“Yes. I am. I’ll teach you how to do it just like me and then maybe you’ll belong with us. Right now, you don’t. You forget that—you won’t like the results. Backseat.” He releases me and walks to the front of the car.
I consider leaving, but my mother’s letter is still in my hand. She wanted this for me. She wanted him for me. I get in the car and when I settle into the backseat, my “father” says, “People die. You’re going to have to deal with it.”
A swell of anger and pain fills my chest and I cut my gaze to the window. He starts the engine and I fight the burn of tears in my eyes. I won’t cry in front of him. Once we’re moving, I open the letter again and the first thing I read is: You will not fight your father. You will not go after him or anyone in the family. You’re smart enough to do it. You’re smart enough to hurt them, but DON’T DO IT. That is my final wish. That is my plea to you. Don’t do it. Because family doesn’t hurt family and they’re your blood, they’re your family now, until we meet again one day in a better place.
***
Present Day…
My father did exactly what I expected.
He hired someone to shut me up, if not kill me.
If my mother was alive, if she’d written that letter she wrote me so many years ago, knowing what I now know, she’d show the side of her that was a fighter. The side that went after a DNA test and forced me on the Kingstons. She’d tell me to fight back. She’d tell me to win.
I stand in the dark corner, and I reach in my pocket and pull out a quarter, focusing on walking it through my fingers to calm my mind. Taking myself to that place I went all those years ago when I had to kill or be killed. It was natural then, an instinct that didn’t require honing, but I’m not in that place anymore. I’m in the one that came first. The one where my father lives, which makes this not quite as simple as the “kill or be killed” warfare presents. I’ll still kill if I have to, but I want answers.
The alleyway is an unmoving box, not even a shadow flickers. I listen for the enemy, and the man behind that dumpster is an enemy. Seconds tick by and turn into minutes and he doesn’t move, but neither do I. Anyone my father hired worth any salt knows my skill level. Knows I’m here, watching this fool, waiting to act. One of us has to make a move and I decide what the fuck. I’m game. It’s been too damn long since I played a game like this one and I find I missed the hell out of it.
I flip the quarter into the center of the alleyway and it lands and then clanks as it wobbles. It’s an invitation. Come get me. I wait then and wait some more, but there is no impatience in me. I don’t need to move to feel relief. The numbers in my head are running and running for me, calculating risk, assessing my next move. I don’t even flinch when the other man must decide he doesn’t like his odds, and darts out from behind the trashcan and starts running. Smart man. The odds were against him, but that hasn’t changed. I might still be wearing part of a suit, but I’m fast and I run behind him, yanking him back and shoving him against the fence in thirty seconds.
“What were your orders?”
“Fuck you,” the man growls.
I smirk. “My mother was good and kind, unwilling to hurt anyone. In many ways, I’m not my mother’s son.” I knee him and he groans. “I’m my father’s son,” I add, “and I suspect she knew that when she asked me not to go after the Kingston family. She knew if I did, I’d destroy them. That’s who you’re working for, right?”
“Fuck you again!” he shouts.
“Again it is,” I say, giving him a repeat knee, this time with such force that when I let him go, he crumbles to the ground. He groans and moans, and when a homeless man wanders into the alleyway, I point at him, telling him he’s next if he doesn’t back off, and he runs away.
My would-be attacker rolls to his back and I press my foot to his crotch. “What were your orders?”
“To scare you.”
“We both know that’s a lie.” I pull up his shirt and eye the gun there, complete with a silencer. “Who sent you to kill me?”
“Your father,” he bites out and then tries to spit at me, like a fool. Obviously, my father doesn’t know how to hire a good killer, which works for me right about now.
I reach for my phone and snap a photo of him and then grind my foot into his crotch. He screeches and rolls to his side. I grab his wallet. “You’re lucky I don’t want a mess to clean up tonight. I know who you are. I know how to find you. We’ll talk soon. That’s a promise.” I stand up and start walking.
When I step out of the alleyway, Savage joins me. “I didn’t ask for your help,” I say, cutting left toward my apartment.
“You didn’t need it either,” he says. “Which was kind of disappointing. I haven’t had a good brawl in like three days.” He doesn’t wait for a reply. “One of our guys followed you. I caught up. I’m your front line guy until Adam gets here. And there’s no interesting movement back in Denver. I just talked to him.”
I open the wallet, glance at the name on the ID that reads Joe Melton, and then hand it to Savage. “He was sent to kill me tonight. I took a photo to confirm the identity matches the driver’s license. I’ll shoot it to Blake since I have his number.” We cut across the street.
“Who sent him?”
“My father,” I say, “who I’m going to leave squirming in his room, hoping I’m dead for the time being.” I pull my phone out to listen to the messages, and the minute I hear Harper’s voice, her soft pleas undo me yet again tonight. I go warm the only way her voice can make me warm, and then instantly cold with the certainty that this attack on me confirms that the warehouse attack on her was, in fact, an assassination attempt. We reach my building and I stop to face Savage.
“Find out what you can on the guy who attacked me. Make sure your team knows that I believe we’re dealing with hired killers. And I need an hour alone with Harper.”
“Understood,” he says, giving me a mock salute.
I enter the building, and suddenly, I can’t get to Harper soon enough. I will not feel as if she’s safe until she’s with me. I head for the elevator and dial Grayson to make sure there’s nothing I need to know when I get there. The phone rings. And rings. And rings again. I try Mia’s phone in hopes that she’s with Grayson or at least talked to him. She doesn’t answer. My heart starts to race. What if that amateur back there was a distraction and I fell for it? Fuck. Everyone I care about is in my apartment. I start running for the stairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY