The King Brothers Boxed Set

by Lisa Lang Blakeney

  "How did she die?"

  "She was in a freak accident. Her car was paralleled parked on a busy road, and she was sideswiped by a tractor trailer when she was getting inside."

  "I'm sorry, babe. That's terrible."

  "I was young. There was a closed casket and then she was cremated. I didn't get to see her. It was just bad."

  "Where was she from?"

  "Around the Drexel University area before gentrification. Working class folks who did their best but couldn't afford to send her to college. As legend tells it she was a real beauty in her neighborhood. All the guys pursued her. In fact, I think my father stole her from her longtime boyfriend."

  "Yeah? Like I stole you from Bill and Jake and–"

  "Quiet." I roll my eyes. "You're so bad."

  "I want to be even naughtier if you give me the thumbs-up. I'll slide all of this shit off the table and give it to you right and proper. I'll lean you over the table, while you hold onto the edge, and I'll fuck you from the back. You'll love that, baby."

  That sounds sooo good, but I can't risk it. Not here. Maybe I'll remind him when we're home.

  "Shhh." I laugh. "She's going to hear you."

  "Fine, okay. So Nate stole your mama away from her poor old boyfriend, and then they lived happily ever after?"

  "Pretty much except I think my mom always felt a little bad about it. The whole family thought she was going to marry Silas. They didn't really know my dad yet, so I think they gave him a hard way to go at first."

  Stone's face drops.

  "Did you say Silas?"

  "Yeah."

  "Same age as your dad?"

  "I don't know, probably. They were in the army around the same time. It's possible your dad knew him too."

  "Holy shit."

  "What?!"

  "This is a vendetta."

  "What's a vendetta?"

  "I need to tell you something, Ariana, and you're not going to like it."

  "Then I don't want to hear it."

  "Ariana."

  I drop to my knees and start unbuckling Stone's jeans. Giving killer fellatio is one of the skills I've been perfecting over the last few weeks, and Stone has enjoyed every teaching moment.

  "Ariana–" he offers a weak plea for me to stop when in actuality he really wants me to keep going. "Fuck."

  His eyes roll back in his head.

  I'm so happy right now. For once I don't feel smothered or suffocated. I feel like I can breathe. I'm not ready for the world to come crashing around me.

  He grips my hair tightly right before he comes with a muffled roar. Doing his best to keep Savannah from figuring out what we're doing back here, although I'm pretty sure that the gig is up.

  I look up at him with a wide-eyed grin as I wipe my mouth.

  "I love you," he tells me and for the first time I think I see it. Genuine emotion in his eyes. He might just love me. So, I dive into the deep end of the water too.

  "I love you too."

  "Let's close out the books and go home."

  "And what are we going to do when we get there?"

  "I'm going to teach you how to ride my cock reverse cowboy style. You're going to love that one."

  Viva La Revolution!

  Thirty-Three

  STONE

  This is going to be the hardest conversation I've ever had to have, but I've put it off for as long as I could. I just wanted a few more days of Ariana and Nate looking at me like the man I desperately want to be, and not the man I really am–a thief, a liar, or a bastard.

  Part of the reason why I'm a felon, why my life has turned out like this, is because I've always believed that I've had to go it alone. I was alone as a baby. Alone in school. Alone in foster care. And after Jack died, I was alone again.

  It never dawned on me to ask for help. It wasn't something I'd ever been used to doing, but I have to do things differently if I expect different results. Jack taught me that. I have to trust someone for once. I have to ask for help. And it starts tonight.

  "First, I want to say that I truly appreciate you taking me into your home, Nate. You have been more than gracious. Both you and Ariana."

  "Of course, son. It's been a pleasure having you."

  "With that said, this is going to be hard for me to say, but I've been lying to you. To both of you for some time."

  I watch closely as his face drops.

  "What is it, Stone. I'll help you if I can."

  "I ask that you give me a second to explain everything in its entirety before you write me off."

  "Go ahead and say your piece."

  "Jack was a great father to me, but he had his demons. He gambled a lot. Bought women a lot. When he died he had a lot of debts and not much income. I'm sure there was some sort of death benefit pension payout I could have gotten from the army when he died, but I didn't know anything about it at the time, and I didn't think to ask for help. I didn't think anyone would help me."

  "I'm sorry about that, Stone. I know I got defensive the last time we talked about this, but I should've done a better job of making sure you were okay. I'm sure Jack would have done the same for Ariana if the roles were reversed."

  "Maybe...but anyway I was lost and lonely and angry, and I channeled all of that rage into some very dangerous habits. One of them was robbing drug dealers. Heroin dealers to be specific. I blamed them for ruining my life. So I targeted them. I'd rob them of a shipment, and dump it in the Hudson River."

  Nate doesn't move a muscle.

  In fact, he doesn't say a word.

  Almost as if he knows where this conversation is headed.

  To a place he wants no parts of.

  "To earn money to live, and I was living well, I would shake down some of the smaller dealers, but my goal was to completely debilitate the heroin supply chain in my part of Brooklyn. Obviously, that was a bit ambitious. I made some mistakes. The biggest one being that I got caught holding a large amount of product. Now that I look back on it, I probably was set up.

  "As you already know I was charged with possession and intent to sell, and I received a seven year sentence for it. Since I got pinched, the dealer I stole from knew how to find me. The smack I stole from him was worth seven million dollars on the street. He paid me a visit in prison. The dealer's goes by the name Bucky. His real name is Silas."

  I wait for a reaction from Nate, but he still doesn't say a word, although his face grows harder and harder. Is he actually going to make me say it?

  "And evidently he had partners. One of them supposedly being Jack."

  "Your father."

  "Yes."

  "You would have known if your father was a drug dealer."

  "You would think that wouldn't you, but I guess Jack had his demons like everyone else. Maybe he had a good reason for doing it at the time. I don't know. I guess I'll never know. Anyway, I'm telling you all this because this Silas person is blackmailing me."

  "What does he want?"

  "He wants his money or he wants me to hurt you or he wants me to die."

  Nate stands up.

  "Hurt me?"

  "Yes, one of the choices was to get close to Ariana and then break her. The point being that he wants to destroy you, Nate. You are the other partner that he claims stole something precious from him. Something like the love of his life."

  "Why would you involve us in this, Stone," he says with an icy glare that I never even thought he was capable of. "Why would you put my daughter at risk like this."

  "Let's not play these games anymore, Nate. I'm telling you first before I tell Ariana."

  "Tell her the fuck what exactly."

  "Do you have seven million dollars in that vault?"

  "Well that's my fucking business isn't it."

  "Were you and Jack partners with Silas."

  "Again, not your business."

  "He's going to kill me, Nate. Do you give two shits about me?"

  "Do I give two shits? You came into my home, putting my daughter in har
m's way, all to save your thieving ass."

  "Or maybe you're the one putting Ariana at risk. Those three dudes who robbed the store knew you had a safe. They knew that there was something of value in it. They didn't just randomly pick a fucking Harley dealership. How do they know, Nate? You still selling drugs?"

  "No, but I think you're on drugs."

  "How did you pay for Penn."

  "With grit and hard work."

  "How did you write that university a check every year when your business barely clears enough profit to pay your fucking mortgage?"

  "What do you want from me?"

  "I want you to save my life! That's what I want."

  "If I give you the seven million dollars you will have to walk away from Ariana."

  "What."

  "I'm not stupid. I know the two of you have been seeing each other. I also know that if she is keeping it a secret from me that you're already in her head. Changing her. Corrupting her. I won't have it. She is best thing I ever did. The purest thing I have left from a messy life. I won't have her destroyed by someone lost like you. If I give you the money. You walk away. That's the deal."

  "Lost like me?"

  "You go around doing these ridiculously stupid things, taking these huge risks, because you think the world owes you something. You think drugs or drug dealers destroyed your life because your mother was an addict. Guess what not only does the world not owe you anything, but that whole entire story was just a lie that the social workers told you, and that Jack allowed you to believe.

  "Your biological parents didn't want you. There's no horrible story why. There's no system to blame. They fucked-up and they didn't want to take responsibility for their mistake. In case you want to go looking for them, your last name is King and you were born here in Philadelphia. Not New York. So there you have it. The long lost son is home again. Leave here and find your way, but leave my child out of it."

  Nate just mind fucked me.

  But there's one thing I will continually be sure of and those are my feelings for Ariana. I love her, and there's no deal to be made when it comes to that.

  "No deal, motherfucker."

  I whip open the door to storm out and find the last person on earth I hoped would be on the other side.

  She was supposed to be at work.

  And there are tears running down her grief-stricken face.

  Thirty-Four

  STONE

  JULY

  I'm sitting on the stone ledge of a massive ornate fountain that stands across from Memorial Hospital. It's a sweltering Philadelphia summer day, and I'm eating a cherry water ice, while random droplets of water from the fountain hit the back of my neck. Temporarily cooling me down.

  I'm waiting for her.

  It's become a ritual lately.

  It's actually kind of pathetic that it's come to this. Skulking around in parks or across streets, but I need to do this. Sometimes I get a glimpse of her when she goes out for lunch. Sometimes I catch a peek after work. Once in a while she's with the asshole doctor from the juice bar, but I don't even let that bother me. I just need to put eyes on her, and I'll take it any way that I can get it.

  Just because I fucked-up doesn't mean I'm ever going to stop looking out for what's mine. And make no mistake about it–Ariana Carter is mine. She'll always be mine. I just wished she agreed.

  Unfortunately, the night that I confronted Nate, Ariana overheard at least fifty percent of that conversation. That wasn't how I planned for her to find out. She knows that I've been lying to her for months. She knows that I've been sneaking behind their backs looking for money. Money that I planned on taking. She knows that Nate said he'd give it to me if I just left and never looked back.

  But she doesn't know everything. At least I don't think she does. He has yet to admit that he was a heroin trafficker back in the day, and that he fell in love with the girlfriend of one of his partners. But even if she did hear parts of that, I suppose it doesn't matter.

  That wasn't why her face was contorted into ugly tears when I opened that door and found her there.

  It wasn't why she threw the few items of clothing I own out in the street.

  It wasn't why Bottle growled and bit my calf as I desperately tried to plead my case.

  It wasn't why she changed her number, so that now when I call her cell phone, all I get is a man with a thick Taiwanese accent.

  God, I fucked-up.

  I can barely remember her voice anymore.

  "You stick out here like a sore thumb. If you're trying to be inconspicuous you aren't doing a good job. You're big as shit."

  It's Bucky.

  As I figured, six months on the nose, he's found me.

  Ready to collect.

  And like the idiot I am, I'm within six feet of Ariana. Putting her in danger yet again. When will I learn.

  "You stick out as well," I counter. "With that hot-ass suit on in ninety-degree weather and that godawful pirate patch. Why don't you wear a pair of glasses like Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles? Have some class.

  "This is a war injury, thank you very much, and I'm not blind. Wearing this patch is like wearing a badge of honor."

  "An honor for pirates everywhere."

  Bucky sits down next to me. I can tell that my words have annoyed him which will probably be the highlight of my day.

  "I'm dying to see how things have panned out. Do you have my money?"

  "No."

  "Aww, that's unfortunate. I was actually routing for you. With the balls on you, I thought you might have figured something out, but I guess that left you with option number two. Were you able to make Miss Carter fall in love with you?"

  "Yes."

  A slimy grins spreads across his face.

  "And did you break her?"

  "Yes."

  "Then why are you sitting outside of her place of employment like a lovesick puppy?" Because I am. "Getting back together with her was not part of the deal. You're not supposed to be putting her pieces back together. Honestly, if you did your job right she shouldn't even be at work."

  "I'm not getting back together with her."

  "This is low, even for you, Silas."

  We both turn our heads at the sound of Nate's voice. He walked up behind us on the other side of the fountain. I must stink at this inconspicuous shit, because both he and Bucky found me. They knew right where I'd be. Wherever she is.

  "Nate."

  Bucky stands even though Nate still towers over him by at least five or six inches.

  "Why are you at my daughter's job, Silas?"

  "Following him." He points to me chuckling. "How does it feel to know that the man you brought into your home broke your daughter's heart? Bet it doesn't feel good, does it?"

  "You are ruining my daughter's life over her mother? Joanne never loved you, Silas. You have to know that. You were a childhood boyfriend. I was the love of her life."

  "You and I were friends. Rangers. Brothers. I introduced you to her! You ate food in my house with us. You partied with us. You betrayed me in the worst way, Nate, and you fucking know it. Just admit it."

  "I admitted it a hundred years ago."

  "Then you got her pregnant."

  "I apologized to you."

  "Then you married her."

  "I loved her!"

  "As did I, you sanctimonious motherfucker."

  A few people at the fountain start to walk away as Nate and Bucky's voices rise higher.

  "I was willing to change for her. You weren't. I turned my life around. I stopped all that bullshit we were doing, and ran my grandfather's shop for the last twenty-five years, because that's the type of man she deserved."

  "She deserved more."

  "She was happy until the day she died."

  "Says you."

  I'm so engrossed in watching these two old grumps hash out their love vendetta, that I totally miss the fact that Ariana has spotted us and started walking toward us. It throws me at first, because she isn't dressed
in scrubs. She's in regular clothing. A black pencil skirt, a light blue dressy tank and black pumps. She looks fucking amazing.

  I walk toward her as Nate and Bucky continue their spat. My deadened heart starts to beat. Blood starts to pump into my dick again. My body is coming alive. I'm drawn to her like a thirsty man toward a cool, clean mountain spring.

  "Ariana."

  Thirty-Five

  STONE

  I fight the urge to wrap my hands around her body.

  "What is going on over there?" she asks with a purely professional tone to her voice.

  "Nate and Bucky, I mean Silas, are hashing a few things out."

  Her eyes widen.

  "That's him?"

  "Yes."

  "Is he here for you?"

  "Yes."

  "Is he going to kill you?" her lip quivers for just a second.

  "No, baby."

  "How do you know that for sure?"

  "Because I assured him that I broke you. It was his contingency plan just in case I couldn't find the money."

  "Was I such an easy mark? Did I look that desperate to you both that you thought you could easily seduce me then hurt me?" she asks angrily.

  "No, Ariana."

  "I guess it was easy though, wasn't it? You completed your mission, convict. You broke the virgin. Kudos to you."

  Her words are caustic and hurt me with a marksman's precision.

  "That wasn't my mission. Drug money was the mission. Falling in love with you was an unexpected fork in the road. I was never going to do what Bucky asked. Even if I hadn't found the money. I was never going to intentionally hurt you. Like you said, I didn't even know if I could."

  She looks over at Bucky.

  "He hates me and my father that much that he'd rather destroy me than get his seven million dollars back? That makes no sense."

  "I think he knew that I'd never be able to get the money. He was counting on it. This was all about hurting the one thing Nate loves above all else and that was you."

  "Then he should be satisfied, because you definitely did hurt me. I'm broken beyond repair. That's why I'm leaving. To put the pieces back together."