Page 36 of The Kingpin’s Omega Lover (River City Omegas #2)

SIXTEEN

King requested that Garvey drive him to a safe house not far from the docks, so he could take a shower and change his clothes.

Blood was not a good look when trying to be discreet about his activities, and he didn’t want any extra suspicion cast his way.

He also didn’t want Malori or Kensley to see him splattered in blood.

Everything King had done in that room stayed in that room. And in his memory.

Neither of them spoke on the trip home. Garvey had been present the entire two hours, and King trusted him not to talk about what he’d seen. The other men had come in afterward to tend to Yovenko until his fate was decided; they’d likely heard the screams, but all they saw was the aftermath.

King stared at his hands during the ride, positive he’d missed some blood under his fingernails.

Certain Malori would see a smear on his neck.

Sure that everything he’d done would play out in his eyes the moment they looked at each other.

King had hurt and threatened and tortured before. He’d done it recently.

Was he finally losing his taste for violence? Had he sampled a simpler, happier life, and now there was no going back?

“Boss?” Garvey tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. “We’re here. Do you need me to come up?”

King blinked at the underground garage’s elevator doors. Garvey had pulled up to the curb. “No, you’re fine to go home. I’ve got Hartford and McFadden upstairs.”

“Good enough, sir.”

“Thank you.” He twisted his upper body to face Garvey, who’d worked diligently for King for the last six years. He’d even taken a bullet for King four years ago. “Thank you for today. I know it wasn’t easy.”

“What happened to Mr. Malori wasn’t easy or okay. I was proud to stand by you, boss.”

“I appreciate it. See you Monday.”

“Monday, sir.”

King climbed out. Garvey idled until the elevator doors closed, cutting off sight and sound. His stomach lurched unhappily during the ascent, as much from nerves as hunger, with a side helping of something else. Something a lot like regret.

Fuck, I’m getting soft. It’s definitely time to get out.

Hartford was at his post in the lobby, and he didn’t look surprised to see him. Garvey must have texted. His most trusted men were on top of things.

King followed the sounds of joyous baby laughter into the living room.

A yellow blanket was spread out on the carpet.

Malori and Kensley sat in the middle with little Junior between them.

The baby was using Malori’s fingers as grips to stand upright, his diapered butt bouncing like he was dancing to music only he could hear.

Bishop sat nearby on the sofa. Davia and McFadden weren’t in the room.

Junior bopped three more times, lost his grip, and fell onto his butt. Instead of crying, he brayed out a high-pitched squeal. The pure innocence was overwhelming, and King backed out of the room.

He wandered into the kitchen and absently pulled a bottle of something from the refrigerator. Chugged the remnants of orange juice and wished it was laced with vodka. It didn’t help his rolling, upset gut, so he pulled out a package of deli meat and shoved a piece into his mouth. Then another.

“We’ve got bread if you want a sandwich,” Bishop said.

King dropped the package on the counter then turned. “Just need something to settle my stomach.”

“Where do we stand?”

“Even ground. Information is useless but the source still has potential.”

“For trade?”

King nodded. “Unless Ziggy tells me the fucker is worth a fortune, then I’m willing to sell him for the best information. Someone must know where Malori’s daughter is. We found his son. We can find his daughter.”

“We both know who’s most likely to have that information.”

“Marta.”

“Sometimes there’s truth to that old saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. She might be willing to trade.”

“Maybe.” King put the lunchmeat back in the fridge. “Yovenko did admit to quite a few things while I was encouraging him.”

“Such as?”

“His life motto is if he can’t have it, he crushes it. Businesses, success, money. People most of all. He was married ten years ago. Married to a beautiful woman who was—in his words—not soiled by divorce or children.”

Bishop sneered. “Sounds like a delightful husband.”

“It gets worse. She got pregnant and had a child. And he got so jealous over her attention to their baby that he smothered the baby, and then made her believe she’d accidentally rolled over in her sleep and killed him. She was so distraught he drove her to suicide three weeks later.”

“Fuck, that’s….” Bishop pressed his palms flat to the countertop, his shoulders tense and thrumming with anger. “That’s so fucking evil.”

“He couldn’t have the perfect little family, so he destroyed it.”

“Then why did he try again with Malori?”

King eyed the upper cabinet where he kept his liquor, unsure if he could get through this story without a few snorts. “I really should be telling Malori first.”

“Tell me what first?” Malori walked toward him with a sippy cup in his hand, his expression caught between glad to see King and worried about the answer to his question.

“Why Yovenko targeted you and lied the way he did,” King replied.

“Because he’s a psychopath who thinks toying with peoples’ lives is fun?”

“Well, yes, but you specifically, Mal.”

“Okay.” Malori slid onto one of the stools and sat straight-backed, hands in his lap. Pale but determined. “Tell me.”

“He’d gotten in with a group of wealthy businessmen, people he intended to fleece for all the money they had.

During a golf outing, one of these men told a”—he made air quotes—“humorous story. About this place called the Farm, and how the workers were so desperate for love that they’d believe anything.

That the previous year, he’d tricked a woman into believing he loved her, got her pregnant with permission from the people who ran the Farm, and made this poor woman believe that he would buy her freedom, once the child was born. ”

Malori grunted. “Sounds familiar. Did this fuck-twat take her baby and run, too?”

“Worse. Apparently, the Farm had a system of selling unwanted newborns to wealthy, barren couples around the country. He didn’t give Yovenko any specific information, but the fuck-twat sold his own baby.”

“Fuck!” Malori slammed his palm on the counter hard enough to rattle the sippy cup he’d put down. “Do you think that’s what they did with my daughter?”

“It’s possible. But that story is what gave Yovenko the idea to do the same thing to you. To impregnate you, to make you fall in love with him, to lead you on and then completely break you by leaving.”

“But why me?”

“The challenge. He’d already done the same thing to a woman ten years earlier.

Seducing an omega man was a challenge he couldn’t refuse.

” King still felt the weight of the box grater in his hand, the way the fine mesh on one side dug into his palm while he used the larger side on Yovenko’s upper thigh.

“He was extremely unapologetic about that choice.”

Malori snorted hard. “Men like him never apologize, because they never have regrets. You need empathy first, to actually regret your actions.”

“True.”

“So, what’s been these last two weeks? If he was off living his best life with our son, why did he come here and bait me? Why come after you, of all people?”

“He was a bit incoherent at this point in the story, but from what I gather, he heard about the Farm raid, and that some of the sex workers—his words, not mine—got away and were talking to authorities. He was told you’d died, but when he learned my people were the ones who found the place, he wanted to discover for sure if you were alive.

And looking for your son. So, he moved here temporarily.

But since you never leave the residence, he decided to play games.

He planted the story of the Alexie murder and used how quickly my people found it as proof you were alive.

And that I was actively hunting for him. ”

“Well, he wasn’t wrong,” Bishop said, speaking for the first time in this painful conversation. “His biggest mistake was crossing you, King. He severely underestimated his enemy.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Wait, does that mean Aleks was responsible for running you guys off the road last week?” Malori asked.

King shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.

I did ask about that. He said he heard about the accident, and that he was briefly interested in collaborating with whoever was trying to either kill me, or send a message, but he didn’t have the right connections in this city to do so.

I still think it was a warning not to continue searching for Marta. ”

“Either way,” Bishop said, “Yovenko’s connections here or anywhere else aren’t going to save his life.”

“So, we’re going to kill him?” Malori asked, perfectly neutral.

“Not necessarily,” King replied. “Bishop floated the idea of trading him to Marta for information.”

“About my daughter?”

“Correct.”

“But why would she want him? He was a paying Farm client. He’d have everything to lose by going to the authorities with anything he knows about her or her operation. If he knows anything at all.”

“Yes, but if he’s arrested for some other reason, he has everything to gain by spilling his guts to the police or FBI. He has no loyalty to anyone, not if it saves his own ass.”

“Did he try bargaining with you?”

“No. He understood there was no deal to be made with me. Absolutely nothing he could tell me that would guarantee his release. He’s a gifted liar and manipulator, Mal. I wouldn’t trust him saying the room was on fire even if the flames were licking at my toes.”

“Right. So, Marta could consider Aleks a possible loose end, because of what he knew about the Farm. One she needs to clip before he unravels?”

“Precisely.”