Chapter 24 Kingston
KINGSTON
The elevator ride to Bronx’s condo is long enough for my pulse to finally settle, but not nearly long enough to quiet the fucking noise in my head. Livvie’s scent still clings to my skin, equal parts perfume and poison. That mouth of hers, those lies.
And that fucking asshole Roman.
That bastard is a cockroach that refuses to be killed. He’s back again, crawling out of the shadows to infect what I thought Livvie and I were building.
But I was an idiot for defending her, for believing our marriage had the making of something real when he called and she went running. After everything. After all the warnings. After the truth I’ve given her.
I flex my fingers, my knuckles still raw from punching the wall when she stormed out of the room. I didn’t go after her. Couldn’t. Because I would’ve either dragged her back by her hair or kissed her until we burned the whole damn penthouse down. And I’m not sure which I wanted to do more.
The elevator dings, and the doors slide open. I step into the corridor, my boots silent on the black carpet. Bronx opens the door before I knock, a cigarette between his lips, eyes already scanning me like he’s assessing damage.
“You look like shit.”
“I feel worse than that.” I narrow my eyes at the cigarette. “You need to quit that shit.”
I shove past him, the scent of old leather, scotch, and gun oil heavy in the air. This apartment is like a fortress. Surveillance feeds line the walls. Technology components hum in every corner like a heartbeat. This is where all the private hacking and recon work is done.
“Fuck that. I put my life on the line every day I walk out of this place. I’m keeping every vice I have.” Bronx closes the door and flicks the lock.
“You here to brood or bleed?” he says, nodding at my busted hand.
“Both.”
He hands me a glass of scotch without me having to ask. I tip the glass and gulp it down. It’s neat. Aged. Almost sharp enough to cut the edge off Livvie’s betrayal.
“She met with Roman behind my back.”
Bronx exhales hard. “Fuck.”
My jaw tenses as I sit on the couch. “Yeah.”
He refills my glass before he drops into the chair opposite me, eyes narrowing. “You sure?”
“My men saw her leave and picked her up on the sidewalk outside his hotel.”
“And she told you nothing?”
“She lied through her teeth. Made up some bullshit, like I wouldn’t see right through it. When I pushed her harder, she confessed.”
My pulse trips over itself as the anger comes rushing back again. The fucking humiliation of having my own men find her outside the hotel of another man has my gut in knots. She’s done it for the last time, though.
Bronx runs a hand through his dark hair. “This is what I warned you about. That woman is a blade pointed at your fucking throat.”
I slam the drink back and put the glass on the table in front of me. “I know.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“I didn’t kill her, did I?”
He scoffs. “Congratulations. You want a trophy for restraint?”
I stand up and pace the length of the room, my boots dragging along the floor, each step heavier than the last. My shoulder screams beneath the sling, but I ignore it.
“There’s something off with her,” I say, scrubbing a hand down the front of my face. “It’s not just Roman. It’s like she’s… I don’t know. Breaking apart. Fighting herself. She’s holding back.”
Bronx watches me with hawk eyes, lifting a single brow. “That doesn’t mean she’s not dangerous, K. Her father’s a problem. The Tribunal wants him gone. Maybe he’s onto something. Maybe he’s convinced her to work against you and they caught wind of it.”
I heave a deep sigh. Cormac was extremely accommodating when I called him about Livvie’s whereabouts. He was responsive. But it doesn’t make sense that he’d lost tabs on his number one security guy and that eats at me. “I need to figure out who the fuck she’s loyal to.”
“Yep,” Bronx says. “Because it sure as shit isn’t you.
And I don’t know when you’re gonna wake up and realize that she was involved in that hit on you.
I don’t give a shit what she says or how good she fucked you afterward.
She’s an O’Callaghan and this sham marriage of yours doesn’t change that.
Her father wants to be king. You think he wouldn’t try to knock you off your throne? ”
“I gave her a necklace with a GPS tracker in it. She took it off before she left the penthouse,” I say, my chest tight. “The guys only found her because they tailed her to Roman’s hotel.”
That necklace… I saw the music notes in the jewelry store and thought she’d like it. It was more than just a tracking device. I wanted to get her something nice, wanted to take her out and spend time peeling back her layers since most of the time our own private war is raging.
Goddammit. My fingers twitch, and I want to punch something again. Instead, I point at the glowing monitors. “What about the Blood Vault? Have you found anything else?”
Bronx pours himself another scotch and stomps out the cigarette. He nods toward the computers. “We’ve got partial access. Our guy found a buried key string. But it’s protected with an old IRA encryption protocol. Fucking pain in the ass to crack.”
“You think we’ll get in?”
“If he keeps pushing, yeah. But we need more time.”
“Don’t have it. I need to know more about the Tribunal’s work.”
He narrows his eyes. “What exactly do you think you’ll find?”
“Proof.”
“Of what?”
“That Livvie was sent to kill me.”
The room goes still.
Bronx leans forward, voice low. “So you do think she was involved. And the hit originated with the Tribunal.”
“It makes sense. I haven’t killed Cormac. Why wouldn’t they go to her to set it up? They told me they’d kill me if I didn’t deliver.”
He nods slowly. “And now Roman’s sniffing around again. Maybe it’s bigger than you. Maybe the Tribunal is playing you both against each other to destroy both families.”
“I don’t know what those fucking assholes are planning.
Dad doesn’t know shit, either. I know there are all kinds of rules about not sharing information with nonmembers, but I just think he’s in the dark.
And now she’s sneaking off and meeting with Cormac's top enforcer. And the way she looks at me, as if she’s debating whether to fuck me or stab me, hasn’t gone unnoticed. ”
“Definitely sounds like love,” he deadpans.
I slant him a glare.
Bronx walks over and refills my glass. “You said you’d handle her. What does that mean now?”
“It means I watch. I wait. And if she’s planning to do what I think she is…” My voice trails off and I take another sip of whiskey, letting the burn sizzle the sides of my throat.
“You do what needs doing.”
I stare into the glass. The amber liquid reflects a man I barely recognize right now. I have so much blood staining my skin that I’ll never be able to scrub it clean. But none of it ever came from someone I crave more than anyone.
“She’s not just sex,” I admit, voice low. “She’s fucking under my skin.”
Bronx watches me carefully. “Then you’re already screwed. Literally. Figuratively.”
I’ve been screwed since the second I heard her say ‘I do.’
Remembering her words from earlier… she feels something. She admitted to it.
Is that her conflict? Is it me?
He walks to the wall and taps into the surveillance system. Roman’s face fills the screen. He’s walking into a bar in Midtown, talking to someone out of the camera’s view.
“That’s from twenty minutes ago,” Bronx says. “You want me to send a team to pick the prick up?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I want to deal with him myself.”
Bronx taps a pen against the desk. “You need information that he might have. You go near him right now, you’ll either start a war or put a bullet in the wrong guy.”
“Maybe he deserves both.”
“And maybe you need to pull your head out of your wife’s thighs long enough to think like the guy who’s about to take over this city.”
I clutch the empty glass in my fingers.
Bronx shakes his head. “You’re better than this.”
“No, I’m not,” I mutter. “I’m just good at hiding it.”
A long pause stretches between us before he nods toward the monitors. “Get your hacker what he needs to crack that code. When the vault opens, we’ll get our answers and bury the Tribunal and anyone else who’s working against us.”
“And if Livvie is really working against you? Are you gonna do what needs to be done?”
My gaze is hard. I nod once, slow and deadly. “If she’s working with them… against us, then I put my wife in the ground.”
Fuck, those words taste like shit on my tongue.
Because for the first time in my life…
I’m not sure I’d deal with her betrayal once I pull the trigger.