Page 9 of Kingston
As dinner time rolled around, he was happy to notice that they got a lot more done than he thought they would have.Some of the things that he’d earmarked for tomorrow to get a jump on were finished up, and his entire morning was cleared thanks to his brother’s help today.After Cassian left for lunch and returned, he brought Tucker back with him, and they were able to get everything on their calendar finished off, and some of the things for the next day.It meant that he’d be able to sleep past six in the morning tomorrow, and he was thrilled about that.He never got to sleep in.
“Why don’t we all have dinner tonight.Kaida and I would love it if you guys were to come over for some steaks on the grill so that we can celebrate the day.It’s not all the time that we can get so much work done in one afternoon that we don’t have to start early in the morning.”They all laughed because it was true, and that it was because having Tucker there had made things go faster, as they didn’t have to run him down for answers when they needed him.“Bring Skye and Trevor too.We’ll make a family night of it.”
“I’ll have to ask her.I know she had plans for the day, but I’m not sure how much she might well have been able to get done by herself.”Tucker said that she’d been with Kaida all day, so maybe they had just as much luck.“I’ll ask her now.For all we know, we might have both had a good day.”
It turned out that the woman had gotten a lot done.They’d done several background checks today that came back positive, and one that didn’t.It hadn’t mattered a great deal on the one that didn’t come back with a good record, as she was only going to be a secondary teacher for the third-grade class, and she wasn’t needed.But they’d keep her name on file just in case it ever came up again about her working with the school district.
He’d forgotten that Trevor couldn’t come over, as he’d had a night experience with the pack.He’d been looking forward to it for weeks now, and they didn’t want to disappoint him about the dinner.They’d have plenty more dinners together, but his first camping trip was going to be epic for the young man.Kings wished he could have joined them; that’s how excited Trevor had made it sound when he talked about it.
Dinner was as it always was.Loud, fun, and loud.They were a very loud group when together, but they had fun too.As soon as they all sat down to dinner, they talked about their day and not what they’d done today.It was a good time for all of them, and he wouldn’t trade his family for anyone in the world.
Chapter 3
Tank looked over the family tree again and couldn’t believe what he was seeing.Their last name was Savage, but he never in a million years thought that they’d be related to the Savages that had been around for thousands of years.He asked his brother Ace to look at it so that he could see the same thing that his brother was seeing.
“What am I looking at?”He explained to him about the DNA tests they’d done in order to be qualified for their Private Investigators Licenses.He didn’t think that every city or state wanted the tests to be done.It was just his town that decided that they wanted DNA tests done on everyone who applied for city funding or city help with their job—such as police, detectives, and fire departments—to be done.“So you matched up our names with the dragon Savages and came up with a hit.How close are we to being related to them?I don’t understand what this means.”
“We’re cousins.”He’d never thought that they’d be related simply because they weren’t dragons.They’d been born from an egg, but since their mother was human and their father only half dragon, they were just, as Ace called them, souped-up people with a shit ton of magic.And they did seem to have a great deal of it when it came to needing to use it.“We’re related to them by our father being their cousin.Not close cousins, but it doesn’t matter; we’re related to them.Isn’t that cool?”
“Not to be a bastard about this, but what does that have to do with anything?It’s doubtful that they’d care if we were related to them or not.”Tank asked his brother why he thought that.“Because dear brother, they’ve been around for thousands of years, and we’ve been around for about fifty.Not even that, if you don’t count the time since we were hatchlings.Is that what we’re called, even though we weren’t born dragons?”
“I have no idea.But we did hatch, so I’m thinking that calling us hatchlings is the way to go.”Tank looked over the family tree again and smiled.“I wonder what they’d say if we were to go up to them and tell them who we are.I’ve heard that some of the family members are real bastards and bitches.They’d probably want us to go away, never to return.”
“All good reasons not to find them and tell them.”Tank looked at Ace, and he shook his head.“No.Please tell me that you didn’t contact them already without talking it over with me first.Please tell me that you didn’t just open up a can of worms that we have no way to put back.”
“You’re funny when you’re upset.But no, I didn’t contact them.The DNA group does that for you.When someone is related to you they let them know that they can contact them for any reason they want.So no, I didn’t do that, but it was done.Or is going to be done, I’m not sure how that works actually.”Ace asked what they were supposed to do if they contacted them.“I don’t know what we’re supposed to do other than to be polite and answer them back.For all we know, the rumors about them aren’t true, and they’re the nicest people that we’d ever want to meet.”
“Doubtful, and I believe you know that.We’ve been hearing about the Savages all our lives and know the stories like they’re our own.Remember the stories about Helen and Mercury?She thought the world revolved around them?”Tank knew that to be right, but didn’t agree with his brother.“There are others, too.Their kids are more than likely the same way.You’ve heard the saying as much as I have, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“I know what you’re saying, but wouldn’t it be nice to have some family around once in a while?Especially during the holidays?”The holidays were quite boring if you asked him.Once the holidays were over, it was as if they’d never been celebrated in their homes.Even the Christmas tree—if they bothered to put one up, was taken down the day after Christmas and put away until about ten days before it came around again.“Maybe it won’t be all fun and games with them, but I’d like to know that we tried a little bit to get to know them.”
“There might not be any reason for us to get worked up about them.They may get the notification and toss it out like you should have done when it came in the mail.”Tank decided that his brother might be right and told him that.“I’m always right.When are you going to get that in your head, little brother?”
They laughed, then hugged.They’d only had each other their entire lives.They’d of course had their parents, but they were neither close as children nor as adults.As they got older, they realized that their parents had eyes only for each other and not for them.He supposed they were loved in a fashion, but nothing earthshattering.Even now, they had very little to do with them unless it was something that they needed from them, and even then, it was as a last-ditch effort to contact them.
Ace was the older of the two of them by ten days.When they were kids, he used to lord it over him like it was ten years rather than a few days.As they got older, it didn’t seem to matter much to either of them because they, again, were all they had.He supposed it was best that they were alone now, as they were pursuing things that their parents wouldn’t approve of.But they needed money, and that was the only way of getting any was to have a job.And with their magic, being a PI was the best kind of way to make money.
Tank could trace people that he’d had contact with.A small touch meant that he could find you no matter where you ended up hiding.Be it another country or even hidden deep into the ground in a shelter of some sort.He’d be able to find you.Ace had the bigger magic.
He could trace phone calls, no matter how many times you had it bounce off another server; he could easily hit all of the places you’d set up to block him, and he’d still be able to trace a person.Even computers were no match for him.Text messages were easier than phone calls, but he would trace them back to the source without any issues.Bondsmen had been using him to find people who would skip out on their bail for years now, and they loved him for it.So he decided that being a PI would net them more money and bigger jobs to find people.
Neither of them could find an object through their magic.He supposed that they hadn’t really tried to make that work for them.They both often wondered if they would get more magic if they were to meet their mates.Something that neither of them was opposed to but didn’t think would ever happen.They weren’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination; they had magic, but for the most part, it wasn’t very good.Neither one could drive.They couldn’t afford a car, so why bother with keeping up with a license was their motto.
“We have our first client.”As they went over the notes that Ace had taken from the man, he wasn’t at all surprised to find that the man was human.Humans didn’t trust one another, and it showed in the way that they worked at their relationships with one another.Not even married couples were trustful of each other.Not like mates for shifters anyway.“He believes that his wife is cheating on him, and he wants us to find the truth.I’m going to go to the club where she works and get in contact with her.It might just be that he’s a jealous type and she’s younger than him, but I doubt it.I’ll go there now.”
While his brother was gone, he set up the file for the case.They were going to number everything that went with the case the same number, so there wasn’t any confusion as to what was going on.As soon as his brother came back, they’d start on the case and have it worked up in a few short hours.It was something that they prided their selves on and that was getting cases closed up quickly.
It seemed to be taking his brother forever to return to the house they rented.He reached out to him once and was told to stop until he contacted him.He sounded so serious that he knew something had happened at the club that the woman hung out at when her husband was working.It was nearly midnight when Ace finally got back to him.
“She’s dead.The woman that I went to see is dead, and her husband killed her.He hired us, then went to the club to tell her what he’d done and pulled out a knife and slit her throat.Just like that.”Tank asked what she’d been doing.“The client said she was sitting on the lap of one of the patrons, but I don’t know about that.When I got here, she was sitting at the bar alone and doing nothing to attract anyone to her.”
“Did you tell the police that?”Ace told him that everyone had told them that.“But he killed heranyway.Why did he bother hiring us if all he was going to do was kill her right afterwards?”
“I have an idea he was hoping that we’d find something, but when he went to the club and found her alone, he was so pissed off that he killed her right then and there.The police are saying that it was premeditated because he brought the knife with him.”Ace asked him to hang on a moment while he spoke to the police.“I’ll get back with you at home.I don’t know what happens now.”
It took another three hours before his brother came home.And another two hours to go over everything that he’d seen at the place.The client had been arrested, of course, and the police knew that they had been hired.That was the reason he’d given for being at the club.It was scary to him the lengths humans would go to in order to have things go their way.He wanted her to be having an affair and was pissed off that she wasn’t doing what he wanted for the divorce he was sure to get if it could be proven.Humans were off their rockers, he thought to himself.
The next morning, the police came by to question Ace again.He’d been sitting close to the woman when she’d been killed, and the police had just wanted to clear things up before the case went to court.The deposit that the client had put down on the work they were to have done for him was completed, they told them, and the money was theirs to keep.He hoped that would be what happened as the case was going nowhere now.The thousand dollars would go a long way in keeping the electricity on, as well as food in the house.
