Page 36 of King

Sky…Sky.

What the hell?

Charles turned his back to me and shoved Percy back inside.

“Go home, Halen.”

I headed for the car to go back to the club and then back to the tunnel when I stopped in my tracks. I turned back to see Charles staring at me from the doors to the house, just briefly before he slammed the doors shut.

Shit.

Percy had been trying to warn me.

Charles was part of Scythe. The operation of sex trafficking that had been rampant in this city that we hadn’t been able to cut out.

Charles used to run this city and my underworld, he was the reason for all of this and he’s retired only to run Scythe the way he’d wanted it run.

Now Percy was at my father’s mercy.

He’d never kill him. Percy would play the part, as he always did, but that meant Paisley was caught up in all of this.

I shot a quick text off to Rusty to tell him to hurry up and to warn Paisley to watch her back. She can’t trust anyone, especially not Zane.

Paisley

The sound of a knock on my door had me on edge. I could feel my heart jump in my chest, and hammer so that all I could hear was the blood pumping through my ears. No one would be visiting me and if it were Zane, he wouldn’t knock. I grabbed a knife from my kitchen and moved toward the door. I never expected to see Rusty behind it with his awkward smile.

“Rus?”

“Hey Paisley, can I come in?”

I nodded and opened the door wider, hoping like hell Halen wasn’t behind him. I wouldn’t be able to resist him if he were here now. I’d have to tell him my crazy plan and have him probably tell me I was crazy but I had things to prove here.

I closed the door behind him and put the knife down. Rusty wouldn’t hurt me, I knew that. If they wanted to hurt me, he would have sent Ren or Cy.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Is this because I escaped?”

“Well, yeah a little bit,” he said. He was nervous, as if he was trying to figure out how to talk to me. I felt for him. He so desperately wanted to prove himself, he just lacked the confidence.

“Rusty, relax. Did Halen send you here?”

“Yes,” he said, finally meeting my eyes. “He wants to know if you truly want to be with Zane or if you’re doing this to help him.”

“What does he think?”

“He knows you wouldn’t hurt him on purpose.”

This whole thing just made me miss him more. I wish I could go back down there and be with him but I knew Zane would never let it go. He always got what he wanted and I knew if he wanted to hurt his brother, he would do it. I couldn’t be the reason for it.

“Then why did he send you here if he knew that?”

“He wants you to come back,” Rusty said. “Everyone does. He doesn’t care about the poison, he just wants you to be safe and so do I.”

“Rusty, I can get in and do some real damage by being close to Zane. I can help Halen in a way he’d never been able to get help before.”

“But it’s not safe, Paisley.”

“Thank you,” I said to him, moving closer to him. “Thank you for caring about me. I love that you feel safe enough to show your feelings for me but I will be okay. I’m tougher than you think.”

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