Page 39 of Lost Kingdom

“The… your…” I fucking stutter. I don’t even stutter when staring down the barrel of some other asshole’s gun. “Your ex-boyfriend was your brother’s best friend, who remains his best friendto this day, never broke your heart, and is now a pro football player. That’s what you’re telling me?”

“Yeah.” Shebopsto the word, bouncing so her breasts move too. Then she opens her dinner and looks inside. “Roll Tide. I’m excited to see him this weekend. It’s been too long.”

“Right.” I regret my choices. All of them. Every single fucking one of them. But I’ll be sure to collect my pocket squares from the seamstress before the weekend and escort Aubree to the damned wedding. Chester Samson won’t be reuniting with his high school sweetheart this week. Or ever. “So it was pretty serious?”

“As serious as high school romances get.” She forgoes her fork and pinches a long noodle between her fingers. “Junior through to senior. He did up the prom proposal thing. It was a whole production. And then we walked the stage together. But once summer hit…” She shrugs and sighs, whimsical as fuck. “We were smart enough to know we were incompatible, so we said our goodbyes but promised to stay in touch. The fact he and Eli are still close makes it easy for us to do exactly that. Now I want to ask you a personal question.”

Startled, I bring my eyes back to hers. “What?”

“You ask one. I ask one.” She flashes an angelic smile that could convince the devil she’s good. “Equals, or no dice. You ask one, I?—”

“Ask one.” I look down at my dinner and accept that I’ve been had. “Fine. My first girlfriend was?—”

“Oh, hahaha. No.” She picks up her fork and continues to eat. “I’ll ask my own questions, thank you very much. How many men have you killed in your lifetime?”

“Jesus.” My heart damn near thunders out of my chest. It crashes against my diaphragm and threatens to keel over. “Aubree!”

“I’m not wearing a wire,” she teases. “Feds have never tapped my phone.” But then she stops and widens her eyes. “I mean, I don’t think they have. Could they have?Wouldthey have?”

“Aubree.”

“I don’t think they would have. You’re not active anymore, and we’re not even dating.” She stops. Breathes. Straightens her spine and tries again. “Yep. That’s my question. I’d like to lock it in. How many people have you killed in your life? Don’t worry about incriminating yourself. I’ll take it to the grave.”

“I’m not worried about incriminating myself! I’m worried about looking like a fucking monster. I’m not answering that question.” I shake my head. “No chance.”

“Because it’s a lot?”

“I’m not answering.”

“So it’s a lot,” she concludes, wrinkling her nose. “More than two?”

I grit my teeth and stare down at my dinner. “Stop it.”

“More than five?” Two murders, to her, are two too many. Five is mass status. But the reality is so much worse. “Ten?”

“Stop saying numbers.”

“More than ten?” Her voice breaks with the question. “Seriously?”

The answer is:I have no fucking clue.Too many. Uncountable.And I can never tell her that and not expect that information to change the very fabric of her soul. “I’m not answering your questions. This is one of thoseit’s in your best interestssituations and I will not budge.”

She sets her fork down and lowers to rest on her elbows, narrowing hereyes when I peek up from beneath my lashes. “Okay. Fine. Have you ever killed someone who was innocent? Someone who didn’t deserve it?”

I shake my head, swinging it from side to side. “No.”

“Any women or children?”

“No.”

“Only ever to protect yourself or someone you care about?”

She’s like a fucking dog with a bone. Constant. Unwavering. So I drop my gaze again and sigh. “Not always. Not my first. Not for as long as I was living in New York. When I was there, I was being trained to be someone else, and if I didn’t do the things my father ordered me to do, then?—”

“He’d hurt you?”

I nod. But then I shake my head. “Sometimes he’d hurt me. Most of the time, he’d hurt one of my brothers. He learned quickly that none of us minded taking a beating. But we all minded one of our brothers taking a beating for us. So if he ordered me to do something, I usuallymostlyfollowed those orders.”

“So then it was to protect someone else.” She reaches across and traces the tips of her fingers over my exposed wrist, playing with the leather bands and smiling over our steaming dinner.Healing scars she never created.“It’s your turn to ask me something.”

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