AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Silence didn’t offer Keegan the same comfort that it offered me, which meant he steamrolled right the fuck on. “This thing with Willa—whatever it is that makes you look like you might actually be feeling something—dude, I can’t sit back and watch my best fucking friend take that kind of risk without saying something about it. I want normal for you, brother. I do. You deserve normal, but Willa—who’s gonna marry your fucking twin brother—she can’t be your normal.”
Normal.
A foreign concept in our world, yet I understood what Keegan was getting at. Plenty of men were able to have relationships, wives, even children. It would never be the kind of normal that the majority of the population believed in, but it was our own version of normalcy.
Is that what Keegan thought I wanted with Willa? Not possible. That wasn’t a life I could justify for myself.
“Is that all?” I drawled.
“Lucifer . . . bro . . . please . . .”
“This isn’t fucking Shakespeare. There’s nothing happening between my brother’s fiancée and me.” It tasted like a lie and sounded unconvincing.
Keegan stared at me in silence. I raised a brow, and the curtain of resignation fell over his face.
“What did you find out from Delgado?” I asked, changing the subject before I changed my mind and told Keegan the truth that with each passing day, it was beginning to feel more like a tragedy.
“Javy?” Keegan asked, clearly annoyed by my dismissiveness and simultaneously surprised by my question.
“Aye.”
“What the fuck was I supposed to talk to him about?”
I clicked my tongue. “Did Raphael ask you to pay Javier Delgado a visit to discuss his missing sister and her friend or not?”
“Ah, not.”
Through gritted teeth, I asked, “Did he ask you to increase our presence down at the docks surrounding the Albanian territory?”
Keegan threaded his fingers together behind his head, a knowing look coming across his face. “That would also be a no.”
“For fuck’s sake.”
“Lemme guess—twin bro going a little rogue already?”
I shot him a glare that reminded him that twin bro was also our boss—the same man he’d just warned me against. An often narcissistic, incompetent-as-of-late boss, but alas, our fucking boss.
Steeling myself for what would most likely be the first nail in my coffin, I asked, “Have you ever heard the name Zoto?”
Keegan shrugged. “Sure—Tariq Zoto. The new kryetar. Came over from the Balkans a few weeks ago.”
A vague recollection surfaced as I recalled the details of Keegan’s latest report. I pressed my clenched fists into the desk as I rose to my feet. “How do you feel about going on a field trip to introduce ourselves to the new Albanian underboss? I’ll even buy you dinner at Wahlburgers.”
Keegan gripped his chest with a shit-eating grin on his face. “Are you asking me on a date? Willa’s got you all—”
“Shut the fuck up, asshole.”
I stormed across the room, grabbing my coat on the way as Keegan’s snickers echoed in my wake. But just before I reached for the door handle, a paralyzing thought stopped me—where was Willa?
Slowly, I turned back around.
Keegan didn’t even try to temper his smug look. Fucker.
He jerked his chin. “Through the front if you’ve got nothing to hide, but I’d suggest we go out the back.”
I threw open the office door and there stood Willa with her hand raised in the air on the precipice of knocking.
She blinked in surprise. “Oh—hey, Satan.” She flashed a suspect grin. “I was hoping you had a minute to talk to me.”
