CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rich
I stood in the foyer, arms crossed over my chest, seething. Something had told me to check on Victoria, and when she didn't answer the door to her rooms, I'd checked the cameras and seen her sneaking out with Leighton and Joey. Taking her out of the manor without permission was something I'd expect of Leighton. Still, Joey had surprised me. He'd been challenging me on the rules lately, but he wasn't the sort to leave without a word. There was only one place that Leighton would have gone after returning from a hunt. When none of the three stooges answered my calls, I sent Craig and Az to collect them from the warehouse where L participated in underground fights.
The sound of voices was carried to me through the front door, and I narrowed my eyes. Craig strolled into the foyer first, his shoulders slumped forward as he shook his head in irritation. Az and Victoria followed close behind him, speaking to each other in heated whispers. The look on Az's face told me everything I needed to know about their conversation. Leighton took up the rear, covered in blood and grinning like a maniac.
"Welcome home." I drawled, drawing their attention to me. "Why don't you go to bed, Princess?"
Victoria's eyes locked on me. Anger flashed across her face before her lips turned up in a mischievous grin. She sauntered toward me, throwing one last glance over her shoulder at Az.
"Yes, Daddy ." She said alluringly, placing her palm flat against my chest momentarily before heading toward her room.
"Good girl." I said. The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Her response and quick compliance short-circuited my brain momentarily. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep anything else from coming out of my mouth and turned my attention to my boys when I heard the door to her room shut.
Leighton waggled his eyebrows at me but, surprisingly, remained quiet. Az's face was red with rage, and he looked ready to explode.
"Family meeting," I said before Az could speak. "Office, now."
I waited a moment, allowing them to file into the office, before I followed them inside and slammed the door behind us. I crossed the room, pushed my chair to the side, and stood behind my desk, motioning for them to sit.
"You fucking chuckleheads seem to have forgotten a few things since we've been here. We have a job to do, and you've all gotten twisted up in knots over the Princess. You're undermining the rules, at times actively breaking them. What is this, boys? Fucking amateur hour?!"
I looked at each of them individually as I spoke. Joey and Craig shifted in their seats. Leighton was very interested in his shoes, and Az crossed his arms over his chest and met my gaze. He looked less furtive than the others, but his expression had become more apologetic.
"We don't have the details and the scope of the situation. We have more questions than answers, yet for a set of pretty brown eyes, each of you seems to have drawn a fucking line in the sand and decided which sides you're already on. We're supposed to be on no one's side but ours ! Joey and Craig are competing for 'Best Friend of the Day' awards. Leighton, we're used to you thinking with your dick and not your brain, but you're pushing lines that you know don't need to be pushed."
"And you." I paused, turning my attention to Az. "You're walking around here acting like everyone is against you. You have a rough past, fine. Name one of us in here who doesn't. It's high time you start acting like a fucking adult. We're actively working on getting to the bottom of the situation and have been since you got cuffed. We haven't stopped since this started. But you're letting your emotions cloud your mind and making yourself useless. And, honestly, if I have to hear that she set you up one more fucking time, the next person you'll have to fight is me."
Az pinched his lips together as if physically holding back a retort.
"We know less now than we did when you got released. More and more shit isn't adding up and if I had to make a call based on all the pieces we gathered, I think someone is playing us all. Not just us, but the Princess too."
"How though?" Craig asked. "It's not like we have any mutual enemies."
"That we know of." Leighton shrugged. "What I overheard before getting my hands on Colin McDoyle makes me think we have an enemy we don't know about. He was on the phone with someone talking about setting us up again. It's pretty obvious the Jackals are attacking us, and from what we've found so far, they've been slowly surrounding her for months. We just don't know why, or who's moving all the pieces on the board."
"McDoyle is secure. We can let him sit for a while. A little isolation and starvation will serve to break him faster. In the meantime, we need to get our house in order. While you were all chasing after the Princess's attention tonight, I received a call from Daddy-O. We've been summoned." I said.
"Summoned?" Joey asked, arching one brow.
"Tomorrow, six p.m.. We're all expected for dinner at Daddy-O's. And if any of you think he isn't going to be looking for any cracks he can find in our team, you've got another thing coming. He's going to be looking for anything he can find to force us away from the Princess. If he finds something, that's it. And if McDoyle doesn't have anything useful, and we get pulled off this protection gig, we have nothing to help us get to the bottom of this shit."
"Ugh, dinner with that guy is gonna be rough." Leighton groaned, leaning his head back dramatically. "Have we considered he might be the problem? Who summons people to dinner anymore? Not good guys, that's for sure. That's some Godfather bullshit. Say 'ello to my little friend." He finished, dropping his voice into a poor imitation of Marlon Brando.
"That's Scarface, dumbass." Az popped off.
"Enough. We're going, so I suggest you get this shit out of your system tonight. But first, you're going to explain the blood covering you. That's more than just an illegal fight."
"Someone tried to snatch la petit démone while we were there. I dealt with it." Leighton shrugged.
"We called a clean-up crew on our way home. The body is being dealt with now." Joey offered to finish off Leighton's vague description. I pinched the bridge of my nose at the lack of foresight.
"Another attempted kidnapping, and you chose to beat him to death before you could get any information out of him? Is that what you're telling me?" I sighed as the look on Leighton's face conveyed this idea hadn't entered his mind once. "This is the shit I'm talking about, boys."
"Hey, I'm sorry, boss. It happened on instinct, I guess." Leighton said, looking guilty again.
"Don't be sorry, be better. Go sort your shit out. I want this family back in order by morning." I waved my hand in dismissal, finally sitting down as they shuffled out.
I sat back in my chair, staring at the ceiling as I came down from the irritation that started the family meeting. The Princess had almost side-swiped the entire thing with her little comment. I closed my eyes and sighed. When we argued, it had been easier to deal with her mockingly calling me 'dad.' After whatever happened between her and Az caused her to shift gears, it was causing my measure of control to feel like a rubber band that was stretched too far.
My mind replayed her 'yes, daddy' comment, twisting it into a sultry, breathy moan. I couldn't stop the images from popping into my head to match. I could see her wrapped around me, my hands in her hair, her back arching as she said that name like a prayer. I could almost taste her on my tongue. That one comment became several as a chorus of new phrases played out in my imaginings.
My hands fell to the arms of my chair, my fingers digging into them until my knuckles turned white as I tried to force the unbidden thoughts back into their box. My involuntary daydream continued to assault me with images and sounds I'd likely never get to see.
"Fuck." I growled, shoving away from the desk hard. "I'm as bad as the rest of them." I scolded myself as I stomped from the office toward my room to take a cold shower.