I step aside, inviting him in with a grin. “Of course, Dal. You know you’re welcome here.”
It wasn’t that long ago that he wasn’t. Haven held a grudge against Dallas for the sole crime of his being Jack Collins’s son and Adrian Heller’s cousin. She gave up on that over time, though she was wary when Dallas was acting as the King. Since he basically stepped down, passing the role over to Adrian, Haven doesn’t mind Dallas in any part of her sanctuary—when she’s expecting him.
Since Dallas always brings Lucy, it’s easy to keep Haven from getting riled up by distracting her with Dallas’s wife. But Lucy isn’t here, and Haven is waiting for me to go back to the horror film we were watching together.
Hey. Nothing says ‘I love you’ more than watching idiot teenagers get killed while pointing out ways we would’ve avoided the unhinged killer ourselves…
One look at Dallas, though? His expression is shut down, and there’s a hard set to his stubble-covered jaw that tells me he came here for a reason, and that I’m not gonna be a big fan of what that is.
I point down the hall. “Why don’t you head into the kitchen? I’ll let Haven know you’re here.”
Dallas’s hand lands on my upper arm. “I’d rather we have this discussion without Haven.”
Now,thathas my attention. Naturally, anything Dallas tells me, I’ll share with my wife… unless it’ll hurt her. No fucking way will I hurt Haven on purpose, and Dallas knows that. Heknowsthat which means, yeah… I’m definitely not gonna like this conversation, am I?
“Gotcha, buddy. I’m just gonna let her know we need to chat, and that she can either wait ‘til I’m done to watch the movie with her or she can go ahead without me. Then I’ll be right back. Sound okay?”
Dallas nods. “Yeah. Kitchen, you said?”
I return Dallas’s nod. He squeezes my arm, then heads to the kitchen. I wait until he disappears down that end of the hall before I rejoin Haven in the living room.
She’s quiet, as always, as I explain that Dallas is here and that he needs to talk to me. Understanding intuitively that this has to be Order biz, and that she wants nothing to do with it, she turns the television off with the remote, promises we can finish the movie later, and says she’ll be upstairs in our bedroom until he’s gone.
I’d rather follow my wife up there, but I just manage to resist the urge to chase at her heels like a puppy dog. For so long, Dallas ran interference between his old man and me,making sure Jack never tried to separate me and Haven after he discovered I had the Offering in my keeping. It couldn’t have been easy, though Dallas never complained, and until I die, I owe him for that the same way as I owe my other brothers for all they’ve done for Haven and me over the years.
I grab Haven by the hand, tug her to me, and kiss her quickly. She pats my cheek with her other hand, slips out of my hold, then leaves the room. She’s already halfway to the stairs by the time I chase her out of the living room, and with a sigh, I leave her alone so that I can go to Dallas and see what it is that he wants.
I meet Dallas in the kitchen where he’s leaning against the counter rather than taking a seat at the small table. The second I walk into the room, he holds out his hand.
“What?”
“Your pocketknife,” he says. “Give it to me.”
I’m already taking the folded-up knife out of my pocket even as I ask, “What the fuck happened to yours that you need mine?”
I gave all four of my brothers the matching pocketknife to mine as a graduation present, right before we were inducted into the Order of the Owed. Des never used his. Adrian tucked his away in that creepy memento box he doesn’t think I know about, the one where he’s kept a pair of Loni’s panties from our high school days. I know Bas used to carry his on him until he gave it to Annaliese—and that worked out well since she had to rely on it to kill an intruder to the house she shares with Bas. Dallas should still have his since I know he keeps it in his jeans pocket along with a gun in his ankle holster, but if he needs mine, I’ll let him borrow it.
But then Dallas says, “I’ve got mine where I usually keep it but that’s not the issue,” and I’m suddenly very intrigued.
I toss the knife into the air, catching it in my palm. “Then what’s the issue?”
“That I don’t want you having access to it after I tell you what I found out this afternoon.”
Intriguing. “I guess I’m not gonna like it.”
He holds out his hand again. “You guessed right. Now, knife.”
If it makes him happy… I drop the knife into his waiting palm.
“Thanks. Okay.Shit. Maybe we should sit down.”
This is getting a little ridiculous. “Dal. Seriously? I’m not gonna stab you. I mean, unless you came over to try and tell me my marriage to Haven is null and void, and that Adrian’s gone batshit crazy and decided that, as King, he can somehow take my wife from me, I promise we’ll be good. What’s up? What do you have to tell me that’s so important you left Lucy at home, drove all the way over, and are now staring at me with such a pinched face, it looks like you sucked on a lemon?”
Dallas’s scowl doesn’t help the pinched face at all. “It’s about Jack.”
Since Jack Collins’s very deserved death, Dallas rarely refers to the man as his father. He’s usually just ‘Jack’ if he talks about him at all, and he makes it a point not to if he can help it. All of us hate the former King, not only because of how he screwed over the Order and Harmony Heights in so many ways, but mostly because of the damage he did to his own son.
And that was before we learned that Jack was the mastermind in the death of his own wife—and Dallas’s mother—as well as the added gut punch that Jack trafficked Lucy to another Owed just to make sure that Dallas never was free of the torment his old man put him through.
