Ravenous Kingpin (Kingpins of the Syndicate #4)

9. Killian

CHAPTER 9

Killian

New York

A Week Later

F ire crept up on me, its heat licking at my skin.

A pair of hands clutched me, shaking me while I desperately tried to hold my baby sister. She was so fragile, so precious.

“Did you hear me, Killian?” An invisible noose wrapped around my neck, distorting my athair’s voice. “Tell me you understand.”

Mama’s soft cries and tearstained face came into focus, and I nodded.

“I understand, Athair.”

“Good boy.” He dropped to his knees and wrapped me in his arms. It felt like goodbye. “No matter what you hear, don’t come out, Killian. Keep your sister safe.”

“Okay.” Fear made my body tremble, but my parents didn’t seem to notice.

It was Mama’s turn to kneel in front of me, hugging me and my baby sister tightly to her chest, the scent of lavender calming me amid the chaos.

“We love you, Killian,” she murmured, her voice shaking worse than mine. “Don’t ever forget it. We’re so proud of what a brave boy you’ve become.”

I didn’t look up, scared I’d start crying and Mama would see that I wasn’t brave at all. “I love you too, Mama.”

Everything happened quickly from there. I was ushered into a secret passageway in our family room, into the darkness, as I clutched my sister. My heart thundered, and I feared my baby sister would wake up and betray our hiding spot.

My blood roared in my ears as I watched the events unfold through the small crack in the wall.

Two men poured gasoline around the room while another pointed a gun at my parents. Athair held a protective hand over Mama’s shoulders, shielding her with his body.

“I never expected this from you,” he said, his face pale. I strained to see who he was speaking to.

“I don’t have a choice,” the man grunted. He sounded old. “That witch holds something over all of us, and if we don’t do her bidding, she’ll kill those we hold dear.”

“Spare my wife.” Athair barely had time to utter the words when a gunshot rang. He staggered. Mama screamed, her eyes wide on my athair, who fell to his knees with a painful grunt. His hands gripped his stomach, a bright red stain blossoming at alarming speed, and rasped the words again: “Spare my wife.”

“No can do.” Another shot pierced the air just as flames engulfed the space. Mama fell to the ground with a thud.

Juliette stirred in my arms, and I quickly covered her small ears, so the gunshots wouldn’t wake her.

When the final gunshot rang out, Athair’s strong body slumped to the ground, next to Mama’s. His mouth moved but formed no words, and all the while the fire grew wilder and hotter.

“No…”

My voice was barely a whisper, but it made my baby sister stir in my arms. I cradled her closer to my chest as my blood roared, matching the harsh beat of my heart.

My eyes snapped open, the pounding against my skull painful and the ringing in my ears loud. I let my eyes roam the length of my body before surveying the room for any signs of fire.

The fucking dreams.

If I could wipe them out completely, I would, but the little boy inside me hung on to them as a reminder.

It was then that the ringing registered. It wasn’t in my head after all.

My phone.

Snatching it from the side table, I threw an arm over my eyes as I answered it. “What?”

“Where in the fuck are you?” my friend, Danil Popov, barked over the line. He was usually level-headed, so the tone sent an immediate alert through me.

“What happened?”

“This world has gone mad, that’s what.”

“Huh?”

“Women, Killian. They’re the root of all evil.”

“Is that the reason you’re calling, Danil? To complain about women? If so, I’m hanging up. Call a therapist, psychic, anyone but me.”

I was the last person who should be trusted with doling out relationship advice. A failed arranged marriage that pretty much resulted in my bride-to-be being kidnapped in front of me on the day of our wedding by none other than the lunatic Sasha Nikolaev had all but confirmed that.

Of course, if I’d known the girl in the red dress was alive and walking this earth, I would have never agreed to the damn arranged marriage in the first place. When my adoptive father approached me with the idea, I agreed because it didn’t really matter to me who I took for my wife. The one I wanted lay buried six feet under.

Or so I’d been led to believe.

I shook my head as Em’s image formed in my mind. The woman I scoured heaven and hell to find. I was relentless in my search until the fateful day I found her photo and the announcement in the obituaries.

Em Amara.

Forever gone.

But never forgotten.

It was a punch in the gut. I hadn’t known her long, but something about her called to me. She’d felt right.

I’d survived in this world despite the odds stacked against me. My name had become synonymous with terror in the underworld, and I was content dedicating my life to honoring my family name. But for that brief moment around her, I’d felt normal.

For fuck’s sake, I listened to hours of girls screaming along with Taylor Swift just so I could watch her smile and catch the twinkle in her eyes.

When I stumbled upon that death announcement, it felt like I’d lost something invaluable.

So imagine my surprise when I found her in Las Vegas after I chased Basilio DiLustro down after he kidnapped Wynter.

The memories from the day that we stormed the manor in the Nevada desert—outside Las Vegas—crept from the shadows. It was where I came face-to-face with the woman who was supposed to be dead. Yet, there she was… watching me with a cold look in her eyes and ready to shoot me if it helped her brother get what he wanted.

Liam and the DiLustro assholes bickered, flexing muscles, spitting out threats and curses. The Ashfords, Luca King, and Sasha Nikolaev, who came as Liam’s backup, threw around threats with the DiLustro men. The Ashfords were part of the Brennan family now—brothers to Liam’s wife. But they also had blood relations to the Ashfords—this world was a small fucking place. And then there were Sasha and Luca who had teamed up more than once in the past, fighting the Belles & Mobsters Agreements and surprisingly becoming friends. Both were smartasses with sick senses of humor.

I, on the other hand, ignored them all, my eyes locked on the woman who watched me with a hard gleam, her gun pointed at me.

Basilio DiLustro’s sister.

The kingpin of the Syndicate.

“Put the gun down, or I’ll end you.” Her hissed threat was aimed at me in that same voice I remembered.

I couldn’t fucking believe it, and with guns pointed in every direction, I stared at the woman who’d plagued my dreams for six fucking years. Seeing the gleam in her eyes, I knew she’d shoot me without hesitation.

Luca King ran a hand across his jaw with sardonic amusement. “You think you’re invincible, huh? Fucking kingpins.”

Emory shot him a cold smile, then said mockingly, “You didn’t seem to mind us kingpins when you needed help with a certain lady.”

“Now, now, everyone,” Byron deadpanned with a masked civility. “We have to settle this like normal people. Let my cousins say what they want, and we can all come to terms. Without any bloodshed.”

Byron and Winston had their eyes on the DiLustro men ready to shoot them, and I had my eyes on everyone and Emory. Nobody better dare to shoot at her. She was mine, and I’d find the right way—my way—to punish her for letting me think she was dead.

“Cousins,” Emory sneered. “Just because your mother was sister to our father doesn’t make us family.”

“I didn’t call you family, did I?” Byron drawled, his cold eyes on her.

“Byron, your cousins are crazy,” Wynter rasped, her face pale.

“I don’t give a shit whose cousins they are,” I gritted, glaring at the Ashfords. “They kidnapped a woman. My cousin. DiLustro’s gone too far.” It infuriated me that they dared go after my cousin.

“Wynter is mine,” Bas growled. “She is the payment for a debt owed.”

He was talking about the little scams my cousin, her friends, and my sister had been running. It didn’t matter because they had no right to the women under our protection.

Being the strategic one, Liam continued to argue and negotiate with the DiLustros until loathing, tense silence fell upon the room, and Wynter conceded to marrying Basilio DiLustro.

“She doesn’t want you, fucker,” I said, my voice like a whip against sensitive skin, but Basilio didn’t care. He wanted her.

Before we left, I locked eyes with Emory and mouthed, “This isn’t over.”

Let the woman debate on the meaning until I was ready to come at her like a sledgehammer.

And here I was.

I found the woman I’d mourned, alive and well. Emory fucking DiLustro , the woman who’d invaded my frozen heart and then ripped my fucking soul to shreds.

I didn’t like to think about her. Not anymore. The rage I’d held on to for years would explode, and I didn’t even want to think about what the result would be.

“Are you listening to me?” Danil’s voice brought me back to the present, and I suppressed a sigh.

I put him on speaker and started checking the status of my shipments. “Yes, I hear you whining like a bitch.”

“I honestly don’t know why we’re friends,” he muttered. I could hear Soren’s infectious laughter in the background. “Get your ass to the gym so I can teach you a thing or two.”

“You wish, sucker.”

Adrenaline buzzed through me an hour later as my fist slammed into Danil’s stomach. He grunted at the impact, pausing for a few seconds before landing a counterpunch. This was his favorite way to release tension and he did it often with any willing victim.

I could hardly believe I was that willing victim today. What the fuck was I thinking?

“I thought you were here to make me feel better ,” he said, throwing a left hook. “What’s got you upset?” he asked as I grunted in pain.

It didn’t surprise me that he picked up on my mess of emotions. We ran a few businesses together, and although we didn’t exactly move in the same circles, we’d gotten close, occasionally even fucking a woman together.

After speaking with Liam at his house the other day, I hacked into Emory’s phone, and since then I’d monitored her every move. I read her cryptic emails, her even more mysterious texts, and I’d watched her dealings with the human traffickers. With none other than Sebastian fucking Tijuana.

Seemed as though the woman had a death wish, and it boggled my mind that she’d deal with those filthy scumbags. It went against everything the Syndicate stood for.

“No more than you,” I grunted, answering with a right hook. He sidestepped it with millimeters to spare.

“Does your state of mind also have something to do with a woman?” he asked, a hint of amusement coloring his voice.

“Maybe.”

Sweat dripped down my temples and coated my back as we sparred in his Upper East Side gym. It was a good way to release tension and work out frustration, although it never resulted in answers.

At least not for me.

“It’s no use fighting them,” he muttered, sweat dripping down his forehead.

I let out a snort and pulled my punch. “So just give in to them?”

“I’m done with women,” he gritted. We were barely out of breath despite the aggressiveness of our sparring. “You can keep them all and the headaches that come along with them.”

I didn’t want all of them. Just one.

“Maybe the two of you need to have your brains checked,” Soren, Danil’s shadow, said as he jumped up on the ring’s platform. “Your women need a firm hand.”

Danil’s booming laughter filled the air as he shook his head. “Because that worked so well for you.”

I swiped Danil’s feet from under him, making him fall on his ass, but not before he knocked me off my feet too.

“I’m done with women too, so no advice needed here, thank you,” Soren drawled. “I’m happier for it.”

Danil’s tone filled with sarcasm as he said, “Yeah, I bet you are.” He turned to me. “Did you hear that Emory DiLustro is in New York?”

With a scowl, I climbed to my feet. Yes, I knew that, although for some fucking reason none of her messages indicated why she was here. If only I could hack into the woman’s brain.

“She’s none of my business.” Shifting my attention to Soren, I said, “Any updates on that shipment from China?”

“It’s scheduled to arrive on time.”

It was thanks to Danil’s connections that I’d worked up a deal with the Triads and compounded the wealth left to me by my father. Liam had kept it safe for me until I was of age, and once I took the reins, not even the sky was the limit.

“Excellent.”

“Your business is flourishing. Everything you touch turns to gold.” Danil jumped to his feet, his expression speculative. “Which leaves you to do one thing. Get married.” He let out another grunt when I landed a jab below his ribs, but it only made him laugh. “I must have hit a sore spot.”

He knew he did. He was the only one I’d confided in after a drunken night out. It happened shortly after I found the woman of my dreams, alive and well, running the Las Vegas Syndicate under the protection of the kingpins.

For fuck’s sake, she was a kingpin herself.

But no matter. My plan was in motion and soon she’d be exactly where she was meant to be.

“Why don’t you get married?” I turned the tables, ignoring his dig. “Your woman still ignoring you?”

“It’s a business arrangement,” he snapped. “That I arranged.”

I blocked his next punch, noting the additional force and gusto, and I couldn’t hold back a chuckle.

“You have to admit, it’s a weird form of punishment,” I pointed out. “Even for you. Maybe you’re a masochist.”

My laugh faded when he hit me with an uppercut to the jaw. I, in turn, punched him with a force that audibly knocked the air from his lungs. For the next twenty minutes, our conversation came to a halt, replaced by hisses and grunts as we wailed on each other.

Slip. Dodge. Hit.

Slip. Punch. Hit.

Who needed therapy when you could punch your feelings out?