Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
LUKA
Edie is in a fucking cage with a gun in her face. My worst nightmare.
Her eyes rivet to mine. I love this woman. I fucking love her. And this guy’s dead.
Her sister stands back, arms crossed. There’s no question it’s Mary. Has she been down here all this time?
My rage burns so high it’s a miracle the entire place hasn’t burst into flames. Somehow, I keep my focus. Chalk it up to long years of experience.
“This is between you and me,” I say.
Bender smirks. “Drop the piece and slide it to the middle of the floor with your foot. Slow.”
I set down my gun and slide it across the floor. “This doesn’t end well for you, Bender.”
“The name’s Zamir. Zamir Zogaj.” He nods at me. “Now, the one in the back. I know you carry there.”
I pull my Glock from my belt and slide that one across, too. “You’ll let them go, now.”
He chuckles .
I knew he wouldn’t let them go, but it’s best that he thinks he’s in control.
I wait for him to ponder his options. I can practically see the gears moving. He’s realizing that he’s got one shot—at me—and he’ll have to take his gun off Edie to make that shot.
It’ll be just enough of a pause to allow me to dive for his legs, a move I’ve trained many times and done only once—a lightning-fast takedown that has the added benefit of dropping me out of the range he’s likely to shoot in.
The odds of not getting hit are fifty-fifty, but that’s the risk. I risk taking a bullet going in, but then I’ve got him. A man can’t shoot you when you’re on top of him, destroying his face.
I just have to get him to take the gun off Edie.
More than that, I have to touch her. I feel like I could tear apart the metal bars with my bare strength—that’s how intensely I need to get to her.
She’s being unbelievably brave, standing there calmly, hating on Bender.
“I’ll admit, this was unexpected,” Bender says.
“You two okay?”
“Fine,” Edie says. A lie. She’s in pain—it’s all over her face. “This is my sister, Mary. Mary, this is Luka.”
The woman sitting on the floor on the far side of the cage raises a hand in greeting.
“You do know the DNA test is happening right now, right?” Bender says to me. “There’s no stopping it. That train has left the station.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” As if I’d choose anything over Edie.
He smirks. “One of your own men supplied me a hair sample. All your guys know it’s happening now. They know there’s a question about your blood, and they’re all waiting for the result. And what do we think it’ll show?”
One of my own guys gave up my hair ?
If I weren’t so focused on that gun barrel shoved into Edie’s cheek, I might give a shit.
“How ‘bout you ease off on her,” I say.
“That’s how much you suck as a leader,” Bender continues.
“That’s how eager your men are to be rid of you.
Once they got wind that you might not be a true Zogaj, they couldn’t wait to provide a hair sample.
And it’s at two independent labs, so there will be no question.
I have it from good authority that the result will be a resounding F. F for fraud.”
It’s right about here that I notice Mary slowly moving to the side of the cage behind Bender. Inch by inch.
I nearly have a heart attack thinking she’s going to try and attack Bender from the inside of the cage—a sure recipe for getting Edie shot.
But then I notice that she’s got some lumpy-looking Vaudeville hook in her hand.
She slides it out the bottom of the bars—across the floor—and toward my gun, just beyond Bender’s periphery.
Fuck. She’s going for the gun.
“So, one of my guys brought you my hair? I have a hard time believing that.” I move casually to the side, drawing his attention away from Mary.
“Believe it,” Bender says. “I hear even my brother, Alteo, knew you were a fraud. I’m not surprised. I knew Alteo. We were working together. Did you know that? We made an excellent team, the two Zogajes.”
“Did my guy give you a name? The one who gave you the hair sample?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know. But I promised I wouldn’t reveal his name, and I keep my promises.”
Edie snorts.
“Shut up!” He yanks her hair.
I’ve never wanted to kill a man so badly.
Meanwhile, Mary’s hooked the gun and is dragging it slowly toward the cage. Does she know how to use it ?
I distract him with more bullshit about Alteo. Mary has the gun in her hand now.
If Edie notices what’s going on, she’s not showing it. She’s tough as nails.
I fucking love her, and I can’t believe I bulldozed her with that text bullshit. I should have trusted her to handle this guy. Maybe she would’ve wanted to stay at my place and do her homework. She’d be safe right now.
I can tell by the way Mary’s holding the gun that she’s used one before; she seems to be checking for the safety, which she’ll find off.
She gives me a look.
Will she take a shot if Bender takes the gun off Edie? It’s the obvious move.
I have to get the gun off Edie.
“Do you have the Zogaj birthmark?” I ask Bender suddenly.
“What Zogaj birthmark?” he asks.
“It’s usually on the belly.”
“Is this where you try to trick me into looking for a birthmark and jump me?”
“I’ll show you mine.” In one quick motion, I pull up my shirt. It’s enough to trigger his cop training, and he takes his gun off Edie.
Mary takes her shot, getting him in the knee. He collapses from the impact, his gun arm pointing skyward. Another shot sounds out. His gun.
I launch into his legs.
He falls.
I whip him around and get on top of him. My fist crashes down into his face with the fury of a thousand hells. “Here’s your prophecy.” Blood spatters everywhere. Over and over I hit him. There’s the sick crunch of cartilage—his nose. I drive my knuckles straight into his windpipe, crushing it .
I let him choke on his own blood while I take the keys from his pocket and open the door.
“Edie!” I go to her, grab her shoulders, pull her to me. “Fuck, what did he do?”
“I’m okay.”
“Get the cuffs off,” Mary says.
I turn Edie around and kneel behind her, unlocking the handcuffs. Her right hand is swollen.
She gasps the moment she’s free, rubbing her wrist.
I put the cuffs and the keys in my jacket pocket and cradle her face in my palms. “Edie.” I brush my thumbs over her cheekbones, gliding my fingers over her neck and over her shoulders.
She gazes up at me as Bender gurgles out his last breath. “You came.”
“Of course.” I kiss her lips. I kiss her nose. I kiss her cheekbone. “Let me see.”
She holds out her hand.
I trail my fingers over the back of her hand, her fingers. “Make a fist, baby.”
She slowly makes a fist.
“Good. Now straighten.”
She straightens her fingers. “Ow.”
“No, that’s good. Keep it moving,” I say.
She repeats the motion. She rotates her wrist and moves it every which way while I run my hands over every inch of her—head, shoulders, hips, legs and back up, ferally fixated on consuming her with all my senses—touching her, breathing her in, knowing she’s there.
“You came,” she whispers again, tears glistening in her eyes.
Mary comes up and sets her hand on Edie’s shoulder. “Frittata. Hey.”
Mary has the same sparkle in her eyes—that Edie sparkle.
“Nice job,” I say to her .
“I was aiming for his head,” she says. “But I’m good with how it worked out.”
Edie pulls away from me and looks me in the eye. “How did you find us?”
“What kind of badass criminal can’t find his girl?”
She blinks. “But... what about the DNA test? Did you somehow get into the lab and switch it already?”
“What the fuck do I care about a DNA test?”
“You’ll care when the results might make your own guys kill you!”
“Let ‘em try.”
“You let the tests go through?”
“First things first. We’re in a basement with a dead cop. Come on.”
“What should we do?”
“You nurse that hand,” I growl. “We got this, Mary, right?”
“On it,” she says.
Mary and I get shit from the kitchen and wipe the place down. I find his home surveillance setup, because of course he has that, and destroy it.
We fill a trash bag with everything that might tie us here, scolding Edie to leave it all to us, but of course, she tries to do random little things.
I flip on the gas in the basement, and once the sisters are safely in the car down the block, I throw a hastily improvised Molotov cocktail through the window and get the fuck away. A blaze lights up the sky.
We drop Mary off at Edie’s place. Edie’s roommate, Odetta, is going to take Mary out to eat and buy her clothes.
I leave behind a stack of bills with strict orders to spend it all or else .
Edie’s wrist is looking and feeling a lot better, but I need to be sure, so I get her into a clinic to be seen right away. The doc gives us a heat therapy wrap and a positive prognosis.
Back at my condo, I reheat the wrap in the microwave and wrap it again—soft and loose.
“You can stop fussing now,” she says.
“Not likely,” I growl.
“I was so worried. He said he had sharpshooters around the lab, just waiting for you to show up!”
“I would’ve done the same.” I tuck in the edge of the thing just so.
“And there were more shooters inside, in case the outside guys weren’t successful. The whole thing was a trap!”
I fasten the clip. “How is this? Too tight? Impinged?”
“Not in any way impinged,” she says.
“Your sister is awesome.”
“Right? She’s probably got Odetta running around outside and visiting every ice cream shop in a ten-mile radius. But seriously—how did you find me?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
She narrows her eyes scornfully with that scorn that gets me so hard. I’m gonna miss that.
“I’ve got a few tracking devices on you.”
“What?”
“You got complaints?”
“Now that Bender’s dead? Yes, I’ve got complaints. I want them off.”
I kiss her.
“Seriously, you can’t do that. Tell me where.”
After some playful arguing and a dead-serious make-out session, I give it up. “Your shoe, your belt, and your bra strap.”
“Three? So, I’m like a walking transmitter here.”
A text pings. It’s Orton.
We need to meet ASAP Trevor St
So this is it, then. The results are back. I know what they’ll be. Like I told Orton, deep down, I know I’m not my father’s true son.
And somebody’s gonna kill me.
But I made my choice, and I’d do it again.
I text him back.
One hour.
“What’s up?” Edie asks.
I pocket my phone and head to my living room safe. I open it up and pull out the money. “We need to find something for you to carry this in.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m giving you money.” I throw the stacks of bills on the couch.
“What the hell? Why?”
“In case something goes wrong.”
“What do you mean, ‘In case something goes wrong’?”
“Exactly what I said.” I pull a backpack from the closet and stuff it full. “Unmarked and un-sequenced. Even so, don’t spend it all in one place, if you get my meaning. There’s also an offshore account in your name at the First Royal Seashield Holdings in Monaco. I’ll text it to you.”
She looks at me in alarm. “They’re going to come after you for impersonating royal blood, aren’t they?”
“I got this.”
“What does ‘I got this’ mean?”
“It means I got this.” I go to her and kiss her. I can’t get enough of her.
“Fuck off,” she whispers into the kiss. “Tell me what it means.”
I carry her to the bedroom and set her on the bed. “Let me help you off with these.” I start unbuckling her belt.
“Are you trying to distract me?”
I kiss her belly. I kiss her mound under the denim. She hisses out a breath, shoving her fingers into my hair. “What was the text?”
I’ve got her belt undone, and I’m undoing her zipper. She helps me, wriggling out of her pants.
I take down her panties. “God, you’re so wet for me.”
“Talk, Luka. You need to tell me things.”
“It was Orton. He wants to meet later on.”
“Did the results come through?”
I kiss the inside of her thigh. Up, up, and up toward her core. Goosebumps flare across her skin. “Presumably. It’s probably why he wants to meet.”
I kiss higher. Higher.
“So... the results. Did he say what they were?”
I press apart her legs. “I think we know what the results are.”
“What the fuck?” She snaps her legs back together and sits up. “You can’t go meet him! You said yourself he’d kill you if you weren’t of true blood, and everybody who knows anything thinks you’re not. Including you.”
“This is my world, Edie. Trust me.”
“You just gave me all your money! Not a good sign!”
“My world, my code,” I growl, pushing her back down on the bed.
She rolls away. “To walk into a meeting where a guy probably wants to kill you? That’s what I call a shitty code!”
She’s wrong. A guy doesn’t want to kill me. It’ll be guys —plural.
This is the choice I made. I protect what’s mine.
“Let’s run away!” she begs. “We can go live in Rio or something like that. ”
“Run away from my own clan? A man has to be able to look himself in the mirror.”
Her eyes widen. “Not if he’s dead! A man can’t look in the mirror when he’s dead! A man can’t look at anything when he’s dead except the worms eating his brain.”
“Come here.”
“No, not if you’re just going to walk to a meeting where they want to kill you!”
“You need to trust me.”
She mumbles something about having to pee and stomps off.
I lie back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It’s only here, lying here, that I appreciate how much I really have loved being king.
But not as much as I’ve loved Edie. I love her. Every last thing about her.
Things have been very good for such a short time.
But a man protects what’s his. He protects those he loves. And a king doesn’t run from his men. He sure as hell doesn’t drag the woman he loves along with him. Or worse—run and leave her behind. Exposed.
A low rumble sounds from the kitchen, followed by the pock pock pock of the refrigerator ice maker.
What is she up to? Getting ice? Does she have some sexy plan with ice?
Edie comes back, naked as the day she was born; her hands are behind her back, and her eyes have the look of pure devil.