Page 3 of Kingston (Angels Halo MC Next Gen #14)

Chapter Three

Kingston

From the flames in her eyes, she could have set my entire kitchen ablaze.

That spark of temper made me ache in a way I hadn’t in a long-ass time.

Fuck, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had such an intense response to a woman, let alone one so fast. Definitely not with Avery or any other woman before her.

When my ex left, everyone had thought I’d be torn up, but I was more relieved than anything.

Maybe I’d loved Avery a little, but I’d never once been in love with her. Not like that all-consuming love my dad felt for my mom.

In my family, love was like a curse. Or a disease, a sickness. Something that altered us. My dad, uncles, and aunt. Even my cousins. Not a single Hannigan had escaped being afflicted by it, except for me.

Once a Hannigan found the love of their lives, something clicked inside them, and they became fucking possessed. Consumed by anything and everything involving the person they loved. At least, that was what it probably looked like to the outside world. To us, it was normal.

And for me, the odd one out, the only one left who hadn’t found his one yet, I thought maybe I was broken.

Wrong.

This little hell-raiser was dangerous—in more ways than one.

I shifted my pan to shield my face, in case she had another muffin I hadn’t noticed while pressing my fist to my chest. What the fuck was she doing to me? “Peace, hell-raiser.”

“Demi.” Mom’s soft voice floated to me as she came into view.

Out of instinct, I shifted, ready to put myself between her and any threat.

There wasn’t anyone or anything more important to me than my mom.

On a list of priorities, my cousins River and Nova would have been next on the list, but it was first and always my mom.

Yet, my gaze went back to the tiny little beauty, my heart suddenly beating in a weird rhythm. Hesitation, even for a second, would get someone killed in the MC, and I was stuck looking between the woman I adored more than life and a woman I’d only set eyes on mere moments before.

But Mom made the decision for me when she walked up to the smaller woman, tucking her strawberry-blond hair behind her ear ever so gently. Demi’s entire body seemed to tremble as reaction set in. “I-I’m s-sorry,” she whispered brokenly. “So, so sorry, Quinn. Please forgive me. I don’t know…”

Tears spilled down her face, and the bottom fell out of my stomach. “I don’t know what came over me.”

Mom’s mouth quirked up. “Oh, trust me, sweetheart. I want to throw things at Kingston at least once a week. It’s a normal reaction when he opens his mouth. He’s ninety-nine percent Hannigan, so that’s nothing unusual.”

“I need to go,” Demi choked out, swiping at her eyes.

I tightened my hand around the pan, fighting the urge to grab her and kiss away all the diamond-like tears spilling from those flame-filled eyes.

Everything inside me quaked, the need to get closer to her, touch her—smell her—almost too much to contain.

“Iris is… And I… I really am sorry. Thank you. For everything. You did so much for me and my baby girl. I owe you, but I can’t… Bye, Quinn.”

“No, Demi. Wait.” Before Mom could call her back, Demi was gone. For someone so small, she was as quick as a rabbit.

I almost ran after her, but Mom stepped in my way. She sucked in a breath and gave me a glare, but it quickly turned into a disappointed shake of her head.

That was always worse. I’d take Mom’s anger any day over letting her down.

Fuck.

“What did you say that upset her this badly?” she demanded, her voice low, a slight quaver in it, her chin trembling.

Rubbing the back of my neck, I tried to think back to what I’d said, but it was mostly a blur of dodging flying muffins and remembering those pretty, sparkling eyes. “Something about her being a con because she was here for more money?”

“Oh, Kingston,” she whispered, the disappointment only thickening in her voice, and I felt like I was five years old again. “I told you I have an arrangement with her.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t go into detail about it. The books say you pay her every week, just like all the other vendors. What was I supposed to think, Mom?” I tried to excuse, but it sounded weak, even to my own ears.

Glancing at the pass-through window, I saw Opal had returned to waiting on the customers.

From the chatter out in the dining room, they were already gossiping about the scene that had gone down and moving on to other local news.

“What is the arrangement anyway? Opal obviously knows, but I’m running blind here. ”

“You didn’t want to know, and until today, there was no need to tell you.

The fewer people who knew, the better. A girl that young, with a baby barely out of diapers?

She isn’t here with Sanctuary, Kingston.

She didn’t even know what the women’s shelter was until I explained it to her, but even then, she didn’t want to risk her name popping up in the system somehow. ”

Every word out of her mouth only made it worse. I felt equal parts sick and pissed off. Who the fuck was Demi running from?

Mom blew out a tired sigh. “I pay her every day, Kingston. She brings the pastries, I give her the cash. And to be completely honest, I slip her a little more than the muffins actually earn. Because if things had turned out differently, I could have easily been her.”

I wasn’t going to go there. That was history that didn’t need to be dredged up. My parents had a rocky beginning, but I didn’t think my dad would have ever allowed Mom to get past the town limits before he chased her down if she’d actually tried to leave.

“Does Jack know about her situation?” I asked, but Mom shook her head.

“Like I said, I felt like the fewer people who knew, the better. Your dad is aware, because I don’t keep anything from him.

And while Opal knows a little of our arrangement, I didn’t fill her in on the full details.

Maybe I should have talked to Gracie, asked her to have a conversation with Demi.

Sanctuary has a lot of options, but she was skittish, Kingston.

I was worried the slightest wrong move would scare her away. ”

Her shoulders dropped, a weight seeming to fall on her, driving home how much I’d fucked up in just a matter of minutes. “And I was right, but I still should have done something. Demi and Iris deserved for me to try harder. I let them down.”

“You didn’t let anyone down, Ma. I’ll fix it,” I promised, already running for the door.

Every head turned to look when I pushed through the swinging doors at a dead run, and no one so much as shifted a plate or scooted a chair back until I raced into the parking lot.

But by the time I got outside, I saw her pulling onto the highway.

Cursing, I rushed back inside, tearing off my apron.

The chatter abruptly stopped again, but I didn’t have time to roll my eyes at the small-town bullshit.

“Mom, where does she live?” I yelled, grabbing my keys.

She straightened from cleaning up the broken plate on the kitchen floor, the smell of burned pancakes filling the air.

But the ruined food was already in the trash, and fresh batter was on the grill.

Mom was back in survival mode, and I clenched and unclenched my fingers.

She needed me here, but she also needed me to fix the mess I’d made with Demi.

And more than that, I needed to see that little hell-raiser again.

To know if what I’d felt earlier was what I’d thought it was…

“She’s staying with the Lively family.” Using her forearm, she pushed a few strands of hair out of her face. “They live right over the county line, just past Mill Road.”

“Fuck’s sake,” I muttered to myself, recognizing the family’s name.

Jim and Felicia weren’t the worst people, but they didn’t do anything without a reason.

And they sure as hell wouldn’t let a single mom live with them simply out of the goodness of their hearts.

After Jim’s mother broke her hip, she couldn’t keep a home health care nurse.

When the fourth one quit because of her verbal abuse, there was talk that Felicia was going to divorce Jim unless they placed Joy in a nursing home.

But I hadn’t heard anything about that at the diner in months, which must have been when Demi had moved to town.

School buses were coming and going, making traffic a bitch.

I didn’t catch up to the clunky car I’d seen Demi drive off in the entire drive, even though I was pushing limits that would have had the cops busting my ass, despite my cousin being married to the sheriff.

By the time I pulled into the Livelys’ driveway, it felt like a lead weight was sitting in the pit of my stomach.

Despite knowing she wasn’t there, I jogged up to the front door. After knocking loud enough to wake the dead, I turned the knob. It was unlocked, so I stepped inside. “Demi?”

“Who is it?” a shrill voice called out, and I turned to find Joy Lively sitting in a recliner in the living room. “Who are you? I don’t know you. Get out of my house!”

She was at least seventy, her face showing every sign of her age and the hard life she’d lived.

Her hair had been gray for as long as I’d known her, maybe for as long as my parents had known her too.

Her husband had been a nice enough man, which was probably why Jim wasn’t a complete waste of human skin.

“Ma’am, my name is Kingston. I work at Aggie’s, the diner in town.

” I adjusted my cut, trying to relax my shoulders so I didn’t scare the old bat into a heart attack.

Thankfully, she seemed to relax. In Creswell Springs, the citizens looked to the MC to protect them, almost as much, if not more so, than the local police.

My gaze swung around the living room, hoping to see my little hell-raiser.

Demi had obviously gotten the old woman comfortable before driving over to the diner earlier.

Joy had everything within reach and a walker beside her chair.

There was a landline and a cell phone on a small table with a cup of coffee, water, snacks, and the remote control.

Other than use of the bathroom, Joy could have been there for a few days without a care in the world. “I’m looking for Demi.”

“She isn’t here,” Joy huffed, turning her gaze back to the television, dismissing me. “She and the whining brat left earlier.”

“Define earlier,” I gritted out. As old as the woman was, earlier could have meant when Demi had first come to the diner. My stomach clenched. Or it could have meant she’d come back and then left again.

She shrugged. “Few minutes ago. Maybe five, ten tops. Said she was done. Good riddance, I say. Damned annoying thing, if you ask me. I was tired of all that crying keeping me awake all night. Whine, whine, whine. Cry, cry, cry. Her ear hurts. Her tummy hurts. She doesn’t feel good.

Everything makes her sick. Can’t look at the little wretch without it screaming.

Day and night. Night and day. Cry, cry, cry?—”

“Demi left?” I confirmed, cutting her off. “She told you she was leaving?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?” she spat. “You Hannigans never listen. I know how you are. Knew your father, boy. Knew your grandfather before him. And his father before him. All the same. Those green eyes. You got something in you, something not right.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered, already walking away, but making sure I closed the door behind me.

Her nearest neighbor was a half mile away.

There was a higher chance a bear would wander in and eat her than she would get robbed.

But I wouldn’t have been opposed to a stray dog running in and pissing on her.

Goddamn it, I just wanted to find Demi and make things right.

For my mom.

And maybe to ease the growing ache in my chest with every passing minute I didn’t know if Demi was safe.