because of you,” I said. “You came into my bar and dragged me into your mess, and now both Gran and I are in danger. You’re the one who’s been lying this whole time. How dare you lob accusations at me right now when all I’m trying to do is keep you and your parents and everyone else you’ve dragged into this safe?”

“My father—”

“Your father taught you well,” I snapped. “You want to complain about him, but the ugly truth is that all along, you’ve been treating me like he treats you.”

“That isn’t fair,” he ground out.

“It’s not? You didn’t manipulate my emotions and prey on my fear for my grandmother that first night? You didn’t seduce me to get what you wanted the easiest way you could think of? You didn’t lie to protect me or keep me from getting in so deep that I couldn’t get out again? All while telling yourself that what you were doing was for my benefit in the long run?”

Silence again. I’d struck a nerve.

“And yet, after all of that, I chose to forgive you, Jakob. I chose to believe that you didn’t mean to act like your father. That you didn’t say anything sooner because you couldn’t figure out how to tell me everything without losing me. That you wouldn’t treat me like that again because you knew I would walk away. Because you actually give a shit about me.”

“I do,” he said.

Thank God for that.

“I give a shit about you too,” I said. “I’m sorry for turning my phone off and scaring you. I’m sorry I brought the feds in, but I’m not going to apologize for doing what I think is right. For doing the only thing I could think of that wouldn’t lead to more innocent lives getting caught up in this nightmare.”

“You’re right,” Jakob said. “I’m sorry for not trusting you.”

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