Page 23 of Crown Jewels
“What’s up kiddo. Saw your last movie, good work.”
There was so much wrong with that statement, I couldn’t even begin to unpack it. I regretted letting him in on my secret, but he came across one of my videos and recognized the tattoo.
“If you’re getting off to my movies, then you need to stop giving people therapy and seek it yourself.”
“Relax,” he chuckled. “I’m just checking up on you. Can’t have you going around with subpar fucking skills and ruin the good Kessler name.”
“Wasn’t Archer dumped junior year because he couldn’t get his girl off?” Archer was my cousin, and the twin of Asher, both of whom were idiots.
“Hey, he was young and didn’t know what he was doing. I gave him some tips, he’s good now. Do you need some tips?”
“No.” This was why I didn’t like talking to my uncles. Mason or Logan. They were both like this. How Mason managed to get his psychology degree I’d never know. “I had a question about the contracts.”
“Ah, you want to enact it…”
“No,” I cut him off. “I want to know how to break it.”
I expected him to ask why, or give me some speech about tradition, but my uncle didn’t even bat an eye. “Just break the contract.”
“Really?” That seemed too easy. “I just break it?”
“Well, you need her father and yours to agree but yeah, basically.”
And there was the catch. Nothing was ever easy when it came to the order. My initiation wasn’t some simple ceremony with weird chants and candles. It was hiding in the forest while all my uncles hunted me down. I was ten. And my father wondered why I had night terrors.
“Why do you want to break the contract?” My uncle asked.
“I was curious, that’s all.” It wasn’t going to happen anyway. There was no way our fathers would agree.
“Is this about that girl, Ruby?”
How the hell did he know that name? Was he watching her cam shows? “What the fuck uncle Mason?”
“What?” He said innocently. “I like red heads. Have you seen my wife?”
I was going to kill him. “I’m gonna tell Aunt Harper.”
“Go ahead, she watches them with me.”
That was so much worse.
“Anyway, back to your problem. Preston’s easy…”
“What do you mean Preston is easy.” I once saw him break someone’s leg because they stepped on Trina’s toe.
“Does Trina love you?” He asked.
I shrugged, “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her in years.”
“See you’re fine.” He sounded so sure of this. “If she loved you then Preston would cut your heart out, but she doesn’t so you’re good. Your dad on the other hand is going to need some incentive.”
That was easier said than done. No one got a leg up on Micha Kessler. “How am I supposed to do that?”
“Well, you have two options. You could tell your mom about the contract…”
As fun as that would be… “I don’t want to see him dead.”
She would definitely kill him for that. My mom was a tiny woman but she was fierce. There was a reason my father kept her in the dark about order stuff.
