It was a picture I’d taken of her walking along Miami Beach. Her thick, shoulder-length hair blew all around her from the breeze, and she had her face turned up to the sun. Breathtaking was the only word to describe her.
“She’s probably going to shoot me. Hell, I know there’s at least a ninety-nine percent chance she’ll pull a gun on me and then tell me she’s going to finish what she had to live for the last few years.”
When it came to tempers, Jayna’s was like a volcano. She fought as hard as she loved. Maybe it was the fact she hadn’t had a voice in the home she’d grown up in, and with me she’d felt safe, or maybe it was just the woman she’d become. All I knew was that it turned me on like nothing else, even to my detriment on many occasions.
God, the number of times we’d ended up fucking like rabbits to burn off the energy of an argument before we settled down enough to have a rational conversation.
If that happened, I’d be a lucky man. But that hope was a very remote, if an unlikely possibility. I’d fucked up royally, and I’d have to make amends to my princess.
“It’s the least you’d deserve.”
“True. I won’t deny it.”
“What are you going to tell her?”
“The truth.”
“What exactly is the truth? You can’t give her any bullshit. Telling her about the contracts isn’t going to cut it. She’ll see right through it.”
Yes, there was a price on my head. There always was a price on my head, and Jayna understood the world she’d entered when she’d become my woman. Whether a business rival put a contract on me, or in this case, her father and his associates, the precautions were all the same.
Though in this instance, she was acceptable collateral damage, and no way in hell was I okay with that.
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror along a wall of the home gym. One half of my body was nothing like it had been. I was no longer the pretty boy with the baby face my brothers loved to rag on me about until I punched them.
Now I was a reconstructed puzzle of skin, pins, and bone.
A work of modern medicine.
I touched the not-quite-normal left ear reconstructed from pieces of rib, cartilage, and skin. Then, I traced along the jagged scars that ran from my temple, over my eye, my cheek, and down my jaw. The physical changes only gave a glimpse of what I’d become after the accident.
I’d lived in my head for so long.
In the chaos of the crash and the aftermath. In the pain.
God, there had been so much pain. I’d been on the verge of madness. First, just surviving and then trying to learn basic things like eating without looking like a fucking toddler. After that had come the rehab when I’d begged for my brothers just to kill me and finish the job the wreck hadn’t done. But the hardest part had been the mental toll. I’d become a shell of the man I’d been.
I’d lost my way.
When an enforcer had no strength, he had nothing. He was worthless. To his brothers and especially his wife. Locking myself up with my painkillers had been the only solution. Or so I’d convinced myself. I’d turned into a raging addict and the worst version of myself.
“I’m going to tell her that I was fucked up in the head after the accident, that I was worthless to her and everyone, that I believed it was better she thought I was dead than for her to live with what I had become, that it was my shortcoming, not hers, for the decisions I made. That I was a coward and afraid she wouldn’t be able to look at the monster I’d become.”
“It’s good to hear you sounding like the old Kir again. No bullshit. Owns his part and is willing to accept the consequences.”
“Yeah, I’m finally doing what everyone wanted me to do. I’m getting my head out of my ass.”
“She’s going to give you hell.”
“I expect nothing less.”
“When are you going to do it?”
“Tonight. Jayna is heading to her mom’s after work, according to the itinerary she gave her security. I thought I’d go over there. That way, if she freaks out, her mom can handle it.”
“Monica is going to kick your ass too.”
My mother-in-law was one of the kindest people I knew, and she’d endured hell with her ex-husband. Now that she’d created a new life, she’d found her voice and had no problem using it, just like her daughter.
“I know.”
“And what will you do if Jayna can’t accept your apology?”
“I’ll work my ass off to win her back.”
“Does this also mean you’re coming back and finally doing your job like you’re supposed to?”
“I have been doing my job, asshole.”
“Yeah, behind a desk. Like a pussy. We need you out and about. Fewer idiots to deal with if they know you’ll come to collect. You’re the boogeyman of the King brothers. They don’t call you the vicious prince for nothing.”
He knew damn well I wasn’t keeping my ass chained to a fucking desk. But since I wasn’t working on the frontlines, I was a slacker.
It had been that way since we’d run the streets of our shit neighborhood in New York City, scamming and fleecing dumb tourists who wanted an authentic Big Apple experience. By the time, Nik and I turned nine, we ran with the local crew. And even at that age, we were expected to pull our weight.
“I hear you. Let me first survive the wrath of my wife, and then we’ll deal with the issue of my coming back from the dead.”
“We already knew you were coming back. All you need to do is walk out into the sunshine, Shadowman.”
Nik made it sound so easy. And maybe it would be.
“Just like that? No explanations, nothing.”
“Just like that. We’re Kings. We make our own rules. That was Arin’s motto, or did you forget?”
“No, I didn’t forget.”
To say my adoptive father was unconventional was an understatement. From our first encounter when Nik, Rey, Sam, and I tried to steal his wallet, Arin never followed the expected path. Instead of killing us as most men in his position would have done, he’d taken four street kids in and given us a new direction, a new life, showing us a way to use our natural talents and skills to our advantage.
He wasn’t the type of father to hug or use affectionate words. And truth be told, none of us would have appreciated it. He was tough, giving us no bullshit, but always showed up when we fucked up. There was never any judgment in his eyes.
Nik was a lot like him. Solid, broke for no one, and created his own rulebook.
“It’s going to fuck with a lot of people’s heads.”
“Do you give a shit?”
“The only person that matters to me is Jayna.”
“Then go handle your business. But remember what I told you long ago about women.”
“What’s that?”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. You better be ready. Jayna is going to eat you alive.”
I closed my eyes and prayed to God she left me in one piece.
3
Jayna
“Think about it, Jayna. You know we would be good together.”
I almost groaned inside and had visions of punching Dillon for putting it out into the universe that Luke wanted more from me.