Page 92 of Lost Kingdom

“You’re on Booth’s payroll?” Cato tilts his head to the side, genuinely curious, when most others who grew up in our world would choose anger.

Felix, on the other hand, reaches into his coat and strokes the handle of his gun. It’s not a threat… yet. But caution. Preparation. And a fucking bullet I have to step in front of if he loses his temper.

“You just fucked over his attempt to end a reign.Again,” Cato adds. “How the fuck does that happen unless you’re sleeping with the other guy, too?”

“Hey!” I glare at him across the bar. “Don’t.”

“Dude!” He slides off the counter and lands on his feet. “She has intel no one else is getting unless they’re on the inside. She knew of an attempt on my brother’s life, and that information didn’t come via a fuckin’ carrier pigeon. She’s one of them.”

“I’m not one of them,” she groans.

“It was a long fuckin’ game,” Felix whistles. “Long. Work for Minka, Minka marries Archer, Archer reunites with his estranged family, I meet Christabelle and eventually get hitched, and you…” He shakes his head, chuckling under his breath. “You marry Tim II’s heirandmeet Cordoza on the same night. It’s brilliant, really. Diabolical. But brilliant.”

“I’m not playing any games,” she murmurs. “I’ve never met Nathan Booth in my life.”

“Your conscience got the better of you!” Felix snaps, startling her and stalking around to stand on her right. My left. Just two feet from where I’ll choose her over him. “You were playing the game and setting the traps. But you caught feelings, and now a handful of cops are injured or dead. Luckily for you,” he sneers, “Archer isn’t one of them. Who is Booth working for?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is pulling Booth’s strings?! You’re playing both sides of the same war, so the least you can do before you screw us over is give us a cheat code. Who wants New York so fuckin’ much they’d literally blow me and Tim up in broad daylight?”

“I’m not working for anyone in your world!” She shoves away from the bar, tearing away from my hand and slapping it again when I reach out for her. I want to pull her behind my back. To give her shelter and safety, away from my brother’s twitching gun hand. But of course, she steps up to thedon in challenge. Hardened and unafraid. “Booth shot two of his own men down at the Bay, because they screwed up with making Duane a bridge to Tim. Booth is on his boss’ radar, because he’s inept and disorganized, so he had the other four gunned down. He was probably hoping to hit Booth and cleanse the city, but Booth is a cockroach who just won’t go away. My brother was targeted, because of his poor impulse control and strong connection to me, and I was targeted because of what I am to Tim.”

“Makes you a plant,” Felix sneers. “Lure him in, kill him dead. Step away, Tim.” He comes around and snags my sleeve, like he thinks can move me if I don’t want to be moved. “She’s gonna be the reason you die.”

“I’m the reason he’s alive!” she snarls. “I’m the reasonyou’realive! Open your damn eyes, Felix. If I was working for someone else and wanted you dead, I could have done it a thousand ways, on a thousand different occasions.”

“Could have,” he growls. “Didn’t. Because you’re not a killer. Your conscience undid you.”

“I assure you,” she spits out. “My conscience wouldn’t stop me from hurtingyou. You’re a blight on this family, and an egotistical asshat who never takes anything seriously.” But then she sighs and steps forward, sandwiching his hand in hers and bringing them up, almost in prayer.

He startles and attempts to whip his hand back. But she’s strong, and right now, she’s determined. “You’re alsothemost protective, most loving, most generous brother of any I’ve ever known. You would die to protect any of them, and you would kill, no matter who, no matter where or when, if you felt it necessary. You mourn for the sixteen years you lost, and you default to crazy obnoxity now, because if you told them how you really feel every time their names pop up on your phone, you’d feel like an idiot.”

He rips his arm back, his brows pinching tight and his dark green eyes glittering with confusion.

“You read my diary or something?”

“You,” she turns my way, taking my hand and doing as she did with Felix. Her touch sends my heart galloping, yet, it brings me calm, too. That’s how it’s always been for us. It’s how a man becomes addicted, even when he knows he shouldn’t. “Youwantto stand by Felix’s side and be his right-hand man. Youwantto rule the West Coast, just as he rules the east, because you know the power runs through your veins. You don’t oppose the destiny you were born for, but you abhor the violence and cruelty it began with. And though you could have Copeland, or really, New York too, unopposed, you’re terrified your father’s DNA will overpower your sense of good. Youprefer no power at all, over the possibility that you may become even a fraction like him.”

She steps back, licking her dry lips and turning to Minka. Extending her hand and wiggling her fingers in offer.

Minka snorts. “No thanks.”

So Aubree bends and grabs on anyway, yanking the woman closer and smiling when her eyes widen in panic. “You’re terrified of love. Because you know how easily someone can falloutof it, and you work with the dead, which means you know how easily someone can leave. Or be taken away. This is why you prefer to be mean and antisocial. Can’t miss something you don’t have.”

“Aubree—”

“You can’t stand the thought of dirty old men hurting society’s most innocent. Which isn’t really a secret, I know. But the fact you seek justice is. The V?—”

“That’s enough of that!” Archer yanks his wife away and practically tosses her behind his back. “What the fuck, Aubs?”

“That shoulder reconstruction you had?” Aubree leans around to spy her boss. “The one you’re supposed to be attending physio for, but never do? The shoulder thatshouldhurt, but rarely does? There’s a reason you’ve escaped that fate.” She turns to Cato, smiling and offering her hand, though he’s all the way on the other side of the bar. “Wanna talk about Jenna yet? Or how abandoned you felt when you grew up and realized you had two older brothers you didn’t even know? Or we could discuss the way Tim II attempted to groom you, to usurp the other four and take a city after putting Cordoza in the ground. You had a destiny, but you chose sports and sex, because both are better than holding another man’s gray matter in your hands when you’re only eleven years old.”

He blinks. Blinks. Grins, then blinks. “Excuse me?”

Finally, she casts her eyes to a stunned Fletch. “You’re darker than all the others…combined. They were raised in hell, beaten and burned, tortured and psychologically devastated all throughout their formative years, but you carry more darkness than all of them. Because of Jada.”

“Don’t talk about her! Not now. Not today.”

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