Page 100 of The Lost Kings
“Where are you going?” Gio glared up at me, still kneeling on the blankets.
I stepped over a bundle of pillows until I cleared the edge of thelittle nest they’d created and moved to the window. “I’m going back to my room. I made plans with Adrian in the morning, and I’d like to get some rest.”
I should have known it wasn’t a good sign that neither of them tried to stop me. I should have known it wasn’t like them to just let me leave, but I did it anyway.
Chapter 37
Kingston
SIX MONTHS AGO
The beach was one of the only places I truly felt like I could think.
I stared down at my dark cell, and then navigated to the text thread with Presley. It was still the same words she’d texted back before our birthday. With everything that had happened on the actual day, we never ended up talking to each other via text. All my texts to her were there but with no reply.
Fuck, the urge to toss the damn phone into the water was becoming too strong. We should have gone home but now we were tied up in bullshit with El Peligro and having men call us, “Sir.”
Henry kept calling us leaders, and all I wanted was to hear my best friend’s voice chime in on whether she thought that was stupid or not. All I wanted was to sit down and finally tell her what happened to me when I was ten, and why the idea of leading this gang scared me so much.
Because as desperate as I was not to become like the men I’d seen in that room, as badly as I wanted no one’s blood on my hands, I wanted to protect her more.
Staring at the phone, I saw Gio had texted.
Gio: Henry says there’s something we need to see.
With a heavy sigh, I stood from the sand and dusted myself off, giving the glimmering waves one last glance. The drive back to where my uncle lived was quick. He was technically my dad’s uncle and had once helped lead El Peligro until my father retired him and nearly everyone else loyal to the original vision.
Once I walked into the room, everyone’s eyes snapped up from the table and landed on me. Out of habit and instinct, I inspected my twin’s body language. He was tense, which told me I wasn’t going to like whatever it was they were about to tell me.
“What happened?”
Henry’s dark brows covered a pair of eyes that were usually lit with humor. He was a funny guy and always had us laughing, but even now, he seemed somber.
“We recently made a deal for weapons with the Adesso family…”
I nodded, drawing closer to the table, which showed the map of routes and trade deals. Adesso was over in Italy and New York. His brother was in Canada, and he had another operating in Russia.
“What about it?” From what I remembered it was a good deal…no issues other than the price he offered was a bit low.
Gio shifted next to me and something in my gut said if he could, he’d pull me out of the room and tell me this without an audience. “We still have ops monitoring him.”
The images were shuffled in front of me and that’s when my gut dropped to my fucking feet.Blue eyes. Dark hair and a freckled nose.
“Why the fuck is Presley in his home?” I flipped over another image, feeling heat rise through my chest and infuse my cheeks. She didn’t look overly familiar with him, but she was wearing pajamas…
In another she was by the pool, dipping her feet in.
Fuck. No.
I pulled a knife out and shoved it into the image before facing my twin. “What the fuck is this?”
A muscle in my brother’s jaw shifted as he glared at the image,and after working to control his voice, he explained, “From what we’re gathering…they’re building an alliance.”
Which more than likely meant marriage.
“No.” I shook my head, unwilling to accept that she’d do the very thing she swore she never wanted. “She wouldn’t agree to that.”
“We’ll keep an eye on him…we’ll know if she pops back up. More than likely this was simply a test, and she won’t be back,” Henry said, carefully tugging the knife I’d ruined his table with free.
