Page 33 of Gilded Lies

“Danika, my girl needs me. What the fuck is this?”

“Your girl needed her mother, too, but you didn’t seem to care when it mattered.”

Tears run down the grown man’s face. I don’t fault him for that. There is no wrong done in showing emotions. It’s the lack of abackbone that pisses me off. He could have been the father of the year every damn day since bringing that little girl into the world. Yet he pissed away the chance to be better than both of our fathers all to fuck the enemy.

I shake my head and cross the office. “I will not save you. If I were Rune, you would be dead already.” I’m not exactly known for my suave approach.

“Wha...wh…why? What did I do?” The weasel stutters like he’s a fucking saint among sinners. “Where’s my daughter? Did you bring her back?”

Rune moves the barrel of the gun from my cousin’s forehead to the underside of his chin. “You know damn well we did.”

Aaron has his hands up like they make him bulletproof. Dumbass.

“I need to get to her.”

“Don’t even think about moving.” Rune cocks the hammer back and levels the muzzle against my weeping cousin’s heart. I do nothing but go to the bar and pour a tumbler full of whiskey.

“What’s going on here?”

“Rune is trying to decide where to inflict the most pain,” I state flatly, turning to face my aging father as he walks into my office. My old man leans into his cane more than usual. The rainy season of the Pacific Northwest is hell on his old bones.

“But that is nothing that concerns you.” I let my disdain for the man who fathered me hang between us like days’ old laundry—foul and stiff.

Eyes the color of mine roam from my bleeding cousin to find me.

I sip my drink like it is nothing to have a man whimpering in pain and bleeding all over my carpet. Which sums up my life nicely. I’ve replaced it so many times I should consider hardwood or marble at this point.

“What happened to my brother’s boy? You were meant to save his girl and wife, not kill the man.” The Sinn elder’s voice wobbles with age. He fathered me late into his forties while my mother barely had time to hit legal age. I do not lose the similarity between his past and my present. Nor the irony. He always said my judgment of his choices would come back to kick me in the ass and for once in his life he was right about something.

“This son of a bitch got sloppy, put his dick in a Hightower girl and got her pregnant. Didn’t help that the girl is not of legal age. Her father found out about it and the baby that is coming. Apparently, the girl’s father wants my dear cousin here to know just how pissed off he is.”

“He had plans on selling the girl’s virginity to the highest bidder. I was doing her a favor.”

My stomach churns at how my cousin tries to defend his actions.

Typical Hightower move. Disgusting fuckers without a moral bone in their bodies.

Rune rears back and cracks the handle of the gun across my cousin’s cheek. A long gash opens up, and blood oozes out.

“Forcing her in the back of a van and raping her isn’t doing anyone a favor. Come on. Fess up you piece of shit. Did you do it for kicks and giggles or money? Both?”

Crack.

The left side of the cheek matches his right. Rune’s shoulders heave with rage. And I can’t blame him. We are looking to be fathers too and the mere idea of someone harming our blood has Rune seeking vengeance for all the wrong done toward the innocent.

My cousin came to us three weeks ago crying that they kidnapped his wife and child. He professed he didn’t know why other than the blood feud between our families.

Rune, Oliver, and I promised to get her back and sort everything else out later.

It’s later, and time to sort out the issues.

Oliver walks in, his brows pinched together and the wrath of all the gods curling his lips into a deep frown. I haven’t seen the man look his age since meeting him in grade school and right now every one of his forty-three years is clear in every deep crease across his brow and the edges of his eyes.

Four steps and he is across the home office and burying a set of brass knuckles into the other man’s face. My cousin falls back clutching at his jaw, but given it’s still attached to his face I know Oliver didn’t give him the full force of his unhinged anger.

“You put an innocent woman in the grave all because you wanted to fuck the Hightower king’s daughter you stupid fool.” Oliver never raises his voice and right now it’s pitched so low I have to strain to hear him. When his voice matches a demon’s, you need to be careful and right now he’s got the devil’s full army at his back.

My father’s eyes hold mine. “This needs to stop. We do not cannibalize our own.”

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