My father was gone.
Wallace Graham was gone.
Now King would be gone.
Our lives were our own again.
In the end, Em did go. She and Lainey hugged, then Em left with about half of her guys. Us? We stayed. King kept shooting looks at us when pain didn’t crush his expression.
Liam and Ezra watched King a lot like I did. We didn’t want to miss a thing. For years, he’d jerked us around. Pulled my strings. Pulled theirs. Made us dance for his amusement.
No, I wanted to soak in this moment. Doc seemed to be of a similar mindset. Milo was harder to read. He sat on the arm of Lainey’s chair, one hand braced behind her and his expression impassive.
Bodhi was positioned halfway between Lainey and King. He was also working on his phone, but it would be a mistake to think he wasn’t paying attention.
Arms folded, Ezra let out a long sigh and I cut a look at him. “What?”
“Thought this would be more interesting. But he’s almost as fucking boring dying as he was at trying to make dinner conversation.”
I couldn’t tell if he was serious, but then he slid a grin at me and I shook my head. “Don’t be a brat.”
“Can’t help it,” Ezra said. “I’m good at it.”
“That’s the fucking truth,” Liam muttered and it was my turn to smile. The simple fact was, it took a while for King to die and he suffered through a lot of it.
When he finally started to beg, I kind of wondered if she would relent. I didn’t think so. King had cost all of us and he’d hurt Milo and Emersyn. Then there was the death threat to me and the abuse he heaped on Ezra.
No, I didn’t think she would relent. Her mind was made up. Her determination was resolute. Not for the first time in her life, but maybe the first time in our adult relationship, I saw the true influence Leopold had been on her.
She was her grandfather’s protege and she reflected his values. Particularly one of his favorites—if you wanted a job done, you had to be willing to do it yourself.
The begging and pleading didn’t last long either. He was having trouble staying conscious, but the pain? That wasn’t abating. Even half out of it, he kept moaning.
A little over seven and a half hours after she poured his cognac, Julius King was dead.
Doc pronounced. Bodhi checked it.
Then we wrapped up the body.
Definitely burning him and making sure there was nothing left but ash.
And maybe some salt.
Yep, ding dong, the king was dead.
I flicked a look toward Lainey and found her watching me with that steadiness that we all needed more than she could possibly know. Or maybe she did.
Didn’t care. Loved her and wanted her in my life. Every single part of it.
“What?” A hint of curiosity populated her question and my grin only grew.
“The king is dead,” I told her. “Long live the queen.”
Chapter
Twenty-Three
LAINEY
PRAGUE
Everything came down to family.
Everything.
Arm in arm, Em and I matched paces as we approached the Charles Bridge. Em let out a happy little sigh the closer we got.
“We’re here,” she said, her excitement leaking into her voice as she squeezed my arm. We were in warm coats, hats to keep our ears warm, gloves for our hands, and fur-lined boots for our feet. “We’re really here.”
“You said you never actually saw the city when you were here previously.” The minute she’d let that slip, I put a visit to the bridge at the top of the list. We’d arrived in Prague over the past two days, traveling in smaller groupings.
Currently, following not far behind us were Bodhi and Freddie. They’d both been game when I said I wanted to take Em for coffee and to see the bridge.
“I didn’t,” she said with a sigh as we paused to cross the Vitava river. “Doing anything touristy was not an option. Not really. Limited schedule, high engagement. I spent most of my not practicing time, sleeping.”
“Well, luckily for you, we have time on this trip.” The urgency in my blood burned. We had a handful of leads. Leads that the guys were in the process of running down now. Emersyn had to head to the theater today to meet the cast that would be working in and around her show.
