Page 6 of With This Kiss
Baran settledhimself on my couch without saying a word. He was already falling asleep before his head hit the pillow, and I placed Rose in one of the spare bedrooms.
Baran could have taken the other spare, but I wasn’t about to move his drunk ass just for his own comfort.
I quickly headed to my bedroom, hopping in the shower and turning the water on as hot as I could stand.
I stayed there and closed my eyes, letting the water wash over me.
I was feeling… unsettled these past few days… hell,weeks.
And I didn’t fucking know why that was.
I shook away the thoughts and scrubbed my skin raw until theunsettlednessstarted to fade just a little before getting out of the shower.
My phone on the bathroom counter beeped with a message. Wiping my hand dry, I picked it up, only to see a message from Kingston?—
Kingston:Go grocery shopping tomorrow. Make sure the purchase is right.
Translation: He wanted me to be there personally to handle the shipments that were supposed to drop early tomorrow morning.
I didn’t respond to him.
My brother and I weren’t close.
Not like other brothers.
Not even a little bit.
Mostly because the fucker was a fucking psycho. And I was sure he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if he thought he could benefit from that.
And there would be no remorse on his end either.
Like a fucking psychopath.
Which made him perfect as our father’s favored heir to inherit everything once the old man kicks the bucket.
I couldn’t fucking wait for the day to come when my father dropped dead, just to rot in hell for the rest of eternity, where he belonged. But that also meant Kingston would be taking over.
And when it came to ruthlessness, the old man’s got nothing on Kingston. And a part of me didn’t know what my place in the Bratva would be when that happened. Would Kingston see me as a threat to his taking over the family business completely?
It was fucking tempting.
And while a part of me wanted to compete, the other part of me didn’t want to competewithhim.
I put the phone down and looked at myself in the mirror.
My blue eyes were dull.
I looked tired as hell.
And there was nothing to do about it.
I walked back into my room and got ready for bed.
I had to be up a few hours later to do this all over again.
I heldin a yawn just as Baran and Makar came up and stood next to me.
Makar seemed wide-eyed, fresh-faced, and fucking bushy-tailed, while Baran looked like he had just spent the night in a fucking hole and wasn’t awake yet. I didn’t know which of the two I wanted to punch more.
