Page 117 of The Kingpin's Call Girl

“Was it...”

“Difficult?” I supply, searching her green eyes. “He was my brother, cruel as he was, so yes, it was difficult.” I never told anybody that, but I need Edie to know. I’m done playing monster to her. I need her to know my heart.

“And the people of the clan seem like they’ve accepted you as their new leader. They really have.”

“You saw the situation with the cookies. Most of these people take the lore very seriously. They accepted me instantly.”

“You seem good at it.”

“It’s the lore shit. Even Orton—he’s the kind of guy who needs his king to have royal blood. I could be the worst king, and he’d follow me.”

“Oh my God, that’s why they want your hair,” she says.

“Exactly. Truth or fiction, it’s gotten around that I might not be a Zogaj. Why a cop would be interested in that angle... let’s just say it’s odd.”

“What would happen to you if it turned out you weren’t a real Zogaj?”

“Putting myself up as a false king? Perpetrating that kind of fraud on a dangerous clan? Somebody would have to kill me. Orton might kill me first, just for the sake of his own honor.”

“No!”

“Don’t worry. Nobody’s killing me.”

She twists up her lips, eyes squinted. “Orton loves you. I don’t see him killing you.”

“He can love me and still be able to kill me.”

“Luka,” she gasps, and I kiss her. She grabs my hair and kisses me back.

“Well, we can’t give Bender your hair,” she declares. “He’d use it to hurt you if it turned out that what your brother said is true.”

“Even if he got my hair, I’d deal with it.”

“But obviously, he’d try and test it and find out if you’re in the bloodline.”

“Don’t worry,” I say as she plops back into her seat. “A DNA test is just some asshole in a lab. A lab is not Fort Knox. I’m the fucking kyre until I say I’m not.”

She smiles and dips a cracker in a spicy berry dip. She likes that. I like that she likes it.

This woman is different. She’s different from everyone I’ve ever known. And suddenly I need to clear the air on something.

“Remember that morning in the hotel after I got in that brawl? With the concussion and all of that, and I told you about the school in Tucumayo?”

“Yes.”

“You were so upset. I promised you that the kids were long gone, but it was about more than the other kids for you. You were up in arms because it happened to me. It seemed like you wanted to personally go and firebombthat place.”

“I did.”

“You had a personal stake in it because it was a shitty thing that happened to me, and you wanted to go after those people.”

“Yeah,” she says. “And then you acted like an asshole and took my phone away.”

“Yeah, I was a total asshole. I couldn’t think of what the fuck to do with this fierce, sexy woman who got it in her head to fight for me. What the hell is that, right? It was a good feeling that I didn’t trust. I didn’t have a category for it. So I ejected you.”

She studies my face. Pale green eyes serious. “You hurt my feelings.”

“I know. And I’m sorry for that.”