Chapter 20 Reign
REIGN
While I managed to not show my surprise over her answer, fuck if that wasn’t the case.
She wanted Kingston dead?
What had Kingston done to her?
While my brother could be cold and callous on a good day, he never shared our father’s inclination to hurt women. Or children, for that matter.
He wouldn’t have hurt Jamie in any way… would he?
My fists clenched from the thought. I would fucking kill him if he had hurt Jamie.
I grabbed her hand and waited for her to look at me. It didn’t go unnoticed that she had been avoiding my eyes since we got inside the apartment. “Did he do something to you? How did you even meet him?”
“I…” She shook her head, her throat moving up and down as she swallowed. “I’ve never met him.”
I frowned. “Then why do you want him dead?”
“Because of Etta.”
It took me a second to place where I had heard that name. “Your friend? The one who committed suicide a few months ago?”
She flinched as I said it. I leaned in closer to her and brought her hand up to my lips, gently kissing the back of it in apology for my bluntness. Her brows pulled together as confusion clouded her eyes. Slowly, she pulled her hand away, as if she didn’t know what to think.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “She died a few months back.”
I could hear the heartbreak in her voice. I knew this must have impacted her greatly, but she had been so good at hiding it from everyone. Even me. Perhaps I hadn’t been paying enough attention to all her wants and needs as I thought I had.
That was going to change.
“What does she have to do with Kingston?”
“She was in a relationship with him before.”
I blinked, unsure if I should laugh or not. “Kingston doesn’t do relationships, sweetheart.”
She shot me a look. “You said it yourself. You and your brother aren’t really close. How do you know what he does and doesn’t do?”
“Because I’ve never even seen him look twice at a woman.”
She tried to pull further away from me, but I stayed where I was, holding steady. She wouldn’t be able to keep her distance from me unless I allowed it.
And with all the shit that happened tonight… yeah, I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to stay far from her.
“That doesn’t mean anything. Etta told me before—she told me it was Kingston who beat her. Who stepped on her self-esteem… Who made her feel like she had no way out, and she…”
She closed her eyes.
I frowned. While it was true that I didn’t know Kingston well enough, beating up women wasn’t really something I could ever imagine him doing.
“Jamie…”
She pushed at my chest. I didn’t budge, but that seemed to only intensify her anger. “You don’t believe me?”
“It’s not that,” I said carefully. I believed she truly believed that was what had happened, but something about the story didn’t sit right with me.
“We need to be sure about this.”
“The only proof of this is between Etta and Kingston. And Etta’s dead, Reign.”
“Baby, I know that—”
“No, you don’t. You weren’t there in that hospital room after all was said and done.
You didn’t see the way she looked. How broken she was.
Etta had always been so full of life, but at that moment, that last moment I had with her…
she was just so broken. And it’s Kingston’s fault.
The worst part of it all was the way everyone was treating her death.
No one wanted to do anything about it. No one wanted to confront Kingston over that because they didn’t think her life was worth offending him.
Not my dad. And certainly not Caine. But now I find out that Caine is working with you?
Is it safe to assume he is also working with Kingston as well? ”
I didn’t say anything, but I was sure my silence was answer enough.
She struggled to get out of my hold then. I moved out of the way, afraid she might end up hurting herself.
She stood up from the couch, tears filling her eyes. I stood too, reaching for her, but she saw it coming and backed away from me.
I didn’t fucking like that.
“Jamie.”
“No. Caine is working with you guys… against my dad. Is that right? Are you telling me my brother is going to betray the Caparelli Famiglia? This is a death sentence for him.”
“Not unless we win,” I said, and that was exactly the way I planned it to be.
“Win what? What is the point of all this? It’ll just end up in bloodshed. And now…”
Her voice faltered, and it was as if everything that had happened so far—not just tonight, but everything—finally broke her.
Her tears flowed freely down her face, and they would not stop.
I didn’t know how to make them stop.
“Baby.”
“Don’t touch me,” she said harshly. “I… I need some space.”
She turned and walked toward the hallway leading to the bedroom.
I didn’t stop her, even when that was all I wanted to do. I didn’t want to give her any space, but it seemed like just one push from me could make her break apart completely.
So all I could do was stand there helplessly and watch her disappear inside the room.
I left her alone in the apartment.
I didn’t think she would be going anywhere tonight. It wasn’t like she had much of a choice, considering she still didn’t have any of her clothes or shoes with her.
But she had locked herself in my bedroom, and no matter what I said, she refused to open the door.
I could break in. I had thought about that.
How fucking tempting it had been.
Instead, I left the house and drove to the outskirts of the city to a small meat factory that was closed for the night.
There were a few cars parked out front when I pulled up and got out of my car. I didn’t speak to anyone as I walked straight to the back, where there was an empty freezer. Or at least, it had been empty earlier in the day.
That was no longer the case.
It now held seven of the Caparelli men who had joined Tito, thinking they would have a better future with him.
Stupid fuckers.
All their loyalty got them was being lined up shirtless in a meat freezer, about to become nothing more than food for the worms at the back of this property. And Tito had escaped as soon as he realized it wouldn’t do him any good to stick around.
They were all lined up in a row against the wall, shirtless and shaky, probably from both the cold and their fear.
Caine looked back at me when he heard the door open and close. His face was marred with rage.
“Where the fuck is my sister?” he said, moving toward me, his nostrils flaring like a fucking bull.
“At my apartment,” I answered calmly.
“You son of a bitch. You made a move on my sister? She’s innocent in all of this.”
I shoved him off when he got close. “I didn’t make a move on her. She approached me.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me. You think I’m stupid?”
“No, which is why you’re going to believe me when I tell you she approached me wanting to get revenge for Etta.”
That seemed to take much of his anger away. “Etta?”
I nodded. Realization dawned on his face, and he closed his eyes. “Are you fucking serious?”
I nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me something like this involved Kingston?”
“Because I don’t fucking believe it was Kingston. And even if it was, I need the fucker more than I need to help my sister seek revenge for her friend.”
His face didn’t change as he said that. How fucking cold.
But I got it.
His need for vengeance outweighed his sister’s.
“And now that she’s at your place, what the fuck are you going to do?”
I was going to keep her.
But I doubted that was the kind of answer he wanted to hear.
“I’m going to let her stay with me while we get her apartment sorted out,” I lied. She wasn’t just staying with me temporarily. Now that I had her in my place, she was going to stay there.
She was going to stay with me.
Caine shook his head. “She can stay with me.”
“No.”
“No?” he repeated, looking incredulous, as if the word was never in his vocabulary to begin with.
“Not happening,” I reiterated.
He came up close to me, our noses touching. While I was taller than him by about an inch or two, the fucker more than made up for it in bulk. We would be pretty evenly matched, but I couldn’t give two shits about that.
No one was taking Jamie from me, not even her brother.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
“You heard me. She’s staying with me.”
The door opened again, and this time Kingston walked in. He quietly assessed the situation before walking between Caine and me. “Break it up.”
“Do you fucking know what your brother is doing with my sister?”
Kingston shrugged, not appearing at all surprised, but that could be because he was good at controlling his facial expressions. But then again, I wouldn’t be shocked if the fucker already knew.
“Isn’t your sister an adult? I’m sure she can make her own choices,” he said. “Or do you feel like you get to choose for her? Are you living up to your family tradition of finding a husband for her?”
“Fuck you,” Caine spat out. “You fucking know why.”
Kingston shrugged, like he couldn’t care less.
“Then you can ask her yourself whether Reign is coercing her. Until then, we have business to take care of.” Kingston turned to the captives.
“I know these are Caparelli’s men, and you probably have your way of dealing with them, but I would like to ask them a few questions before you begin. ”
The men’s shakes grew more intense.
I stepped in front of Kingston. He stopped when he noticed me, but his expression didn’t change. I tried to imagine him as someone who would hurt a woman weaker than him, to the point where she felt she had no way out, but I…
I just couldn’t see it.
Jamie had to be wrong about him.
But what if she wasn’t?
I didn’t fucking know.
“I want a turn with them first,” I said. Kingston didn’t say anything for a moment, then he nodded and stepped to the side.
I rounded on the men, my heart pumping steadily. I could smell their fear, the scent intensifying as I got closer.
Unluckily for them, I was already feeling wired about what happened with Jamie back at my place. Plus, the fact that they were involved in her getting hurt tonight…