Vicious King

Out of the car, I start for the house and decide a little longer can’t hurt before the inevitable verbal assault from Granny. Mykaella’s mother and I have always had a good relationship, but I guess I am just not ready to face her yet. I head toward the stream behind her cottage and notice a familiar form skipping stones—and for a second I see a small boy, no more than four, with strawberry blonde hair and bright as skies blues, skipping stones in that very same spot. Of course, Larz is grown now, they all are.

I join him and pop a squat to inspect the rocks beside the stream. Most aren’t suitable for skipping, but then I find one smooth enough with a damn near perfect indent for my thumb and I pull back for the skip and send it. Larz stops to count with me, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 skips. We whoop and clap hands and the rest of the world fades in comparison. After a few more throws, I clear my throat and stretch. The sun shines down, a rare treat, and I savor the warmth it brings.

“So, tell me,” I say mid-stretch. “Have we gotten word from our point man on the Warsaw connection?” I glance at Larz, whose features are darker now. His hair doesn’t hold the strawberry blonde, but is darker like wet sand. His eyes are still as bright and clear as his mother’s—even if he acts and behaves nothing like the woman, he has her eyes.

“Yes, but it’s not necessarily good news on all fronts,” Larz mutters, picking up another rock and tossing it rather than skipping it. “There’s been a bit of a hiccup, to tell the truth.”

“What kind of hiccup,” I ask, keeping my voice lowered. Nobody is in earshot but us, but I don’t trust Granny’s crazy ears. She has always had an uncanny way of hearing exactly what you don’t want her to hear and rarely what you do.

“The five-foot, biker boot wearing, trash talking, loudmouth kind,” Larz adds after a moment and blew out a breath before tossing another stone.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh before shaking my head as my shoulders drop. “Fara,” I say as a question, hoping I’m wrong. I just promised her I wouldn’t involve anymore of the children and now Fara’s mixed up in this. Mykaella is going to kill me for sure.

“Fara,” Larz confirms.

Damn.

I ball and un-ball my fists then lick my upper lick before continuing. “And what does Fara have to do with any of this?” I ask, gesturing at the stream with my hands as if it were a part of it too.

Larz takes a deep breath before replying. Little alarms sound off in my head as I try to contain my growing agitation, and worry. If anything happens to one of my children, I know I will be back in prison, but for good this time.

“For the last few weeks I’ve had a hired man from Ruthless Corp in Los Angeles stationed outside of the palace—just keeping an eye on things after some suspicious stuff went down.”

I’m annoyed and stop him. “Fara, son. How is she involved?”

Larz squares up to me and glares right back at me. “I am getting there, okay?”

I bite my retort and nod for him to go on.

“Around 3am the morning of your release, my guy ran into Fara. You know her. She was probably going to wait for your arrival in the palace, so she could be the first to welcome you,” Larz pauses, shakes his head, and chuckles before continuing. “—which is dumb since I picked you up, but whatever—anyways, apparently some Warsaw guy did in fact come lurking about. Fara got into it with him and my guy, so I’m no doubt going to have to fork over double my guy’s usual fee just to cover an interaction with that hellhound sister of mine.”

I laugh at that but cannot agree more. Fara is and always has been a handful. From the moment she learned to run, she’s been going full speed to her own tune. She’s killing it at university, which I doubt Caleb is too thrilled about.

“I guess the proverbial apple didn’t fall too far with that one, huh?” I laugh again and Larz joins me, nodding his head.

“I mean, you, me, and Fara, are kinda the black sheep of the family.”

Leaning over, I embrace my son in a side arm hug. “You could say the Madsen House has been tarnished since day one.” We both buckle over in laughter this time.

As we collect ourselves, I hear someone’s approach and turn to see Granny making her way down the dirt path toward us. As she grows near, her face lights up at the sight of Larz and she embraces him in a huge hug.