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“Yes. I need to have my car brought up to the top level.” He palms the man a large bill. “Keep it there for the next twenty-four hours.”
“I will make it so,” the man agrees, before walking away and Savage joins us. “Tips delivered. Keys handed off. Where do I get a good whiskey? I know you got the good stuff, Eric, and you owe me a bottle.”
“That I do,” Eric replies tightly, and tilts his head my direction. “I got drunk and let him beat me at pool. The final bet was a bottle of Macallan 25.”
It’s evident, they’re friends and after a life of being nothing but a bastard to his family, his life full of people who care about him. Apart of me envies him this as I do not have that circle of my own. and yet, I’m also happy he escaped the Kingston curse, though I’m not certain he believes that’s true or possible. Eric has a mental fixation on the Kingston family I’m not sure he sees any more than he does his own fortune.
It’s in these black spots that this conflict with his father and family has led to an explosive situation, one that has already turned dangerous.
A gust of wind undoes me. I shiver and hug myself. “Can we go upstairs and you can both drink while I roast by the fireplace?”
Eric slides his arm around my shoulders. “Sorry, princess. I forgot we’re more used to the bitter New York cold than you are.” He turns us to the building door and we enter the lobby of elegant white tiles and red cushioned chairs to make our way to the elevators.
Savage punches the call button.
Once we’re inside a car, Eric punches in a code, draping his arm back around my shoulders and leaning me into him, no question to anyone around us that I’m his woman. And I like it, I do, but I cannot lose focus on where he is mentally right now, and how skewed by a bitter childhood his decision-making is at present.
The floors tick by and Savage hums, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” when Halloween hasn’t even arrived, and despite him looking like the hot, but mean Obviously he doesn’t just feel the sexual tension between me and Eric, he feels the tension, the war, that is barely contained. A guy who’d never even consider singing a Christmas carol. He’s trying to calm our energy, distract us from the words spoken in the SUV.
While I actually really appreciate his efforts, I tune out Savage and his song. I’m thinking about how completely done Eric is with this family. So am I but in contrast I haven’t suffered at their hands, while he’s been a literal victim of mental torture. They played on his need for family, for belonging. I remember a point where he denied being a part of them and turned around not long after and said he was done denying that he’s a Kingston. I hope like hell he doesn’t think that gives him a free pass to act like a Kingston considering the Kingstons just tried to kill me. Is that what he means by “end” his father? Does he intend to kill him? Does he believe he’s the one who ordered the hit on me and now he wants revenge?
I turn in Eric’s arms, and search his handsome, unreadable face, trying to understand where his head is right now. He gives me nohint. I simply don’t find my answer, and I can’t demand one with Savage in the car. But I can feel the press of time with his father arriving. He’s here to see Eric and he’s going to reach out to him sooner than later. If it’s sooner, I will have no influence over Eric, and I don’t want to think about what comes next.
Avenging his mother is unfinished business.
And I truly believe that in his mind, it’s an unfinished equation that will drive him insane until it’s finished. Together, we have to find a way to finish it that doesn’t get bloody.
Chapter fifty-six
Harper
The elevator dings, and the doors open.
Savage exits first, and when I would follow, Eric catches my arm and turns me to him. “I love that you are sweet, and good, and right, even when everyone else is doing everything wrong. I’m not thinking you are one of them.”
“I know that. You know I know that.”
“Do you?”
“I think you get confused sometimes. I think—a lot of things.”
“Trust me, please, to only do what is necessary. If I was going to fly off the handle and go for blood for revenge, I would have already done it.” I can feel the doors shut at my back as he adds, “Okay?”
“I have way too much to say to that to be able to articulate it in an elevator, but I trust you. I would never have come to you if I didn’t.”
Something flickers in his eyes, something dark and stormy that I do not understand. He captures my hand. “Let’s get out of here.” He maneuvers us, and punches the button to open the door. There’s a shift in him now, as if he’s closed himself off again, and I have a bad feeling I should have stayed in that elevator and finished our talk.
Savage is standing at the apartment door at the end of a long hallway, looking exceedingly bored, and holding up a wall, his arms and feet crossed. “I’m guessing he wants that drink,” Eric murmurs.
“He does have a way of getting his point across,” I agree, but we’re speaking empty words, while other, more important conversations wait to be had.
We join Savage, and he pushes off the wall. “You have a houseful of assholes in there waiting on you.”
“Who?” I ask.
“Our men,” Savage answers, and Eric keys in a code at his door, and opens it.
“You hacking my door now, Savage?” Eric asks. “If you hacked my locks, I’ll have to kill you.”
