I sunk into one of the leather chairs in Dad’s office as he watched me from behind his heavy mahogany desk. “What happened?”
I leaned back. “Well, a fucking lot, but first I need to ask you if you knew about the underground tunnels on Perdita?”
“Yes.” He nodded, leaning forward to flick off his ash in the ashtray. “Of course I knew.”
“And you used them?” I shot back, watching his reaction.
His eyes squinted from the smoke. “Yes.”
“What for?”
“Why all the questions?” His eyebrow quirked.
“Why all the secrets?” I shot back.
He sighed and ran the palm of his hand over his slicked-back salt and pepper hair. “There are no secrets.” He flicked his ash again, and I watched as his suit jacket rode up to display the edge of his sleeve tattoo. He had swagger for his age, I’d give him that, and girls—of all ages, apparently, gravitated toward him. The smart ones ran after sex, the dumb ones like Khales stayed and thought they could tame him. He could never be tamed. Before him, was my pops. He rode a Harley until the day he died and ruled the underworld just as my dad does and as I will when he passes. Some days I miss my pops though. He was the only one who really understood the shit that I felt. He was still hard like Dad but wasn’t cold like him. He had a heart when it came to family, but was ruthless with everyone else—my dad wasn’t like that. He was just flat out ruthless to everyone, fuck family.
“That underground pathway is used for a lot of things. Weapons, bodies, and anything else there may be.”
“Drugs?” I asked flat out because I needed a straight answer from him. I’d never known the Kings to be in drugs, and Pops would turn in his grave, but the way my dad was, one could never be too sure.
“No. You know that.” So money, trafficking woman, and other “things,” I thought to myself. I wasn’t going to press the issue anymore, so I continued with the conversation at hand. “Katsia got away.”
“I see that, but why was she running?” he asked, tilting his head. “She’s sacred, son, you can’t go around killing everyone who threatens Madison.”
“It had more to do with Nate.”
Dad sucked in more smoke. “What of Nathaniel?”
“He has a kid.”
He faltered, only slightly. “And?”
“And it’s a girl.”
His eyes closed, his nostrils flaring. “Jesus. Who’s the mother?”
“Tillie.”
Dad sighed and leaned forward. “I can’t be hiding any more Swans, son. It’s going to make me look weak. Something has to give. Right now? We have a war brewing because Katsia wants retaliation on you lot, and she wants to expose the Kings and The Circle. Generations of hard work is about to crumble.”
I leaned in my chair and tilted my head. “Then we kill her before she can.”
“She’s sacred, son. We can’t.”
“Sacred to who? She’s the shit on the bottom of my shoe as far as I’m concerned.”
Dad massaged his temples then put out his cigar. “Bishop, not everything is black and white. We can’t touch her because of her lineage. If we end her, we would end her family line, and we can’t be held responsible for that.”
“But she’s fucking testing both the Kings and The Circle.”
“The Circle isn’t our business, son. They will handle her accordingly, as we will.”
“Alright.” I pulled out a smoke and lit up. Dad narrowed his eyes at it and I smirked, edging him to tell me to throw it away, but he didn’t. His features relaxed. I blew out a thick cloud of smoke. “So what are you thinking, then. Because I know you have a plan.”
“I do.” He nodded. “But first, where is Madison and Tillie?”
I chuckled, flicking off the ash. “Guess.”
He shrugged, his attention drifting to the side like he didn’t give a shit. “I don’t know, holed up in a hotel somewhere?”
My grin deepened. “Wrong. Try again.”
“Bishop, riddles are your thing, not mine. Cut the shit.”
“One more guess. Come on, entertain me…”
“How about I’ll buy you some strippers to entertain you and you hurry up with whatever you’re getting to.”
A laugh shot out of me, my head tilting back. “Alright, old man.” Then I pressed my lips around the end of my smoke with a smirk. “With Mom.”
“What!” he snapped, his eyes shooting directly to me. “What do you mean with mom?”
“They’re with her, Tatum too and the kid.”
Dad seemed to mull over what I had just told him, then realization set over his features as they softened. “Well, shit, I would never guess that. It’s no secret how much your mother hates all your girls. She takes every chance she gets to mention it in every magazine interview she does.”
I snickered. “Exactly why they’re with her, and it never scared girls off.”
He snorted. “You’re my kid, that’s why.”
Dad and I hadn’t thrown around banter in a while, and it felt good to pull out the verbal boxing gloves with him. “Khales…” I went on. His face fell. “I’m just saying… she’s young.”
“Don’t get into it with her.”
I shrugged. “As long as you know what you’re doing. Just means I’ll be in the city full time come this war being over.”
“You can be wherever you need to be. For now, back to the plan.” I noticed he didn’t say college. It was because he didn’t want me to go. He had plans to have me under him full-time and learning the depth of the family businesses and how they’re run. My mom, on the other hand, was all for college. She never wanted this life for me. She didn’t realize how much she didn’t want it for me until I was much older. Little do they know, I’d already decided what I wanted to do. This was my life, I’d
