Tacet a Mortuis (The Elite King's Club 3)

“It’s dead.” I wasn’t lying, she had a miscarriage far along in the pregnancy.

He stiffened, his eyes flying to me. “You’re sure?”

I didn’t flinch. “Positive.” Then I bit into my burger again. “Are we done? I got shit to do.”

“With Madison?” Her name coming out of his mouth had all sorts of feral venom rising to the surface. I was completely aware with how protective I was of her, so much so that even my dad saying her name had me wanting to sink a blade into his neck, but that was the exact reason why I needed to be careful with how I proceeded with her.

She was the only person walking this earth who had the power to fuck my head up. I didn’t like that—at all. I was Bishop fucking Hayes, always in control of my shit. Except her.

“Yeah,” I grunted, then my eyes came to his. “She’s not a threat.”

His lip curled into a smug grin. “I wasn’t saying anything, son.”

Yeah, sure.

I turned and headed back toward the pool house, pushing open the front door. I paused when I saw Madison and Justin on the sofa, laughing and watching some bullshit on the TV.

Justin caught my glare. “Chill, neph, we’re just talking.”

Slamming the door, I strolled into the kitchen and yanked open the fridge door, grabbing a drink. “I didn’t say anything.” I wasn’t surprised that Justin had warmed to Madison. It wasn’t hard to do, and at first, I thought it was because she was hot, and not in an obvious way. It was in the way that she didn’t need to push her beauty onto you. She was just that, beautiful. But she was edgy, sexy, weird and quirky, and she shot guns, and had a smart mouth, and it was confusing as fuck. She sent my mind into a spiral the first time I saw her because I wasn’t expecting her to look like she did….

I was heading out of the house when my dad’s voice stopped me in my tracks. “He won’t know, and we will keep it that way.” His tone, which was usually smooth and controlled, was now a little shaky toward the end of every syllable. I backtracked a little, hoping to hear more of the conversation when his voice snapped through again. “Bishop?”

Fuck.

I grinned, even though he couldn’t see me. “Yeah?”

“Stop snooping and get your ass in here now.” Like I usually did, I followed his instructions, pushing through his office doors. He and Rob Rodrigues were near the large window that overlooked the entrance to our house and the long driveway. Dad’s office was always a little outdated compared to the rest of our house. It was all mahogany wood, high ceilings and a bookshelf that was rooted to the tarnished flooring, reaching right to the beams in the ceiling.

“Yeah?” I shut the door behind myself and entered, taking the chair beside Rob. Dad leaned back in his red leather chair, a cigar in his mouth. “I need to talk to you about something important. A new girl. Call a meet.” Even though I didn’t understand why the fuck he was telling me about some new girl, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my phone, opening a group message to the Kings.

Dad is calling a meeting. My place - now.

I let it rest on my lap, ignoring the vibrating notifications and took my attention back to Dad. “Why does this matter?” I was raised with secrets, and it somehow managed to morph me into who I was today. But all this time, without even knowing it, I was being engineered to take the gavel when my dad passed. There was a knock on the door and Eli, Nate, Brantley, Hunter, Cash, and Chase slowly walked through the doors, searching between Dad and me.

“Come on in, boys.” I still wasn’t sure what the fuck Dad was playing at, but whatever it was, I’m sure someone was about to die. None of us, though, because it was against the law to do so. Yeah, we had our own laws.

“There’s something I hadn’t told any of you before, not even Bishop. Well, I had hinted at it once before… but, there’s a chance that a Silver Swan has slipped through the system. We know what lineage she has come through, and we know everything there is to know, except what she looks like. Seems there are no photos of this girl. But I wanted to make you boys aware because she is in your generation.”

“How do you know?” I asked, leaning back in my chair and running my index finger over the edge of my upper lip. He was most likely being paranoid—like usual, but I guessed in his life, paranoia came with the job description. Only when he got paranoid, blood was always spilled.