Page 66 of Devious Kingpin
I chuckled, then read Dad’s message to Dante.
“He’d have to catch us first,” Dante joked. “We’ll be like Bonnie and Clyde. Unstoppable.”
Leaning forward, I reached for the stereo. “Maybe Beyoncé and Jay-Z playing while we run out of town with sirens blasting behind us,” I said, egging him on.
A deep, full-blown laugh vibrated through the space as I watched Dante, mesmerized. In the two years that I had known him, I had never heard him laugh like that. Fucking ever. And now he’d done it twice in one day, and I was addicted to the sound.
“I own most of the cops in Chicago, Wildling,” he uttered in an amused tone. “There’ll be no need to go flying out of town with cops chasing us, but if it’ll make you happy, I can arrange it.”
My phone buzzed and I lowered my eyes, smiling. “Nah, let’s just stay and light up this town.”
Ivy: *Yeah, learn some gangsta shit so we can be the best.*
Davina: *No. More. Criminal. Activities.*
I typed back my reply.*Okay, Stepmom.*
Grinning, I raised my eyes to find Dante eyeing me. “You look like you’ve done something bad,” he remarked.
“I called Davina ‘Stepmom,’” I explained, still grinning. “She hates that.”
Dante smiled, his expression unreadable as he watched me. For the rest of the ride, he hardly said another word and I focused on clearing out my text messages.
The next message was from Kian—it was short and to the point. As always. I stiffened, my brows furrowing. *Another killer found.*
A shudder rolled through me. Somewhere deep down, I loved making every single one of the bastards pay. From what I’d learned, my biological father had been a good killer in his day. It seemed I inherited that quality.
“Is it weird for you, now that you know Liam’s not your biological father?” Dante inquired.
“Weird how?” I rasped.
His head tilted to the side, holding my gaze for a moment before returning it to the road.
“Not really,” I said quietly. “He raised me and Killian. He made sure we were all safe. He saved us from a burning house.”
“But?”
It didn’t surprise me that he sensed there was more to it.
“I wonder who they were,” I admitted softly. “Not the names. I know those now. Butwhothey were.”
I knew about my father’s reputation, the violence. I knew my mother loved to play piano and sing. But Liam wasn’t the one to reveal that information.
“I can get that information for you,” Dante offered.
I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth, trying to think of how to respond. I had all the information on my birth parents now. I gathered some of it via torture and learned the rest of it all on my own by digging through Liam’s stuff.
“No.” He raised a brow, surprised at my response. “No, thank you,” I added.
Curiosity and something else washed over his features as I took in his side profile. But there was definitely amusement there. Whether at my manners or what, I didn’t know.
“I thought you wanted to know more information,” he said, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
“I do,” I breathed in a quiet voice. “I did. But not anymore. I’ve learned it all already.” The glance he cast my way was dark. Knowing. And I realized, he knew all there was about my birth parents. “But then so did you, isn’t that right?”
He nodded.
I swallowed. “It doesn’t worry you?”
