Page 114 of Crave Me

I laid my hands on his shoulders. “Before I put you into the care of Jameson and Laura, I named you. It was one of my conditions of our arrangement. When I was a little boy, I had a great love of Narnia books. It was escapism for me from the brutal life I endured under my father’s reign. Caspian is a noble, brave and optimistic character. He stands for justice and doing right by those under his rule. He’s a dedicated and renowned king to his people.” I smiled. “How astounding it is that you grew to live up to all of those astounding traits.”

He winced. “No.”

“Yes. That’s who you are. You’ve been doing admirably throughout this war. You did veer off track, yes, you delved into the dark, but you pulled back before you went too deep. That’s incredibly difficult to do for anyone. As for you believing you’ve failed, it’s very far from the truth. We were blindsided. You’d accounted for Wheeler, but he wasn’t taken out by Frank Bennett when he should have been. That’s the failure here. It’s what led to Wheeler tipping off Elijah. Since then, you’ve adapted and rolled with everything that’s been thrown at you. You have Sebastian and Caleb back, Frank is here and an asset to hunting Wheeler and the world he walks in which you and I are not familiar with. Bane Industries has been decimated.” I stroked his hair. “We’re in the homestretch now, Caspian. There is no failure here. Absolutely not.”

It took him a moment as he absorbed my words, but then I saw a slight nod from him, indicating that he couldn’t fault the logic and truth to what I was saying, that he recognized that he was being too hard on himself and the weight of everything was merely skewing his perception and casting a negative haze over things.

“As for this wait, which is necessary both for physical recovery and from a mental health standpoint for you all, clearly the daily operations of King aren’t enough to keep you distracted from Bane and Wheeler, so I have something else in mind.”

“What’s that?”

“The restructuring of King and the Mancini Syndicate.”

He eased from my hold and sank back in his chair, curiosity sparking. “I’m listening.”

“I’ll give you my above board holdings to bolster you, a lot of which will meld well with your real estate developments. Then I’ll take your illegitimate operations under the Mancini Syndicate. It will wash your hands of the down and dirty without weakening King in the process. For that edge that you need once in a while, that urge to unleash, you’ll have The Jackals.”

“That’s certainly something.”

“A lot to sink your teeth into, yes.”

His eyes twinkled. “I’ll take some time to consider it.”

“I didn’t doubt that you would.”

“Thank you, Dante.”

“For what?”

“Being here. Being here for me. Pushing you away after—”

I held up my hand. “It’s okay. I understand what a difficult thing it was to absorb, especially after all these years. And I know it will take more time still. I’m prepared for that.”

He sat forward, a glint of eagerness in his eyes.

“Will you tell me about her?”

“Who?”

“My birth mother? And your relationship with her?”

“You’d really like that?”

He smiled. “I would.”

I pulled up another rolling chair and sank into it, settling opposite him. “Well, first of all, you should probably know that we were high school sweethearts.” I chuckled as I thought about those days long past. “She detested me at first, labeling me as a thug. I couldn’t blame her, given that one of our first encounters involved her witnessing me beating a couple of students to within an inch of their lives.” Off his look of surprise, I explained, “I was a lot more reckless in my youth.” I lifted my shoulder. “They deserved what they got, however. They were planning to accost her in the locker room after her cheerleading practice. I couldn’t have that.”

“That’s intense.”

“Well things were ruthless in that neck of the woods, especially at that school. Not a nice place to be. It was why my father had sent me there, to throw me to the wolves basically.”

“Of course, you ended up becoming the most dangerous wolf of all, I suspect.”

“You know me well,” I said, with a wink.

“She was a cheerleader,” he mused.

“She was a social butterfly. Bianca had a light in her that could never be extinguished, no matter what she endured. She also loved animals and she became a veterinarian through that love. During our courtship, I bought her a wildlife conservation so she could expand her reach.”

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