“I don’t want it, I don’t care how much it is. Look at what that money has done to our family and we haven’t even got it yet.”
King nodded. “You’ll need to go meet with the lawyers. Their intention was to contact you when you turn twenty-five. You can decide what you want to do then.”
“I don’t want it,” I said adamantly. That wasn’t going to change but I suddenly had a thought. “What about Lily, I mean Kristy. She’s a female in the blood line.”
King pinched his brow. “They were working together to get to you but in all honesty, I doubt Danica would want to share it with her.”
“You think she would hurt her? Her own daughter?”
“We’ll never know.”
That sounded ominous. My lips parted as I thought about the way Warren had looked earlier. They said they had an ‘errand’ to run, but Warren had been so tense and Hudson looked grim too as they were leaving. He’d said all along his plan was to take out Lily and Omen.
“No one has seen her since she left the compound.”
“I have.” I filled him in on what happened the day Lily came to the apartment where Mace was holding me. He shook his head in annoyance but seemed pleased when I told him I kicked her ass. After that day though, I hadn’t seen her.
“I’ve left War dealing with that,” King finally said, but he gave me nothing more, confirming my suspicions that my brother was making good on taking out the person who stabbed Connor.
“I’m making a big concession,” King said after a moment interrupting my concerned thoughts about what my brother and Hudson were currently doing. “I’ll tell you what I can, but I don’t want any questions.”
“Not likely,” I muttered, and his lip twitched. But I waved a hand for him to go on.
“We know where Danica is and we’re going after her tonight. This all ends, just like I said it would. You’ll be safe and can go back to North Carolina if that is what you want. It’s up to you and Hustle to figure that out. It’s always your decision but… you’re welcome here Waverley, it’s your home, you’ll always be a part of this family.”
“You think throwing all that in is gonna make me skip over the fact you’re going after Danica tonight?” I arched my brow. “But thank you, I know all of that and I think it’s pretty obvious to everyone that I’m back for good.” I tapped the tattoo behind my ear. “Now, back to Danica.”
“I said no questions.”
“And we both know that isn’t something I’m capable of.”
“Before we have this argument,” he shifted on the seat so he could get into the pocket of his jacket beneath his cut. He took out a small grey pouch and looked down at it for a long time. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” he said, focusing on his lap. “I haven’t always been the best father. I let my own grief drown me at times and decisions I made weren’t always in the best interests of you and Warren. I fucked up where your mom was concerned but… here,” he thrust the pouch at me. If he was going to say anymore, it died on his tongue as I took the pouch and he looked away.
I pulled open the draw string and tipped it up. A silver chain with a heart shaped locket fell into my palm. I inhaled a sharp breath and held it because I knew. This was hers. Delaney’s. Carefully, I put the pouch on my lap and raised the necklace, holding it so the locket dangled by my face.
“She never took it off,” he said quietly, still not looking. “She would want you to have it.”
Using my thumbnail, I carefully pried open the locket. There were baby pictures of myself and Warren on either side. A sob caught in my chest and my vision blurred, but I blinked back the tears, closing the locket and carefully putting it back into the pouch. I already knew I would get it out and take a closer look when I was alone.
I would keep this safe, I wasn’t sure I would wear it but I would keep it along with the photograph of my parents that Rosa let me take. It took a lot for King to have this conversation with me, to hand this over, it must have been precious for him to hang on to it all these years. I wondered if it was the only thing he’d kept of hers.
“Thank you.”
King nodded once. We sat quietly for a while, each lost in our own thoughts. I could feel him start to get uncomfortable after a while and decided to take pity on him, though not in the way he wanted.
“So, about this thing with Danica.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“It’s gonna take us about an hour to get to Summit, then we need to get in place. Ink and Kansas are already there keeping an eye on the house. Her car has been there all day, no one has come or gone and she’s inside as far as we can tell,” Dirt told us. “We’ve got two drivers who’ll stay back with the vehicles, War and King, you and Casper,” Dirt told me. “We’re trying to keep this small. It’s a compact neighborhood, the houses are huge but they’re close together, no sidewalks, no walls separating properties, plenty of tree coverage. There are a lot of home security cameras in the area but Kansas has mapped them all and he can run interference when we are going in.”
They’d thought of everything, but King wouldn’t want anything to go wrong. This was his chance to take out the woman he’d been trying to find for twenty-two years. I know he trusted the brothers but he was using his officers for this job. Casper was a concern for obvious reasons, but I kept my mouth shut. Ballistic had stayed behind to deal with Mace and the remaining Kingsmen and Banshee never really got involved in this kind of thing, so he was staying to keep an eye on things at the clubhouse.
“What happened today?” King looked over at us. “You get it done?”
War nodded his head but didn’t say anything. When we got back he went straight to the shed and finished Omen. I don’t know what he’d told him about what happened with Lily, if he’d even said anything at all, but it had been done just as quickly as it had with her.
She hadn’t seen it coming when she came into her apartment where we were waiting. He’d made the call to Hammer and we’d left. He’d disappeared for about an hour after he came out of the shed.
