Page 141 of Kings & Chaos

But Rock had been right about something else too: she belonged to all of us.

I’d felt it when we’d fucked her the night before, had felt therightnessof it. Keeping her to myself would be like keeping a diamond in a box under my bed.

It would be all mine, but I’d be keeping it from doing what it was meant to do.

I’d be keeping it from shining.

And I couldn’t do that to Willa. She’d lived her whole life that way. I wasn’t going to be the box that kept her prisoner. I was going to let her shine, let her be who she was meant to be.

Which was why Willa had to go see her mom. It’s who she was. She would never just sit by and let someone be hurt if there were something she could do to stop it.

Unlike me.

Because I’d done that, and I’d done it with Emma.

She’d come to us months before she disappeared, told us there was something going on, and we’d blown her off. She’d fuckingknown, had tried to tell us, and we hadn’t listened.

I’d thought she was just looking for attention, for excitement. That’s how Emma had been — putting herself at the center of every picture even if she had to shove Willa out of the way to do it.

I’d hated it. Had hated watching Willa shrink around her sister, make herself smaller so there was more room for Emma to shine, when for me, Willa had always been the fucking North Star.

So when Emma had come to us for help, we hadn’t taken her seriously. Turned out, Emma and Willa were alike in one way at least: when they saw something bad happening, something they might be able to stop, they did something about it.

I shifted gears and eased the boat into her slip, watching as Oscar and Rock jumped onto the dock to tie her on.

Willa stood and made her way toward me, hopping back onto the deck. She stood next to me while I powered down the boat, and I felt her hand brush my back.

I’d never liked it when girls touched me. Touch was… hard for me. I liked to be in control, to be the one doing the touching.

But Willa’s fingers felt fucking good. They were a reminder that she was still here.

That she was ours.

We unloaded the boat and started for the parking lot. The Hummer was there, and now the Audi, thanks to Luke and Ricky, who’d answered my call at five in the morning like good fucking soldiers. I’d given them instructions to get through the gate to the house and given them the new alarm code, then reset it from my phone after they got the Audi out of the garage.

Five hours later, they’d texted to say the Audi was ready and waiting.

It needed to be there, but I hated the sight of it because it meant Willa was only minutes away from leaving with Rock, and I didn’t want her out of my fucking sight.

Ever.

“Do Luke and Ricky get some kind of promotion for this?” Willa asked when she saw it. “How does that work?”

“We’ll make sure they’re rewarded,” Drago said.

We loaded everything into the Hummer. Drago and I would return to Blackwell Falls and start making calls to the Blades and the Hounds and the Phantoms and anyone else who might help us execute a hit on my dad.

Willa had called her mom and invited her to breakfast at a place they used to go when Willa and Emma were kids. Rock would stay with Willa while she told her mom that her new husband was a killer — one who’d probably had her own daughter killed.

After that, it was anybody’s guess what would happen, but Drago and I would be waiting for Rock and Willa when they came home.

Home.

I appreciated the house in Blackwell Falls. It had every luxury, every amenity.

It was perfect.

But it had never felt like home until Willa came to live there.

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