Page 38 of The Kingpin's Call Girl

“Any idea who?”

“No.”

I shrug. “People say all kinds of shit.”

“They’re saying you’re not a trueZogaj,” Orton repeats gravely. “We need to shut this down. It’s heresy.”

“I’m more interested in whoever did the Tucumayo job,” I say.

He follows me to the kitchen where I fix us both a black coffee with a splash of raki, an Albanian liquor of grapes and anise. Raki purists get mad when you put it in coffee, but Orton and I, we’d put it in anything over the years.

“I did get one possible lead on the hitters.”

“Tell me.”

We discuss Orton’s lead. It’s a good one. He’s a gifted investigator.

“But the true-blood bullshit—to suggest you’re a bastard!” Orton will not let it go. “Maybe that’s who’s behind the rumor, whoever did the Tucumayo job.”

“If it is...” I shrug. “Can’t make a man sorry twice.”

“Youcan,” he says. “You can make a man sorry twice. I’ve seen it.”

I go to the window and gaze out over the grimy rooftops. We were both seventeen by the time we got out of Tucumayo, and I definitely made a lot of people sorry.

“I find that trying to make a man sorry twice is the same as one very long sorry,” I say.

Orton doesn’t think it’s funny.

“The bloodline thing,” I add. “If they had proof, they’d show it.”

Orton comes to stand next to me. “The proof cannot exist. It’s not possible.” This he says like a command.

“It’s notimpossible—” I say.

“No! It is impossible because there’s no question. You’re a true blood, end of story.”

I say nothing. Orton is invested in my having a pure clan bloodline because he’s invested in being my knight. That is his destiny—knight to a truekyre. It’s a thing with him.

If I weren’t true blood, he might be the first to kill me. It’s just how he rolls.

Lucky for me, nobody’s getting my DNA. I took this throne from my brother—or the man who everyone assumes is my brother—and I’m keeping it until I’m done with it.

Same with Edie. I’ll keep her as long as I want, which will hopefully sink in with her.

“Do I look like a man who doesn’t know a true Zogaj?” Orton grits out. “Do I look like a man who’d follow a fake? Your brother’s a liar, that’s all. He lied when he said you weren’t a true blood.”

Orton was much more upset than I was about my brother saying I wasn’t a true-blooded Zogaj.

Personally, I don’t give a shit about my bloodline, being that I hate my family. I hated them before they sent me to Tucumayo, and I definitely hated them once I was there.

“A father doesn’t send his son to a place like Tucumayo for no reason,” I remind Orton because I’m the kind of man who likes to call things what they are.

Orton sniffs. “The reason they sent you away was because of the prophecy. They were afraid it would come true. And it did, didn’t it? You killed the kyre and took the throne.”

“Most kyres get killed.”

Orton harumphs, which means he’ll hear nothing more of it.

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