Craving Lily (The Aces' Sons 4)

“Who are you?” little guy demanded as he stood from the bed.

“Pretty sure you’re the one who’s been lookin’ for us,” Cam grunted. “Who the fuck are you?”

Little guy’s expression filled with understanding before rage took over his features.

“You killed my father,” he spat, his words almost impossible to understand. “Like a dog in his bed.”

“I’ve never killed a dog in its bed,” I said under my breath.

“Who the fuck would do that?” Cam replied.

“My father was Karl Sokolov,” the guy said proudly, lifting his chin.

“Not sure you should go around boastin’ that shit,” Will said as he turned his head toward the man waking up from his stupor. “Just stay down, idiot,” he warned.

“You burned down my motherfuckin’ house,” Cam said, done with the conversation. “With my fucking sister and kids inside it.”

“You poison my father, yes? Like a woman,” the guy barked.

“Nobody fuckin’ poisoned your dad,” I replied. “I mean, I woulda killed his ass, but I fuckin’ didn’t. He was dead when I got there.”

“You lie,” the little guy said, but his face didn’t look so sure anymore. “We have autopsy done in Russia. Say, poison.”

“Why the fuck would I lie?” I asked.

Just as the final word left my mouth, I saw the big one reach for something on the floor next to him, and less than a second later, I was raising my arm and pulling the trigger. The hand holding the gun he’d been trying to pull fell to his side and he slumped backward, the hole in his forehead not even bleeding.

“Son of a—” Two more gunshots split the room and I looked over to see the small guy hit the wall with a thud and slide all the way to the floor.

“Idiot went for his piece the minute you shot his brother,” Will said in annoyance.

“We’re gonna need a cleaner,” Cam mumbled, shoving his gun back in the holster he wore in the back of his jeans. “ ’Cause I’m not doin’ it.”

“Me, either,” I mumbled, stepping over the dead big guy as I left the room. “You think anyone heard anything?”

“Nah,” Will said, putting his phone to his ear. “Even if they did, no one would say anything.”

As soon as Will had the clean up settled, we got back on our bikes and took off. On the way home, each of us wiped down our weapons and threw them in separate parts of the river. Getting a new weapon was nothing, but trying to convince the police that ballistics from your gun didn’t match the hole in a dead man was a bit harder to manage.

Something the Russian fuck had said nagged at me as I pulled into the forecourt and turned off my bike. What had he said? That they’d had an autopsy done on Sokolov and he’d died by poison. Had the guy had enemies besides us? There was something that I wasn’t piecing together, and it was driving me fucking nuts.

Then, before I’d even stepped into the building, I figured it out.

I fucking knew, and I was livid.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” I growled as he answered the phone. “Motherfuckers burned down Trix’s house and almost killed Lily and the boys because I had no goddamn idea what you’d done.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” my Uncle Nix said easily. “But I’m at work, so I’m going to have to call you back.”

“I don’t care how old you are,” I said. “I’m gonna beat the shit outta you when I see you.”

“I love you, too,” he said. “Give all the boys a kiss from me and tell them I’ll be down this weekend.”

“You fucking douche,” I hissed as he hung up on me.

“That your uncle?” Gramps asked as he stood in the doorway.

“You fucking know?” I asked, stalking toward him.

“I pieced it together once you’d left and gave him a call. He didn’t deny it.”

“Son of a bitch,” I grumbled. “Why the hell would he do that?”

“Because he’s your uncle,” he said simply, turning to go back into the club. “He’d rather the mess was on his own hands.”

I followed him inside, cursing under my breath. It had been bad enough that the man had been dead from natural causes before I’d gotten there. Knowing that my uncle had somehow poisoned his ass made that shit a million times more humiliating. I couldn’t even describe how livid I was that he’d created an enemy we hadn’t known about and they’d almost killed my family.

I pulled my cut off as I walked into my room, then paused when I found Lily sitting at the end of my bed.

“What’re you doing here?” I asked, reaching out to run my fingers through her hair. “You should be in bed.”

“I’m done with that,” she said simply, getting to her feet. “I’m glad you’re back.”