19. Kingsley
Kingsley
Ipace around the room, taking long, thoughtful steps with my hands clasped behind me. For the fiftieth time today, I will myself to ask the same question.
“Why did you leak information about my sister?” I ask, my tone tranquil.
Before me sits Elijah, a trusted man of many years I’ve hardly paid attention to until now, with utter fear etched on his face. “I swear I didn’t. Kingsley, you have to believe me.”
I suck on my teeth. “You and Arthur were with her in Italy, and since you were so close, you had ample opportunity to plant evidence and set her up. Elijah, if anyone could have tipped off the police without suspicion, it’s you.”
“We know you’re the reason cops show up at every job we take,” Shawn adds, leaning into Elijah’s face and forcing him back.
“Check everything I own,” he says, hands raising defensively. “I’ve been loyal to this group since you were a toddler, Kingsley. If you think I did this, then do what you must, but you’ll be wrong.”
Elijah stares at me, chest up, eyes unwavering, definitely not the guilty look I was hoping for.
At this point, I’m creating suspicion for him that isn’t there, like the dozens of other men I’ve interrogated today.
Shawn and I have been wasting our time since we started, but I don’t want to accept that fact.
I have no clue who’s ratting us out, which is painfully obvious now.
News of Aralynn’s arrest has spread like wildfire throughout the org.
The police showing up to a few jobs uninvited is one thing; a house arrest is a whole different level.
Now, instead of only my family’s eyes, I’ve got the whole Crowncrest wondering what I’ll do about the snake.
My father has been the least bit helpful throughout the entire process. He keeps telling me to figure it out. It’s like he doesn’t realize this is his empire crumbling right beneath him. Teaching me a lesson is worth more than killing a traitor.
Since we’re so lost on who it could be, Shawn and I resorted to interrogating just about everyone who has the slightest bit of motivation to betray the family they swore to die for. And our luck so far has been as we expected: shitty.
I clutch my head from a sudden sharp pain, then a wave of dizziness nearly topples me. Damn this headache. It’s been killing me all morning, and the interrogating isn’t helping.
“Get the fuck out, Elijah,” I hiss.
Elijah pauses. “Do… do you still think it’s me?”
I lower my hands from my face and stare at him, my gaze intense and unwavering. Elijah’s face pales, and he’s on his feet in seconds. The door shuts behind him with a thud.
No one told me how hard it would be to catch a rat right under your nose. I could interview the entire Crown and wouldn’t accomplish shit. Shawn and I are going about this the wrong way.
A comforting hand lands on my shoulder. “I think we’re going about this wrong.”
The creep read my mind. “I know, but now that everyone knows about the mole, it’s going to be ten times harder to catch them. Even the party tomorrow is a long shot.”
Throwing a party is the bright idea I came up with to snuff out the culprit making my life hell. Tipsy folks aren’t as aware, and with a big party, they might see it as their chance to poke around or even plant something for us to find.
We’re throwing it under the guise of another business meeting between my parents and their partners. It’ll have the same boring chatter, music, and nosy reporters who sneak their way in, but we’ll be watching.
“Possibly,” Shawn drawls, and I cock a brow at him. He continues, “But I think we know where to look.”
Where to look? We’ve interrogated half the damn Crowncrest. Who else could he be—oh.
Not this again. “Stop worrying about Rip and Thomas.”
“Kingsley, think about it,” Shawn argues, his hand striking against the table. Shawn’s patience is wearing thin, and it’s evident in the strain in his voice. “Everything was fine before they showed up.”
“We had a mole before my dad hired them.”
“You don’t know that. You’re assuming.”
My teeth clamp together. Why is he so passionate about them? If I didn’t know better, I’d say Shawn wants Rip and Thomas to be the ones betraying us. He wants them to be undercover operatives sent to take us out, and every offhand comment he makes ignites a fire in my chest.
Fed up, I try to brush past him. With a firm gaze, he clasps my arm and spins me around to face him. “Why are you so against the idea of it being the insanely young, hot, convenient social media marketers?”
My arm tingles and flares with pent-up energy as I rip it free from Shawn’s grasp, itching to connect with his sharp jaw. “We’ve already ruled them out.”
“No, you did.” Shawn jabs me in the chest. “And I don’t trust your judgment. It’s almost like something is happening with you and them that no one else knows.”
My blood runs cold, but I quickly let out a sarcastic laugh, like his statement is the most absurd thing imaginable. Because it is. It is.
“You’re a deluded fuck,” I mutter, skin prickling at the back of my neck.
With a detective’s intensity, Shawn’s big eyes locked onto mine. To escape the chest-deep embarrassment, a feeling dormant for ages, I try to break eye contact, but he doesn’t back down. When does he ever?
“Kingsley,” he states.
“Shawn,” I reply.
“Don’t tell me you’re hooking up with one of them. I know you are not hooking up with your employee.”
I press my lips together to stop the lies trying to find their way out of my mouth, but my silence is all the confirmation he needs. Shawn gasps, his palms hitting the table with a sharp crack. Damn him.
“No wonder you get all pissy when I bring them up,” he practically shouts. He tugs at the ends of his hair as he paces the room, flabbergasted. “It’s Rip, right? It has to be Rip.”
“Fuck off,” I grumble.
My words don’t faze him. “But you don’t do hookups.”
I don’t, and I never have. Sylvie never started as a hookup, but a few before her did. It started as a hookup, but it turned into more because, for some weird reason, I can’t do casual.
If Rip were any other person, our relationship would have ended five hookups ago. Instead, they happen every time we have to “work” together because I can’t let Rip off the hook as much as I know I need to.
“That’s a dangerous game, King,” Shawn mutters, oddly sympathetic.
“I think I’ve dealt with worse than a hookup,” I say flatly.
With a nod, Shawn reaches into his pocket for his vape and takes a puff.
He exhales smoke as he speaks, the hazy vapor momentarily obscuring his face.
“If you’re so sure your fuck buddy isn’t selling us off to the police, how about we all hang?
Plus Thomas. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but I have to sniff them myself first.”
“If it gets you off my back about them, then sure. They can come to Lila’s art gala with us next week.”
“Fun,” Shawn says, tone dripping with sarcasm.
A loud series of bangs on the door forcefully pulls our focus. When it creaks open, Elijah’s head pokes through like a turtle. “Sorry to interrupt. Xavier called, said you need to get back home.”
Get back home? He knows what I’m doing here at the base. I’m too busy to come running every time Dad summons me. “Why?”
“Rip wants you.”
Speak of the devil.
Shawn smirks at me. “Daddy’s calling.”
As I follow Elijah out, I give Shawn the bird, but his words have more irony than he realizes.
Rip calls, I come running. I’m like a damn dog on a leash. It sounds absurd even to me, despite trying to convince myself it’s because we’re working together for Beaumont Grand. I know I’m a bald-faced liar.
The sound of Rip’s rough voice, or even picturing him, sends an uncontrollable surge through my legs, making me move.
If he’d told me to jump off a bridge, the gravelly resonance of his voice would make me consider it.
I’m supposed to be the leader, to run this whole thing, but my body does what Rip says like it’s law.
My legs walk when he tells them to, my mouth moves when he commands it, and my dick gets hard when he looks at it.
The social media manager with a sexy accent, also known as my employee, holds dangerous power over me. I don’t know how to take it away.
When I make it home, Rip is waiting on my couch, legs propped up as if he lives here. Lately, he’s been super comfortable in the house, talking to Zara, and chatting it up with my sisters. I guess that’s the type of ego you get when you become buddy-buddy with Xavier Beaumont.
He sees me, perks up, and I keep going, nodding for him to follow. He’s on my heels immediately. I lead him into my bedroom, somewhere I don’t ever take him, and close the door.
I waste no time getting to the point. “What do you want?”
Rip’s got that smug smile he always wears. “To talk to you about the next video. Tommy wants you to—”
“Bullshit,” I interrupt forcefully. He and I both know why he’s here. Every time Rip has shown up like this, he’s wanted one thing.
But he feigns innocence with a light shrug. “Why’s that bullshit?”
Trying to ease the pounding in my head, I rub my temples. “Sorry, but I’m not interested in fucking around with you after the day I’ve had.”
“You don’t want to blow off some steam?” He wiggles his brows.
I don’t even know if I can trust you.
But then again, I’ve never known. He’s always been a random employee my father hired to film content and advertisements for the business. Rip and I have never known anything true about each other, so why does it feel so different now?
Silently, he sits beside me, leaving less than an inch of room between us. My eyelids are heavy, and I could drift off to sleep this instant, courtesy of an early start questioning a significant portion of the Crowncrest.
From his pocket, he casually pulls out a granola bar, unwrapping it as he speaks. “You seem tense.”
“My sister just got arrested,” I snap.
Rip scoffs. “Trust me, I remember.”
He bites into it, and the rich aroma of toasted grains and sweet chocolate fills my nostrils. Surely, this isn’t the man Shawn is determined to blame for every single one of our issues. Could he be any more obvious? What weirdo carries around a granola bar in his pocket?
“Did she do it?” Rip asks between chews.
Of course, Aralynn did it. Money laundering has been her forte since she was first taught, and dealing drugs is like a fun game to her. With her skill, she’s better at it than Odette and me, untraceable. Until we got a mole, that is.
But obviously Rip can’t know that.
“Of course not. She’s been framed.”
Rip pauses, his jaw working slowly on the bar as if doubting my words, but then he shakes his head, dismissing the thought.
With a casual air, he nudges the granola bar my way, as if he hasn’t noticed what he’s doing.
Knowing full well his intentions and that he knows I know, I choose to act as if I haven’t noticed.
Yet eventually, I take a bite of the granola bar from Rip’s hand, and in that moment, I distinctly watch him smirk. I finish it quietly right from his grasp, and it goes down easily.
The ease between us, how natural and unforced our comfort is, should unsettle me. Eating directly from his hand, I mean, if that’s not the ultimate sign of comfort, I don’t know what is. But it doesn’t unsettle me.
Rip eyes don’t watch me the way everyone else does.
The Crowncrest is keeping tabs on me to see if I measure up to my dad; the public is watching to see who’ll be the next Mrs. Beaumont, and my family’s waiting for me to reshape into the man I once was.
Everyone is always looking, and it’s exhausting.
But not Rip. He watches, but it doesn’t drain the life out of me.
Maybe that’s why everything is easier around him.
“I did come here to fuck around,” he admits. “I’ve been thinking about my cock down your throat for hours.”
My chest aches, but not in a physical sensation. “Come back tomorrow.”
“Does that bother you?”
I want to glare at him, all offended, but I stay put. “Why would it? That’s all this is, isn’t it? Fucking around.”
I can’t believe he’s asking me that. So what if it does bother me? It doesn’t—but if it did, would that change anything? I mean, he won’t even kiss me.
Besides, our lives don’t go together. I don’t know who I will marry in the future, but it could never be him. Me, with the social media marketer employee? Outlandish thought.
If he’s even that.
“Yeah,” he says, but his tone wavers in a way I’ve never heard before. “Well then, I guess there’s no reason for me to be here.”
“I guess not.”
Rip rises, his blue eyes meeting mine with a look of hesitation. Initially, it reads as him hoping I’d change my mind and suck him off. Too bad for him.
But then I look at him, and I get a whole different vibe. Give him a reason not to leave.
I want to reach out and tell him to stay. The words are on the tip of my tongue, but they never make it out. He leaves.
I wish he’d come back.