Page 297 of Romeo

“Gator.”

“What?” My cousin looked genuinely offended. “You asked for a swamp rat. Thore practically fuckin’ lives in one.”

I lowered my head because if I laughed, King would somehow hear it and add that to the list of reasons he intended to kill me.

“Where the fuck is he, Gator?”

Gator looked straight at me. “Who?”

My president inhaled slowly.

That was never a good sign.

“You know who I fucking mean. Put Romeo on the goddamn phone.”

“He ain’t here, brother. Man lives with you.”

I stared at my cousin.

Gator stared back.

Not a flicker.

Not a twitch.

Nothing.

The lying bastard could probably have convinced Jesus he’d missed the resurrection because nobody sent him an invitation.

King was not Jesus.

And he wasn’t convinced.

“You want to try that again?”

Gator scratched lazily at his beard. “Not sure what answer you’re lookin’ for, King. Romeo’s your man. Figured you’d know where your own men are.”

My eyebrows went up.

That was bold, even for him.

King went quiet enough that Gator pulled the phone away and checked the screen to make sure the call hadn’t disconnected.

Then my president spoke again. I stood there quiet as a gator sunk beneath blackwater while my president finished explaining the mess Carly had just dropped into his lap. The woman I loved, the woman I’d known from the first minute I met her was destined to be mine, was Angel’s daughter. A Silver Shadows brother’s daughter. Banshee’s niece. Fiona had family tied to my club that she didn’t even know existed.

Gator watched me across the bar without so much as blinking in my direction for King’s benefit. The bastard had already lied through his teeth about me being there, and apparently, he intended to see it through.

King wasn’t stupid enough to believe him.

“Sylvia won’t know Fiona isn’t Steele’s biological daughter,” he continued through the phone. “All she’ll see is Kaitlyn Grace Ward—Steele’s kid. If St. James gets that information, she’ll come for her.”

My gaze drifted toward the stairs before I could stop it. Fiona was up there with Devlyn, probably worrying herself sick over whatever she’d almost told me before we left Virginia, while downstairs I was finding out there was another threat circling her that neither of us had known existed.

Marcus Webb had been easy. All I’d had to do was find him. Kill him. Make sure he could never touch her again.

Sylvia St. James was the kind of problem that kept growing new heads every time somebody cut one off.

King went silent for a second, and when he spoke again, his voice had changed. He wasn’t talking to Gator anymore, even if Gator was technically the only man on the call.