Page 27 of Vengeful King

But what I wasn’t prepared for wasmyreaction, the way my heart raced and my skin went hot. I wasn’t prepared to get home and have a dream about him, a filthy dream where he did so much more than kiss me.

I need to end this.Soon. Before I get any more fucked up in the head over it than I already am.

After a few hours with my mother, I give her a kiss on the cheek and then head back out to my car. My pulse picks up as I drive home, and instead of going my usual route, I head to a gas station I’ve never been to before. Keeping my head down to avoid my face being picked up by any security cameras, I grab a jug of antifreeze and bring it up to the register.

While my mother dozed during my visit, I did some research on my phone. There are more effective poisons than this in the world, but none that I have access to. So this will have to do.

My skin feels too tight as I finally make my way home and get ready for work. Once my hair and makeup are done, I pour some of the antifreeze into a small plastic travel bottle. I watch it pool thickly inside and try not to think about what I plan to do with it.

My stomach is tied in knots, but I steel myself and block it all out. I don’t have time to lose my nerve or grow a conscience now.

I have to survive, and I have to keep my mother safe.

It’s time to go to work.

CHAPTER10

Lachlan

Assembly meetings are always tenuous things, hanging on a thread depending on a dozen different factors. It’s difficult to manage six different families, all with different personalities and territories in Boston. Things can get tricky.

Messina, Underwood, Sharpe, Donovan, Kozlov. O’Reilly. There are six names, six families. It was always this way and it was always going to be.

Until us.

With the upheaval of the Raven Syndicate and Willow ascending to the head of the organization, things have shifted. Her marriage to my brother changed things. And that was after my other brother, Aiden, married Donovan’s daughter, Rose. Now there are two marriages, two families tied to the O’Reilly name.

We have more power than we were ever meant to have. And it makes the others nervous.

The Assembly was formed to keep the families in check. It was meant to give us all voices, give us a way to communicate without resorting to violence.

But after everything that’s happened, that truce is feeling shakier than ever.

Today, at least, the meeting went well. The other families are preoccupied with their business, too caught up to remember to chase my family. They’re busy thinking about shipments and security.

Willow and Connor are doing well managing the Raven Syndicate. They’ve aligned its interests with the O’Reilly family business dealings. It was done well, quietly, without much incident. They didn’t draw any attention to it, but they didn’t hide it, either.

Willow refused to hide. She’s proven to be remarkably adept at running her organization, working in partnership with Connor.

I had reservations about her at first. I would have been an idiot not to; with her history, it’s a miracle she made it out intact. But she’s here now, and I know from listening that she has her head screwed on right. All her time spent in the company of mafia men taught her how to play the game. She just needed the chance to do it, to prove herself.

I’m happy with how she and Connor have managed the Raven Syndicate. I couldn’t have done it better myself. And now that they’re taken care of, all my attention can turn to the handling of the club and skirting around the questions the other families bring up at meetings.

Like whether there’s going to be another marriage, another takeover.

“That went well, all things considered,” Aiden murmurs as we leave the building where the meeting was held.

I nod. “They’ve noticed the Raven Syndicate moving. It was too slow for most of them to protest, and it’s done now. But it isn’t so offensive that they’ll raise a fuss.”

“They may not now, but what about later?”

Connor pipes up from beside me. “I doubt it. They’ll be embarrassed if they drag it back up later. They’d only bring it up if there’s some big issue and they want ammunition against us.”

“To the assembly, ‘big’ means something different every time,” Finn says, raising an eyebrow.

I can’t lie; I never expected Finn to stick around long for the meeting. For such a long time, he’s been too drunk or too high to function. He barely managed to keep himself alive, much less tend to family business. It’s nice to have him around.

“They don’t like the way the balance of power is shifting,” Aiden points out. “They’re going to be unhappy. They may talk about restructuring the Assembly.”

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