Page 15 of Legions

He didn’t laugh, but then it wasn’t a joke. King was always so ready to fix the problem. Everyone always looked to him for the answers. My father may control this branch but King was taking over more and more of his roles within the family. He was slowly handing it out to him. Giving him more responsibility. I knew it was my father’s way of making sure that when the time came for him to step down, Blaise Hughes, the boss of the southern mafia, agreed with him about King being the best to take the reins. Not his oldest son as was typical in the family rankings.

Since its beginning, a Shephard had led this branch. Yet, my father didn’t trust that I could do it correctly. He knew my brother was too soft, lacking the hard edge. I had too much. If this were any other family, there would be a war brewing over something like this.

That wouldn’t be the case here. King deserved it. He would be great at it. Me, probably not. Even if Hughes had said he would make that decision and sounded as if he thought it would be me. I didn’t need to make the call on anything. We all knew it.

“If I need to save someone, tell me now,” King urged.

That would usually make me at least smirk. King had reminded me of fucking Superman since we were kids. Always the damn pretty boy, smiling, charming, yet lethal.

“I thought things here were running smoothly with Capri back.”

He thought I was ready to snap over someone here. I shook my head. “This doesn’t affect you or the family.”

King walked around to stand in my line of sight. His armscrossed over his chest as he studied me. Now that he was a father, his ruthlessness had been tamed. He thought about things deeper. Didn’t act, then consider the consequence later.

“You affect the family. If someone is about to die, then at least tell me why they deserve it.”

I took the last pull from the cigarette and looked from his concerned face to the track behind him where Capri rode Pharoah. She’d whimpered in my arms for almost an hour before going back into a deep sleep last night. The fucking memories that she couldn’t talk about. The ones haunting her. I wanted to dig up a dead man and kill him all over again.

“Relax. I can’t kill the preacher. She’d never forgive me, and after twenty-four hours without her last week, I won’t do that shit again.”

King’s eyebrows rose. “What did her dad do?”

My teeth clenched tightly again as the molars ground against each other painfully. I inhaled sharply, needing to calm the beast in my chest, wanting to destroy all who upset her. She was light, fucking sunshine, and warmth. Capri held the power to reach my cold center and heat it.

“Told her things she didn’t need to know,” I said, watching her. Her smile gives me some form of ease, if not enough.

“About you?” he asked.

Yes and no. She had forgiven me for my actions and accepted that she was mine to protect, and she had been since the moment I laid eyes on her.

“It’s not that he told her about Beauden. It’s the memories he unleashed that she’d forgotten. They’re,” I paused as my throat tightened. “Haunting her.”

King heaved a sigh, then glanced over his shoulder at Capri talking to Miller as she slowed. “She seems happy out there.” His eyes came back to me.

I nodded. “She is. But it’s the nights. When she wakes upscreaming that are going to destroy me.” The words just came out. I wasn’t one to share so damn much.When had that shit changed for me? Why was I spewing like some emotional bitch?

I reached for another cigarette from my pocket and walked past King toward the track. If I could see her, hear her voice, see her smile at me. Maybe then I could keep from going after the preacher and ripping his life apart with all that I knew.

• Ten •

Esther was as dramatic as my mother.

Capri

The fact that no stable hand but Jim would make eye contact with me was understandable. I no longer felt like they were angry at me or didn’t want me here. I completely understood. But if I let myself dwell on it too long, I began to get that heavy knot in my stomach—the one where I felt guilty for all Thatcher had done in his need to protect me.

After waking up with night terrors for a week, Thatcher started wrapping me up in his arms, our chests touching and sleeping with me like that. Three nights in, it was working. I slept free of images of the man I had long forgotten appearing in my dreams. The ever-present tension in his shoulders had eased, too. He wasn’t on edge, ready to strike anymore. I began to fear for the safety of anyone who came near me.

Jim gave me a nod as I passed him. His friendly smile always reminding me that I wasn’t a pariah here. Just that the otherswere terrified of Thatcher. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see my mom’s number. She’d called three times this morning. I continued to ignore her. Not today, Mom.

“Mornin’ Capri,” Sebastian called out as he walked out of the office with his hair mused. His hand was clutching Royal’s as she followed him out. Her lips slightly swollen, and her shirt hastily tucked into her jeans.

I grinned. “Good morning,” I replied.

“You gonna take Bloodline out and see if you can break his time from Monday?” he asked me.

That was what King had suggested. “Yeah,” I told him, but I wasn’t sure that Bloodline would beat that time on the track alone. He seemed to excel in races because he was competitive. I’d mentioned that to Miller, but he did not appear to agree. Although he wouldn’t argue with me. Thanks to Thatcher, no one would. It was annoying.

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