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“Are you saying my sisters are going to force my hand?”
Even though Danika was my cousin in the family-tree way, I viewed her no different than Jayna. I’d fight the world for her, and without hesitation, I knew she’d do the same for me. Danika, Jayna, and I had an unbreakable bond we could have only dreamed about as kids.
“They share your blood. What do you think?”
“Taking on Shah is dangerous, especially now that Danika is pregnant. You can’t risk him targeting her.”
“First of all, if you think it’s even remotely possible to keep my wife in any form of a protective cage, you don’t know anything about her.” The humor in Nik’s tone lightened my irritation with the whole subject matter. “Second, dealing with your history is part of life. And the only way you’ll ever move past what happened to your mother is by toppling Shah’s house of cards.”
“Destroying Shah isn’t something I give two shits about. It won’t bring back my mother. Veda Kumari’s blood covers everything Shah has. Hell, it’s soaked in Kir, Rey, and your parents’ blood too.”
Nik sighed. “I hear you. Before I let it drop, answer this question.”
I waited for him to continue.
“What would it take for you to go after Shah?”
“It won’t happen. Danika and Jayna are safe.”
“So he’d have to go after someone you love?”
My mind drifted to the stories Danika and Jayna had told me about their lives growing up under Shah’s roof. About the abuse they and Monica Shah suffered almost daily until they’d finally escaped.
“As long as Shah stays in his corner away from all of us, especially those I call mine, I don’t give a shit what he does. And since he knows we have the original will and he likes his nice life, we have nothing to worry about.”
Maybe my words were a bit archaic, but Shah liked to hurt the women in my life. He’d taken my mother from me, abused Jayna and her mother to the point they would have sold their souls to the devil to escape him, and kept Danika under such a controlling hand that she had allowed herself to become a puppet to create some semblance of a life.
I’d destroy him before he added another one to his list.
“And if he crosses the line?”
I narrowed my gaze at Nik. The asshole was testing me.
“If it came to that, under all this polish and grooming of the upper crust, I still have every one of those skills Arin forced me to perfect as part of my arsenal.”
When it came to fathers, my adoptive father was anything but typical. Each brother had a set curriculum to learn. However, since I was the youngest of the brothers, Arin had the most influence on my education. From the beginning, he planned for my role in elite circles and expected me to learn weapons and skills no one could detect. I doubted many people could say they grew up with trainers for the proper weapon, fighting, and defense skills and techniques mixed in with tutors in physics and calculus.
God, I missed Arin. The man believed in me even when I fucked up, and he never gave up on me.
“Good to hear. Got worried you were going soft.”
“Asshole.” Then again, I was in the car with Arin’s replica. The man who’d kept us a unit as we ran the streets of New York as dumb kids. “Do me a favor. If I promise to keep an open mind when Dani and Jay come at me with their plan, will you drop the subject for the rest of the night?”
“I’ll drop it, but I make no promises from the ladies.”
“I guess that is as good as I’ll get.”
“Speaking of ladies. Has security given their ETA?” I checked my watch.
“Arrived ten minutes ago.” Nik poured another serving of scotch for himself and offered the bottle to me, but I shook my head. “They are waiting for us with Kir and your lovely date inside.”
My mind shifted to Jesika Rawal, someone who many believed was my current lover but was only a friend and my informant for all things high society. In exchange, I helped her funnel her inheritance into untraceable accounts.
We used each other for our own purposes, keeping our reasons for what we did to ourselves.
She was also Solon. She knew I knew, but we’d never openly spoken about it. I’d spent years with the best in the game. Now it was child’s play spotting them. Plus, Kir had let it slip that he planned to meet with his Solon contact, Jes, once, and I’d put two and two together.
“Since the Shah subject is closed, I want to ask you about something else.”
