He wanted to refuse. It was Adrian who pointed out that, as King, Dallas had the power to make changes. They’re slow-going, but he already shut down the basement, put an end to the auctions that eventually cost Jack his life, and he even gave my brother a year’s reprieve when he put a hold on last year’s Claiming ceremony due to the fallout from Jack’s death.
Death. Ha. Only a handful of people know the truth about what happened. After Jack tried to auction off Adrian’s wife, Loni, Adrian hired an assassin to poison his uncle. He died, goodfucking riddance, and because no one could trace the poisoned booze back to Adrian, the self-proclaimed Kingmaker got away with toppling Jack from his throne.
He deserved what he got. After what he did to Dallas’s mom… Jack got what was coming to him, and I’m glad he’s gone. Dallas might not have wanted to be King, but he’ll be a hell of a lot better at it than his old man.
Of course, that means he’s the one I have to talk to about my wedding. I spent another hour with Annaliese, looking for any way to keep her from leaving. Somehow I found myself helping her build our guest list and planning what sort of wedding would work for us as she took meticulous notes on some spare paper that I found for her in the office I never use.
The more we planned it, the more I was determined to see this through. And since I didn’t want to spring this on my best bros when they received the invitation tomywedding, I decided to talk to the three of them in person.
So I sent a text to each of them, asking them if they were free to meet with me. I got lucky. Dallas and Adrian were working late at the Fortress, and while Connor couldn’t make it, the other two said they’d hang out in Dallas’s office until I got there.
The penthouse apartment on the top floor of the Fortress, plus the one below it, belong to the King. Dallas refused to take over the penthouse where his parents used to live before they both were murdered. He has his own place, just like Adrian and me, and he stubbornly insists on staying there.
His office, on the other hand, had belonged to Jack for more than two decades. Jack kept an enforcer at his door, and an ever-changing secretary sitting at a desk in the lobby. If you wanted to see the King, you had to get through them.
Dallas put a bullet through the skull of Jack’s last enforcer. He fired the secretary, then had Adrian hire a new one for him.
With my helmet tucked under my arm, I salute the woman seated behind the desk. She’s tapping away at her laptop, waving back as I make my way toward the door that leads to Dallas’s office. Her strawberry-blonde hair is pulled back in a high ponytail, a smattering of freckles dotting her nose.
The big rock on the ring finger of her left hand is a gift from her husband; the slender golden band tucked under it is a sign that she’s married to one of the Owed. The easy way she smiles back at me as though I didn’t help Adrian torment her for most of her childhood makes me feel like a fucking ass.
Growing up, it was me, Dallas, Adrian, Connor, and Desmond. We were tight, basically brothers, and Adrian was our ringleader. When we were kids and he teased Loni Dougherty, I went along with it because I was a fucking idiot. Later, when I realized that he was desperately in love with her, I took a back seat, figuring Adrian would get his head on straight eventually.
Love makes a man reckless. One of my oldest friends taught me that lesson, but when I see how happy he and his wife have been lately… shit. It almost makes you forget that Loni escaped Harmony Heights more than a decade ago, got dragged back by Dallas so that she could marry Desmond, then ended up being hitched to Adrian after he used his blood oath to kill the man that betrayed him.
His blood oath… I can tell myself that I’m here to fill Adrian and Dallas in on what went down at my place this afternoon, but I’m still a shit liar. Always have been. I can’t even lie to myself.
I know exactly why I’m here.
“Hey, Bas,” Loni says warmly. “Adrian’s in there with Dallas. They’re waiting for you. But don’t take long, okay? I was just finishing up when my husband said you were on the way. I’m ready to go home.”
Loni isn’t just another nepotism hire. In the Order, you see plenty of them, and though Adrian could’ve convinced Dallasto hire Loni so he could spend time with his wife at homeandat the Fortress, there’s more to it than that. Adrian is the head of finances for the Order—both legit and not. His wife does something with numbers. An auditor of some sort. Hell if I know what that means, but in between nooners with Adrian and telling Order members that Dallas is too busy to meet with them, she’s helping Adrian figure out just how far Jack’s embezzling went, plus how much he made sex trafficking women to outsiders before Dallas put a stop to that shit.
Good thing, too. Loni was almost one of them. I did my part, distracting Jack while Adrian and Dallas rescued her from the basement. I’m not sure how Adrian detailed the three of us running to save her to his wife, but in the half a year since, she’s seemed to have forgiven the rest of us for how we treated her back in school.
Except for Desmond. Fuck Des. He got what he deserved, too. Going against the bro code… trying to Claim Loni when he knew how much Adrian needed that woman? Yeah. He got three bullets to the chest courtesy of Adrian’s Tomcat while I stood guard outside of St. Catherine’s, sitting on my bike. Because I had my bro’s back, and I only hope that he’ll have mine.
I flash her a charming grin. “Don’t worry, Loni. I won’t be long.”
Pushing open the door, I let myself into Dallas’s office.
Maybe it’s because I know what happened to its last occupant, but the room smells like old leather, sour booze, and a hint of something rotten that’s stuck in the carpet. Honestly? It’s probably the essence of Jack Collins, haunting his only son for daring to sit behind his desk after he helped his cousin plan the old King’s death.
I blow the stink out through my nose. “Shit. Crack a window or something, Dal.”
“And give one of the old guard ideas?” is his wry response. “No, thanks. I don’t feel like taking a dive today.”
I wince, hiding it with a nod at Dallas, then Adrian. I should’ve known better than to make a crack like that. If there’s one thing that Dallas doesn’t like to be reminded of, it’s how his mother died.
Oh, they say that Therese Collins jumped out of the penthouse apartment of the Fortress. We know better. Her husband was the one to give her a push, and Dallas spent the last five years scheming to make Jack pay for what happened to his mom and Lucy.
Poor Lucy. If what happened to Loni was bad, what Jack did to Lucy was a hundred times worse. It was another way to show Dallas how much he owned his son, and I think he sealed his fate that day.
Dallas will eventually blow up the Order to spite his father, and I’m all fucking for it.
Adrian will help him do it, too. With his ledgers upon ledgers, he has the keys to the Order’s destruction, and if he doesn’t like the way the new guard is going, he’ll do it with a smile.
God, I love these fuckers.
