Page 164 of Kai
His arms came around my waist, and I felt properly rigged and ready for whatever storm was coming our way.
“Good thinking, K-man.” Javier plopped down next to Missy and met my gaze. “Your man has the best emotional IQ of this bunch.”
“You’re so cute.” Missy planted a kiss on his nose.
“I’ve come a long way, baby.” Javier scooped her up and held her on his lap.
I gave Javier the slightest nod. It said that I saw him and I approved. He nodded back.
My mattress groaned with Dash’s added weight. He took Thena’s hand. By then, my bed strained with the weight of this new, blended family my sisters and I had formed. I felt a little bad. The only one left standing was Micah.
“I’d invite you to sit on the bed,” I said to the big man. “But I don’t think you’d like it.”
“I’m quite comfortable standing.” Micah clasped his hands behind his back.
Not a cuddler. Another random thought came out of nowhere.Affie is.
Before I could think some more about the probability that I’d gotten this wrong, Mina hit an icon, and Father’s face appeared on the screen. My breath caught. He sat like a king,peering at the camera from behind his desk in his cavernous study, inside this very house.
Kai’s hold tightened around me.
I hadn’t seen my father for so long that his image hit me like a blow to the stomach, and so did the force powering his familiar expressions. He was dead, but here he was, looking very much alive and pissed, as usual.
Although he retained the classic good looks that always impressed high society, the wrinkles around his eyes, mouth, and forehead etched deeper into his pale skin. Swept high above his brow, his white mane curled over his suit’s collar, elegant as ever, and yet a single strand fell over his forehead and out of place. It was a minor detail, but it wasn’t like him.
I recognized the photo box that stood on his desk and the blue veins raised on the top of the hand he held protectively overmybox. Rage twisted his mouth and sparkled in his gray glare. I’d seen that wrath before. In his eyes, and…in mine.
Without thinking, I called on his aura. It didn’t appear. I was so grateful to be spared the sight. He was dead. Dead people didn’t emit energy.
“By the time you get my message, I’ll be gone on a pleasure cruise. You girls can join me at any time,” he started in a commanding voice. “It also means that you, Cersi, will receive this message. I could say I called because I knew your brilliant mind could understand, but no matter where you are right now, you’re still a goddamn hellion, and you won’t believe me.”
I gritted my teeth.
Kai nuzzled my shoulder, soothing some of the tension stiffening my body. My brain homed in on Father’s words like a magnet on metal. I couldn’t help it. “Pleasure cruise” was his code for his murder. When he recorded this message, he was already a prisoner, sentenced to death, and waiting for his executioner.
Why?
I wasn’t sure. That we could “join him” meant we were next. He’d displayed the photo box to confirm he’d hidden the message there.
“If you hope I’m reaching out to take back all the shit I said, get down from your high horse.” He curled his upper lip with familiar cruelty. “I’ve never been a sentimental fool, and I’m short on time. What would be the point, anyway? You hate me. Your sisters hate me. I earned your loathing fair and square. The damage’s done and the devil won’t care.”
“Son of a bitch,” Mina muttered angrily before she winced. “Oops. Did I say that aloud?”
“You did,” Javier said through clenched teeth. “We’re all thinking it.”
Resignation deepened the lines on Thena’s face, and Missy’s eyes darkened, dry, brave, and steely as we faced our sperm donor. A weird numbness settled over me. Everything Father said felt staged, rehearsed, calculated. I knew that tone. He wanted something from us.
From me.
“Blame your mother for the decomposition of your piss-poor father,” he continued in his brisk staccato. “She died. She left me. When she did, if there was ever any good in me, it went with her. So, you got a rotten piece of shit for a father. So what? Get the fuck over it.”
“Even from the grave, he keeps trying to boss us around,” Thena murmured.
“He can’t.” Dash rubbed Thena’s flat belly distractedly. “Not anymore.”
“When I’m done here, I’ll return this ugly trinket.” Father tapped on the photo box. “If you’re as smart as you think you are, Cersi, you’ll figure it out. If I told you all about my trip, my cruise would begin sooner than expected. I’m leaving you this messagein case I don’t have time to rearrange my trip. This is my only chance to get through your thick head. Are we clear?”
He was being monitored. Some sort of spying system intercepted his communications and flagged certain words. He refused to accept death just yet. That’s why he talks about “rearranging” his trip. He thought this could be his only chance to sneak out his message. To do that, he’d tricked his captors into thinking he was dealing with troublemaker me, as usual. So far, he was doing a bang-up job at it.
