Page 84 of King of Hearts

I clicked my teeth shut. “Why, if he wasn’t planning on taking her?”

Kyle shrugged. “To flex…show you what he’s capable of. You don’t think he knows she went to Markos?”

I turned to leave without replying because it was just fucking noise at this point, but Kyle stopped me.

“Wait, hold up—I’m lost. I know the baby isn’t yours…hell, Taylor isn’t even yours, so why are you doing this?”

I turned around, flexing my fingers, getting used to the pain still vibrating along my knuckles from hitting Kyle. I hated explaining myself. My decisions were always my own and I didn’t owe anyone anything, but Decker was basically my family since he’d married my best friend, so I decided to explain for his benefit, but only his.

“If you ever find someone you’d be willing to kill for…I mean really kill for, someone you’d die for because living without them won’t mean a goddamn thing, you’ll do whatever it takes to keep them.”

I didn’t wait to hear him respond. I turned to leave, but the screen door snapped shut again as I scaled the porch steps.

Decker’s voice stopped me as I reached my car. “Juan, I can’t not tell Mallory about this. It’s about two of the most important people in her life. She’s still pissed at you about leaving her out of the stuff about your past.”

The rain fell lightly against my car as I stared over the roof at my best friend’s husband.

“Tell her I’m fixing it.”

“That won’t be good enough and you know it.” Decker stepped closer, panic urgent on his face. I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me, but whatever it was, I wouldn’t be giving it up.

“She’s your problem now. Do what you have to, but this is out of your league…out of hers. Her dad can’t fix this. In fact, both of you need to stay away from this shit and let us sort it out.” I opened my car door. “Taylor and I…we were born into the same pack of monsters. We’re cut from the same piece of glass, and because of that, she’s tough enough to withstand whatever is about to happen…you wouldn’t be.”

Decker’s jaw tensed, but he nodded, letting me get in the car without saying anything else.

* * *

This sortof shit took a minute to work through. As badly as I wanted to walk in there and just start demanding Markos hand over my girls, I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. I needed to rely on my family, on the power the name gave me. This was the entire reason I had agreed to claim Taylor in the first place that night in my living room, to extend protection to her. Fuck if I cared if she wanted it or not.

She’d have it.

She’d have me.

“Hector,” I said over the phone, trying to explain the entire situation to him, bringing him up to speed. I’d driven to New York, walking into the house my father once owned that now served as the center point of operations for our family in the city. Each larger city along the eastern border had a main office or central location where members of El Peligro would meet, get orders, stand guard, and watch and move product.

Punching in the access code I had set up, I greeted a few men who roamed the property armed to the teeth.

“There’s been news,” my cousin said in my ear, and I held the phone there while moving through the large courtyard.

I eyed one of the men guarding the front door; he seemed hesitant to move until someone next to him leaned in and whispered something. He immediately straightened and opened the door for me.

“There was a leak in our communications. Javier says he’s narrowed it down to the location Ivan was staying at while he was visiting. We think he’s planning something.”

I moved through an opulent room where multiple computer monitors were set up, and there were crates of guns and more crates of unopened shipments. I was going to shake shit up with this family, and I didn’t really care who stuck around for it.

“Ivan has decided to go to war with us,” I stated plainly.

“Seriously?”

I ignored my cousin’s rhetorical question, jogging up the steps. Three women were lounging on chairs with their cell phones in front of their faces, their small dresses riding up with their legs draped over the sides of each chair.

I didn’t have time for this. “Get out.”

They each dropped their phones and stared up at me. Dark lips, long lashes, caramel skin…all beautiful, and all completely wrong for me.

“Now!”

They scrambled up and ran downstairs in a rush.

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