by Nina Levine
Stopping dead in her tracks, she said, “King.”
I’d caught her off guard, which wasn’t my intention, but it seemed to slow down any inclination she may have had to tell me to leave the minute she saw me. Either that or she’d decided to stop fighting me. The way she looked at me was a hell of a lot different to the way she’d looked at me last night. She appeared to have thawed a little.
I ran my eyes over her. It wasn’t because I wanted to fuck her, although that desire was stronger than ever. This was based on my need to know she was okay. It was a habit I’d picked up somewhere along the way in life. When I spent time away from those I cared about, I found it necessary to check for any harm that may have come to them while I was absent. It was a habit I couldn’t shake.
Lily was okay. Physically, at least.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as I checked her over.
Meeting her gaze again, I said, “I dropped Skylar off.”
Her brain appeared to catch up to my presence when the thawing of her ice shifted back to freezing temperatures again. “Thank you for dropping her off. You can go now.”
Her words were automated. Cold. Emotionless. Like she was talking from a fucking script. It was as if she didn’t even fucking know me; like I’d never been inside her. That shit pissed me off. Where the hell had her fire gone? I could handle her hate and her disappointment and her regret. Whatever she wanted to throw at me, I could fucking take. But I could never handle being frozen out like this because I knew it came from the kind of devastation that crushed a soul. And I never fucking wanted to crush her soul.
I closed the distance between us, slid my hand around her waist and backed her up against the wall. Ignoring the widening of her eyes and the way her hands pressed against my chest, I growled, “We need to get one thing straight, and one thing only. I’m not walking away from this.”
Her throat worked hard as she found her words. With her hands still pushing against me, she blurted out, “I don’t know what you think this is, but as far as I’m concerned, there isn’t anything for you to walk away from.”
I moved my free hand to her neck, gripping her there and circling my thumb over her throat. Bending my face to hers, I said, “That’s bullshit and you know it. Stay mad at me. Stay fucked off. Yell at me, scream at me, fucking hit me, but don’t you fucking shut down on me.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. And then she found her fighting spirit. “This isn’t something you can fix, King. You can’t just swoop in and demand I forget what you did. I needed you and you just left.” She pushed hard against my chest, forcing me backwards. “You hurt me, and I won’t allow you to do that again.”
There she was.
Fucking beautiful.
“Good,” I said, my entire body blazing with heat. I could work with what she’d given me.
“Good? What the hell does that mean?”
Fuck, if only she knew how much her fight turned me on. “You’re not done either, Lily. I don’t expect you to forget what I did, but you’ll move past it. This pull between us is too fucking strong for you not to.”
“My God, you’re arrogant.”
“No, I’m honest.”
“You’re fucking presumptuous is what you are.”
“We can stand here all fucking day slinging words at each other, but that would only prove I’m right.” I moved into her personal space again, unable to stop myself. Fuck, I wanted this woman. Tracing my finger over her lips, I added, “If you didn’t still want me, you would have ended this conversation before it even got started.”
Her lips flattened and she pushed me away again. Moving past me, she snapped, “You tell yourself that, but don’t ever presume to know my thoughts again. You are so wrong it isn’t funny.”
I watched her walk into the waiting room and sit with Skylar. Not once in our conversation had she brought up her ex. If she were committed to trying again with him, she would have thrown that at me. Not that I’d let him get in my way when it was clear she wanted me, but she hadn’t mentioned his name once, signalling that was bullshit, too.
Eric Bones eyed me with hesitation. “You’re stirring some shit up, King. You sure you wanna do that?”
I leaned back into the booth where we sat in the darkened corner of the dingy pub I reserved for these kinds of meetings. Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, “I haven’t been so fucking sure of something for a long time.”
“Fucking hell,” he muttered. “It’s throwing a lot of heat my way.”
“And?” Did he think I gave two shits?
“Look,” he said, angling forward and resting his arms on the table, “I’m just sayin’ that Sydney hasn’t seen any major trouble for a long time. Well, besides what went down with Silver Hell. You’ve mostly kept the peace with everyone. Don’t force a war on all of us just because of the shit you’ve had going on.”
“I’m done with keeping the peace when it’s not warranted. It needs to be known that if a line gets crossed, Storm won’t take it. I’m just letting everyone know this’ll be how it is in the future.”
“Yeah, well some people don’t like it.”
“I don’t give a fuck what people like.”
His face morphed into a pained expression. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
This conversation had been a waste of my time. Standing, I said, “I don’t do shit I can’t stand behind. You wanna fucking cry over it in future, do it with your sisters. I don’t have time to waste talking it out.”
As Hyde and I exited the pub, my phone sounded with a text. After I read it, I looked at Hyde, every cell in my body alive with the crazy energy I welcomed. “We have an address. Call the boys. It’s fucking on.”
This moment had been too fucking long coming. Romano’s blood would finally dirty my hands.
7
King
If, as claimed by some, the two most powerful warriors were patience and time, I was a motherfucking warrior when it came to Romano. He’d evaded me at every turn over the last few weeks, and before that, he’d fought a war against me in the shadows. I’d had to be more patient with him than I’d ever been with anyone. That had only intensified my hunger for his blood.
Axe’s guy had come through with the goods, and after my men had surrounded the secluded property on the outskirts of Sydney and fought their way through the security guarding Romano, I finally stood in front of him.
“And so we meet,” he said, his attention firmly on me. He ignored Hyde, Nitro, Cole, Nash, and Axe who stood behind me. He knew his time was up. Knew there was no point trying to find a way out of this.
“You had to know that was inevitable.”
“I wasn’t convinced you had it in you. I’ve been coming at you for a long time, King, and you never worked it out. So no, I didn’t know it was inevitable.”
Motherfucker.
I had missed it.
I would never make that mistake again.
My body strained to have at him, but first I needed to make sure I knew everything there was to know about this situation. Moving closer to him, I gripped his shirt and yanked him to me. “We’re gonna have a little talk about that,” I snarled.
He snorted. “No, we’re not.”
Pulling out my blade, I slowly ran it across his throat. Hard enough to let him know I wouldn’t hesitate to use it, but not with enough pressure to draw blood yet. “Oh, I think we are, asshole. And while we’re at it, we might as well talk about Ivy.” The flare of emotion in his eyes and the clench of his jaw told me I was right in my assumption she was the key to breaking him. “Were you aware she was planning on leaving you? I’m guessing not because if you were, you wouldn’t have allowed it to happen.”
He jerked out of my hold. I let him go easily in an effort to get him talking. I figured I had more chance of that if I gave him some space first. “You don’t get to talk about her,” he spat. “Not after what you put her through years ago. You have no fucking idea of my relationshi
p with her. I would never have treated her the way you did.”
My blood roared in my ears. This guy was a piece of fucking work. It was going to take every ounce of my restraint to keep myself in check. “I know you beat the fuck out of her often enough to cause her to lose your children.”
He smiled. A menacing smile. “Don’t believe everything she says.”
“I fucking witnessed the after-effects of her latest miscarriage, so I do fucking believe her.”
His smile slipped from his face, replaced by anger. “She has ways of faking stuff.”
“Jesus, what fucking drugs did you take this morning?” I shoved my face closer to his, fury heating my cheeks. “No one can fake the blood loss she had. Not to fucking mention my own doctor treated her and confirmed the miscarriage.”
The glaze in his eyes told me he would dismiss anything I had to say about her. “I know my wife, King, and I know she’s a lying, manipulative woman. Regardless, I love her more than you ever did.”
“And yet, she left you. Says a lot about your love.”
“No, it says a lot about you and how much she wanted to ruin you.”
“What the fuck are you on about?”
A satisfied smile blared from him. “You met Brant, yes?”
I clenched my jaw as I nodded.
“She manipulated him into doing her dirty work. She knew he was in love with her, and she worked that to her advantage.” He paused for a moment. “Ivy has carried a desire for revenge against you for as long as I’ve known her. I refused to humour her request to initiate an attack on you years ago, so she started in on Brant.”
“I don’t fucking believe you. You came after me using Marx. You killed my ex and her child. And besides, Brant is a psychopath, best I can figure. You’ve got shit about those two around the wrong way.”
“Brant’s a weak man. He’s not a psychopath. Where the hell did you get that from?”
“We did some digging on him. He has a history of stalking women and murdering them.”
He flinched like I’d slapped him.
I’d found something he didn’t know.
When he didn’t respond, I said, “He tell you she’s working him or did you figure that out for yourself? And don’t feel bad for screwing up on this one. We did, too.” Brant had played us for fools. I imagined he’d done the same to Romano. I’d shared that sliver of information to encourage his walls down a little.
The way he glossed over it confirmed my suspicions. “Either way, it doesn’t fucking matter. They’re concocting something up for you. Any of the shit I’ve given the feds on you will pale in comparison to whatever they do to you.”
And that right there was what I wanted. I didn’t buy into Ivy gunning for revenge, but I did buy into Romano feeding the feds shit. “Ahh, Detective Ryland’s told me about you singing to him.”
“I don’t know what you did to him, but it must have been fucking bad. The asshole can’t see straight because of you.”
I cocked my head to the side. “You hear they pulled him off the case? Seems he’s on someone’s payroll and they don’t like that.” I watched his reaction closely in an effort to judge if it was his payroll Ryland was on.
Confusion flickered briefly in his eyes. He attempted to cover it, but I had my answer. It wasn’t Romano he’d been working with. He opened his mouth to reply, but a loud crash sounded from somewhere in the house, interrupting my interrogation.
I sheathed my knife and pulled out my gun before pushing Romano towards Nitro and ordering, “Don’t let him out of your sight.”
Signalling for everyone else to search the house, I stalked in the direction the sound came from. The house wasn’t huge so it wouldn’t take us long to find whoever it was.
It didn’t.
He came charging at me as I entered the kitchen. Gun pointed at my head, he fired with one clear goal—to kill. This wasn’t the fucking feds we were dealing with. This had to be Romano’s crew.
My rage screamed to life and my demons raced from the far corners of my soul.
We’d been trained for moments like this from birth.
This asshole brought a gun to the fight.
He had no idea I was a motherfucking bomb.
Ducking the moment I saw him, I avoided his bullet and threw myself at him. My arms circled his body and with unrelenting force, I drove him backwards against the fridge. He hit with a thud, his head banging against it hard. His gun fell to the ground and I kicked it out of the way. I’d caught him off guard and he was slow to get his bearings.
Gripping his throat, I dug my fingers in hard as I aimed my gun at his foot. Pulling the trigger, I demanded, “Who the fuck are you?”
His cry of pain as the bullet went through his foot fed the beast inside me.
This was what I came here for today.
Blood and pain.
He scowled at me and spat, “Fuck you!”
I shot his other foot before striking him across the face with my gun as hard as I fucking could. With one last squeeze of his throat, I let him go, grasped his shirt and spun him around so I could slam him across the small room into the kitchen bench. He scrambled to get back in the fight, but he was no match for me. I closed the distance between us again and punched him. He grunted and took a shot at hitting me, but I evaded the jab and punched him again, my fist connecting with his jaw with a satisfying crack.
I was fucking manic.
Wired for hell.
I could keep going at him for hours, but all I had were minutes. Fuck, I didn’t even have that. Our plan had been to get in and get out fast. I’d gone and screwed that up by taking my time questioning Romano.
I needed to get back to him. This guy wasn’t going to give me answers to my questions, and I didn’t have time to drag them from him, so I struck him with my fist a few more times before putting a bullet between his eyes. A lot less satisfying than what I would have preferred to do, but it got the job done.
“King!” Hyde called out as his boots thudded through the place. “We need to hurry this the fuck up.”
Yeah.
I stalked back into the living room and found Axe standing over a guy, landing punch after punch on him. The guy was covered in blood and didn’t have any fight left in him, but my brother’s own demons had surfaced. Once they were let loose, a motherfucker had no chance against him. Axe and I were cut from the same cloth; he was just better at controlling the darkness running through his veins.
I looked at Hyde. “Did we get them all?”
He nodded. “Yeah. There were four of them. They weren’t feds. I pulled this from one of them.” He handed me a piece of paper.
It was a map of the area that contained scribbled notes regarding the detail that had been guarding Romano.
“Romano’s men,” I said.
“That’s my guess.”
I shoved the paper in my pocket. “Good. With any fucking luck that’s the last of them.”
Turning to Romano, I pulled my blade out again as anticipation coursed through me. This was going to be over far too fucking quickly for me, but I had no choice. As much as I wanted to take him with me so I could dedicate some long days to making him suffer, what I wanted more was to make a fucking statement.
This is what happens when you fuck with Storm.
We will go to the depths of hell to find you.
And you won’t be the one left standing.
My eyes locked on his.
He bucked in Nitro’s hold, but we both knew this was the end of the road for him.
I called on every memory of what he’d done to my club and the people I held close.
I allowed the thoughts to swarm like angry fucking bees.
And with a roar that I dragged from the pits of my soul, I plunged the knife into his chest.
Flesh and blood and pain filled my senses as he cried out in agony.
I ripped the knife from his body and thrust it back in, twisting deep.
Pure fucking satisfac
tion rushed through me, but it was tinged with torment because his death would never make up for what he’d done. The lives he’d taken would never be returned. The life he’d tried to take was still in jeopardy. The suffering he’d dealt would never be eased.
I leaned in close to him and snarled through gritted teeth, “Rot in hell, motherfucker.”
His head had rolled back but he dragged it up so he could look at me one last time. “I didn’t kill your ex… Didn’t fucking kill anyone…” He gurgled through his pain before his head lolled back again.
My mind attempted to process that, but I stumbled over it.
He did fucking kill her.
He had to have.
Because if it wasn’t him, who the fuck was it?
8
King
“You think he was bullshitting you?” Nitro asked late that afternoon as we watched Kick and Nash trade jabs in the boxing ring we had set up out the back of the clubhouse.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t fucking know, brother.”
This had been on my mind all afternoon, and I hadn’t come closer to figuring out where I stood on it. It was fucking convenient for him to throw that out as he took his last breath. I wouldn’t have put it past him trying to fuck with me from the grave. If I believed him, I had to entertain the thought we were still at risk while the killer remained free to attack again.
Fuck.
I was restless after killing Romano.
On edge.
I needed to work the high out of my body.
This shit churning through my brain didn’t fucking help.
Loud cheers from the boys watching the boxing interrupted our conversation. I looked over to see Nash grinning like a motherfucker with both arms raised.
Nitro sucked back some beer before commenting, “That asshole is good for the club.”
He was right. Nash was always welcome in my clubhouse. Mostly because he stepped the fuck up when we needed him, but also because he had a way of easing the tension running through the club.