Page 34 of The Kingpin's Omega Lover
“Yes.”
King shook his head. He’d already considered Bishop’s suggestion of an intermediary before Remington mentioned an in with Lynn and her people. But King did not want to take an ask directly to Marta when he still had other options. “No, there are certain people, certain enemies, who are too despicable toever find common ground with, and sex traffickers and rapists are at the top of the list.”
“And if we find ourselves in a situation where we may not have a choice?”
Anger heated King’s chest, and he pressed both palms flat to the desk so he didn’t lash out and punch the wall. The idea of asking someone as evil as Marta for a favor sickened him. “I’ll face that devil’s bargain if it arrives, but not before.”
“We’ve done business with terrible people in the past, including cold-blooded killers. Hell, King, we arebothcold-blooded killers, no matter how we try and fancy up our reasons for those kills. They were not all heat-of-the-moment choices, they were not all self-defense. Norris Landau was only a few days ago.”
King snarled. “Landau died because he paid to rape innocent people. Landau decided that his wealth gave him license to torture and terrorize and steal from others. No one has the right to take that from another human being, Bishop!”
Bishop’s shoulders visibly tensed. “You know I agree with you. I cannot fathom the rage I would feel if anyone had tortured Kensley like that. But I’ve known you for most of my life, and this has really got a hold on you. Are your feelings for Malori clouding your judgment?”
If this was any other victim of any other crime, King could have staunchly said no, his feelings were not clouding his judgment. But with Malori…that would be a glaring lie, and Bishop knew it. “They probably are, to a degree, but I can’t let this go, Bishop. I won’t.”
“I’m not asking you to let this go. I’m asking you to think more with your brain than with your heart. You need to be sure that going after Yovenko is worth the potential risks to you, to Kensley, and to everyone who works for you.”
“Itisworth it!” King slammed his palm against the desk, the impact jarring up his wrist to his elbow. “I understand Malori’s pain far too much to just abandon everything and allow Yovenko to get away with what he did!”
Bishop stared him down but King refused to blink. Not until Bishop frowned and blinked first. “What do you mean?”
King debated lying, maybe even obfuscating a little, but there was no point. He’d admitted his worst pain to Malori yesterday morning—had it only been yesterday? A lifetime seemed to have passed since he’d opened that vein, and in some ways, it had been freeing. He could admit those same things to a man who was his brother in every way except blood. Although, they truly were brothers now, through the baby growing inside Kensley.
“I mean what I said.” King picked at the edge of his desk blotter. “There are things in Malori’s very-near past that are part of my distant past. From before you and I met.”
Bishop’s eyebrows arched into twin peaks, but he didn’t otherwise react.
“You know my parents separated when I was six,” King said, hoping he could relay the facts of the matter without falling into the painful emotions. “My mother had been unhappy in the marriage, and as a child I didn’t understand. Before the separation, we were wealthy, we were safe, we lived in a beautiful home. She attended parties and had fancy dresses and diamond necklaces. I didn’t grasp what my father did for a living, or why the inherent danger would cause her so much distress.”
“You had no way of knowing that as a six-year-old.” Bishop leaned back in his chair, attentive and open. “You’ve never talked about your parents’ divorce before.”
“That’s because it was a nightmare. I remember the yelling, the screaming, the threats from both sides. And unfortunately for my mother, she signed a pre-nup, and she left the marriagewith nothing except joint custody of me. She brought nothing into the marriage, because she’d been poor. Much like Kensley’s mother, she was someone who needed a boost out of poverty, and she put up with almost anything from her husband. Until it was too much.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that was on you.”
“That wasn’t the worst part. After the divorce, she started drinking heavily and doing drugs, and when my father learned of all the strange men coming and going from the house, he took her back to court. That ended with her only getting one weekend a month with me. He wouldn’t even let her come to my eighth birthday party. I saw her two weeks after.”
King picked up his ink pen and began twirling it with his fingers, something to channel the nervous energy that arose on the rare occasions when he thought about the next two years of his childhood. “I remember it was mid-December, freezing and snowy. Her apartment was so cold we ate canned soup in front of the open oven door. She got a phone call, and she told me we had to go out for a while. She had to meet a friend for business, and she needed me to sit in the car, because she couldn’t find a babysitter. She told me it was an Arctic adventure. So, I took a blanket and a chapter book, and off we went. To a run-down motel. She parked under a light, so I could bundle up and read my book while she went into one of the rooms.”
“Damn, brother.” Bishop sighed, his face creased with an intense frown. “Small kudos to her, I guess, for not leaving an eight-year-old home alone, but damn.”
“I’d have been better off if she’d left me home.”
Bishop tilted his head slightly to one side and studied King, while his bright mind sifted through everything they’d spoken about. King saw the moment the pieces began sliding into place, forming a clearer picture of what King had yet to say. “Fuck.”
King nodded. “I fell asleep waiting for her. Didn’t really wake up when someone got in the car and started driving. I assumed it was Mom taking me home. I had no idea it was a man who would lie to me about my mother giving me away, that I had to do everything he said, or I’d be punished.” Bile scorched the back of King’s throat, and he flung his pen across the room. “That I would be sold. For almost two years. To the absolute worst. The vilest men on the planet. That I would be tricked into thinking both my parents hated me, when my mother was being used the exact same way, and my father was sparing no expense to try and find me.” King’s vision blurred, and he blinked hard, annoyed by the tears. “So yes, I understand Malori’s pain too much not to move heaven and earth to give him his vengeance.”
Bishop’s eyes shined with grief, horror, and fury, and he was clutching the right arm of the chair so tight the leather creaked. “Did your father punish the people who abducted you?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it.”
“What!?”
“I repressed those memories for years, Bishop. My father refused to talk about it, told me therapy would only make things worse, bullied me into ignoring all that pain, and it…clouded over. He’d remarried, and then Kensley was born, and I had a baby brother. My mother never recovered, and she ended up in an institution for the rest of her life. He wouldn’t let me visit her. Ever.” He’d once told Bishop that partial truth, but he’d said she was institutionalized because of psychosis from too many years abusing drugs. Not that it was a combination of alcoholism, drug use, and years of being trafficked to feed her habit.
“But when my father divorced Kensley’s mom and I lost my baby brother, I was so angry with him that I started working for one of his competitors. And I met you.” Teenage hellions who wanted to feel seen and useful, and they’d bonded immediately. “You remember my first kill?”
“Of course. You were pretty torn up over it for a while.”
