Chapter 16 Kingston
Kingston
Someone was knocking on my makeshift door. It was made of barnwood and a flimsy piece of shit, to be honest. He could just push on it hard enough and come inside, but he was trying to be polite.
“Come in!” I called before returning to the duffle bag on my bed.
My brother walked in and scanned the spare space like usual. There was a twin-sized bed with a threadbare blanket, a small dresser, a rug, and a space heater. Gio decided to lean against the dresser, crossing his arms while he inspected all the things left on the bed.
“Where are you going?”
I gave him a quick glance before turning to grab my extra ammo.
“Not sure yet, maybe West.”
He turned with me while I grabbed an extra pair of boots I’d brought over from the house. “You’re leaving again?”
I wasn’t staying to watch him win over Presley, or the way the two of them would inevitably fall back in love. I was strong enough to let him have her, but I wasn’t strong enough to allow him to have her in front of me.
“Yeah. I’ll talk to Henry about taking over my place in El Peligro, don’t worry.”
Gio scoffed, “Kingston, I don’t fucking care about El Peligro. Why are you leaving?”
He wasn’t that dense, so I didn’t answer him. He would get there on his own eventually.
“This is about Presley?”
I still didn’t reply because I didn’t feel like he really needed an answer.
“Tell her you finished the house, Gio. That will be the way to win her over.”
“I’m not taking credit for that house. You worked your ass off to finish it, you tell her,” Gio argued.
I zipped up my last bag and set it toward the end of the bed.
“I’m letting her go, Gio. I thought for a second yesterday that I might be able to try, but I can’t.
She’s too hurt, and it’s me who keeps doing the hurting.
I think she might be in danger; I want you to keep an eye on things and be ready with El Peligro.
Adrian was afraid for her, but I think it goes deeper than that. I think Scotty is connected to it.”
My brother’s solemn face remained unfazed as he watched me pack. His silence began to chafe as he just stood there, but as I neared the door, he stood in front of it.
“You’re saying goodbye this time. Go over there, tell her to her face that you’re leaving, and tell her why. We’re done doing this toxic bullshit where we leave and don’t say exactly what’s on our mind,” Gio explained calmly.
I gripped the strap of my bag tightly. “I told her I loved her, Gio. Laid it all out there for her, and she—”
“Chose us!” he interjected loudly.
I shook my head, stepping back. “No, she chose him.”
“She chose him after we pushed her away. You’re not remembering correctly because you’re hurt. I get it, but you told her on the boat, and after that, she came to us. She wanted us, even after our time together on the fourth floor…she wanted us, but you wanted to punish her.”
That’s not how it went. I’d told her I loved her before I realized she had an entire year to get in touch with us.
A whole year, during which time my own brother nearly took his own life because of how hurt he was over her silence.
We stayed away to protect her, but we had never shut her out.
We communicated every day with her, but she refused us.
I had every right to be angry.
I had every right to feel hurt. Presley could have taken the news and realized that we just needed time to fix all of it, everything broken between us, but instead, she chose to marry someone else.
“I’m not moving until you agree that you’ll go tell her.”
“It’s like six in the morning,” I argued, clenching my jaw. This was bullshit.
Gio scoffed with a slight roll of his eye. “You know she’s up.”
I did. Presley was always up the second the sun lit up the sky.
“Fuck. Fine.” I sighed, pushing past my brother. “Carry my shit to the front then.”
I saw Gio grab my bags from the bed while I exited the barn and headed toward the manor.
Fog clung to the trees stretching along the back property line that bordered the manor, and farm, and a cold chill clung to the air as I walked in just a T-shirt and black cargo pants, and black boots.
I’d yet to even lace them up before Gio came barging into my room, and I had planned on slipping into a hoodie before I left, but it was better to just get this shit over with.
I had talked to Presley yesterday, so there wasn’t much left to say.
I’d just explain that I was moving on, starting my life, and letting her live hers.
I’d wish her the best and tell her to go see what Gio had done for her on the farm.
I slipped in through the back terrace door, knowing the code to enter the house. I was rehearsing what I was going to say as my heart began to hammer against my chest, but I worked to shove the feeling down. I was doing the right thing.
Expecting to see Presley in her new location over where Carter typically was, I stopped short at the sight of her walking out of her family wing.
The bleak morning light came in through the glass windows and terrace doors.
Presley looked tired, her eyes were puffy, and her hair was braided back, resting against her oversized T-shirt that cut off at her upper thighs.
It was an older T -shirt…my T-shirt, to be specific.
My eyes practically burned a hole into her chest from staring so hard at the lettering. She must have noticed because she finally glanced down, and a blush worked its way into her cheeks, under the freckles across her nose.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, tugging the shirt down to cover more of her legs.
My mouth wouldn’t shape the words I wanted to say.
My tongue seemed stuck to the roof of my mouth, and my throat felt like a baseball was stuck inside it.
The knot forming in my stomach had me panicked that I was making another bad decision.
Like the one where I agreed to make things seem meaningless when they started, and Presley was just sixteen.
Or when we decided to remain gone, gathering the support and strength of El Peligro.
Then, taking her virginity and leaving moments after… and here I was still punishing her.
Yesterday, she seemed angry at the idea that I was still angry with her, and maybe if—
“Kingston?” Presley took a step in my direction when there was a playful knock that sounded at the front door, which was just a few feet from where Presley stood. Her head swung over right as her phone made a chiming sound.
She glanced down at her cell and then smiled. “It’s Adrian. He’s here!”
She might as well have shot an arrow at my chest. I took a half step back; unsure I wanted to explain that I was leaving now.
They were about to have a reunion of some kind, and I didn’t want to be a part of that.
Fuck, I didn’t want to see her kissing him.
I turned around, about to leave, as Presley swung the door open, and then she released an earth-shattering scream that seemed to rearrange something inside my chest.
I dropped my bag and ran toward the door. Clearing the frame, I found her on her knees on the front porch, hovering over a black bag. Glancing around, I checked for anyone who might be lingering on the property, but all I found were missing guards and an open front gate.
Presley was sobbing as she began moving her hands around whatever was underneath her. I finally looked down and felt my heart sink for an entirely different reason.
Adrian was in a body bag, on our front steps, with a note stapled to his forehead. I slowly got to my knees, next to the girl who once brought me glass jars full of sunlit dirt, and wrapped my hand around hers as she sobbed over her fiancé’s chest.
“I can’t read it, King. You have to read the note.” She hiccupped.
Very carefully, I tugged the note from its place against Adrian’s forehead and winced when I realized there was a bullet hole under the paper. I began reading it to myself just in case it was something she didn’t need to hear right then.
My dearest Presley,
You win. Seems his loyalty was to you and not to this family. So here you go, you can have him. See you soon-
Markos
“What did it say?” she asked, glancing up at me. She hadn’t let go of my hand, and I decided I wouldn’t release hers either.
“It says that Adrian loved you.”
Her tear-stained eyes searched mine as if she were trying to tear apart each word and decipher a different meaning. She gave me a solemn nod before returning to Adrian’s body, smoothing back his hair and pressing a kiss to his blue lips.
She whispered against him, “I’m sorry I couldn’t love you the way you deserved.”
There was a shadow that appeared in the corner of my eye, making me glance over. Scotty stood there, wearing his tactical gear, glaring at the body as if it were a speck of shit on his shoes. Presley continued to cry while she touched Adrian’s face and tried to fix his hair.
“Presley, we need to move the body,” Scotty demanded, sauntering closer.
Anger twisted her features as she snapped her head up; her lips wobbled, but her tone was sharp. “You will not touch him.”
“And you will not sit here and cry over a corpse. Get up. You were trained better than this.” Scotty sneered in reply.
“She’s not one of your fucking dogs,” I roared back at him.
Scotty scowled at me and worked his jaw back and forth while a few of the guards began flanking him. Where the fuck were they when this body had been dropped?
“Kingston, Presley is hysterical, and I can understand her anger. However, you shouldn’t be feeling anything other than joy. Regardless, please consider helping Presley by removing her from the corpse. Even you know this is unhealthy.”
I hated Scotty with every fiber of my being, but he was right.
It was freezing outside, fog was increasing around the property, it was the end of February, and she was in just a simple T-shirt, kneeling on concrete steps while hovering over a cold, dead body.
I tried to pull my hand free of hers so I could help pick her up, but she squeezed it, so I wouldn’t budge.
“I’m staying,” she gritted out between teeth that chattered from the cold.
Her dark hair fell over her brows, and her lips were turning blue, but I was inclined to sit with her.
I felt it somewhere down in my soul that something inside of her was splintering.
I had assumed Presley was broken before, but the way she stared at me, determined with an unfamiliar fire in her eyes, I knew this was different.
This was true grief, and it was tearing through her like a storm in the ocean.
She was drowning, and regardless of our past, there wasn’t any chance I’d leave her.
There was movement behind us, where Gio stepped through the door. He draped a large blanket over Presley’s shoulders and sank to his knees next to her, grabbing her other hand.
“That’s okay, Elvis. We’ll stay with you.”
And we did. We sat there in the numbing cold, each of us holding one of her hands while she mourned the man who was supposed to become her husband. The man whom I was positive she assumed would set her free from us.