“Yeah.”
I pictured him back on that couch. Shaved head, ink covering his skull and down his throat, scars hidden under full-leg tattoos because he’d rather turn his grafts into art than flinch every time he looked at them. Muscles thick as mine, maybe thicker—he and Bastion took every Crow problem out on iron and asphalt the way I always had.
Run until you puke, lift until something tears, pretend pain is penance.
“Guilty he wasn’t there. Furious they were. Sick it was Charlotte. Trying not to show any of it.”
“So, Rome,” Nik muttered.
“He’ll kill those heirs if we slip,” I added. “Maybe not now. But if they come back to Villain thinking tonight was a one-off, he’ll finish what he started.”
Sometimes. The loud part had to be said. Not ignored. If Damius saw the boys could be weapons. He would use them.
“We put eyes on them, and on him. We don’t give Damius a chance to aim that anger at someone convenient.”
“Keep them out of Damius’ eyeline,” I echoed. “That was the deal.”
“It still is.”
It had been since seventeen. Empire in one hand. Kids in the other. Four boys, two girls. Six heirs with Kingston.
We raised them. All of them.
“Our brothers are our sons,” I muttered, thumb worrying the edge of Madeline’s ring.
“They are. Doesn’t matter what the registry. We took the night shifts.”
“King should be here,” I snapped my lighter closed. “Not shipped back to Harlan like a fucking ledger entry.”
“He should be. But Marcel made his choice. Jamison and Harrison backed him. Kingston plays enforcer in their syndicate trade until he’s twenty-four, then we see what’s left.”
“He still calls Villain home.”
“He says it every time he calls. That’s why we’re careful. I’m not turning his name into a bargaining chip just to make myself feel better.”
My jaw unclenched a fraction. I trusted Nik with that. If he said we wait, we wait.
Kingston was six years old when we took responsibility for him.
Our cousin, Marcel had Harlan to run with his brothers and he chose empire over raising his little brother.
So Nik and I got him.
One more boy in a house full of half-grown Crows. We’d been raised by strategy and punishment; our sibling’s and Kingston got raised by two teenagers who were learning how to run ports and pack lunches at the same time.
“You realise you’re the only one without a hidden woman now,” I shifted subjects before my chest got any tighter. “Twins have Emilia. Rome’s apparently been sneaking Charlotte into clubs. I’ve got a dynasty daughter calling me Daddy in my bed. Leaves you.”
“If there was someone, do you really think I’d tell you while you’re like this?”
“Yes. So I know where to send the extraction team.”
He almost laughed.
“No hidden princess. Just dull ambassadors and men who think they’re smarter than me.”
“They aren’t.”
“No. Not anymore.”
