Page 13 of To Claim A King
I’d learned firsthand how completely Kellan pulled away when I pressed him on things he didn’t want to talk about. The last time I’d pressured him to leave his father andpursue another path, he’d distanced himself for an entire year, swearing he’d been caught up on a secret assignment and didn’t want to put me at risk. Bulls themselves couldn’t produce purer shit than that excuse, but it had done the trick. I’d fight Kellan in hand-to-hand combat and battle his brains any day of the week, but a stranger on the street could see he was walking on a razor’s edge. I wasn’t willing to be the one who pushed him off the ledge.
I was being selfish, as well as my version of kind. If Kellan left now, I knew I’d never see him again. He had the self-control and disposition of a martyr, and he’d convince himself we were better off without him. I didn’t have the words in my heart to persuade him I didn’t need his protection. I needed his presence. Whatever came at us in the days ahead, I neededhim.A deep ache registered within my chest, knowing he wouldn’t believe me, even if I found the proper prose on a page.
“Okay,” I announced with finality once my cappuccino was perfectly poured. I leaned against the counter to face the men, addressing the mammoth in the room. “Order of operations. It looks like Alvarez and Antonio are equal threats now, so we’ll have to take a two-pronged approach. What’s first?”
“We need to throw more shadows on Alvarez.” Kellan slowly chewed his eggs and stared into his coffee, as if lost in his own thoughts. “Rodriguez and I have a plan for that, but he needs to heal up first.”
“Is that what you meant by ‘bringing him back from the dead?’” I mused, taking a deep draw from the delicious coffee, relishing the burn down my esophagus.
“Yes,” Kellan stated. “But first, I have to meet with Trish. With Antonio after me, I’m a liability. And I’m being left intentionally out of the loop on the Mutilation Mistress file, which means something else entirely. I need to talk to her before I can make the best plan to protect you.”
“To protectus,” I corrected, shooting him a severe frown. “This is anusnow, Kellan. We can’t hide for longer than the weekend, but we’re either in this together, or every person for themselves. You’re not in charge here. This is a collective. Is that going to be a problem?”
His glower rivaled mine, and he stared so hard at me I felt transparent under his gaze. “Fine.Us,” he amended, not bothering to expand on his thoughts.
“I’m hiring Weston Williams,” I declared, having given this notion a good deal of thought on my drive over to meet these three fugitives last night. Marty’s husband was one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the state.
“Wait until I talk to Trish today.” Kellan stood from the table, grabbed my untouched eggs from the counter and sat back down, taking a hearty forkful. “We don’t want to announce your guilt if they haven’t linked the two.” His tone didn’t match his words. The dubious inflection matched my own internal reservations.
If the details of my many escapades had already leaked to the press, my name couldn’t be far behind. My notoriety as an heiress, a business mogul, and the daughter of a disgraced man would be a curse, not an asset. The media would leap at the opportunity to burn me alive, regardless of the crime. I would definitely need Weston Williams on my side.
“Another silly, wee problem.” Lucky slurped the last of his cereal milk like an obnoxious child. “My work visa’s up soon, and given my employer is now an arrested prick, I doubt I’ll be getting a renewal. Not that immigration is the worst baddie of the bunch, but I’d like to avoid that group of arseholes too.”
I swallowed the final dregs of my coffee, then set the mug in the sink, shooting a pointed look at Lucky. “Looks like you’re having a shotgun wedding,” I mused. “Better find yourself another willing victim.”
“You won’t marry me?” He stared up at me through round, hopeful eyes, the very picture of a puppy dog in search of a treat.
Cackling, I shook my head. “I’m never getting married again, Lucky. One marriage of convenience in this lifetime is enough for me.” Turning my attention to Aaron and Kellan, my expression morphed to utmost seriousness. “We need to be vigilant—hypervigilant, everywhere. Trust no one but Joey. Guns and knives at all times. We need to keep up appearances and pretend that life is business as usual. We’re not afraid.”
“I’m afraid,” Lucky piped up, swinging around on his bar stool. “I’m very, very afraid.”
“I am fearful as well,Rojo,” Aaron admitted quietly. “I am no longer willing to die when I have so much in this life to live for.”
His honey gaze locked on mine. The sheer depth of the love in them stuttered the beats of my heart. I walked over to him and squeezed his rough palm in my own.
“We all have something to live for,” I countered, my gaze first on Lucky’s in reassurance, and then to Kellan’s in challenge. “So, let’s make sure we’re the ones who live.”
Ifucking hated this cloak and dagger bullshit.
I tapped my fingers along the steering wheel in irritation as I weaved through Carlisle traffic in the black Dodge truck I hid in a private garage as a contingency plan years ago. The truck stuttered as I drove after sitting idle for all that time. With my hoodie, sunglasses, and trucker cap, I looked like any other tradesman driving through town as I headed to Trish’s rendezvous point.
It was beyond necessary now that everyone in Sequoia County wanted a piece of my flesh, but I loathed the constant need to watch my six with every actionand reaction.
My brothers now hunted me, with authorization from our father to kill on sight. It was highly likely Alvarez had put the hit out on Blackbird, which meant Lauchlan wasn’t far behind—and there wasn’t a chance in hell my father had canceled the hit on Aaron. If Carmen reported back to him before we took her out at Club 7, we were all wanted men with massive targets on our backs.
The twins were idiots, but they were crafty idiots. They lived, breathed, and would eventually die in this world, thriving on the thrill of being little anarchist soldiers under my father’s reign.
Luckily, Carmen was out of the picture. Of the three of them, she had been the greatest threat, and it would be easier to hide without her on my heels. The fact she’d infiltrated Aaron’s sex club of all places for months spoke to her dedication. How many men had she fucked to keep up the ruse she was a high-class prostitute, while lying in wait to assassinate Aaron? That level of commitment was disgusting, but admirable. She’d just chosen the wrong side of this war and lost her life because of it. I wasn’t shedding any tears.
And this Mutilation Mistress business… I had no regrets putting a bullet into that filthy predator’s brain, but who the fuck had been looking a little too closely into Hillary’s vendetta? As far as we knew, her name hadn’t been mentioned—yet—but if the media had this much information already, it was only a matter of time.
And why the fuck had Trish not informed me? If the FBI were involved, I should have known. Trish had feelers everywhere, ensuring my interests were protected while walking on both sides of the fence. Anything to do with a potential sex trade qualified. Falling out of my father’s favor and my director’s communication channel on the same day was a hard punch in the face. I didn’t have the energy tonight to decipher what it all meant—besides the glaring indication, at this moment, we were all royally fucked.
She was meeting me at a diner on the other side of Kensington, an hour west of Carlisle. After twenty-two years of walking the line between the FBI and the cartel life, I was finally completely compromised. She wouldn’t be happy, but it was a risk we’d prepared for.
Gaze trained on my mirrors for any signs of a tail, I deliberated my choices in life. More accurately, my lack of choices. At ten, Antonio had brought me to my first “clean-up.” The man rarely got his hands dirty himself these days, but back then he got off on the bloody mess that was cartel living. His men had dismembered three of our own guys—stupid saps who’d skimmed a few hundred thousand from drug profits—and he’d ordered me to clean it up while he supervised. I’d puked on myself three times, and each time, he’d laughed, telling me I would have the “estomago de hierro”—the iron stomach of real men—when he was done with my training.
He was right. By the time I’d turned sixteen and was staring down the barrel of the gun into Trish’s pale face, I could barely feel anything at all. A boy molded into a weapon, both in brains and in brawn. Another year, and I’d have succumbed to the life of a psychopath, just as my father intended. It was a miracle Trish had gotten through to me, and even more so she’d undertaken to mentor me.
