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“No, Ren, it’s fucking not.”
“What can I do?”
I took a deep breath. He wasn’t the enemy here and yet I was giving it to him like it was. Fuck.
“Give me ten, meet me in the dining hall and get Ben.”
He nodded once and left my room, closing the door behind him. My stomach was aching still, and it was giving me even more of a bad mood because it reminded me of Paisley.
Paisley who was now in enemy territory under the roof of my brother who was using her as a pawn. I just knew she was the key to something but to what, I had no idea. I composed myself and headed to the dining hall to tell my most trusted men, aside from Cy and Rusty who could catch up later, what the hell was going on.
Ben was sitting in the seat in the middle of the table, and Ren stood by the window as he always did.
I closed the door to the dining room, which made Ben sit up straighter. I didn’t tend to do that, this room was a free for all in his mansion. A safe space for people to come and chill.
“What’s going on, boss?” Ben asked, a little tentative.
“For years, my brother Percy and I have been tracking down a sex ring that went so high we could never find the main guy to take down. Percy was always close, but could never get to the top guy. He warned me he took out a high level guy a few years ago and handed him to me. That was Jack in the dungeon. Recently I learned that he had done something to someone he shouldn’t have but that’s a different conversation. I’m now aware that my brother Zane and my unholy father are involved with this conspiracy.”
Ren’s mouth momentarily opened in shock, as did Ben’s, but Ren recovered quickly. “What’s our next step?”
“I don’t know, Ren. I know Paisley is in trouble being up there in the lion’s den but I don’t know how to get her out. My brother Percy is in trouble because he told me the truth so now I am stuck in a battle against saving them both and starting a war that will most likely see this place burn or staying down here and letting it play out up there.”
“We both know you would never sit idly by and let that happen,” Ben said, standing up. “I’m ready for war, boss.”
“As am I.”
Ren stood beside Ben and I realized I hadn’t been preparing for war. I didn’t have near enough men to battle against heavyweights like Zane and Charles.
“We need men.”
“On it,” Ren said before he moved out of the room and left me with Ben. He was a good fighter, and one of the strongest men down here in my kingdom or so they called it. It was just my home and now it was at risk. I had fought so damn hard for this place. I’d built my own city and had kept it safe for close to a decade and now I could lose it all.
I should have known better than to trust them to leave me with a legacy. I’d built this place to be exactly what I had always wanted.
A safe haven.
“I’ll fill Cy in on what’s going on. We can cut off the access when Rusty gets back.”
I nodded and sat down, my head in my hands. My head felt like it was going to explode. Just a day ago, I had it all, a woman who couldn’t keep her hands off me, and a kingdom which I loved.
Now I had a family out to get me, threatening everything I held dear and a woman on the wrong side, playing a role that would surely get her killed.
All for me.
It was wrong. It needed to be the other way around. I should be the one protecting her.
But she’d never have it that way.
That’s what made her Paisley.
It’s why I fell so hard in the first place.
Paisley
I waited patiently for Zane’s assistant to go to lunch. He’d been gone all day which wasn’t like him but it meant I had more time to snoop. There had to be something I could use to give back to Halen so I could get my ass out of Zane’s life.
Betty was always on time for lunch. She had lunch with someone every day and hated to be late. I watched as the clock ticked over to 12.30pm and she turned her monitor off and rose, grabbing her bag and heading to the elevator. She did a scan of the floor, before the doors opened. I hid behind the huge fern she had insisted on putting on the floor for a ‘pop of color’. I’d never understood plants on an office floor before but now I was thanking the gods she had insisted. It was the only place I could hide here.
