Page 15 of To Claim A King
For several seconds, she sat silent. Then she looked up meeting my gaze. Her expression was stoic, but borderline apologetic.
“If Antonio is after you, there is no place in the world I can protect you. You know this. Antonio’s allowed certain graces for the FBI because of your status, which is most assuredly gone. I’d rather maintain our other agents' positions and remove you from the picture—we’ll have a far greater chance at keeping tabs on drug and weapons runs.”
Her explanation was a rational one, and knowing Trish, I shouldn’t have expected anything less. Still, it was an elbow to the gut, the knowledge she’d sacrifice twenty-two years of my life and working career without a second’s hesitation. The numbness I’d walked in with dissolved into bitter, vile anger. I swallowed the acrid flavor of bile building at the back of my throat and stared back into the cold eyes of Trish the Fish.
I worked hard to maintain a blank expression, but it wasn’t good enough for her assertive stare. She reached over the table and placed a small hand on my arm, her tone kind.
“This is about upholding the law. It always has been.”
The bile hardened into a stone. I swallowed it down, burying it in the lava of my stomach. I avoided her gaze and stared at her pale hand, delicately holding onto the thick fabric of my borrowed hoodie. The dismissal hurt, but the betrayal of my mentor, of myfriend, was a far greater knife across the throat. Whatever the luck of the draw was, my parental figures in this life were Antonio and Trish. Nowboth had cast me aside because I hadn’t bent the knee to the angle they required to prove my loyalty.
“This isn’t about the law.” I laughed bitterly, the bark louder than I intended. I leaned forward, shrugged off her hand and lowered my voice, but suppressed seething fury leaked out with each word.
“This is about power and control. I can no longer give you that, so I’m out. Let’s be honest with each other.”
A brief flicker of hurt flashed across her face, disappearing as quickly as it came, replaced with the steely gaze that had spawned her nickname.
“Honesty? Here’s honest for you. It will take more resources to protect you than I’m willing to give. You’ve been a great asset, and a good agent, but your time has come. I can’t sacrifice more people because you’ve fallen out of your father’s good graces. Your job was to maintain that relationship, so we could leverage it to protect the American people. You failed to do that. The gift I can give you now is that I won’t come after you. We’ll give you immunity, and you can go on to live your life.”
This woman had given me an opportunity. I’d built a life outside of a dangerous family, and avoided the inevitability I’d become a miserable sadist like my brothers. And now, she was taking away that opportunity. Discarding me because I no longer held the position she needed. Abandoning me when I needed her most.
My relationship with Antonio had always been transactional. From the time I was born, to the time he’d discovered Trish’s offer, to now—I was only of value if I could strengthen his empire. Trish had her faults, but my protection was never in question, nor my loyalty. Until today.
She wrenched the knife through my chest from behind, and I was expected to fall just as Caesar had.
“Immunity?!” The wrath seeped to the surface of my skin. My cheeks heated and fiery red crept across my face. “Immunity from the crimes you coerced me into committing?” I scoffed, the guttural noise dripping with poison. “You were right.”
Sliding my large body across the bench and outside of the booth, I stood at the end of the table, towering my frame over the older woman. “The justice system I just spent my life fighting for is fucked.” I dug the FBI badge out of my pocket and tossed it on the table. The photo of my face stared up at us both.
My fists clenched at my sides. It was a younger face; less broken, more hopeful. The man I used to be. Certainly not the man now ruined by two entities who’d groomed and trained a soldier to be their connected patsy.
“Consider this my resignation,” I spat venomously before stalking out of the diner and across the parking lot, not caring in the moment if my brothers took me out with a sniper rifle.
I’d spent my life believing I was the master of puppets, when my strings were just a little longer than anyone else’s. My strings had been severed, and Antonio would die for the privilege.
“I need a face to fuck,” I announced, growling the words through gritted teeth as I stormed through the side entrance door to our new compound.
Lauchlan popped up from the couch forty feet across the warehouse main area.
“Oh?” he quipped, wearing that stupid, goofy grin of his, but the moment he saw my face, his brows crinkled in concern. “What’s wrong?”
I didn’t need his concern. I needed him on his knees with my cock down his throat, suffocating as he took me deeper than he could handle.
Stalking over to his position on the furniture, I palmed the back of his neck and forcefully rose him off the couch.
“Everything is fucked.” I glowered down at his pretty face with those pretty sea-glass eyes and pretty pouted lips and felt the animalistic desire to make him a lot less pretty.
I was a risk to everyone around me, and the only way I’d ever have a life on my own was to kill Antonio myself. But I wouldn’t get that opportunity today. Today, I just had Lauchlan’s fuckable body at my feet to bring a brief, but blissful, reprieve.
“But you can make it better.” I released my grip on his head, and he flopped backward onto the couch like a rag doll, catching himself at the last second. I fumbled with my zipper, yanking my navy suit pants down, exposing my stiffening erection at the thought of making this man submit to me again and again.
He quirked an eyebrow, taking in the hard cock now leveled at his face. “Need to work out some aggression, do ya, Conan?” His eyes sparkled with amusement, taunting me. “Gonna have to ask me a bit nicer than that.”
“Fuck you.” I palmed his neck again and forced his lips a hairsbreadth away from my tip. His hot breath caused a deep shudder to wrack through my entire body, standing every hair on my thighs on end. “Suck.”
Instead of giving in to my commands like the good little subbie I needed, he closed his teeth over my head and nipped it with sharp incisors, driving a blister of pain through my shaft and up into my balls. I lurched back in surprise and released my hold on his hair. More hot anger flooded my limbs.
Lauchlan scrambled to his feet and stared me right in the eye, apparently unafraid of the raging giant in front of him.
