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I keep my eyes on his, sucking down a deep inhale of smoke. “And why’s that, Keats?” There have been three times in my life where I’ve seen a similar reaction between Keaton and Cartier. I’m not fucking stupid, but I am murderous. Having her on soil now doesn’t make me uneasy because of our enemies; I’d kill them before they’d even breathe near my sister, but it’s because of this. Worrying about a brother. They both think I’m fucking stupid and that I haven’t seen how they are around each other, or the way Keaton refuses to fuck with any other girl when Cartier is around. I’ve watched her go through boyfriends and Keaton sit back and watch in the corner, like a hungry wolf waiting for his time to pounce. I wanted him to at one point, just so I could break his fucking jaw. There’s no law against being with other families in Kiznitch, obviously, but Cartier is different, and he knows it.
He runs his tongue over his bottom lip. “I’m pretty sure we share the common ground here, Ky. We both want her safe.”
“Hmmm,” I murmur, leaning my elbow against my thigh. “Oh, I know the reason why I want her safe, and that’s because she’s my sister.”
“Ky,” King interrupts and I pause, but keep my eyes locked on Keaton. “We all care about Cartier. She’s family to all of us. Singling out Keaton out of your own heightened masculinity isn’t on him, bro.”
I laugh under my breath, taking another drag of my smoke while leaning back against the chair. “Yeah. Sure.” I point to all of them. “You’re right, King. This is about to be a war, but we’ve been naive to think we had all of the facts.” I pull out the papers that Eli had showed me, tossing them onto King’s lap. “Kij and Lilith’s father weren’t the leaders of Patience. They were merely the face of the operation. They took the heat. The mastermind behind the whole thing—was her.” I point to the image on the paper with the fingers that hold my smoke.
“Impossible,” Killian says, shaking his head. “Patience has been out and around since before we were even born.”
“Yeah, but even then, our parents will tell you that they kept a fairly low profile. They never crossed their paths into our world, nor did they have a thing called a ‘Dollhouse.’ That was all created around Lilith. Around her.”
“So, the doctor has been behind it the whole time?” King says casually, reading the information about her on the paper.
Kennedy Amaia
Forty years old
Born: Kiznitch, Romania
Children: Lilith Amaia Patience
Spouse: null
“She was the doctor and ‘therapist’ for the girls in Patience, so no one thought anything of her. She knew that when this all came crumbling down, she would always be safe because Kij and Lilith’s dad have been known to be the ‘leaders’ of Patience.”
“She got away.” King gives the paper to Killian. “Where the fuck are we going to find her?”
I lean back. “Pretty sure The Kings are good at finding people…”
It doesn’t take any convincing, because aside from our differences, right now The Kings and Kiznitch have one common enemy: Patience.
It takes five minutes for Eli to call Benny Vitiosis and get him working his magic on finding where Kennedy is. Usually, this would take weeks, even months, to find someone, but Kennedy will be licking her wounds somewhere right now, waiting on her next move.
“She’d be gone by now,” Lilith says from the other side of the room later that night. It’s noticeable how far away she’s keeping from Eli and me, what with her standing so close to fucking Saskia. Perse is here tonight, too, looking a lot fucking more the Perse that we all met a year ago when she came in here. Not that I can fault her for thinking that of Lilith, since I had those same thoughts, but it still pisses me off.
Perse shuffles in her seat, her hand on her little belly. “She’s right. If what you say is true, Lilith, and those who are important would have had an escape plan, she will be long gone.” King wraps his arm around her waist as Cartier walks in carrying a platter of food. The sitting room is full, with all our parents, including King’s twin brother Kohen, who is standing quietly in the back. As usual. Kohen is a special kind of person and not someone you can explain in a paragraph. I watch him watch Lilith with careful eyes.
It takes a lot to pique the interest of Kohen Axton, so the way he’s looking at Lilith is making my trigger finger twitch.
“We found her,” Eli announces, and I slowly drag my eyes away from Kohen and to the entrance. “We need to move now because it looks like she hasn’t been staying in the same place for longer than twenty-four hours.” He places his phone down on the coffee table.
