Page 2 of The Spare (The King Dynasty #2)

Chapter one

You're The Problem

Five Weeks Later

I hate we're sitting around dissecting my love like this, I think.

However, I keep quiet, letting my family take the lead on the current situation: discussing whether or not to put Melody in a rehab facility due to extreme weight loss.

I press my lips together, hands in my pockets, floundering.

Digging the paperclip under my fingernail in a bid to remain in control and helplessly watch them decide amongst themselves what to do with Melody.

"She won't eat. She won't move," Donna, Melody and Isobel's mother, says tearfully from her spot at my father's desk. "I don't know what to do anymore. She needs help."

The office lights up with a flash of lightning, the thunder shakes the house as if to lend her words precedence and strength. My lips tighten, as do my arms folded across my chest. The desperation in Donna's voice is almost enough to send me over the edge.

An edge I'd just sharpened to an unbearable point with my recent admission to my family.

To Hendrix…

We're packed seven deep in my father's office at King compound: Hendrix, myself, Teresa, Donna, Father, Mother, and Father's estranged younger brother, William. My eyes meet his across the room.

We've a shared disposition, he and I, as their relationship mirrors mine and Hendrix's relationship. William was the black sheep to my father's status as a golden child.

Thirty years have separated the two men to near irreconcilable levels, and he's only here because I'd called him out of desperation and his love for Hendrix. Otherwise, he'd never have known what happened to Isobel had I not informed him.

Father extended a guest room to Uncle William; however, that's it.

And since he's been here I haven't seen him say more than two words to him.

An ice cold energy has entombed this house, and made space for the intense grief that currently gives life to the expansive walls that I used to call my childhood home.

Madre leans over to place a tissue in Donna's hand and places her hand on her back .

"Donna, we're here, honey," she says. "I promise we will do everything in our power to see to it that she is taken care of."

My eyes glance over their attire. Both women are dressed in funeral black out of respect to Xavier, Isobel and Hendrix's bodyguard we'd just buried not three hours ago.

My gaze now slides to Hendrix who stands at the fireplace with an arm leaned against the mantle.

Every muscle in his body is tight with tension, and worry reflects in his blue eyes.

A fact I know, even if I can't currently see them.

In three weeks I've witnessed my confident brother slowly be eaten away into a shell of himself, and in the twenty minutes that I've shared my hand in Isobel's disappearance, he's turned his back on me.

And kept it there.

My brows pinch as worry fills me anew, but not enough to edge out this sickening guilt that's sat on my chest like an iron weight.

Refusing to be moved even now that I've confessed that it was my friend within the Balducci mafia who'd given away Isobel's location to her father, Claudio.

Resulting in her abduction, and Xavier and two others' deaths.

The room fills with the roar of the great fireplace behind my father's chair and the sharp pitter patter of rain against the two ten-foot tall window panes on the western side of the room. As if the heavens are also mourning, it's rained almost every day since her abduction.

And as the rain washes away bits and pieces of the Earth, it also mercilessly carries away parts of the man who used to be my brother.

And viciously corrodes what's left of Melody's sanity.

"I'm so terrified that she's next," Donna cries, clutching her hand to her chest as tears stream down her face.

Her shoulders shudder as she fights with everything in her to stem the fervor of her cries, but not one of us would blame her if she completely broke down. Isobel's been gone for three weeks now, and we're no closer to getting her back than we were the first day she was taken.

Hendrix just gave the order for my friend to be captured, and we're awaiting more information.

My father leans forward now, reaching for Donna's other hand across the table. "Donna, we won't let anything happen to her. The two of you will stay here at King compound-"

Stepping forward from my place against the sidewall, I tilt my head. "Hold on, why do you think she's next?" I ask, daring to interrupt my father.

"Because of who her father is," Donna says, wiping her eyes.

Father and Madre share a carefully concerned look.

"Our security team is very skilled, Donna…" Madre says, putting her kind eyes back to Donna, who's now shaking her head, looking thoroughly tired.

"I don't understand why Maximus would have anything to do with this?

" Father says, frowning, apparently referencing Melody's father, as well as a conversation that I must have missed somewhere along the way, because this is the first time I'm hearing about a Maximus, much less him being Melody's father.

"Because Maximus and Claudio are rivals, Richard!" Donna says loudly. "If Claudio found Isobel, then he no doubt has found out about Melody, and he will kill her for no other reason than to get back at Maximus!"

The room goes quiet.

Placing a hand on his jaw, Father heaves a slight sigh, scrubbing his hand down the short hairs there. "I thought Maximus was dead, Donna," Father says softly .

Donna sniffs. "Yeah, I thought he was dead too, for a while. Max is the only reason I was able to get away from Claudio in the first place. He secured me time to get Isobel out of Claudio’s and my home in the middle of the night, and gave us the money we needed to procure new identities.

For a few years, money would appear, and things would randomly show up that I needed, but Max never showed his face until almost eight years later.

We got together, and I became pregnant with Melody, but I…

." she trails off, looking to the side as her features contort on a wince.

Hendrix turns his head slightly, gifting me with his profile as he moves the smallest amount. The only proof that he's listening, and not trapped in his head.

The tension thickens to an acute, almost painful level before she turns her eyes back to my father's. A crack of lightning throws her vulnerable, eerily youthful features into sharp relief, and for a moment, I see the terror of the girl she was back then. Helpless and alone.

"And then?" Madre asks softly, rubbing her hand in soothing circles on Donna's back.

Donna takes a deep breath, rocking in her seat in a self-soothing motion reminiscent of Melody and Isobel's anxious mannerisms.

"Claudio hunted us down and found us before I could tell Maximus that I was expecting Melody."

My father's posture visibly tightens, and the energy shifts once more. My eyes flit, seeing Father look sharply at Uncle William whose lips tighten, but he doesn't tear his eyes from Donna. Donna continues speaking, effectively bringing my attention back to her.

"He broke into our home one night, and attacked Maximus while we were asleep. And, while I was fleeing with Isobel -again- I heard a gunshot. I didn't turn back. I was too scared, and Max was yelling for us to run." Donna blinks, rolling her lips as an embarrassed expression graces her features.

She squeezes her eyes shut, and though I find myself sympathizing with her pain, my mind races, winding through the hallways of my parent's home to where I know Melody's bedroom is.

The fact she's been alone for this long doesn't sit right with me, but Donna begins speaking again, bringing my attention back to her.

"The years crawled by, and I didn't hear from Max.

Not one time. I'd assumed he'd died, until a couple weeks before Isobel's eighteenth birthday.

A note showed up at my door instructing us to move to New York into the Balducci territory.

It wasn't signed, but I could tell from the handwriting it was Maximus…

" she goes silent as she brings the tissue up to wipe at her face. "But he never came back."

"It was probably a good thing you did, and got under the protection of the Balducci territory. It bought you a few years until you had the resources to fight back." Uncle William's voice rings out, drawing everyone's attention. "You were smart to come here."

My eyes go past Donna to the leather sitting area where my Uncle sits half in shadow on the opposite side of the wall from me.

He'd been silent this entire time, unsure of how his presence would be tolerated. But his gaze remains hard on Donna, where it's been since he first laid eyes on her.

Donna shakes her head rapidly. "You don't understand!

" she says, turning in her seat to throw half-crazed, red-rimmed eyes at Father.

"He will steal Melody just to get back at Maximus!

I'd always told her he was dead. It was easier than trying to explain all of this to her.

How could I explain she had a father that I couldn't find and wasn't even for sure that he was alive?

" She takes a deep breath, bowing her head.

"I couldn't even wrap my own head around it, much less find a way to tell her.

" Her eyes flick back up to Father's, who continues to listen with a quiet, reserved expression on his face.

"But these people are dangerous, Richard.

I don't think it's going to stop with Isobel. "

Father sits back in his seat, scrubbing his hand across furrowed brows. Mine lower as well. King stays unmoving.

I speak up from the other side of the room. "Donna, you need to tell Melody."

Hendrix turns to face me now, the lines in his face etched deep with grief, his blue eyes are narrowed, causing my heart to skip a beat, freezing me in place.