Page 69 of The Sweet Spot

I smother a laugh. “Yeah, and this is a really old picture. We’re twice this size now. I was maybe eight in this picture. It’s before Kenzie and Easton joined the family. Before half my uncles were married. Before I had any idea what my life would become.”

“That’s the kind of innocence I want to make sure we give Kennedy for as long as we can,” he muses.

My God. I love this man.

“We will.” I kiss his cheek, and a throat clears behind us.

Fuck. I look past my giant of a husband. “Hi, Mom.”

“Brynlee,” she says very carefully. “And Coach Kane. I didn’t expect to find you in my house today, kissing my daughter, no less.”

“Scarlet.” Deacon offers her his hand, and she looks at it like a bug on the floor she doesn’t want to dirty her Manolos by squishing.

“Oh, we’re not in the office today, Deacon. You can call me, Mrs. St. James.”

Well . . . shit.

“Your father is outside by the pool, smoking cigars with Becket and Sam. Why don’t you head out back.” Her smile is evil, and my stomach drops as I watch her walk away.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” I ask Deacon with a new level of nerves.

He tilts his head to look around me, unable to see where my mother went. “Becket. Your uncle, the senator?”

I nod my head. “And Sam . . . Beneventi.”

“Another uncle?” he asks as he tries to place the name.

“Yeah, my cousin Maddox’s dad. He’s . . .”

“Is he the one I’ve seen on the news? The one they’ve tried to connect to the Mafia?” Deacon asks with a flash of something in his eyes.

“They’ve never proven that,” I tell him. “But let’s just say he’s probably the most powerful man in Philadelphia.” We don’t ever discuss or confirm Uncle Sam’s business. “They’re Dad’s best friends. The three of them went to high school together.”

Deacon nods. “Doesn’t change anything for me, Brynn. But if you don’t want them here while we discuss any of it,”—he means the Huntington’s—“you just tell me, and I’ll ask them to leave.”

Yup. I love him.

I also want him to live to see tomorrow, so I’m not going to let him do that.

I lace my fingers in his and make my way through the house to face the firing squad.

It’s time.

DEACON

As we walk outside, I’m immediately drawn to the table by the outdoor kitchen where Scarlet stands between three men, a bottle of bourbon between them that costs more than my first car. Cade St. James doesn’t look much different than he did a decade ago. A little more gray in his hair, and a few more lines on his face don’t change the fact that this man is an MMA champion, who, even past his prime, could still stand toe-to-toe with me, and I’m no fucking slouch.

I easily recognize the man next to him as Senator Becket Kingston, which means the third must be Sam Beneventi. Between these three, one is going to want to kill me, one probably wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, and the third could probably make it look like an accident.

I’m used to walking into tough rooms. A hockey locker room is full of fearless men. But they play with rules. The collective power between these three kings means there are no rules, and I’m about to steal the princess out of the tower.

“Daddy.” Brynlee hesitates as we stop next to the table.

Jesus Christ, she just called him Daddy. I’m fucking screwed.

Cade looks from his wife to his daughter, completely ignoring me, and I notice Killian out of the corner of my eye, grabbing a beer from an outdoor refrigerator. The fucker smiles from ear to ear. Yeah. He’s looking forward to this.

“Brynnie. I didn’t expect to see you tonight.” Cade lifts his glass and looks over at the way my hand is holding Brynn’s and lifts his brow. “Didn’t expect to see you either, Kane.”

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