Page 36 of The Lost Kings

I watched the town of Rake Forge fly by, and then the trees as we drove closer to our manor, and then through the gates.

Scotty was outside with at least twenty armed men, which had me on alert.

He practically had a militia with him, and when I had left, we didn’t have that sort of manpower roaming the property, so what the hell had happened?

“Why are there so many men here?” I asked no one in particular.

Gio moved so his hand landed on my thigh. “We weren’t told.”

I glared down at his hand but we’d parked so I didn’t move it. I just jumped out of the car and rounded the hood.

Scotty’s men eyed me, and I recognized a few of them from when he’d put me in the ring with them. “What’s going on?”

My uncle’s gaze was cold and calculated as he held his assault rifle to his chest, as casual as any soldier would, except Scotty had never served in any war.

“These are the new precautions because you brought Adrian Adesso here.”

My chest pinched as humiliation clouded my thoughts and my reasoning.

“So there’s no threat?”

“Oh, there is,” Scotty said with a bit of a sneer then glanced over my head at the twins. “But I’m taking it one problem at a time. We’ll discuss more later this evening. Please go get settled into your room.”

My fists clenched tightly as I bit my lip. It wouldn’t do any good to fight with him out here. There was too much at risk to reveal any sort of dispute in the open. We had no idea how loyal these men were, so I pushed past the group and went straight into the manor.

My mother was walking out of our family wing right as I was walking in.

“Presley?” Her dark hair lifted as her head turned, and confusion marred her face. “Why are you back so soon? I thought you were staying until next month.”

Did Scotty not tell them?

“The twins brought me back, said there was a threat.”

Mom’s face did something that I knew mine did when I got angry with a sneer and widened gaze. “Scotty did this, I know he did. He sent them, didn’t he?”

She stormed past me. I turned with her, trying to stop her because it wouldn’t make a difference.

“Mom!”

She kept moving, her bare feet barely a whisper over the wood floors she hated so much and her hair flying like a sheet of midnight behind her.

She had on a simple T-shirt and a pair of jeans shorts but right as she was about to exit the house, she pulled something familiar from her purse that hung near the front door and my heart sank, but my feet moved faster.

The front door was thrown open and she was on him quicker than I could blink.

Her foot connected with the back of his leg and within a single heartbeat she had a Glock pressed to the side of his head.

Her lips peeled back as she seethed, “I’m so fucking sick of you interfering with her life.

I won’t have you do any more damage. You think you know what’s best, but you don’t. I won’t accept it anymore.”

The click of someone’s rifle had my gaze snapping up. The men surrounding Scotty all had their guns pointed at my mother. I didn’t have a weapon on me. How could I not have a weapon on me?

“Mom, please,” I begged, my chin wobbling.

My vision blurred, all I could see were the men in front of me. Where was my dad?

One of the men narrowed his eyes as if he were aiming and I moved without hesitating. I bolted so fast toward him that I couldn’t even think through how I would take him down. I just knew I couldn’t risk my mother getting hurt.

Scotty had his arms up, but when he saw me running, he began screaming. It didn’t matter; I was barreling toward the solider right as a shot went off as loud as a crack of thunder.

Several things happened too fast for me to process.

Someone pulling me to the ground, a hand covering my head, another wrapping around my waist. People shouting, my mother screaming.

I forced my eyes up just in time to see a bullet fly through a man’s head, making him jolt to the side.

Then the other men in the circle began going down, one after another.

I remained on the ground, breathing hard as I stared at every man who had dared point their guns at my mother, as if they were moving in slow motion until they were all down and my mother had finally released Scotty, stumbling backward.

I watched as my father slowly made his way up from the lower parking level, his gun still aimed as if he weren’t finished shooting.

He had an odd look on his face, as if someone had just dug into his chest and attempted to rip his heart through his rib cage.

His eyes were blown wide, and his face was pale, so fucking pale.

“Dad?” I weakly called for him, but his focus was on Scotty.

“Seven of your men, Scotty. Seven of them had a weapon pointed at my wife!”

Dad’s voice was murderously loud, the tendons in his neck strained and even spit came from his mouth as he screamed.

My uncle glanced around as he finally got to his feet, but my dad kicked his chest until he was faltering down to his knees once more.

“I spared you one time and only one time when you put her life in danger. I have ignored the liberties you’ve taken with my daughter because I understood what it took to withstand your training, but your men just aimed their fucking weapons at my wife !”

Scotty’s eyes flashed over to Mom who was shaking her head, tears gathering in her eyes.

“Kyle.”

I glanced at my uncle, realizing too late that the arms that had pulled me to the ground were familiar. Gio and Kingston were on their knees, holding me close while this all played out, and I was too numb to process or even react to that.

Dad pressed the barrel of his gun to Scotty’s temple.

“Seven of your men in exchange for seven bullets in the head. I think that’s fair, don’t you, Uncle?”

Mom reached forward and pulled his arm. “Kyle. Don’t. ”

Dad was about to pull the trigger; I could sense it. The only person I had ever seen pull him out of this bloodlust was Juan.

I squeezed the twins’ hands as tightly as I could. “Go get your dad!”

Gio moved, but Kingston didn’t.

I glared at his profile. His hand hadn’t left mine, nor had he stopped squeezing while his gaze remained on my dad.

“Kings—”

He turned his head and quickly snapped, “I’m not leaving you.”

Juan wasn’t going to make it. I had to stop my father.

“Dad, don’t kill him, please don’t kill him.” I was angry with Scotty, but he was a part of me. I couldn’t lose him.

“You know he would have killed those men himself if Mom hadn’t had a gun to his head. He would do anything for us.”

Dad finally dropped his hand and released Scotty.

Only to return with his clenched fist landing in my uncle’s face.

An hour later we were sitting in the main common area, where we typically gathered for joint dinners. Tonight, there was no food regardless of what Anna, the twins’ grandmother, had hoped for when she started unpacking various things wrapped in tin foil.

No one moved from whatever seat they’d grabbed.

Scotty held an ice pack to his nose while my mother sipped straight from a bottle of Crown, then chased it with a sip of her Diet Coke. The twins’ mother, Taylor, was seated in one of the larger, plushier chairs, with a glass of something clear.

The twins each nursed beers, and my father wouldn’t stop staring out the back patio doors.

“We need to talk about Adrian Adesso,” Scotty finally spoke up.

I sat on the same couch I always did whenever we had family talks, or on the rare occasion, played a game. There were two seats on either side of me, and I hadn’t even meant to do it; it was just habit after years and years of tradition.

Dad finally turned around, stuffed his hand into his pocket and waited for Scotty to continue.

“We’ve gotten intel regarding his plans. He’d essentially come to us with an offer of friendship in hopes that we’d become his ally. For the past year, Presley has built a connection with him and fostered that alliance.”

Both Kingston and Gio snapped their heads in my direction.

I refused to be ashamed of what I’d done, especially because it was exactly what I’d been trained to do.

“Is he playing both sides, or what changed?” my dad asked, taking a seat on the armrest of the chair my mom sat in.

Kingston spoke up, shocking me into silence.

“The Adesso family has grown larger than what he’s led anyone to believe, not through alliances but through blood.

His father may be gone, but he has brothers who have been building their presence in various parts of the world.

Layering his defenses in a way that prevent them being infiltrated. He’s essentially building a tower.”

There was a long pause in the room, full of heavy silence when Gio added, “A tower of power if you will.”

An unladylike snort left me, which I quickly covered with my hand. Gio glanced back at me with glee, fully delighted by his own antics. Kingston ignored us.

“One of his brothers has ten times the force growing over in Russia. His other brother has at least five hundred men employed, operating out of Canada, and Adrian is holding firm in two locations, Italy on the smaller scale, with most of his numbers in New York.”

Scotty adjusted the ice pack and squinted at Kingston. “How do you know all of this?”

“You’re not the only person who has intel and connections, old man,” Gio replied on behalf of his brother.

I stole a quick glance across the room and noticed Juan and Taylor give one another a loaded look, one full of concern and mild panic if I was reading the way Juan’s jaw pulsed correctly.

Scotty shook his head before standing tall and tossing the ice pack down. “Don’t stick your hand in the fire, kids.”

Gio snickered again, shoulders shaking. “Why? Because we’ll get burned?”

“No.” Scotty paused before glancing at me. “You’ll get branded. That world is a curse, and once you dip so much as a pinky in, it’ll never let you go.”

Kingston snapped back, “Then why the fuck have you raised Presley inside of it?”

My face flushed the smallest amount, knowing their concern was right but also knowing I’d made my choices, and I was okay with them. No one forced me to do anything I didn’t want to do. But did that mean the boys had started getting involved with the mob?

My mind played back the conversation they’d had in Adrian’s house when he’d said their name was familiar.

“ We’ve recently had business together.”

What had they done?

“So what’s the plan then…you pulled Presley. Is there an immediate threat to her that we should know about?” my dad asked, his gaze softening as it landed on me.

Scotty shook his head. “Other than his initial request at needing an alliance was disingenuous. It makes me nervous that he has an ulterior motive.”

Kingston scoffed, finishing off his beer. “Of course he has an ulterior motive, he wants to fuc?—”

“Find another way to say that, Son,” Juan quickly interjected, with a bite to his tone.

Kingston’s jaw feathered but continued on.

“I saw the way he acts with Presley. I believe his feelings for her are real, but I’m also positive he has an ulterior motive.

I doubt you all knew the town he’s in is completely under his employment.

The bistro café, the bookstore, the market…

even the vendors. They all work for Adrian, every single place you went, you were being watched, Elvis. ”

Something cold and foreign moved through me, almost like a snake had found sanctuary between my ribs. Adrian hadn’t lied to me, but he hadn’t once told me about any brothers, and he feigned that he pitied my father…maybe that was more true than I realized, and he didn’t need an alliance.

Maybe he had been telling me the truth this entire time.

My uncle adjusted his ice pack. “Well, for the time being we’re on high alert. He knows where we live, which means we need to leave.”

That was on me, but I still didn’t have a bad feeling about Adrian. No matter how hard I tried to muster up the things he could be capable of, or all the horrible things the head of a mafia family could do, I still had affection for him.

“He’s not a threat.” I found myself arguing. Everyone swung their gazes over to me, and two pairs of eyes burned as they pinned me in place. I slowly stood and tried to explain where I was coming from.

“Ducking back underground isn’t the answer here. Adrian and I have a real connection, and I’d like to tug on the thread a bit before you bury us, Scotty.”

Scotty gave me one last look before walking toward the main hall. “What did you have in mind?”

“I want to bring him here, invite him to meet all of you and see if anything shifts. If he’s going to draw his brothers into it, then we’ll be ready, but if not, then perhaps there’s still an alliance on the table here.”

“Over my fucking dead body!” Kingston yelled.

Gio briskly stood. “You swore she’d never be subjected to an arranged marriage. She’s eighteen years old.”

“I’m old enough to make this decision on my own,” I argued, stepping closer, “And you two have been gone too long to have a say about this, one way or another.”

“It’s not like we didn’t try to get in touch with you,” Kingston sneered .

I ignored him, keeping my focus on Scotty. He watched me carefully before giving me a simple nod.

“I trust you, Presley. If you think it’s a good idea to invite Adrian here to meet your family, including the twins, then by all means, arrange it.”

Glaring over at my two previous best friends, I pulled out my cell and headed toward my wing of the house, ignoring the arguments breaking out behind me.