I don’t have the benefit or grace of trusting you. As you reminded me, it can literally get me killed.
My jaw clenches as Ember’s words from earlier in the day slip through my mind, a stealthy, unwelcome intruder. For hours, that accusation has been attached to me like a parasite, burrowing its way deeper and deeper inside me. It shouldn’t bother me. I’m not requiring her fucking trust. I just want her surrender and obedience.
Fucking liar.
Yeah, I am. I’m the filthiest of liars, because I want all of her—crave all of her. Her allegiance, her body, her thoughts, her fucking breath. I’m jealous of anything she attempts to keep from me.
Including her trust.
Shaking my head, I focus on the task at hand. Which is traversing this long-ass driveway to get to a man who finds himself unlucky enough to be my prey for the evening.
“We’re at the door,” I inform Eli, Makeda, and the others through my headset. Corey, Murk, and Crystal gather with me.
“At the kitchen patio door,” Eli says.
“I’m here at the first-floor balcony door,” Makeda adds.
“Let’s get it. Meet outside his study.”
I don’t need to give them further instructions or directions. I’ve been here so many times, it’s like a second home to me. And I made sure to send the layout to the team so it would be emblazoned on their minds. We don’t have any room for mistakes tonight.
Corey hunkers down in front of the door, removing a small kit from his hoodie pocket. In an impressive number of seconds, the lock softlysnicksand he twists the knob, pushing the door open.
I step first into the large, shadowed foyer with its high ceiling and ornate chandelier, pausing, listening. Behind me, Crystal, Murk, and Corey fan out, forming a circle around me before theystop, too. I don’t hear anything. Not even our own people breaking into the house. Giving them a nod, I carefully close the door and lead the way down the corridor toward the study. Within seconds, Eli, Makeda, and their teams gather on either side of the shut study door.
As if on cue, we all pull our weapons and hold them at our sides. Before I can reach for the knob, Makeda slips in front of me and slowly edges it open. Three members of her team swiftly fall in behind her, forming a shield between me and the shadowed interior of the room.
Irritation flashes through me. I’m not accustomed to standing back and letting others charge into a situation before me. Not used to letting people sacrificing their welfare and safety for me. It’s the other way around. That’s how I move. But even as that gnawing need to stride into the room and do just that grinds at me, I sublimate it. I could move like thatbefore. Before I became head of the Cross organization. Before I became directly responsible for hundreds of people. Before my actions weren’t only me but the livelihoods and stability of an entire company and their families.
So yeah, I have to move different.
I still hate the shit.
“Clear, except for our mark,” Makeda announces several moments later from inside the study.
My stride is casual as I enter the room, hands tucked into the front pockets of my black cargo pants, but nothing about the rage I’ve kept carefully banked iscasual. Peeping Xavier, perched behind his large, gleaming desk, an arrogant smirk curving his mouth, has the valve on that fury slowly turning, the vise loosening. My fingers curl into fists, and it requires every scrap of control I possess not to leap across that mu’fucking desk and rip his fucking head off his shoulders with my bare hands. I want his blood. Literally. Nobody betrays me and lives to tell it.
Xavier won’t be the exception.
I could’ve killed him at the meeting earlier. I could’ve takenhis and Deacon’s life at any time between last night and right now. But I want—no, need—answers first. And then I want them to suffer.
“I knew you would be showing up sooner or later, Prince.” Xavier’s smirk deepens, and his large frame settles back in his chair as he temples his fingers underneath his chin. “Once I heard Demarcus and Carter were dead, I figured it wouldn’t be long before you came for me. Have to say, I thought it would be sooner rather than later.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Xavier.” I stroll across the room that’s as familiar to me as my face and approach his desk. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Leather furniture. A mammoth fireplace. Makeda and her team form a phalanx around me, and I don’t need to glance over my shoulder to know Eli and his hittas have moved in behind me. I sink down into the armchair across from him and cross my ankle over my knee. Spreading my arms wide and settling them on the arms of the chair, I meet Xavier’s flinty, dark gaze that does a shitty job of concealing his hatred. “I’m here now though. I hope my presence makes up for my tardiness.”
He snorts, the haughtiness finally falling from his face, replaced by condescension.
“You always were an arrogant li’l shit, Prince. From day one, walked up in here like you came from Marcus’s nut sack. Like this family owed you something. That arrogance was and is misplaced. You haven’t earned your stripes, put in enough work. You got bosses, even leaders been here longer, put in more time, more work for Cross, been loyal while your mother was still swallowing your father’s kids.”
“Soldiers like who? Like you?”
As if he remembers himself, Xavier pulls in a calming breath and lowers his arms and rests them on top of the desk. That taunting smirk returns to his face, but it’s a facade, a defense mechanism. And shame on him for letting me glimpse it.
I smile.
“Go ’head and admit it, Xavier. Get that shit off yo’ chest. What’s that saying? Better to let it out and be ashamed…” I snap my finger, looking over at Makeda with a frown.
“Better to let it out and be ashamed than hold it in and bust a vein,” she finishes for me with a roll of her eyes.
