Was this a trap?
How many men were lurking in the shadows, waiting for his command?
Lost in my own thoughts, the chaos in the restaurant went on around me in a distant blur. The King slicked his hair back into place, his gray dusted jaw tight from the vexation of it all.
“As I was saying, I need someone who can take over for me when I am gone,” he said calmly as screams echoed in the restaurant around us. I sipped my whiskey, still watching him with sharp eyes, pondering what his next move was.
When he was gone.
Which would be sooner rather than later, it seemed.
“Considering that half of your bloodline is dead—”
“I’ll credit that to you,son.”
That fuckingwordagain.
I clenched my jaw to the point of pain, needing to ground myself before I did something reckless. There was a time and place for everything, meticulously planned out so no one undeserving would get caught in the crossfire.
Like Karina.
Dread pooled in my gut at the thought of her. I shoved it away.
“Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we, sir?” I sneered, my lip curling as I leaned forward.
The restaurant was empty now, and my patience had run out.
He smiled, his dark eyes flaring. “You and I are similar, you know?”
I don’t rape women and sell children, you bastard.
“How’s that?” My head tilted, the demon inside me demanding blood. So much fucking blood. His blood.
Ray Romano’s blood.On my hands.
“You will do anything for power,” he replied, straightening his tie. He rose from his seat and tossed a few hundreds on the waiter’s lifeless body. “Like father, like son. Isn’t that how the saying goes?”
My blood ran icecold.
Likefather,likeson.
He continued as he stepped over the boy, no respect for the life he could have lived. “Your mother was sensational, you know? I couldn’t get enough of her, even when she finally stopped fighting me back.”
The world began to spin around me as I tried to hang on to the words coming from him, trying to make sense of this.
My mother.
The whore.
Who left me in a trash can to die.
“Bastard children can be a nuisance, and because of that, abortions were performed regularly in the rings, but your mother fled like the fool she was.” He chuckled darkly, staringdown at me. Any past weaknesses I had witnessed were now absent from his eyes. He was now a fortress of evil, ready to defend what was his.
“She thought I wouldn’t find her…”
My limbs began to tingle, a feeling I'd never experienced coming over me. My will to move was being held captive by his words. There was a pain in my chest unfamiliar to me—not like the ache I got with Karina.
“She ran from the hospital with you. When one of my men finally tracked her down. The damn girl, she carried you to term in hiding. Brave little thing, taunting a man like me. Of course, I had them tail her, letting her think she had gotten away from me. A cat and mouse game, if you will.”
