Heated Manipulations

by Aiden Bates

  Heated Manipulations

  Kings Of Fort Greene

  Aiden Bates

  Contents

  1. Harper

  2. Nick

  3. Harper

  4. Nick

  5. Harper

  6. Nick

  7. Harper

  8. Nick

  9. Harper

  10. Nick

  11. Harper

  12. Nick

  13. Harper

  14. Nick

  15. Harper

  16. Nick

  17. Harper

  18. Nick

  19. Harper

  20. Nick

  21. Harper

  22. Nick

  23. Harper

  24. Nick

  25. Harper

  26. Harper

  27. Nick

  28. Harper

  29. Nick

  30. Harper

  31. Nick

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  Heated Manipulations

  1

  Harper

  Fort Greene is where the King family belongs, my youngest brother had always told me. Only place in the world where I feel completely at ease resting my head.

  Those words turned to bitterness in my mouth as I watched my brother’s coffin lowered into the dark, rich earth of Fort Greene Cemetery. He’d been born here in Fort Greene. Lived out the better part of his life here.

  In the end, he’d gotten his wish.

  I raked my fingers through my light brown hair, slicking it back with the cold mist of the cloudy afternoon. To my left, my other brothers stood in silence. Kaleb, the oldest, was still as a statue. Rusty, five years younger than me, just looked like he was spoiling for something to put his fist through.

  Neither of them dared look over at me as we watched Joshua’s casket settle at the bottom of the grave. They’d both taken after our Omega father. Darker hair. Hazel eyes. It was Josh and me who looked the most like our Alpha dad, right down to the streaks of strawberry blond at our temples and the flecks of gold in the greens of our eyes.

  I didn’t blame them for not wanting to look at me in that moment. Ever since Josh’s murder, I couldn’t even look in the mirror without seeing his face.

  “Too young.” Kaleb was the first to speak, his voice croaking out raggedly. “He was too young to die.”

  “He didn’t die.” Rusty spat the words through his teeth, his jaw clenched so hard I could hear his molars grinding against each other. “He was killed. Some coward fucking killed him, and now we’ve gotta—”

  Rusty turned away, shoving his hands in the pockets of his suit pants. The tattoos that marked him as an MMA fighter peeked out from just beneath the cuffs of his jacket: a black rose, its thorns dripping with red ink, and a Calvary cross.

  “We’ve gotta get going,” Kaleb finished for him, turning away from the grave. “No need to linger. Not now that it’s done.”

  It’s done. The finality of those words hit me harder than I’d expected. How many times had Josh tried to get us all back together here in Fort Greene after our Alpha dad died? How many times had we turned him down?

  We’d all grown up here in Fort Greene—Kaleb, Rusty, Joshua and I. Our Alpha dad probably should’ve moved us away when our Omega dad died giving birth to Josh, but the family business had bound Reginald King here just as much as his husband’s grave had.

  King Private Security: Defend your castle right. Reggie King had raised us all to take up the crown for when he finally retired, but none of us had ended up having the heart for it. Kaleb had moved away first, making detective with the city police out in Washington, DC, just a few years after high school graduation. Rusty had followed, picking up contracts in Atlanta, then in Vegas as his fighting career started to flourish. Only Josh and I had stuck on for long enough to really get a feel for the dynasty our father had been trying to build. When we finally broke it to Dad that we wanted to go our own ways—Josh to journalism school, me to anywhere that wasn’t Fort fucking Greene for a little while—he’d sold the company off to Ernesto Alvarez and let us each make off with a cut of the payout.

  I’d taken that money and headed out to Miami with it. Always had a penchant for digging up dirt—one that the high-rolling clients of the Black-Wolfe Law Firm had found more than useful. But after a stint at Penn State where he’d gotten his degree, Josh had turned down a position at the Washington Post and ended up back here. Every Thanksgiving, he’d sent out the invitation to come visit him back home. Visit our Omega dad’s grave. Then, our Alpha dad’s as well. Have a few beers together. Deep fry a turkey. Just like old times.

  In the end, he’d finally gotten what he wanted in that respect too, I supposed. Just to the right of Josh’s grave was the joint tombstone of our fathers. Asher King, gone thirty years now. Reginald King, dead for three.

  We were finally all back here in Fort Greene together—but judging by the looks on Kaleb’s and Rusty’s faces, there was a good chance it was for the last time.

  “You boys holding up okay?”

  We all turned to the sight of a buzz cut and police dress blues. Detective Ansel Thomas had the same face as every officer I’d ever bought a beer for. Big, sharp nose. Jaw that looked like it could take a punch—and probably had.

  Rusty scoffed at the question, but Kaleb had the decency to shake Ansel’s hand.

  “As best we can.” Kaleb gave the detective a grim, tight-lipped smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Better if you’ve got any leads you can tell us about, though.”

  Ansel sighed, dark circles digging deep trenches beneath his sympathetic gaze. “We’re doing everything we can, Kaleb. Nothing I can speak about yet, though. You’ve got a badge yourself. You know how this works.”

  “Anything we can do to help?” There was a gruffness to my voice that I hadn’t heard in a while. Dealing with all Black-Wolfe’s celebrity clients and slick billionaires, I was used to laying on the charm. Since I’d split with them and started picking up private detective work instead, that charm had only multiplied. More flies with honey than vinegar, I guessed. I shifted the expression on my face to something more affable as I reached out to shake Ansel’s hand as well. “You know that we’re good for it, Detective.”

  Ansel’s eyes narrowed as he gave me two firm pumps and dropped his hand back to his side. “I know you boys have backgrounds in security, sure. Those KPS roots run deep, I imagine.”

  “Some deeper than others.” Kaleb gave me a glance of warning—drop it, Harper, it said without words. Let the man do his job.

  I ignored the look, refocusing my attentions onto Ansel. “Deep enough, though. You and your boys must want this killer caught as bad as we do. Bad for morale, having a murderer on the loose, right? We’re more than happy to lend a hand.”

  “That’s, ah…” Ansel looked to Kaleb, exchanging another wordless look.

  Kaleb only shrugged in return.

  “I appreciate it, Harper,” Ansel finished. “But this isn’t your fight. It’s important that you boys let mine do their work. If you want your brother’s killer brought to justice the legal way—” Ansel’s gaze locked on mine— “Then the best thing you can do is steer clear of this whole thing. Due process is the way to go on this. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Course we do, Ansel. We’ll stay out of your way.” Kaleb locked eyes with me as well. “You have our word.”

  “Appreciate it, boys.” Ansel looked relieved as he gave us each a nod in parting. “My condolences for your loss.”

  I waited just long enough for Ansel to get out of earshot before I spoke again.

  “You have our word.” I shook my head, staring Kaleb down. “Like hell he does.”

  “H
arper…” Kaleb warned.

  Rusty let out a bitter laugh. “Should’ve known you’d try roping us into this, Harper. Didn’t you hear the man? Fucking due process, man. When’re you gonna learn to keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you?”

  “This does concern me. Concerns all of us.” I stepped in front of them both, pointing to Josh’s grave behind them. “You think Josh would’ve wanted us to gawk around twiddling our thumbs? Sitting on our hands?”

  “Josh would’ve wanted us to go have a drink at Simmer then get on with our lives.” Kaleb swallowed hard, closing his eyes for a moment. “As best we can, anyway.”

  “Kaleb’s got his own police work to get back to,” Rusty pointed out, shoulders hunched forward as he grumbled. “And I’ve got contracts to fulfill. A drink, though…” He turned to look up over the misty horizon, deliberately avoiding staring at our brother’s grave. “A drink could be good. In Josh’s honor. Could be all right, anyway.”

  “Drinks, then,” I agreed. I couldn’t fault my brothers for not wanting to hang around. It had been the same at Dad’s funeral. More tension than tenderness. Awkward, stiff and uncomfortable for all of us. Reggie King had raised his sons to throw knives, punches, and assholes out of bars. He hadn’t raised us to talk about our feelings—and a funeral was a poor time to start.

  Kaleb and Rusty were right, in a way. They had lives to get back to. Grief to deal with in their own manners, in their own time.

  They had their ways. I had mine.

  “Tell me you’re not sticking around to step on police toes, Harper,” Kaleb said quietly to me as we followed Rusty toward the cemetery gates.

  I cast him a brief glance. “Do you want me to lie?”

  Kaleb sighed. “I know better than to try and stop you. And you know we’ll be here for you if we need anything. Even Rusty.” He shook his head as he watched our younger brother slouch onward, his shoulders tense beneath the tailored cut of his jacket. “He’s just angry right now. Not at you, but at…”

  “I get it,” I told him, because I did. We King boys might not have been good with feelings, but we knew each other well enough that we didn’t always have to be. Kaleb was stoic. Rusty was frustrated. And me… “I appreciate the support, Kaleb. Really do.”

  Kaleb gave a dry laugh. “I don’t know that I’d call it support.”

  “Then don’t. Just humor me. This won’t be as easy if I’m going it alone.”

  “You’re never alone.” Kaleb’s hand settled on my shoulder, resting heavy. “Just…be careful. We’ve put one brother in the ground today. I don’t want to get this suit out again so we can bury another.”

  I nodded, opening my mouth to promise him what he needed to hear. Careful in my line of work wasn’t ever really an option—I’d been shot fourteen times, stabbed six, bludgeoned, beaten and worse. The people I normally tussled with were dangerous before they’d even had their morning coffee—and after, forget about it. But if it would make Kaleb feel better…

  I blinked, closing my mouth as I caught a flicker of darkness in the corner of my eye. Up on the hill, just beyond Josh’s grave, the hem of a dark woolen overcoat was flapping in the wind. Wide wayfarer sunglasses hid most of the face of the man wearing it. An old Carolina Panther’s cap shadowed his forehead and covered his hair. But when he turned and spotted me looking at him, not even his over-the-top undercover get-up seemed to be enough, once he realized that he’d attracted someone else’s gaze.

  “Harper?”

  I turned to look at Kaleb for half a second. When I turned back to the hill, the man was gone.

  Kaleb raised an eyebrow. “You okay, man?”

  I felt a shiver roll through my shoulders and bit it back as I nodded.

  “Yeah, it’s nothin’. Probably nothin’. Come on—let’s get that drink.”

  2

  Nick

  I left the cemetery shaking, that full body trembling that jiggled my keys in my hands as my fingers fumbled with the lock on my front door. When I got inside, I locked it behind me immediately, the deadbolt and the security chain too.

  These were dangerous times to be at home alone with an unlocked door.

  My chest heaved violently as I checked each of the windows in my house, entering my bedroom, kitchen, office, and even the bathroom with tentative care as I kept an eye out for broken glass. Everything was still locked down. Still unshattered. Didn’t stop me from checking behind the shower curtain and under my bed for lurking assassins anyway—but at least the knowledge that there was no former navy SEAL in a ski mask waiting for me to return helped calm my heart rate a little.

  When I finally cracked the door of my spare bedroom, only to find it empty and safe, my shoulders slumped with relief.

  It was the room in my home that would become a nursery in eight months, and all this stress couldn’t be good for the baby that was still slowly growing inside my womb.

  I lowered myself into the rocking chair that Joshua had brought over for me before his murder—the one that had been in the King family’s own nursery once upon a time. Rocking in it gently, I closed my eyes until my breathing slowed to an almost-normal pace.

  I shouldn’t have gone to the funeral at all. I’d known that the moment I left the house that afternoon. Being outside meant being out in the open. In the public eye once again. Once again, at risk. But it hadn’t felt right, not paying my final respects to the only man in the entire south who had seemed to give a damn about the situation I was in. The predicament that hundreds of other Omegas just like me were struggling through as well.

  Thousands of packets of botched birth control pills. Twenty-seven sugar pills, plus one that triggered a heat so intense, I’d barely been able to remember my own name through the thick of it. An entire demographic of southern Omegas put at risk. What had first seemed like an awful accident, some horrible mistake that would change the lives of those it had affected forever, had quickly started shaping up into something more sinister the more I looked into it.

  No one else had believed me.

  But Joshua King had.

  And now, barely a week after Joshua told me that he was willing to put his career on the line to try to break the story on a national level…

  He was dead.

  I opened my eyes as I felt my heart racing again. The more I thought about it, the worse my stress became. And with the baby to think about…

  I swallowed hard, practicing the breathing exercises Dr. Lemon had taught me when I’d first gone in to confirm my pregnancy. My own Omega dad had spent most of his pregnancies with my brother and I dealing with preeclampsia that had nearly killed us all. If I wanted to survive this pregnancy, I wasn’t just fighting with the unknown forces from outside—I was fighting from within as well.

  The thought struck me again: maybe I should just skip town. Fly back out to California. Drive, if Dr. Lemon thought that hopping on a plane would be too high-risk. But once again, I shoved that fear-fueled possibility out of my head.

  My job was in Fort Greene. My family. My whole life.

  And, more likely than not, the father of my unborn child as well.

  Whoever he was and whatever that meant for me. My baby. Our future.

  Besides…as certain as I was that someone had gotten to Joshua, no one had come knocking for me.

  At least, not yet.

  My phone buzzed twice in my pocket, startling me all over again. I shrugged off my black overcoat as I recognized the number and answered it.

  “Hey, Bucky.”

  “Hey, Nick. Just checking up—how’re you doing? How’s the baby?”

  I envied the smooth, casual confidence that perpetually tinged my Alpha older brother’s voice. He never had to worry about getting pregnant. Keeping his blood pressure down. Mysterious men with knives stabbing him for what he might’ve known, might’ve told. For far from the first time, I found myself envying him for that.

  “I’m…okay. Baby’s fine too.”

  “Yeah? Do yo
u have…ah, any leads on who the father is yet?”

  “Not yet,” I admitted with a sigh. It was the one question I wished everyone would stop asking me. The source of shame that no one in my life seemed to be able to avoid drawing attention to. “I’ve retraced my steps as best I could, but…”

  “It’s hard,” Bucky agreed sympathetically. “Did you put the ad in the paper like I told you to?”

  My cheeks burned red. “I did, yeah. You should’ve seen the way the Alpha editor looked at me when he saw it, too. Thought he wasn’t going to post it for a second, but…”

  “Any hits?”

  “None to speak of.” My jaw clenched. “Couple of creeps called in to let me know that I could call them daddy if I wanted to, but other than that…”

  “Fuckers,” Bucky swore. “Ignore ‘em, Nick. Something’s sure to turn up eventually.”

  “I’m…I’m not so sure about that.” I did my best to guard the concern in my own voice—but obviously, my best wasn’t good enough.

  “Nick…look, I know you don’t want to hear it, but maybe coming out here to stay with me and Kate wouldn’t be the worst idea. The kids are always happy to see you, and you know we’ve got those spare rooms…We could set one up for you, easy. Kate’s still got the nursery painted up from when Jet was born. I know it’s not ideal, but—”

  “I appreciate it, Buck. Not like I haven’t thought about it,” I admitted. “It’s just…You know how it is. If there’s even a chance that I can figure out who this baby’s father is, you know I’ve got to stick around to take it. You have no idea what it’s like…what it’s like to go through this alone.”