Page 15 of Cash

He and Amber were twins, and we all knew how fucking strong she was. The officers now knew everything about her and what King had kept hidden from us.

Now, I understood why he’d done it.

I didn’t at first. Felt like he was keeping secrets the way Steele had done. King put that son of a bitch on a pedestal he didn’t deserve. He was still fucking up there. Despite what he’d done.

The knock on the door before it opened was brief. Blade walked in and sat in the chair next to me and opposite King.

King ignored him, pretending whatever the fuck he was doing was important. He wasn’t doing anything. I had been handling the club shit.

“You know you fucked up. When are you going to fix it?”

“Fuck off,” King snarked, and I leaned my elbow on the arm of the chair, trying to hide my grin behind my hand.

No one had to look at Blade to know he was grinning. He was one of the few who could get away with calling King on his shit. Now that everyone knew they were related.

“It’s been a week. You need to talk to him.”

I stayed quiet as King tossed the pen in his hand and leaned back in his chair.

“He doesn’t want to talk to me. I know I fucked up, and I don’t have an excuse for what I did, other than I knew she would never be in any fucking danger. No one ever knew that drive was in there and had no reason to even suspect it.”

“It was still a shitty thing to do,” Blade rebuffed.

He nodded. “It was. But you make the best decisions you can in the moment. No one knew Sypher had the drive except Ryder and Ellie. So, no one knew I had the drive except Ryder and Ellie.”

“She carried that thing everywhere,” he reminded him.

“Because I asked her to.”

“Dammit, King,” Blade shouted.

“Look, I can apologize to Ryder until I am blue in the face, but he won’t forgive me. If he wants to hand in his cut, I’ll understand.”

“You’re not sorry, are you?”

King shook his head, and Blade glared at him. I didn’t know what the point of this conversation was. I might not like Ryder,but I understood why he was pissed. But Blade knew King. He made his decisions with the club in mind.

“What would you have done?”

“I wouldn’t have put a three-year-old at risk,” Blade thundered.

“She wasn’t at risk. Ever!” King argued.

“If someone had found out—”

“How would they find out? I was the only son of a bitch who knew it was there. And only three other people knew I had it.”

“Sypher gave up Amber. You don’t think he wouldn’t have given up you?”

I closed my eyes at his logic. Of course, it was possible. People were fallible. But Sypher was smart.

“Sypher gave up enough about Amber to keep Jane from finding her here. A little bit of truth to lead her in a different direction. And Jane would have had to know he had the fucking drive to get the information out of him.”

“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“Yes, I fucking do. Because I am the king of this motherfucking castle. It is my responsibility to keep everyone safe. I don’t do a goddamn thing without going over every fucking scenario.”

Blade stood from his chair and walked to the door. He stopped with his hand on the knob and turned toward me. “So your answer for fucking up is ‘but did you die?’”