The room empties, leaving only me, Thomas, and Kingsley. “We’ll resign before the end of the night.”
He keeps his eyes locked on the dusty floor, unblinking. “Your twenty-four hours are almost up. Do you really have the time to waste?”
“Can’t we enjoy the rest of the night before we break your dad’s heart?”
“My dad is the head of a deadly crime organization. You resigning will be the least of his worries.” He pushes himself off the wall, his body rigid and unyielding as he moves toward us. “But you already knew that. Just like you know everything.”
Tommy and I step back as he draws nearer, my hand automatically reaching for the hidden pistol at my waist. My mind knows Kingsley wouldn’t do anything, yet my body is on guard.
King’s gaze falls. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“We don’t know that,” Thomas states, his stance firm.
Kingsley’s shoulders loosen as he takes a step back, a peace offering. Thomas and I gradually eased our tension, our fingers inching away from our holsters and our defensive stances softening.
“Just be gone before morning.”
He turns his back on us and walks toward the door, about to vanish into the bustling crowd, impossible to find again.
I can’t let him leave. Not before I’ve explained myself.
“Kingsley,” I blurt.
When he glances back, our gazes lock, and a knot of dread tightens in my stomach. He’s got that same void of emotion, hollow look in his eyes as when we first met.
Kingsley was basically a living corpse months ago. I was the one who figured out how to awaken that dormant spark inside him. Now I’ve put him in his grave again.
This is my punishment for getting close to him in the first place. For falling so deeply.
“It was never a joke for me.” Fuck my defensive instincts. Drawing ever nearer, I close the distance to mere inches. “Things are complicated, but everything I said was real. All that I did, felt, was real. It wasn’t part of the job.”
His lips press into a thin line, like he’s biting his tongue. “We only had what we had because of your mission.”
I want to, but I can’t argue there. Without the job, I would never have pushed past Kingsley’s tall brick walls. Hell, without the job, we would never have met.
“Okay, so? I’d do it all over again if it means having you.”
But my words aren’t enough for him. “You’ve been lying to me for months. I’ve told you my deepest, darkest thoughts, and you tell the whole goddamn world. I can’t trust you, Rip.”
Kingsley shoves at my chest, and I react by grabbing his wrists and holding them tight. He tries to pull away, grunting and tugging, but my grip is too strong. Thomas shifts his weightnext to me, ready to act if necessary, though the waver in his eyes says he doesn’t want to.
“You see who we are, Kingsley!” My voice rises, careful not to get too loud and draw attention. “You know firsthand the life we live. I didn’t do this because I enjoyed it. It bloody killed me to keep lying to you.”
Kingsley breaks free from my grasp, his eyes glaring daggers my way. “It didn’t kill you enough. Had I not caught you, you would have kept going until you fucked over my entire family.”
A flush of blood rushes to my cheeks. “What did you want me to do? Go against my own family for you?”
As the words escape my lips, King’s expression falls in immediate dismay. His gaze rakes over me, his wide eyes a swirling storm of pain and disgust that sends a shiver down my spine.
“You mean what I’m actively doing for you?” he asks, tone low and cold. “I stopped Shawn from throwing you and Thomas into the cellar the moment he figured out who you really are. I haven’t told my family that I’ve been sleeping with the mole who is threatening the organization my ancestors built from the ground up. I have been jeopardizing my reputation as the heir to the Crown foryou.”
My chest goes cold when his words finish. His jaw tightened, suppressing the inner rage and bringing back his usual composed facade.
When he puts it like that, I sound like a proper selfish prick. No, I don’t just sound like one; I am one.
But I don’t know what else to be.
I care about Kingsley more than I’ve cared about anyone in a long time, but to fully put him before myself is a foreign concept.
