“Kami, you will leave with us this very moment,” the man said in heavily accented English. “We go to the church. You will be married to Roberto and then you will come home.”
Wow. Devon did not have words. It was apparent that Charlie Button the doorman didn’t either. He was standing behind his desk with his hand on the phone as though he were looking for an excuse to call the police.
Devon cleared his throat and reached forward to offer his hand. “Sir, my name is Devon King. Your daughter Kami and I have been married for nearly fourteen months now. I apologize that there hasn’t been a convenient moment for us to meet until now.”
The look of sheer disdain that the older man leveled on Devon was like a physical sting. For just a moment Devon wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with it. Then he realized that he should not have to. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
“You”—Orlando Delgado pointed at Devon—“are not married to my daughter. You did not ask my permission. You did not gain the approval of her family or her priest. You would never be accepted.” The words were spat with an unusual amount of venom. Then Orlando thumbed an indication at the man beside him. “This is my daughter’s future husband. Roberto Villareal. He comes from the same cultural and religious background.” Orlando sniffed derisively. “I don’t know what you come from.”
The put-down was ridiculous. Beyond that it really pissed Devon off that the man was being so belligerent and just plain rude. “Dallas royalty,” Devon growled. “That’s what I come from. My family are the Kings of King Security Solutions, Incorporated. We run a Fortune 500 company and own one of the largest dedicated buildings in Dallas. Your daughter married well. You should be happy for her. But I get the feeling you aren’t going to be happy with anything until you can continue to control her and her earnings. Am I right?”
Orlando Delgado reeled back as though Devon had physically struck him. Beside Devon, he felt Kami stir. She looped her arm through his as though she needed his strength. Then she exhaled a shaky breath and spoke to her father. “I spoke to Father Kearney earlier today. He was happy for me that I married a man who takes care of me and loves me. He was happy that I found a man that I love. And he does not believe that I should have any obligations to marry just to make you happy. This isn’t the sixteenth century, Papa. We are not in Mexico City. This is America. I was born here. I was raised here. I have American values and those do not involve marrying a man that I do not love and who will only try to use me just as badly as you have been doing since I was old enough to work.”
“Kami!” Orlando said sharply. He moved to reach for her hand, but Devon placed his big body right between them.
“You need to step back, rich boy,” Roberto moved forward. Aggression seeped from his pores and Devon could see the whole thing playing out right in front of his eyes. No matter how this happened, it was not going to end well.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kami’s heart was racing. The possibility of her father coming downtown to her apartment building to try and bully her into leaving and going home with him had never actually occurred to Kami. Seeing Orlando was awful. He looked awful. He looked as though he had been drinking. He looked as if he and Roberto had hit the bar right before coming over here. It wasn’t a good sign. Kami worried about Devon. He wasn’t a rough and tumble hood rat. Devon had gone to the best schools and had always lived in the lap of luxury. He was going to get hurt by Roberto and her father. It would not end well.
“You need to step off!” Roberto held his hands out and pushed Devon.
In the corner of her mind Kami cringed. And yet Devon did not seem to budge when Roberto shoved him. He was a good foot taller at a minimum and probably a hundred pounds heavier. Kami kept telling herself that this didn’t matter. Roberto was a thug. He had been beating up the neighborhood kids and stealing their lunch money since he was a child. Now he was a bully who dealt drugs and still stole lunch money from unsuspecting kids. She didn’t understand why her father thought he would make a good son-in-law.
Devon placed two fingers of his right hand against Robert’s sternum and pushed. He seemed to only wiggle his fingers and yet Roberto went flying across the foyer of the building and sprawled backwards on the floor.
Orlando Delgado jumped back and began cursing in Spanish. Kami could see Mr. Button scrambling to call the police, but Devon was on top of it before she could even muster up any words. “Don’t worry about it, Charlie. I’ve got this. Just wait a few minutes. I want to give these two a chance to behave like gentlemen.”
“As you say, Mr. King.” Charlie Button did not sound convinced.
“Papa, please!” Kami gasped.
But it was too late. Orlando Delgado shouted something unintelligible and then threw himself at Devon. Kami expected her husband to fall flat, but he surprised her when he stepped casually to one side. Pivoting on one foot, he grabbed hold of her father in one arm and easily locked his neck between one elbow and forearm. He held him like that with what seemed like no effort at all.
Orlando Delgado swung back and forth like a pendulum as he struggled to get loose. His hands were pummeling Devon’s midsection and he was trying to jump up in order to kick out and use his legs. It wasn’t working. Devon was absolutely calm and totally unbothered. It was almost like he was dealing with a bug that he didn’t quite want to squash.
A hoarse yell caused Kami to turn. Roberto was now coming straight at her. She squeaked in terror and held up her hands to fend off the attack. But before anything could happen, Devon had managed to pull her father’s body right between Kami and Roberto. Roberto crashed right into Orlando and Devon let go of them both so that they could tumble to the marble floor.
“I am married to Kami,” Devon said roughly. “I don’t know what it is about that you can’t seem to grasp.” Devon leaned down and plucked Orlando right off the floor. He shook him like a rag doll. “She is my wife. You cannot boss her around anymore. She can choose for herself. And I swear to you, the next time you try and force her to do anything I will pull off your arms and legs like an ant and let you wiggle around on the ground in pain.”
With those final words, Devon strode toward the building’s entrance. Charlie Button got there before him. Charlie held the door open, and Devon bodily threw Kami’s father outside the building. Roberto was already scraping himself up off the floor. He gave a strange kind of war yell and charged right at Devon.
Without even seeming to need to turn around, Devon reached behind him and grabbed hold of Roberto in mid-charge. He did not waste one second. Devon allowed Roberto’s own momentum to carry him right out the door after Orlando. Within moments both men were out on the sidewalk in front of the gray apartment building. Devon and Kami were still inside. And Charlie Button was busy closing and locking the doors.
“I’ll keep an eye on them,” Charlie assured Devon. “If they try to get back into the building I’ll call the police.”
“Hopefully they won’t harass any of our neighbors,” Devon said worriedly. He did not even sound winded after the altercation. It was as if nothing had happened.
Kami stared at her husband. She felt as though she didn’t even know him. How could this man be the same guy that she had known for such a long time? How could he be the same man who had held her so gently and seemed so very mild-mannered and easygoing? It was as if he were hiding a second side that she would have never expected.
“Let’s go back upstairs, sweetheart.” Devon took her hand and lightly pulled her toward the elevators. “I think we need some rest and maybe a drink or something.”
“Okay.”
Kami allowed herself to be led to the elevator. She got inside and she rode to the eleventh floor with Devon. But she didn’t speak. She didn’t yet know what to say. What could she say? She honestly felt as though she didn’t really know her husband. Here he was, the guy that she had been flirting with for years and yet she had never seen him get really mad.
“Are you angry?” Kami wh
ispered the words as they exited the elevator for the foyer and the door to their apartment.
He glanced up from putting the key into the lock. “Angry? No. I’m disappointed that the meeting with your father didn’t exactly go as planned. But I totally lost my temper and that doesn’t give me a right to be angry. I should have stayed calm.”
“They were attacking you.” Kami followed him into apartment. He closed and locked the door securely behind them. “What were you supposed to do?”
“Have Charlie call the police or something,” Devon muttered. He rubbed his hands down his face. He looked tired and somehow upset. “I don’t know what I should have done. But alienating your father wasn’t the best plan. Don’t you think? At this point I don’t see us being invited for Christmas.”
His words surprised her. A lot. She curled up in a corner of the sofa and exhaled a huge sigh. Then she pulled her legs up in the seat and wrapped her arms around them. She buried her face there for a moment and tried to imagine her parents’ crowded apartment at the holidays and trying to add Devon to the mix. It would have been an unmitigated disaster anyway. It always was.
“You don’t want to spend Christmas with us,” Kami moaned. Her voice was muffled because she refused to pick up her head. “It’s awful. It’s crowded and completely dominated by my youngest sisters complaining that they didn’t get what they wanted from Santa.”
“They believe in Santa?” Devon actually sounded interested. “I can’t even imagine being around anyone under the age of twenty for Christmas. Our house is like a tomb. Nobody gets up. They stay in bed. There aren’t any presents. And my mother bitches endlessly about pretty much everything and anything that she sees. It’s kind of awful. I keep thinking that my brothers and I should just plan our own holiday and let Mother and Orion have their own. Maybe we could even invite Gemini.”
“Gemini?” She was struggling to keep up with what he was saying. It was all very confusing. His words were coming faster and faster and Kami almost could not keep up.
“Gemini is my father’s love child,” Devon snorted. He exhaled a sigh. “I can’t believe you’ve been hanging around our offices for this long and haven’t managed to glean that much. It means we don’t bitch about him nearly as much as I think we do.”
Kami was stung by his comment. Was she supposed to have been listening in like some eavesdropping employee trying to get the latest gossip about their employer?
But Devon wasn’t done talking. “Gemini is older than Orion. He lives out on our ranch. Apparently my father had a long-standing affair with a woman who wound up giving birth to Gemini before my parents managed to have kids. So the eldest King brother isn’t even one of us. It’s complicated. It makes the whole will thing and inheritance laws more complicated too. Gemini hasn’t said he wants to challenge us, but the possibility is there.”
Now Kami was utterly stunned. She squeezed her legs tighter. She kept thinking that Devon was going to sit down. But he didn’t. He just kept pacing back and forth across the living room floor. She was reminded of their earlier conversation and trying to figure out what it was he’d been trying to say to her with all of the nonsense about zombies and vampires.
Devon was handsome as sin. There were so few lights on in the apartment right now. The atmosphere was soft and welcoming, but there was a haze hanging over it as well. It was something undefinable. As though a pall of anger was somehow affecting the room. It radiated from Devon as though his agitated pacing had the ability to affect the entire apartment.
Kami could not stop thinking about zombies and vampires. Devon was far stronger than she would have ever expected or given him credit for. He had fended off her father and Roberto as though they had been nothing but children. Not that the two of them were some kind of heavy hitting force of masculine strength, but they were wiry and they were strong. Her father and Roberto were also scrappers. They were absolutely used to getting into fights every other second. Her father had always maintained that this was the way of things on the street. Yet Devon had made them look like kindergarteners trying to pick on a sixth grader and getting tossed to the curb.
“Devon, what were you going to tell me earlier?” Kami said softly.
He did not seem to hear her.
She cleared her throat. “Devon! What were you going to tell me earlier? Before my father and Roberto interrupted us. What were you going to say?”
Devon stopped pacing. He turned and stared at her for a moment. It seemed as though he was never going to speak and then all at once he did. “I’m not entirely human.”
“Excuse me?”
He spread his hands out to encompass his handsome body and impressive physique. “You think that I have a body like this without working out? When was the last time I hit a gym? Try never. I don’t work out. I don’t take care of myself. Not really. But my body is toned and I’m fit. It’s part of the benefits of being a shifter.”
“A shifter?” Kami tasted the word. What on earth was a shifter?
Devon shook his head and stared up at the ceiling as though the answers were written up there. “I can turn into a wolf. I rarely do, mind you. It’s just not my thing. A few of my brothers enjoy it very much. We’ve been able to do that since we were about thirteen or so. Some of us it was much younger. My brother Jason wasn’t even nine yet when he shifted for the first time. My mother got pissed off about that! She treated him like a bad puppy. It caused a lot of friction in our family.”
“Stop!” Kami put her hands over her ears. It was too much to absorb. She was listening to him talk about his brothers and how they could become wolves? And he was just going on and on about it like this was the most normal thing in the world. “What are you talking about? You can change into a wolf? What, like a werewolf? You can’t be serious. Sweetie, are you out of your mind? You have to be.” She was now muttering to herself. She had to come up with a reason that this could be possible without being possible. Maybe he suffered from delusions. “You can’t honestly think that you change into a wolf. Like the animal? Did you get bitten or something? Isn’t that how it works?”
“Actually no. Not at all.” He looked suddenly taken aback. “It’s far less complicated. We were born that way. We inherited this trait from our father.”
“Mac King was a werewolf?” Okay, that was nearly impossible to wrap her mind around. Kami began to shiver as she felt her brain trying to shut off the flow of information. It was just too much.
“Haven’t you ever wondered why we look like we do?” Devon asked softly. “Look at me, Kami. I get to be handsome and strong and successful and I never get sick. It’s a bit unfair, don’t you think? All of us are like that. In school, my brother Zane was a football star who barely had to practice. He was just naturally athletic and talented on the field. It was sort of cheating, I think. I never played sports. I think Zane was the only one who did. Maybe Jason. I don’t know. I was in college by then and too old to pay attention.”
The strength. The effortless ability to fend off multiple attackers at once. He didn’t get sick. In all their years of acquaintance she had never known him to be ill in the least. None of the King brothers were. Ever. But that seemed to open up a whole new line of questioning about their mother.
“If you and your brothers are some kind of supernatural werewolves—shifters, sorry—then how is it that your father was the victim of a hunting accident?” That didn’t make a bit of sense.
Devon pursed his lips. One corner of his mouth twisted and she realized that she had just touched on something that had been bothering the brothers since the beginning of this whole mess. “Exactly,” Devon told her slowly. “How did our father accidentally shoot himself in a hunting accident? First of all, I think we’ve all been shot a time or two. It hurts like hell. But it’s rarely fatal for a shifter.”
“Rarely fatal,” Kami whispered. “So then how did your father die of a gunshot wound?”
“That’s the million dollar question,” Devon mused. “Lit
erally, in this case.”
Perhaps being part of the King family was a little more dangerous than Kami could have guessed. She only hoped that Devon didn’t wind up on someone’s list of people to be eliminated. What would happen if the brothers got a little too close to the truth? Would someone come after them too?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Monday mornings usually sucked. Although, if pressed, Devon would not have been able to say exactly why this was. At the moment he could most definitely say that the reason this morning did not suck was because he was waking up with Kami’s naked body pressed up against his. She was soft and round in all the right places.
Of course, he did not appreciate the four o’clock alarm. That was an unwelcome reminder that the real world loomed. But the way that she was pressed up against him was absolutely amazing. She had curled into his side and her face was pressed against his chest.
Devon lightly stroked her hair. It was loose and wild around her shoulders and down her back. He twirled the dark locks around his fingers and felt their springy texture. He loved the way that they clung to his hands. He wished fervently that Kami would cling to him too.
The whole shifter reveal thing had gone both better and worse than Devon could have expected. At least Kami had not run screaming from the apartment. She seemed to be at least willing to give the whole thing a chance.
The numbers on the clock clicked over and suddenly the whole bedroom was filled with the sound of the alarm bleating like a psychotic goat. Kami gasped and sat straight up in bed. Devon could tell that she was disoriented. He reached over and hit the button to turn off the alarm clock.
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 89