Page 8 of To Claim A King
“Aaron, we havepeoplefor that. You have a price on your head!” I bit out through gritted teeth. My insides were at war. The pride for his insistent heroism and the hurt he’d willingly risk his life without saying goodbye were locked into a confusing battle of emotions.
I released his hand and delicately cupped his cheeks between my palms, the dark, rough stubble pricking my skin. “What would I have done if I had lost you,Cabellero Oscuro? How would I be whole without you?”
My eyes grew hazy, filled with tears. These men—mymen—were making me a sloshy, soppy, sap. Holding onto the hot, liquid wrath flowing through my veins was easier than letting it dissipate into the ether. I needed to mold itinto a weapon, not melt it into a pile of goo every time these criminals decided to play the hero.
I wanted to unleash hell onto all of them, but how could I punish the men who leaped into the fray to save the man I loved when I wasn’t able to? I was a bitch, but I wasn’t heartless. It was impossible to be when they kept finding ways to prove I had one.
A large hand, the one without the IV drip, came up to cover mine, its warm and calloused skin a slight balm to the sting of his decision.
His raspy voice grew stronger with each word, and the liquid honey of his irises became more molten as he stared into me.
“Mi Reina. It is you who makes me brave—who shows me what it is to stand up for something bigger than myself. I need to be this man that you are making me. We need to save them.”
Well… fuck.
“I’ll take responsibility.” Lucky piped up behind me, uncharacteristically eager for his own lashing. “Roboto asked me to drive him to the club, and I said yes, although it wasn’t necessarily in that order. And if I had known he was going to wear and ruin my favorite suit, I’d likely have reconsidered. And I lost my car too. So, poor decisions all around. Not sure who got it worse, to be fair.”
Aaron snorted into my hands; Lucky’s attempt at humor only hit the mark with him, while Kellan and I remained silent. If Aaron was willing to see the humor in the situation, I held onto the hope he felt better than the story his bandages were telling.
Our conman was rambling, his accent thicker with each sentence. Seeing Lucky so off-kilter would be amusing in any other circumstance, but I imagined he wasn’t used to seeing much blood in his line of work. Then again, he was a true enigma even thousands of dollars worth of hacking hadn’t been able to explain.
“Conan really saved the day, though. Truly the hero of the hour. Both of us would have been deader than dead from the supermodel assassin if we didn’t have the Cartel baddie on our side.”
I released my hands from Aaron’s face and whipped around, staring up at Kellan’s guilty expression.
“Supermodel assassin?”
Another neck rub, but this time, his shoulders deflated, the visage of a massive man collapsing like a loose helium balloon. His stare held a litany of emotions. Flickers of grief, anger and fear cycled through like the flames of a fire. He broke eye contact, choosing instead to look at the wall before breaking his silence.
“My father hired an assassin to kill Aaron as a failsafe, and it almost worked. She’d infiltrated Club 7 long before now—I guess I’d fallen out of Antonio’s favor a long time ago, and he forgot to tell me.”
Bitterness laced his tone, tasting like bile on my tongue.
“She was my attendant,” Aaron admitted, forcing my attention back on him. “We can only guess that Antonio placed her as a contingency plan several months ago, if my parents no longer honored their agreement. He is a wise man.”
“He’s a heartless, miserablesadist,” Kellan spat. He lumbered into the office space and plunked himself down on the single leather chair. “But you’re not wrong. We’re going to have to be ten steps ahead to beat him.”
So, Antonio was now after Aaron and Kellan’s heads. They were in more danger than they’d ever been in before. And Alvarez was no doubt responsible for Blackbird’s head on my table, which meant Lucky could be next on his list.
Frozen tendrils of fear pierced through my heart like an ice pick. They were all at risk. I needed to protect them, and I needed their protection. We were now officially connected through mutually assured destruction. A perpetual butterfly effect of good intentions andwicked deeds.
I couldn’t lose anyone else I loved. Losing Isabella had cracked open my soul, but it hadn’t broken me. Losing Aaron… losing any of these men…
I’d be shattered forever.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Stepping away from my perch by Aaron’s bedside, I turned on my heel to face my three co-conspirators: worse for wear and weary, but alive. Thankfully, so alive.
“That’s not our only problem.” My solemn tone held their attention as I recounted my day.
The Mutilation Mistress announcement. Blackbird’s decapitation. The break-in at my apartment. This nightmare was just beginning.
The empire I’d worked so tirelessly to build, the people I vetted with Black-Ops level precision to maintain privacy and separation from the two worlds I traveled; everything I had hoped to achieve in Isabella’s memory, in her honor, was crumbling to ash beneath my feet.
We had to act fast, or we wouldn’t be alive to act at all.
Lucky was the most emotional, his eyebrows dancing with his hairline for most of the conversation, coupled with an impressive array of whistles under his breath. To his credit, he didn’t crack a single joke or attempt to make light of our situation. Nothing was light about it, and he had the sense to accept the depth of the darkness we all sat in.
