Before anyone can react, Nitro shoves a gag into his mouth, ending the taunts.They drag him down the hall.His boots scrape.Metal clatters.
Then silence.
Mellow looks at me.“You’re in too deep.Nitro and I have a chat.When the time comes to end it, you can be there, or you can be clean of it.Make the call.”
I look the man in the eyes, “I end him.He touched what is mine.”
Mellow nods, “Nitro is confident no one is tied to him.He actually ran through all of his resources and took on a bunch of debt in this time watching you and planning.Chux will bring you in once we finish.”
With that he walks out and I’m left full of fury but also a peace that this is all going to be over soon.It’s roughly an hour later when I get the nod from Chux to go to the space they have Jonas held.Walking in, the aroma of urine, feces, and bleach assault my nose.His eyes are red and completely closed as snot runs out of his nose.He is stripped down to his underwear with blood running down his chest and arms from superficial cuts.
Mellow looks at me.“We are confident he worked alone.”
I look at the man I once considered a brother.“You deserve this death.Tell your brother, I’ll see him in Hell too.”I move over with Mellow stepping up beside me.I put my blade under his neck just below his ear.I begin to cut feeling his flesh part under the pressure as he screams.The first layer is pouring blood, but I didn’t end him yet.
I go to make the second swipe when Mellow crouches low in front of Jonas’s chair.“Your daughter is a beautiful young woman, Jonas Greene.”
Jonas’s eyes grow wide.“Smart play letting her use her mother’s maiden name.Even more clever was paying child support through a dummy company.But you still fucked up.Because there is always a trail.You wanted to play dirty.Just know with your last breaths, Lucy is going to be watched and well cared for by the Kings.I’m going to personally make sure of it.”
Before Jonas can reply, I take the blade and make the cut that goes deep.Cutting his vocal chords and arteries the blood covers Mellow’s face as he watches the life drain from Jonas Greene’s eyes.
I look to Mellow as he stands straight up.“You made a vow in blood, brother.”I state the obvious while having a new appreciation for the man.
“No man goes after anyone under King’s protection.Even in his death, he needs to know he left his family vulnerable.”
It makes me an asshole to know that Mellow is serious about Lucy and making sure to still have the power over any enemy even in death and actually be happy about it.
“I’m gonna have fun with this one, brother.She’s young and impressionable.College and shit getting an education.Too bad her father didn’t give her the school of life because I’m going to wreck hers.”
I can only smirk and give a nod.Mellow is a calculated man who will no doubt fuck with Lucy and make sure she knows what a piece of shit her dad was.But no matter how much he may toy with her head, he won’t put her in physical danger like Jonas did to Kelly.
That’s the thing about this life I live, there are casualties in love and in war.Kelly almost became one, and now Lucy is going to have to learn the lesson for her father.
No one fucks with the Kings.
We reign down generational curses.
Twenty-Six
Ledger
Peace is louder than war when she’s breathing beside me.
One Month later
For the first time in days, maybe weeks, the compound feels still.
No gunfire.No alarms.No boots pounding down cement hallways like thunder.No shadows creeping at the edge of my vision.
Just quiet.
And warmth.
And the soft, steady sound of Kelly’s breathing against my chest.
I wake slowly—slower than usual, slower than I’d admit to any of the Kings—with a deep ache twisting down my left shoulder.The pain is dull now, manageable under the tight bandage and whatever meds Nitro slipped into my IV last night.He keeps giving me IVs for hydration to help speed the healing process.I have to say it has worked, but the scars will remain forever.
But the pain isn’t what wakes me.
