Chapter 24 A New King
TWENTY-FOUR
A NEW KING
DALLAS
By the time Lucy settles into the penthouse with me, it’s nearly seven o’clock at night. I blame Connor for waiting until mid-afternoon to finally call me and let me know that she was with him and Haven, but it could have always been worse. He might’ve decided to buzz me at three in the morning.
Though she ate lunch with the Heywards, it was around dinner time when we left.
Since I’m trying to do better with her, I invited her to go out to dinner with me.
For a moment, she looked surprised, then stunned, then pleased.
Ultimately, she admitted she was tired and in need of a shower, but she asked wistfully if maybe we could go out tomorrow night instead.
The look on her face when I agreed was almost enough to ease the last two days of terror.
Almost.
As she skipped happily to the bathroom for her shower, I thought about how close the old guard came to pulling the ‘off with his head’ routine for their current King.
Fuck ‘em. Let any of the Owed who have a problem with me choosing Lucy try to stop me from taking my Dandelion out for a meal. Seriously. Let them try.
I’m done with this King bullshit. I never wanted to take over for Jack in the first place, and the only reason I did was because I knew it would have him rolling over in his grave to see how much I changed once he was gone.
But that’s the problem. If I had my way, I’d blow up the whole fucking Order and walk away satisfied.
That’s as far as my plan goes. Without Adrian, whispering in my ear, I wouldn’t have half an idea what to do.
Sure, it was common sense to plug the hole in the Order’s finances after all of Jack’s embezzling, and I wasn’t down with the idea of trafficking women in the basement of the Fortress, but apart from trying to shut down the Claiming ceremonies, what else could I do?
I’m the muscle. Maybe my life would’ve been different if I didn’t grow up Jack Collin’s only son, but I did.
He turned me into a killer. Since I took over as King, I’d been too shackled to my desk to use my hard-earned skills.
When I say that the way I tortured, then murdered Julian scared me, it’s not because of how far I went with it.
Nope. It’s because, as I knocked him around, I realized how much I missed it.
He deserved what he got, and there are others in the Order—and out of it—who need my special brand of justice.
Sure, Jack used me to keep the Owed in line.
What if we had a King who actually gave a shit about the people of Harmony Heights instead of just himself?
In my opinion, no one in this picture postcard perfect hellhole is that selfless.
We all have our vices, have our weak spots, but there is one person I know who would make a much better King than me.
If only because he’ll do anything to protect his wife, and by leading the Order and keeping it profitable, he’ll have more tools at his disposal to do so, he could.
For thirty years, I’ve had his back just like he’s had mine. All through the transition period, he was there for me; since I got my Lucy back, he’s basically been King. Plus, when you think of it, he was the one to off Jack. Maybe that means he should’ve been the next in line.
And if that doesn’t convince Adrian to take the crown and let me be his enforcer, I don’t know what will.
Look at me, cuz. It’s my turn to be the Kingmaker. To be the man with the plan. A small smirk tugging at my lip that has nothing to do with the fact that a naked, wet Lucy Wright is in one of my bathrooms—and, yeah, I’m still a fucking liar, sue me—I pull out my phone and make the call.
Half an hour later, I’m sitting in Jack’s office, watching Adrian plops into the chair opposite the desk.
He scowls at me. “Do you know what you’ve done?”
I raise my eyebrows. “I found Lucy.”
Adrian snorts. “Actually, Connor found her. And that’s not quite accurate, either. Your Lucy went to Haven because she needed a break from looking at your sorry mug. You overreacted, and I took care of it, but that doesn’t change what happened tonight.”
“How do you—”
He waves me off, and I let it go. Shit. I should’ve known.
Even though Adrian was the one to talk me down and take advantage of the blood oath after he confronted the old guard—which, you know, seems very Kingly in hindsight—he kept telling me to cool my shit, that Lucy was okay. Of course he did. He must’ve known.
Just like Adrian knows everything.
Well. Let’s see if he knows this.
“I wanted to talk—
“Loni spent the afternoon with Annaliese since you took the day off,” he says, voice clearly heated.
Yeah. He’s pissed. Not pissed enough that he refused to come when I called, telling him I need him, but he’s still pretty pissed.
And when he continues, I find out why. “We’re in the middle of planning our big vow renewal in June when Loni turns thirty.
She wants to make it memorable for me and you know what Bas’s innocent little wife suggested to mine?
They go to a spa and get waxed. My princess got a landing strip, Dallas.
A landing strip. But before I got to see what she did to those pretty curls of hers, you called me, you fucker. Damn it, Dal. I wanted to go landing!”
Don’t laugh. You have a sexually frustrated Adrian Heller in your office, you want to convince him to take over a job neither of you want, and if you tell him forget it, that you called him away from his wife’s freshly waxed pussy for nothing, he might just shoot you full of lead like he did Desmond St. James…
He narrows his gaze on me. “Are you smirking?”
“Me? What? No.”
A little more narrow. “You sure? ‘Cause imagine it was Lucy. We both know you’d drop anything if your precious Dandelion so much as batted her lashes at you.”
Thank you, Adrian, for the perfect segue.
“You’re right. I would. Makes me a shit King, doesn’t it? I’ll always put my sweet Lucy before anything, especially the Order.” I shrug, leaning into my seat, keeping my eyes on Adrian. “So that’s why I should quit. Find a replacement. What do you think, cuz?”
“Not this shit again—”
Ever since Adrian hired the Reed twins to pass along the poisoned booze that killed my old man, I’ve been dropping hints that he should take over.
He’s better suited to the job of running a secret society.
In so many ways, he has been, and not even just lately.
In order to really rule, you need to know where the money goes and where the bodies are buried, and no one in Harmony Heights knows all of that better than Adrian Heller.
I’ve been dropping hints and he’s been scoffing at them, and I took that to mean he didn’t want the gig.
But you know what I never did? I never fucking asked.
“No. I mean it. Let me do this straight. Okay? Adrian. Will you succeed me as King?”
When he doesn’t even reach for his cigarette to fiddle with, I know I have him.
“I want to make sure I understand this. When you say ‘succeed’... you mean, like, if you die without an heir, you want me to take over?”
“I want you to say ‘yes’ and then I sign a piece of paper that says that you’re now the King of the Order.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Adrian stares at me. “You realize that there’s a good chunk of the Order who will have a problem with this. They’ll say that stepping down isn’t exactly an option. If you try to leave the Order—”
“I don’t want to leave it. How can I keep Lucy safe if I go rogue and the new King will have to send his enforcers after me?
Fuck no. But what if I go back to my old position of being the King’s enforcer.
” I jerk my chin at him. “You’re the one who says we’ve had a blood oath since we were born.
You’ve had my back. I’ve got yours. Let me watch it for you after you take the crown. ”
“Dal—”
“Think about it. Even as kids, you were the brains of the operation. And I know you like playing Kingmaker, making deals behind the scenes, but can you imagine how much your smart ass can accomplish if you’re the face of the Order.”
Adrian rubs his jaw. “It’s a pretty good once, isn’t it?”
I stifle my chuckle. “It’s those Collins genes. We’re two good-looking mother fuckers, aren’t we?”
“And so modest, too,” he adds, lips twitching. He exhales, and in that one sound, I know that he’s back to being serious. “Tell me… you really mean it? You want me to take over?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t mean it,” I say honestly. “Or if I didn’t think that you’d kick ass as the job. Remember how, after Jack kicked it, we talked about turning the Order around, making it better? Remember what I said?”
“If I recall correctly, it was ‘fuck the Order’.”
Okay, true.
“Yeah, I said that,” I agree. “But then I listened and agreed that there were still some bones to the old charter that were worth saving. With you as the King, I think you could really make something of it. So what do you say? What do you think?”
When he doesn’t answer me right away, I play my trump card.
“Come on, Adrian. If you refuse, I gotta go to Bas next. You really want me to do that to him?”
Adrian considers my question for a long moment before he finally sighs.
“You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
“You want me to be King.”
“That’s right.”
Adrian shakes his head. “You’re insane.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
Adrian’s mouth curves slightly. “Must be something else I get from Mom’s side of the family because I’ve gotta be nuts, too.”
My heart skips a beat. “That mean you’re going to do it?”
“Why not? Maybe it’s time I take my princess and make her a queen. But,” he adds, starting to rise from his seat as if he can go hurry back to Loni now, “if this explodes in our faces, I’m blaming you.”
“Fair.”
He gets to his feet. “Is that all? Because, if you don’t mind, we can start working the kinks out of your brilliant plan later. I have a wife who’s waiting for me.”
Sorry, Adrian. “Just one other thing.”
He groans. “Really?”
“Real quick. Promise.”
After all, I think to myself as I pull a piece of card stock out of Jack’s—Adrian’s—desk, all it takes is a slash of my knife and the new King’s signature to notarize a blood oath.