King's Reign (Sydney Storm MC 6)

I shook my head. “I’m heading over to Lily’s soon.”

She smiled as she wiped the top of the bar. “She’s good for you.” At the lift of my brow, she said, “I saw you smile today. She’s good for you.”

Kick sat on the stool next to me, grinning as he overheard what Kree said. “I saw him smile yesterday, too.”

“Fucking hell,” I muttered. After Kree had moved on to take someone else’s order, I said to Kick, “You sort Brian out?”

“Yeah, I gave him that cash and took care of the repairs that needed doing around the place. And he said to tell you Ivy has found a job.”

“Good.”

Hyde joined us, a pissed off look on his face. “I just heard the news report on Gambarro. We should have moved sooner on him before they arrested the asshole.”

“Yeah, brother,” I agreed. “But we’ve waited this fucking long to get to him, we can be patient for a while longer.”

Hyde frowned. “What the fuck, King? Did you take some happy fucking pills or some shit today?”

I moved off my stool and grinned. “Think about it, Hyde. Gambarro fucked a lot of people off who are in prison because of him. Way I see it is that now he gets fucked over in there while they all take their turn with him, and then we can either have him taken care of inside or we can wait our turn and take care of him ourselves when he gets out. Either way, he’s gonna get a lot of what’s coming to him and we won’t have to work as hard to make that shit happen.”

The feds had arrested the motherfucker this morning. He’d been my first gift to Isabel Stark. I’d thought long and hard about whether to hand shit over to her so she knew where to look for her evidence, but in the end, I decided my club had been through enough. We were finally beginning to get back to normal business; I didn’t wanna put them through another hard battle. I’d let Gambarro go to prison and see where the dust settled. Patience might not have ever been a strength of mine, but a man could fucking change.

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A text came through on my phone.

Lily: I think I’m about to take up smoking again.

Me: Why

Lily: Zara.

Me: Fuck

Lily: My thoughts exactly. She has a new boyfriend. God let me down.

I had no fucking idea what she meant about God letting her down, and I wasn’t about to get into it with her.

Me: I’m on my way

Lily: Hurry. And have a smoke on the way so you smell like cigarettes. You may save me from taking them up again.

Jesus, this woman.

“Lily,” Hannah was saying as I entered Lily’s kitchen an hour later, “do you have another dress I can borrow tomorrow?”

Lily had her ass in the air while she bent over searching the cupboard for a container. I settled against the counter, crossed my arms and enjoyed the view.

“Are you seeing the library dude again?” Lily asked while she rummaged. I could tell by the way her actions were becoming jerky that she was growing impatient trying to locate the container. Without waiting for her mother’s response, she muttered, “Ma, have you taken my red Tupperware container home? I could have sworn it was in here the other day.”

Hannah, who had her back to me, moved to another cupboard and opened it to search in there. “No,” she said, and then, catching sight of me, she stopped and hit me with a smile. “Hello, King. I didn’t see you standing there. Have you seen that red Tupperware container Lily always insists on using?”

Lily straightened and turned to me. Her eyes went wide and she pulled the face she used when her mother was driving her crazy. She then said to her mother in a snappy tone, “I don’t always use it, but it’s the best one I have.”

I jerked my chin at the cupboard next to the one where the glasses lived. “It’s in there.”

Lily located the container and shot me a smile and a “Thank you” before saying to her mother, “Ma, why don’t you go and hang with Brynn? I’ve got everything under control in here.”

Her mother lifted her brows. “I really don’t think you do, darling.”