Chapter 26 Kingston
KINGSTON
The postcoital bliss should last longer than this. It should settle into my bones, make them feel warm and numb. Instead, I pull away from Livvie's still trembling body, my mind sharp as a knife despite the way she just shattered in my arms.
"I need to check something in my office," I murmur against her neck, her skin salty and sweet on my tongue. "Don't move."
She nods, still breathless, her forehead pressed against the cool glass. The city lights glow on her glistening skin, making her look like some kind of angel who doesn't belong in my dark world. But she does belong here. She's fucking mine.
Or is she?
I pull on my shorts and walk through the penthouse, my pulse still beating with force against my neck. But it’s not the sex that has me so wound up. Ever since I got back from Bronx’s place, something’s been gnawing at my gut. And it won’t leave me alone.
A surveillance room is tucked behind my office, accessible only through a hidden panel in the wall. Livvie doesn’t know it’s here. I key in the code and step inside. A row of monitors glows with images.
My security team runs tight coverage on most parts of the building, but there are blind spots. Places where conversations can happen without electronic ears listening.
Like Livvie’s conservatory.
I pull up the camera feeds of my penthouse, scrolling through the last few hours’ worth of images.
I stop and peer closely at the screen.
There.
Livvie, two hours ago according to the timestamp, in the conservatory with her phone to her ear. The same conservatory where she goes to think, to play, to hide, and evidently to make phone calls she doesn't want overheard.
My vision clouds over, everything stained red as the sound of her voice assaults my ears.
“Mom, I'm tired of this,” she says, her shoulders tense.
Pause.
“No, I can't do it.” And then… “I have to kill him.”
The world tilts sideways. Every sound becomes muffled, like my head’s just been shoved underwater. My hand grips the edge of the desk so hard the wood creaks.
“I’m in love with him,” Livvie whispers, pressing a hand to her forehead.
I'm in love with him.
But then her voice hardens, takes on the cold edge I've only heard when she's lying to me. “But I’ll do what needs to be done.”
She’s quiet for a second, then nods before clicking to end the call. I tear my eyes away from the screen and rake a hand through my hair, my heart clenching.
I grab my phone, close the secret entryway panel, and head back to the conservatory, stalking through the penthouse. The heavy door is open a crack, just like I left it.
I push it open.
Livvie spins around, her hair still mussed from our sexcapade, wearing nothing but my discarded T-shirt that falls to her thighs. The moonlight catches her features, making her look innocent. Vulnerable.
She looks like a goddamn lie.
"Kingston?" Her voice is soft, surprised. "I thought you were in your office."
"I was." I step into the conservatory, letting the door slam shut behind me. The sound echoes, reverberating between my ears. "Have any interesting conversations this afternoon?"
Her pretty green eyes narrow but the afterglow of sex in her cheeks fades damn quick when realization hits.
“So exactly how long have you been conspiring to kill me, Livvie?” I growl, slowly moving toward her like a predator angling to pounce on its prey.
“Has this been your father’s plan the whole time?
Get his daughter to marry me, flash her pussy at me as a distraction, and then take over the empire I helped to build? ”
I close the distance between us in three strides, and she backs up until she hits the glass wall. There's nowhere for her to run now, nowhere to hide behind her pretty lies and breathless moans.
“I heard everything. Every goddamn word. You fucking liar.” I slam a fist against the window right next to the side of her face and she shudders at the force.
"You don’t understand,” she says. “Let me explain.”
"Don’t." The word tears out of my lips like a roar, and she flinches. "Don't you dare try to explain this away. Don't insult me with more lies."
I grab her chin, forcing her to look at me. Her skin is cold, her expression etched with panic.
"How long?" My voice is deadly quiet now, more threatening than my shouting. "How long have you been planning to put a bullet in my head?"
"It's not what you think—"
"Tell me," I thunder, slamming my free hand against the glass beside her head. She cries out, completely caged in. The sound echoes off the walls. "How fucking long?"
Tears spill down her cheeks, but I'm past caring about her pain. She's been playing me from day one, and I fell for it like some lovesick teenager.
“I got the order a week ago. It was the Red Tribunal.”
Those motherfuckers. It was them, not Cormac.
All because I didn’t kill him fast enough?
"Well, you fucking failed the night of the hit, so have you been strategizing the next perfect moment to do it?” I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "Letting me fuck you while you planned my funeral?"
"Kingston, please listen to me."
"I'm done listening to you." I let go of her chin and step back, and she crumples backward against the glass. "Every bullshit word that's come out of your mouth has been a lie. Every touch, every kiss, every time you screamed my name. You were just playing your part."
"That's not true!" She pushes off the wall, reaching for me, but I dodge her touch like it's poison. "My feelings for you are real. What happens between us, it's real. If you listened to my conversation, then you know that."
"Bullshit." I'm pacing like a caged animal. "You love me so much you're going to kill me? That's some twisted fucking logic, even for an O'Callaghan."
"I never wanted this!" The words explode out of her, raw and desperate. "I swear, I didn’t have anything to do with the hit. I haven’t done anything to put you in danger. I’ve been fighting against it."
"But you're going to do it anyway." It's not a question. “I heard you say it. You’ll do your goddamn duty.”
Livvie’s body quivers and she wrings her hands together. "They'll kill my family if I don't. Everyone I've ever cared about will die because I couldn't follow through on the order."
"So you choose them over me."
"I choose survival," she yells, showing that flash of the fire I fell in love with. "The Tribunal doesn't accept failure, Kingston. They don't forgive disobedience."
Yeah, don’t I know it. But I keep their order to me quiet for now.
"And I don't forgive betrayal."
The words hang between us like a toxic cloud. She knows what they mean. In my world, betrayal has only one consequence.
"I never wanted to hurt you," she whispers. "But I don’t know how to get out of this. Every time I pulled away, I was trying to keep you from getting too close because I knew… I knew this would destroy us both."
"Congratulations. Mission accomplished."
I turn to leave, but she grabs my arm. Her touch burns hot on my skin when it shouldn’t.
"Kingston, wait. There has to be another way around this kill order. We can figure it out together, find out what the Red Tribunal wants and then… maybe…" Her voice drifts off because she knows it’s impossible.
The trust is broken.
We’re broken.
I look down at her hand on my skin, then meet her eyes. What I see there might have been love once, but it's tainted now. Poisoned by duty and family loyalty and the kind of choices that stain your soul black.
I know those choices all too well.
"You made your choice the second you accepted their order," I say under my breath. "When you decided my life was worth fuck all to you."
"That's not fair—"
"Fair?" The word comes out like a bullet. "You want to talk about fair? I gave you everything. My trust, my protection, my fucking heart. And all the while you've been planning to kill me.”
I wrench my arm free and head for the door. Behind me, a sob cracks through the air, broken sounds that might have melted me an hour ago. Now they just sound like white noise.
I pause in the doorway, not turning around. "Get the fuck out of here, Livvie. Get out of my life. And just know that if you decide to follow through on your order, you’d better pray you hit the target because if not, I‘ll do my fucking duty, too."
Her sharp intake of breath follows me out of the conservatory and through the penthouse.
The woman I married, the woman I fucked against that window while she moaned my name—she's been planning my death for a goddamn week. Every kiss was a countdown. Every night in our bed was her studying her target.
I pour myself three shots of bourbon and drain the glass in one burning swallow. The alcohol does nothing to numb the rage building in my chest.
My phone buzzes with a text from Bronx.
Blood Vault cracked. You need to see this.
Perfect timing. If there was ever evidence of the Tribunal's involvement in the hit on me, now's when I need to find it. The Tribunal obviously has its own plans in the form of a hostile takeover. They just needed to figure out which side was more hostile.
But I’m not going to waste time with Cormac O’Callaghan.
I’m going to crush the Red Tribunal and take over the fucking world.
Then I’ll hold all the cards and fuck anyone who dares call my bluff.
I text him back.
On my way.
The elevator doors slide open and I step inside, ire shooting into every cell because despite everything I now know—despite the lies and the betrayal and the death sentence hanging over my head—part of me still loves Livvie.
The part that remembers how she looked when she played violin in the moonlight. The part that enjoyed her trembling in my arms after I flooded her perfect little pussy with my cum.
And that part of me is going to get me killed if I'm not careful.