Page 17 of Kings & Chaos

I shrugged. The less I said about what we were doing, the better.

For Aloha and the Blades, and for me, Rock, Drago, and Willa.

Especially Willa.

“Guy sounds like a garden-variety Blackwell lowlife,” Aloha said. “But it’s your dime.”

I didn’t disagree about the lowlife part, but we had to be sure.

“How long?” I asked.

“Coupla days at most,” Aloha said.

I wasn’t surprised. He probably had the Blackwell Falls PD and local banks on hacker speed dial.

“Sounds good,” I said. “You know where to find me.”

I might as well have been talking to myself. Aloha had already turned away, his eyes back on the monitor. The woman next to him never missed a beat as her fingers floated over the keyboard in front of her.

It would have been easy to think that they were checked out, but I knew better. If I’d tried to pull any shit Aloha would have been on me like white on rice, as Reva liked to say. I knew for a fact he kept a gun taped to his workstation, and there were more where that one came from stashed all over the warehouse.

Plus, anyone who fucked with Aloha was fucking with the Blades, and while I could hold my own with them and the other gangs in Blackwell Falls, I wasn’t eager to start a war with all the other shit I had on my hands.

I saw myself out, then sat in the driver’s seat of the Hummer, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. I was in no hurry to get back to campus. I didn’t need any of the bullshit they were slinging in class.

I was already building my organization, only nobody knew it yet. Nobody but Rock, Drago, and the gangs that ran the Southside of Blackwell Falls.

Class was just a way to keep dear old dad — or the Asshole, as I liked to call him — out of my business. I’d designed my time at Aventine that way, and it was already doing the job.

The Asshole thought I was out of the way. Probably thought I was getting drunk every weekend and chasing pussy. It wasn’t unintentional. Everything I told him, everything I posted on social media, was designed to further that image.

Pretty girls draped over me at clubs.

Hanging out by the pool with the other Kings, beers in hand.

Vague references to our win of the first game.

The Asshole was an Aventine alumnus. Let him think I spent my time here the way he’d spent his. I told him only what I wanted him to hear, used his credit cards just enough to make him think I needed them.

It was so easy, I forgot I was lying most of the time. I’d have to be careful at Thanksgiving, especially with Willa there.

My pulse raced at the thought of being alone with her on the drive home, of being in the same house with her, no Rock or Drago to steal her attention, no place to escape when her hatred for me became overwhelming.

But that meant there was no escape for me either. She would be right there, close enough to touch.

Close enough to fuck.

I had a flash of her standing next to the Maserati when I’d chased her down, the feel of her tit in my hand, her hard little nipple between my lips. She’d been so fucking hot, every bit as worked up as I’d been, but I’d been too turned on to feel triumphant.

There had been no hiding my need for her. My cock had been huge and painfully hard when I’d pulled down her jeans and panties, slid my tip between her pillowy thighs.

She’d been so wet I could feel the slide of her desire on the tip of my cock. I’d been seconds away from finally slamming into her when the fucking truck had interrupted us.

At the time, I’d wanted to rage. I’d been out of my mind with hunger for her, pent-up lust spilling out of my body. Later, after I’d masturbated twice to the image of her — the fuckingfeelof her in my hands — in the shower, I’d had the presence of mind to acknowledge that the truck driver had done us both a favor.

I was the last thing Willa needed. And me? Well, I knew if I had even one taste of her sweet little pussy, her body intertwined with mine, I’d never be able to live without her again.

And having her — keeping her — wasn’t an option.

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