Page 8 of The Kings of Kearny

His eyes flashed with some unspoken warning, and I decided to go along with this plot twist like I had all the other insanity of the evening.

“Sure,” I said.

Nothing to see here, folks. Just three rational adults having a normal conversation after one of said adults broke into another of said adult’s apartment without explanation.

I snagged the beer from Jakob and twisted the top off, happy to have something to do with my hands. It cut down on the temptation to reach for my gun again. This whole situation was off. Why had Daniel kicked in Jakob’s door? And why wasn’t Jakob calling him out on it? There were so many undercurrents running between the two men that it felt like I was about to be caught in the riptide and dragged out to sea with them.

Jakob’s paranoia in the parking lot suddenly seemed a lot more understandable.

“How was your shift, Krista?” Daniel asked.

A shiver of dread ran through me when he said my name. “It was good, Mr. King.”

“No trouble?”

“No trouble.”

He nodded like all was as it should be in his realm.

I took a deep pull of my beer. He’d made a point to use my name. It set my teeth on edge because I’d never spoken to the man before and didn’t think he even knew I existed. Whenever he came into Charley’s, he sat in a special booth in the back that we kept permanently reserved for him. He was too important to come to the bar for his drinks. Instead, he had his flunkies fetch them for him.

I wasn’t naive; this wasn’t just some casual inquiry into my night. He wanted me to know that he knew who I was. For some reason it felt like a threat. Why? Because I was here with Jakob? Was there a rift in the Kings after all, and these were the two men causing it? If so, I had just unintentionally placed myself on Jakob’s side.

The wheels in my head started spinning. If Jakob’s paranoia was warranted and someone had been watching us in the parking lot, then they were probably loyal to Daniel, which meant that word would get back to him about how close we’d been. I was willing to bet that was why Jakob called me babe. That’s what his warning look was about; he wanted me to continue to play along with what we’d started downstairs.

It put me in an uncomfortable position. Charley’s name might be on my paychecks, but I knew who I really worked for. If I did anything to piss Daniel off or make him distrust me, I’d be out of a job and out on my ass. But what if I was reading the situation wrong? What if there was something else going on? Some other reason Jakob wanted to keep up this ruse?

I leaned against the kitchen counter and took another long sip of my beer, my mind working on overdrive. Jakob grabbed two more beers out of the fridge and headed toward his gang leader. He handed one over, and the two men clinked glasses. Then he came back and leaned against the counter beside me, so close our hips touched. He took a sip from his beer and casually draped a heavy arm over my shoulder like he did this all the time, like heowned meor something, and even though part of me wanted to shrug free from the embrace, I stayed where I was.

I might not know Jakob very well, but I believed him when he said he wouldn’t hurt me. Daniel, on the other hand, I didn’t know at all, and if he’d said those same words to me, I never would have believed them.

Guess that made me Team Jakob.

I adopted a dopey expression and smiled up at him like a woman deep into the infatuation phase of a crush. He looked down and met my eyes, and his restingfuck youface turned into something more likeI Am Going to Fuck You and You Are Going to Come Screaming My Name. This close, there was no way he could miss the way I shivered in response.

His eyes still locked on mine, he lifted his beer and took a sip. I shouldn’t have been so turned on by the sight—I watched a bar full of bikers repeat this same motion ad nauseam night after night—but as Jakob pulled the beer away and wiped his thumb across his full lower lip, my gaze drifted down and latched onto the movement. Those lips twitched, just once, and I caught a flash of what might have been amusement in his eyes before he blinked, and suddenly I was staring up at a man with as much expression as a block of ice.

As if he hadn’t just set my blood on fire, he broke our gaze and turned back to the man on the couch. “What’s up?”

Goddamn it, I’d completely forgotten about Daniel for a second there.

I shook my head to clear it and took another pull from my beer. This is what I got for standing so close to my own personal thirst trap.

“That thing with Mike didn’t pan out,” Daniel said.

“Mike who?” Jakob asked.

“Mike Kaschak,” Daniel said, glancing around the apartment. “I thought he might be here.”

Jakob’s face remained neutral, but his arm stiffened around me, and I knew the words hit him harder than he let on. My Spidey sense tingled. Was this why Daniel had done a bit of B & E?

“Haven’t seen him,” Jakob said.

Daniel drained his first beer and started in on the second. “You’ll let me know if you do?”

“Of course.”

Daniel’s lips twitched up in a lopsided smile. His white teeth flashed against the sun-darkened skin of his face. He really was a handsome bastard, but I didn’t need five minutes to figure out whether or not I would sleep with him. With Jakob, my inner cavewoman had weighed the safety of a one-night stand and decided it would be worth the risk. Daniel, on the other hand, sent her screaming back into her cave.

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