Rex
A whoop sounded from behind me, and I grinned as Wynter half clung to me and half pumped her arms in the air as we slowly made our way toward San Bernardino.
Though I was well aware that I was on a short leash with the Triads, especially with Wynter on the back of my bike, my time in California wasn’t endless.
Wynter needed me, but Rachel was pregnant, and that kid needed me too. Not just because I had no idea how Rachel would deal with being pregnant this time, but because danger followed us around like shit on our shoes.
Ideally, Wynter’d move east to be with us, but I wasn’t sure what she wanted.
Since the other night, she’d said painfully little, and only when I told her I needed to go on a short road trip, and asked would she like to come with, had she brightened up any.
When the key had arrived, I’d put this off but I had to go home eventually, and that meant I needed to get this off my back.
So, here we were.
On the road to meet a woman I never wanted to meet.
On the road to meet a woman my father had created a child with; a child who consistently wreaked havoc on my home.
This morning, when I’d asked Rachel for the subdivision and the woman’s name via text, she’d tried to call me, but I hadn’t answered. This was a chore I needed to complete—one final task from my father.
As I pulled onto Maria’s street, it dawned on me why Dad had waited until his death to tell me about Kendra: I’d have shunned him and he knew it.
He’d done the unthinkable.
An allegiance I’d have protected with bloodshed, I was shoving aside because he’d broken it.
Anything he asked of me, I’d done—something I thought I’d proven with how he’d met his end—but once the bequests in his will were finalized, that was it.
It was over.
The house was small but respectable.
At some point, I thought an old Christmas tree had been planted in the front yard because it was taller than the one-story house, and on the veranda, there was a rocking chair. The siding was painted, and the roof was well maintained as was the garden.
Kendra’s mother took pride in her home.
When we pulled up outside it and Wynter had stopped her whooping, the arms she’d slid around my waist for more support during the tighter bends to reach the house squeezed me.
“King, are you okay?”
I wanted her to call me ‘Dad’ again.
I knew that was bad. But I did. I couldn’t help what I wanted. One day…
“I’ve been better, sweetheart.”
“She might be nice,” she offered.
“I’m sure she is.” I cut her a look. “Doesn’t take away from what she represents.”
Wynter hummed. “Not her fault. It’s your dad’s fault. Or, at least, it takes two to tango, you know?”
“I know that more than most, but it does take two and she must have known he was married because everyone knew about Bear and Rene. They were the Sandy and Danny of goddamn West Orange.”
She was quiet a second then, astonished, demanded, “Is that a Grease reference?”
“Ask Rachel about that summer when she watched it twice a day every day.”
“Wow. Big fan?”
“Ironically enough, no. But that doesn’t mean she’s forgotten all the lyrics to ‘Summer Nights.’”
My dry response had her chuckling. “Seems like someone else would know the lyrics too.” When she nudged me in the side, I hid a smile.
“It’s a little like water torture. Sticks with you after a while.”
She snorted. “I’ll ask her if you sang along with her.”
“Why does that sound like a threat?”
“Because it is?” she rejoindered in a singsong voice.
I smirked at nothing, bewildered that she’d managed to make me smile on today of all days.
Deciding that I had to get this over with, I asked her, “You okay to get off the bike?”
She tutted. “I got my bike legs ages ago.”
“It isn’t like sea legs.”
“It is,” she argued, huffing as she climbed off and I kept the hog steady.
After, when I was standing on the sidewalk, I stared at the house again and released a rough exhalation.
She tugged on my hand. “Come on, King. You need to pull this off like a Band-Aid.”
I cast her a look and rubbed at my eyes. “You shouldn’t be here for this. I should have left you back at the hotel.”
“Left me there thinking about Mom and the mess Dad has made of everything?” She sniffed. “I’d prefer to be here. Helping you.”
I tugged back at her grip on my hand. “You’re a good kid, Wynter.”
Amusement lit up her eyes. “Not always.”
“Oh, really?”
She grinned. “Really. But that’s a tale for another time.”
“Maybe a tale for never if you don’t want me to have nightmares for the rest of my life.”
“Big, mean guy like you having nightmares about me? I doubt it.”
“You’d be surprised,” I retorted, staring back at that fucking house.
Kendra’s goddamn mom had better be in, that was all I was saying.
“What do you mean?”
I pursed my lips. “Seen shit, done shit that’d give most people nightmares.”
I thought about the time Giulia had set fire to a pedophile in one of our Coshocton warehouses. His screams should have haunted my sleep for years. Not even that night, my skin still stinking of smoke, had I not slept like a baby.
“Only thing that gives me nightmares are you and your mother.”
“Well, that’s not very kind, is it?”
A bark of laughter escaped me. “No. It’s supposed to be a plea not to terrify the living shit out of me.”
“You mean to tell me you’re okay walking into an apartment with three enemies and that won’t scare you, but I will?”
“It’s only the things that matter that can trigger fear. Fear of loss. Fear of failure. Fear of not being good enough. I’m not scared of the Triads. Not for myself. For you, sure. I was terrified. I wanted you out of there.”
Her eyes were rounded but I saw the quiver in her lips and knew she was on the brink of tears.
Not that I could blame her.
The past week would have overwhelmed anyone—never mind a teenager.
Hauling my arm over her shoulder, I muttered, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I know you didn’t. I just… I never looked at it that way. I was raised—” She inhaled. “It might seem dumb to say this after what happened, but honestly, it was a normal childhood.
“BBQs in the summer and fireworks on July 4th. Pumpkins on the porch at the end of September and an inflatable Santa climbing the chimney on the first of December. Regular, boring.
“Nothing about your life is regular or boring. It’s scary. But you weren’t the one who brought those men into my apartment. Dad did. It’s just tough to make sense of.”
“It is,” I agreed, settling my eyes on her, needing her to know that I wasn’t running away from this conversation.
“Why do you stay in this world, King?”
“Because it’s all I know. It isn’t what you know, and while I tried to shelter you from it, Kinnock brought it to your door anyway. That’s the problem with this part of society, honey. The darkness is always there, hovering, just waiting to overtake the light.”
“You control the darkness?”
I pulled a face. “No one can control that. They might think they do, but that’s hubris talking. Nah, I don’t try to. I maintain a firm hold on my patch and that’s it. I work hard to keep my men safe and in one piece and not in a prison cell. That’s what I can control.
“I want the best for my people, Wynter. Always have. It’s a dirty world, but we don’t wear blinders. Most folk might think what happened to you is something that’d only happen in a movie. But it’s not, is it?
“You’re real, honey. You’re from the side of society that has pumpkins on the porch and an inflatable Santa climbing your chimney at Christmas,” I quoted. “Well, your—” I couldn’t call him father. Not for the fucking life of me. “—Kinnock made shit worse.
“Our connection is why the Triads were at your place. I’m not innocent in this but I am in a position where I can make this better. That’s why I prefer to have some control rather than to live in blindness.”
“I can understand that,” she whispered, her eyes still big.
I tugged her deeper into my side, hugged her, and mumbled, “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of, honey. I’ll never let anything happen to you again.”
“You’ll have to go home at some point.”
“I will, but I’ll make arrangements.”
I was still hoping she’d come with me, but I didn’t want to pressure her.
I knew how teenagers worked. Pressure would do the opposite of what I wanted—it’d just push her away, not draw her closer. I’d made a promise to Rachel that I’d bring her back with me, but it might be one promise I wouldn’t be able to keep.
I wasn’t about to destroy the budding relationship we had with Wynter over this. She’d just have to have more guards than POTUS himself if I left her here.
“If I wanted to stay with you and Rachel, would that be okay?”
Containing my relief wasn’t easy, not when her words almost made me sag with it.
Trying to sound as normal as possible, I murmured, “It’d be more than okay. You can do whatever you want to. You have options.”
Peering up at me, she whispered, “I heard them talking. They didn’t know that I can speak Mandarin.”
I frowned. “You speak Mandarin?”
She shrugged. “Yeah.”
Yeah.
Like that wasn’t one of the most difficult of languages to learn.
“I also speak Russian,” she chimed in, pride brimming from her.
Hell, I got it. I was proud as fuck too.
“You aiming for the UN?”
“Maybe. Not like your generation has managed the situation well.”
I grinned at the burn but couldn’t deny it. “Nah, we fucked it up for real.” My smile died, though, as I asked, “What did the Triads say?”
“That Dad had given me to them.” She stared up at me, the innocence in her gaze slightly tarnished now. “How do you give a person to someone?”
I wanted to tell her that I’d kill him for that. Wanted her to know that I would make him pay for making that offer, but how did I do that? How did I tell her that both her so-called fathers were monsters?
Gritting my teeth, I settled on, “You know in my MC, there’s a lot of shit we do that’s wrong. I won’t try to hide that from you, even if I suggest you don’t go looking into things. But we leave the skin trade alone—”
“The skin trade? He wanted me to…” She sucked in a breath. “He was going to…?”
“That was his intention. Some Triad groups are into that, not all of them though. We’re lucky that Charles Xiang isn’t or the other night could have ended a lot differently.”
Wynter gulped. “How could Dad do that to me?”
Because he’s a worthless piece of shit?
I didn’t say that though.
I thought that was probably the fucking moment where I grew up for real.
Not bad-mouthing a man who deserved it to spare her feelings was about as self-sacrificing as could be.
It hurt; fuck, it did. But I managed to choke out, “Desperate men do desperate things.”
She shook her head so hard that her hair whipped from side to side. “You’d never do that.”
“No,” I concurred. “I wouldn’t.”
“Can I then? Come and stay with you and Rachel, I mean?”
“I think your—” I heaved an aggrieved sigh. “I’m gonna end up calling Rach your mom, okay? You need to forgive me for that. I don’t mean any slight against Ally, but it’s a tough habit to break.”
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
It wasn’t, but she had to know if it slipped out, I wasn’t being disrespectful to her adoptive mother.
Her adoptive dad could go for a really long walk off a very short pier for all I fucking cared.
“I was gonna say, Rach and I are together now.”
I thought about the ring I’d intended on giving her last night.
A part of me wondered if Lily had given Rachel the ring box or if she was safekeeping it for me.
It was only when I’d left JFK that I’d remembered the fucking thing, and a quick call to the hotel assured me that everything had been cleared out.
“You’re together together?”
I heard her excitement and had to smile. “We are.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because you passed out asleep the second I got you to my hotel and you’ve been quiet—” Read moody. “—ever since.” I pressed my lips to her temple. “Let’s see how the next few days go. You’ll always have a place with Rachel and me. Always.”
“You mean that?”
“I do.”
She squeezed my waist. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I’m your dad, Wynter. We might not have a regular relationship, but all the best things in life are irregular anyway.”
My kid grinned up at me. “That makes no sense.”
“And you sounded just like Rachel,” I teased which, surprise surprise, only made her grin widen.
I’d kill to keep that smile pinned on her face.
Maybe, in the coming days, that’s exactly what I’d do…
It wouldn’t be the first time I’d killed someone I was supposed to protect for my women.
Jeremy Kinnock, did he but know it, had a death sentence hanging over his head.
He’d sealed his fucking fate by offering my daughter as a bargaining chip.
Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next week, but one day, his death would be at my hand.