Chapter 27 Vince #2
I pictured him back on that couch. Shaved head, ink covering his skull and down his throat, scars hidden under full-leg tattoos because he’d rather turn his grafts into art than flinch every time he looked at them.
Muscles thick as mine, maybe thicker—he and Bastion took every Crow problem out on iron and asphalt the way I always had.
Run until you puke, lift until something tears, pretend pain is penance.
“Guilty he wasn’t there. Furious they were. Sick it was Charlotte. Trying not to show any of it.”
“So, Rome,” Nik muttered.
“He’ll kill those heirs if we slip,” I added. “Maybe not now. But if they come back to Villain thinking tonight was a one-off, he’ll finish what he started.”
Sometimes. The loud part had to be said. Not ignored. If Damius saw the boys could be weapons. He would use them.
“We put eyes on them, and on him. We don’t give Damius a chance to aim that anger at someone convenient.”
“Keep them out of Damius’ eyeline,” I echoed. “That was the deal.”
“It still is.”
It had been since seventeen. Empire in one hand. Kids in the other. Four boys, two girls. Six heirs with Kingston.
We raised them. All of them.
“Our brothers are our sons,” I muttered, thumb worrying the edge of Madeline’s ring.
“They are. Doesn’t matter what the registry. We took the night shifts.”
“King should be here,” I snapped my lighter closed. “Not shipped back to Harlan like a fucking ledger entry.”
“He should be. But Marcel made his choice. Jamison and Harrison backed him. Kingston plays enforcer in their syndicate trade until he’s twenty-four, then we see what’s left.”
“He still calls Villain home.”
“He says it every time he calls. That’s why we’re careful. I’m not turning his name into a bargaining chip just to make myself feel better.”
My jaw unclenched a fraction. I trusted Nik with that. If he said we wait, we wait.
Kingston was six years old when we took responsibility for him.
Our cousin, Marcel had Harlan to run with his brothers and he chose empire over raising his little brother.
So Nik and I got him.
One more boy in a house full of half-grown Crows. We’d been raised by strategy and punishment; our sibling’s and Kingston got raised by two teenagers who were learning how to run ports and pack lunches at the same time.
“You realise you’re the only one without a hidden woman now,” I shifted subjects before my chest got any tighter. “Twins have Emilia. Rome’s apparently been sneaking Charlotte into clubs. I’ve got a dynasty daughter calling me Daddy in my bed. Leaves you.”
“If there was someone, do you really think I’d tell you while you’re like this?”
“Yes. So I know where to send the extraction team.”
He almost laughed.
“No hidden princess. Just dull ambassadors and men who think they’re smarter than me.”
“They aren’t.”
“No. Not anymore.”
No ego. Just truth. Nik played better game than half the courts now. Impressive for us. Terrifying for everyone else.
“How are you actually doing with the sub thing,” Nik went back to the nerve. He always knew where to press. “Not the Atticus jealousy. Or the collar fantasies. You.”
“Feels like running two operating systems. One with docks, guns, ledgers. The other tracking when she last ate, how long she slept, who sat too close to her at dinner, if she flinched when someone touched her elbow.”
“And?”
“And the second one feels better than the first,”
“That’s not a bad thing, Vince.”
“It is if it makes the city optional.”
“Cities should be optional. People shouldn’t. You’ve just never had a person.”
“I had you,” I countered.
“You didn’t choose me. We were born into the same mess. Madeline is the first thing you’ve reached for that wasn’t assigned.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Can’t shake the fear I’ll fuck it up. If I hurt her, even by accident, I prove every horror story she’s ever heard about me, right. That’s worse than anything Damius ever did.”
“You’re not him or our father.”
“Not the point.”
“Men who plan like you do don’t become Damius overnight. You’re thinking about fallout before you even take her for a weekend. That’s how I know you’ll walk away from the edge if she tells you you’re hurting her.”
“Good intentions don’t mean shit if the knife still cuts.”
“Which is why you call me before you swing,” he said. “You put your Crow instincts through someone who isn’t in love with her. You’ve done it with Rome. With Bastion. With Kingston. This isn’t different, it’s just… closer.”
Ghost of a smile tugged at my mouth. “You volunteering to be my sponsor.”
“I’m volunteering to stop you from locking her in your penthouse. Which, by the way, do not do.”
The idea had crossed my mind.
“Noted.”
“Message me when you’re home. And if Rome moves.”
“Fair,”
I let my head fall back, cigarette burning low between my fingers. I stared at my ring for a moment longer before ending the call.
Blood brothers for thirty-one years. Foster fathers since seventeen. Nik knew me better than I knew myself. Which was exactly why I was sure he already expected me to stay local this weekend instead of taking Madeline out of the city.
Enforcer. Lord of Villain. Whatever name they wrote in the papers. In the end, the one person who could predict me was Nik.