Page 19 of King of Sinners

Instead, I’m the guy with an empire that is surrounded in darkness. I have all the money in the world to give a woman like Charlotte and no life with which to provide.

I shake my head as I step out of the limo.

This is a dangerous line of thinking and one I need to shut down. We’ve got a meeting to discuss the next steps and unlike this morning’s little conversation with Roman and Luke, the entire family would be joining today, including Leo.

The Dukes making contact mean that decisions have to be made and Leo is part of that. Always.

And I can not afford to be soft in front of my brother, or anyone in the family for that matter. My strength and attention keeps us all together. Protects us. I can never forget what could happen if I allow myself to be distracted. That was how my father had ended up dead.

I’m their leader. The man who has taken them down this road. It is my job to see them safely to the other side no matter the consequences or my personal preferences. And that includes Charlotte.

I step into the elevator, shaking off the mood that pulled at me. I need my war face.

The doors slide open, my gaze sweeping over the room.

Everyone has assembled. My uncle Jake, who is only a few years older than me, lounges in a chair, his feet up on the table, forever the gangster. He was part of my dad’s crew before he was in mine.

I focus on the legitimate end of the business. It keeps us on the right side of the law and it keeps us earning big money. My dad wasn’t like that though, and Leo takes after him. Rough, ill-tempered.

Though Leo got way worse after my dad died. I sometimes wonder if he’ll ever go back to old Leo. Leo that was happy. More balanced.

Leo, Roman, and Luke stand to one side, Leo’s face near mutinous as his gaze slashes to mine.

I had assembled a team of five for a reason. Being an odd number meant no tie votes under any circumstances. We made decisions decisively and then put them into action.

Leo and I rarely voted on the same side of any vote, and it didn’t take much to see that we wouldn’t today.

I love my brother, but he is a loose cannon that I always have to keep from going off…

Which means I have to persuade the rest of my family today. Because I never override a vote. It would undermine the other men in a way that would only breed dissent. We were in this together.

But if I hoped to argue for Charlotte to receive our protection, I’d have to be pretty damn convincing.

Leo looked ready to take a machete to the room. And I seriously doubted I had Luke’s vote.

Roman was on my side. That left Jake as the swing…

“Tell us what you know,” I say to Roman, taking my seat in the center and leaning back in my chair. Like I’m not crawling out of my skin.

Roman and Luke do the same, coming around the table and taking their seats. But Leo doesn’t sit.

We’re the same height but Leo carries more bulk than me. He’s flexing it now, his gaze slashing into mine. I look away, slowly, like I’m bored. He’s my brother and I’d die for him. I respect him too, but he’s not the king here. I am.

It pisses him off.

Roman leans his elbows on the table. “I got the call this morning from Ethan Cunningham. Lord Ethan Cunningham, to be precise. Slick fuck with his smooth accent and his posh manners. Said things like, I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement chap, and we respect blah, blah, blah. Long and short, they don’t know who Charlotte is, just that we have her. They want us to turn their witness over to them.” He sits back in his chair, his face hard in a way I don’t usually see. Roman is growing into a man. For the second time today, I wonder if all three Kincaid brothers have a hard-on for Charlotte.

I’m not asking.

“That it?”

“Nope. Said their beef was with the Italians and that they’d happily leave us out of everything.”

“As long as we hand over Charlotte,” Leo says, leaning against the table. “Sounds easy enough.”

My gaze swings to him. “Sending a woman to her death sentence is easy?”

Leo’s face hardens.

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