Page 67 of Embracing the Consequences

“YES!” Kara exclaimed, looking up from her cell phone. “They’re driving me nuts.” She waved absently at her men scattered around the room.

There were grunts in reply, but they were engrossed in their own phones or books, just as she had been. They all were bored to tears and dying to go home.

Marcos laughed. “Cranky, sister?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She rolled her eyes. “How’s Dagger?” she asked, deflecting.

“He’s good.” He nodded and pulled up a chair next to her bed. Marcos rubbed a hand over his buzzed hair. “I ran into Maya yesterday,” he said hesitantly.

Kara gasped and dropped her phone. “No fucking way! Where?”

“Downstairs in the ER.” Marcos sighed. “She was here with her son.”

Kara’s hands flew to her mouth. “What the fuck?” she muttered, her eyes wide.

Marcos nodded slowly. “He’s almost ten.” He gave her a watery smile.

“Marquitos,” she murmured softly. Her heart raced as her mind whirled a million miles an hour waiting for her brother to admit the truth.

Marcos nodded again. “I have a son.”

Kara flew out of the bed and pulled her brother into a hug despite the pain in her ribs. His shoulders shook under her cheek as he silently sobbed against her. She hugged him tighter, ignoring her own pain. She held him until he calmed down and turned away from her, wiping his eyes. “Tell me everything,” she murmured.

“His name is Lucas. He’s almost ten, and he’s amazing.” Marcos shook his head with a smile. “Maya’s parents aren’t doing well, so she moved back here to help them. She’s living in Mourningside. She said she’s told him about me over the years, whenever he asked. She said he’s wanted to meet me for awhile.” He shrugged. “We exchanged phone numbers. Gonna take it day by day, I guess. I’m not walking away,” he added vehemently.

Kara had to wipe the tears from her own face. She smiled at her brother. “I can’t wait to meet him.”

Marcos’s smile was blinding. “Me too, sister. Me too.”

“We should probably talk about what Buckley said at the end.” Johnny spoke up a while later, after the conversation had moved away from Lucas to future plans.

“I wouldn’t worry about the last words of a dead man.” Marcos shook his head.

Johnny shook his head. “Nah man, it’s not that. I found my father’s journal. There was a lot of truth to what Buckley spouted.

Marcos tilted his head in question.

Johnny held up the leather-bound journal he had been reading. “King made a deal with the Seratellis to move their coke. It was recent. He didn’t tell us. The move undercut a deal the Seratellis already had with the Psychos. So Buckley was right about the deal blowing up the coke trade from here to Alabama.”

Marcos rubbed a hand over his buzzed head. Kara could see the stress he carried.

Johnny continued before Marcos could answer him. “The Knights have had a long-standing deal with the Bratva out of Chicago. We run drugs for the Tarazov family, sometimes weapons. We keep everything out of Mourningside and send it to Bloomington or Louisville, Birmingham, New Orleans.”

“Keep it out of Mourningside and in Creekton?” Marcos asked, looking annoyed.

“It’s not like that.” Johnny shook his head, disagreeing. “The Seratellis do their own dealing, they have their own crews. We just move large quantities out of the area. Imagine the amount of product there’d be on the street if we didn’t?”

Kara sighed. She really didn’t like this kind of talk. She wished her boys were safe at all times and not at risk of being picked up by the ATF for fucking moving product across state lines.

Johnny locked eyes with Kara and nodded slowly. “I know, Princess, I know.”

Kara shrugged, annoyed.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Johnny said to Marcos, holding up the journal again.

Marcos frowned and reached for the leather-bound book.

Johnny paused. “He, uh, also went into detail about you being his son and what he thought that would have meant when we were kids,” he explained.

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