Page 28 of Lavish

Outside, I wasn’t prepared. The morning sun was brutal, blinding. And standing just past the property gates—the press.

They were everywhere. Clustered just outside the wrought-iron gates, holding mics through the bars. Some had climbed onto car hoods for a better shot. Others hoisted mics on long poles, aiming them like spears toward the front steps.

“Omar! Is it true you’re doing drugs with the mayor?”

“Do you deny the possession charges?”

“Miles, did you know your father was using?”

I ignored them, and ran down the steps toward Pops. “Let him go!”

A cop stepped in my path, pressing a firm hand to my chest.

“Get off me—he didn’t do anything!”

That was a lie, and we all knew it.

Still, I surged forward. Another officer blocked me. My shoulder slammed into his, a searing pain shooting through my arm, and suddenly there were arms on me—strong arms that held me back, pinning me against him.

“Sir, stand down!”

“Back up—now!”

I pushed back at them. “I don’t give a fuck, let him go!”

Pops twisted in the officers’ grip, trying to look back at me. His robe had slipped entirely off one arm now, exposing the ink along his ribs and a welt blooming on his side from where they’d pinned him.

“Miles!” he barked. “Don’t you let them do this to me—don’t you fucking let them win!”

“Damn it, Serena.”

I stared at the mess of papers sprawled across my coffee table.

I tried not to think about the day when the cops came and dragged Pops out. That had been only the beginning of a long, long battle.

Legacy.

I didn’t know how I felt about the word. No. That was a lie. I knew how I felt about it.

I didn’t view it how the Kings did. To them, legacy was fixed and rigid: you inherit it, you uphold it, you don’t question it. My grandfather used to think that way before he died. Pops maybe felt that way at some point.

To me, it all felt like old, bittersweet memories and pain.

But underneath it, the burning sense of hope and reinvention. Legacy was both this giant to be slayed but as fragile as the falling snow.

But still in my thoughts of our legacy being up for debate…I couldn’t get Serena out of my mind.

I was distracted by her at the baby shower. I wasn’t thinking straight. It had always been like that with her.

Those same damn brown eyes, like pools of dark honey, looked right through me, and despite any walls I put up, it didn’tmatter to her. She saw through the bullshit, and that terrified and excited me at the same time.

The Harrington estate, my only way out, was lost.

Fuck.

She must’ve been smiling when she signed that contract. Smug. Laughing all the way to the fucking bank.

I could have planned this better.