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One
FIRST DRAFT Glory Kingston
The painting of a nude woman on the wall behind me hides a wall safe whose existence was never any true secret. In addition to stacks of cash, gold bars, and documents never intended to see the light of day, it holds a handful of slender jewelry boxes just like the one on the desk in front of me. Those boxes, each filled with ostentatious baubles used by my deceased husband to appease his mistresses, hold no interest for me. The box on the desktop in front of me, though? I can hardly look away.
“What is this?” I force my attention from the box, to the man standing on the other side of the desk. My husband’s enforcer. Now, by inheritance, mine?
“Open it.” Hunter has no shame. No intimidation despite the reality that his sardonic order is directed at the queen of the Kingston Family. All of St. Louis quaked when Xavier, my husband, was angry. His right hand man seems to find my tightly leashed temper amusing.
I suspect he anticipated stepping into the role as head of the family when Xavier died. Too bad for him he didn’t have the courage to do what I did. No one did. It’s why Xavier was as powerful as he was. And why I will be twice the king he ever could be.
“Ask me. Do not order me as though your proximity to Xavier gave you the right to make me kneel before you. The Kingston empire, and everything in it, now belongs to me.” Icy fear skates down my spine, but the same iron control that has held me in good stead these ten years of torment holds me steady now.
“Fine, then. Will you please open the box, Glory? Its contents are vital to this conversation.” The addition of a question mark does nothing to erase the arrogance in his tone, but as always I must choose my battles.
“We are having a conversation, Hunter? Funny, in a decade we have never done so. Now suddenly, you find it in yourself to address me as more than an object existing in Xavier’s shadow.” It is no exaggeration.
Hunter has seen me on Xavier’s arm dressed in the finest haute couture my husband selected. He has also seen me, bloody and battered, under Xavier’s fists. Never once did Hunter deign to speak directly to me. Six weeks ago, he carried my half-dead body out of the master bedroom after one of Xavier’s particularly vicious attentions and arranged for my medical treatment. Still with not a word spoken to me.
Does he anticipate his act of kindness, infinitesimal in the face of a decade of disregard for my torment endears him to me? He cannot be so thickheaded. My fingers caress the tightly bowed ribbon adoring the small box.
Hunter cannot believe a shiny bauble will bribe me into submitting to him so he can claim my husband’s kingdom. Such that it is. Even Xavier had far more leverage than tawdry jewelry when he blackmailed me into marriage.
“You have never been a mere object, Glory. You were Xavier’s greatest treasure, though he was too blind to value the possibilities having you at his side could have provided. I assure you, I will not be making the same mistake.” He speaks softly, but veiled power drips from every word. Hunter Allard is a dangerous man. A viper in a Saville Row suit.
“You will never be at my side, Hunter. Make no mistake. I have not yet even determined that I will allow you to remain in the city.Mycity.” I have the blood on my hands to claim ownership, and I will bathe in however much more of it is necessary to ensure I’ll never be a victim again.
“Never say never. Now, will you open the box? I assure you, the contents will not harm you.” His eyes never leave mine. They’re as dark as the espresso I know the chef prepares especially for him. So dark it’s impossible to read what he’s thinking.
I hadn’t even thought of the possibility that the box could hold something to injure me. I drop a hand to the holster under the desktop and finger the .22 I know Xavier kept there. I’ve killed one man this week. I can kill another.
Hunter watches my hand move to the gun, his expression never wavering. He knows damn well what’s under the desk. He’s undoubtedly been in the room countless times when Xavier made use of the small gun to quietly eliminate obstacles that visited this richly appointed home office. His eyebrow lifts expectantly.
“Typically when Xavier used that little piece, he had me standing ready with the tarp to prevent bloodstains on the carpet. Be a shame to ruin the decor for no reason, ma’am.” Despite the honorific, his words are mocking.
“You open it. Take the lid off and if I decide it’s safe, I’ll allow you to slide it to me.” I’m taking no chances. Xavier was a lowlife clothed in riches. I expect his minions to be of the same cloth.
“As you wish, my queen.” He tugs the box across the desktop, the glossy shine of freshly polished wood glinting in the warm light of a green glass banker’s lamp. He taps the pale gray velvet rectangle against the wood a few times, as though proving somehow that it doesn’t contain a weapon.
“See? No harm.” His fingers deftly untie the deep maroon ribbon and flip the lid wide.
In some ways Hunter is telling the truth. Nestled in the box, his gift isn’t a weapon to kill me. No, the lock of silky hair, the color of a raven’s feathers and just as shiny, won’t kill me. Harm though? What’s in this box gives Hunter the leverage he needs to destroy me.
And he knows it.
Two
Hunter Allard
Xavier Kingston was not a good man. I am not one, either. His second in command for more than two decades, I bore witness to his every sin and undertook to commit my own at his behest. That doesn’t mean I’m ignorant to the sociopathy that existed within him. Or that I share it.
Cruelty for the sake of cruelty is a waste of resources and energy. Time and again I tried convincing Xavier his brutality towards Glory and his daughter Snow wasn’t necessary. From the day the little girl was born, I’d hoped my employer would soften at least enough to care for her properly. Instead, the broken soul inside him seemed to delight in watching the little girl cry.
A week before Snow turned nine, her mother, Victoria, secreted a knife from the dinner table and slit her own wrists in the bathtub to escape Xavier’s cruelty. A week later, Glory moved to the expansive estate to be Snow’s nanny. The sweetly innocent girl had bonded to Snow immediately, and Xavier’s sadistic opportunity to replace Victoria with a new wife was forged in that love between the two girls.
For the first time in my life, I’m tasting the sadistic rush of power Xavier craved. I remind myself for the thousandth time since I hatched this plan that I’m different than he was. My machiavellian manipulation of Glory will make her stronger. Safer. Happy, in the long run. If she lets me.
“Where did you get this?” Glory can try to hide the quaver of fear in her voice, but I’ve heard every sound she’s made in this monstrosity of a home. I can recognize when she’s truly afraid just as easily as when she faked little screams of dread to appease the monster she was married to. My role at Xavier’s right hand put me front and center to her abuse more than once.
