The light contact helped to settle my temper. There was a plan in play here. We’d dealt with most of his people and now we would deal with him.
Frankly, I didn’t want him waiting when we returned. With all of us going, I didn’t want to leave him with the freedom to regroup and entrench himself in our absence. At the same time, we needed the information he had.
“Why didn’t you tell us about our brother?” Emersyn’s question knocked King’s cool facade. His mouth snapped shut, a vein throbbed in his forehead, and the anger that flashed into his eyes held real violence.
He rose from his chair abruptly, and I wasn’t the only one stepping forward. Liam and Vaughn were in front of Emersyn and Lainey before the man could take another breath.
“You think I’m going to hurt my own child?” King actually seemed incensed.
“You have. Repeatedly,” Doc answered before anyone else could. All that rancor in King focused on him.
“Go to hell, Mickey. Considering the fact you’re practically robbing the cradle with her—or is that the point? You got to groom her from—”
The question was never completed. Doc struck King with a blazing right cross. One moment he was still. The next he hit King like a hammer. King wasn’t a small man, yet the blow staggered him.
Catching him by his shirt, Doc hauled him forward and slammed his fist into him again. Three blows in rapid succession until blood coated King’s teeth and ran freely from his nose.
When he shoved him away, King stumbled back and hit the wall. Yeah, the red marks on his face were gonna bruise. Doc shook his head as he pulled out a bandana and wiped his hands with it.
Not that he had much blood on him, but then I wouldn’t want anything of King on me either.
“Circling back to the earlier talking point,” Lainey said, popping another mint out of her case to suck on.
She even held it out toward Doc as if he might need a refresher too. An offer he declined with a faint smile.
Snapping it closed, she looked at King. “How did you decide who you would tap? And who you wouldn’t? I gather your takeover of the Royals was a far more internal matter thanks to Wallace backing you. That doesn’t explain why any of the other families would have gone along with your criminal enterprises, particularly when you weren’t cutting them in for any of the profits.”
That wasn’t a question I’d had before. Yet…
“Does it matter?” King asked.
“I like to be accurate,” Lainey told him as if it was the most simple of answers. Through the whole exchange she sat on the arm of Em’s chair like she didn’t have a care in the world. “What have you got to lose?”
King snorted. “I thought this would be some kind of execution or beating.” He pulled out a handkerchief to mop up the blood on his face.
“Plenty of time for that,” Ezra said without a trace of irony. “Answer her question.”
The blood leaking from King’s nose continued its sluggish path. Each time he opened his mouth to speak, he gave us a glimpse of his bloody teeth. It was all rather gruesome.
“The Royals have never been more than an excuse to be wealthy and stupid. To sow your wild oats and to have fun while doing it. Of course there was networking, and as with any group, someone always rises to the top. They set the tone. The rules. It was rather painfully easy for me to take over. Then, I decided who would be tapped for membership.”
He glared down at the blood on his handkerchief before returning it to his nose.
“The eldest sons were a good place to start. The past fifteen years hadn’t seen the Royals do much more than host a party now and then. Those were too soft, we needed to start younger...”
“Lucky us,” I muttered. Because a lot of things were making sense now. Why he’d played it so secretive. Why he hadn’t let anyone identify him. His end goals… “What was your endgame?”
That was the one thing that truly eluded me. King manipulated, invested, blackmailed, and killed his way to the top.
“You can exert a lot of power, or you could have—once upon a time. But you’ll never take over the Graham fortune. Or the Reeds. Or anyone else’s for that matter. Most of that is tied up in family trusts and codicils. So what did you plan to achieve? You wanted the Vandals gone to punish your son.”
“Well, none of you could manage that, so it doesn’t really matter now. Does it?” He pushed away from the wall and took a couple of swaying steps back to his chair. Sitting abruptly, he looked like someone had cut his strings. “Everyone thinks you have to be in front, leading, to be powerful. There is far more power in the shadows.”
“Unless someone cuts you off. What’s a puppet master without his dolls?” Lainey sounded almost intrigued. Rising from where she’d been seated she set her empty glass on the bar before she turned to face him again. She linked her fingers together, head tilted as she studied King. “You expected that betrayal… you’ve expected it for years. You know you have enemies. Most of which were created due to your own actions. You had no one to trust…”
It was like I could hear the moment she solved that puzzle. The silent ‘o’ that she didn’t release, and the way her head straightened.
“That’s why you wanted Milo,” Em said slowly. “You wanted to punish him, but then you really wanted him as a son?”
“It was a fool’s errand,” King said, waving it all off like the fact he could dismiss it would make it not true. “I had a son. A son I was going to raise right. No mother to mess him up or teach him to make stupid choices…”
“But she took him away,” Lainey murmured. “Using your resources and your methods. You’ve been trying to find him, haven’t you?”
“If you wanted him found,” Milo said abruptly. “You could have saved us all a lot of time and grief by just telling us about him.”
“Tell you?” King challenged him. “Your sister can barely look at me. She refuses any kind of relationship because of you. No, I wasn’t telling you. At least with…” He mopped at his face again.
The bloody nose seemed to be getting worse. Had Doc broken it when he punched him?
“No, I would not give you the access to deny me another child.”
“You’re insane,” Emersyn said abruptly. She was on her feet and right at Liam’s side. The anger practically rolled off of her. “Milo didn’t turn me against you. You did when you abandoned us. Don’t tell me that was different. I was a baby, you didn’t want me, and now you do? Why? Because I look like the woman you abandoned? No, it’s not about me at all. It’s about giving you access to change Milo’s mind. You don’t give a damn about family. It’s always about power.”
“Family can be power,” King argued and he lurched to his feet only to sit again.
He stared down at the handkerchief then at his legs. The pain on his face wasn’t manufactured.
“Family…” He panted out the word, then frowned as he looked at all of us. Blood began to trickle from the corner of his eye. “What is this?”
