Arranged love

“How’s your arm doing?” he asks.

I pause again, listening to his laughter growing louder.

“What about his fucking arm?” Titan demands, and I turn to see he’s got his hand wrapped around Richard’s neck. “Huh?” He shouts in his face, then pulls away, punching him. “Fucking speak!”

Richard’s head lolls back while he sucks in a breath before lowering it to look at me. “You think those guys randomly chose to follow you that night?” He smiles up at Titan. “I was a little disappointed. I would have fucked his bitch too.”

I feel all the Kings’ eyes on me, but I ignore them. My heart is pounding in my chest. How does he know this? We’ve never told anyone. I don’t talk about what happened that night. None of us do.

“Come on,” I say, wrapping my arm around Emilee, trying to keep her up. She’s wasted. I only had water. I have a tournament this weekend and have to be up and at the field early in the morning. She’s been begging me to go to this concert for weeks, so I figured why not? It couldn’t hurt to go out. I’m not much of a partier, but I do like the band that was playing.

“We can’t go to my house, Bones …” Hiccup. “My parents are home.”

“We’ll go to mine.” My father doesn’t give a fuck what I do. Plus, he’s in New York right now meeting with Mr. Bianchi. He said something about the future of Kingdom, but I wasn’t really listening to him. I hope he fucking sells his shares so I don’t have to worry about it.

I’m a senior in college. Emilee is a sophomore. Her parents still think she’s a virgin. There’s not a hole I haven’t fucked on her body. I open my passenger side door for her, and she falls into it.

I shut it and walk around to the driver’s side. Starting it up, I pull out of the parking spot, and she’s already leaning over, unzipping my jeans. “Wait,” I tell her, pushing her away. We’re not far from my house.

Sitting up, she sighs heavily. The last thing I need is her puking all over us. “You-”

The side of my car is hit, cutting off her words, followed by a scream. I smell smoke, and my face stings. I reach out for her, but I hear the sound of metal grinding to my left. Then there are hands on me. I’m pulled from the car. I can’t see. Everything blurry. My eyes burn. I can hear Emilee screaming in the far distance, but I can’t get to her. “Em-”

Pain explodes up the side of my arm, and I roll away from it. Something hits me in the back, taking what little breath I had left away. Blood fills my mouth, and I start to cough. What feels like hands grab at me, and I hear a snap, followed by unimaginable pain. Then everything goes black.

Richard’s laughter brings me back to the present. “You never did find those guys who dragged you out of your car and beat the shit out of you, did you?” he asks.

No. I woke up in the hospital after emergency surgery, found out I had a broken arm among other injuries. But it was over. The one thing I ever wanted was no longer a possibility. My baseball career had ended. As far as I knew, so had my life.

“Funny what you’ll do for money,” he adds, smiling up at me. “Your father paid those men five hundred dollars. Total. To take you out.”Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

Silence follows. My heart picks up at his words. I always knew I was a target that night. I just didn’t know why. I thought maybe it was someone from college. Or I’d fucked one of them up before and it was retaliation. But I never thought my own father was behind it.

His laughter fills the room. “You think he gave a fuck about your baseball career? He had a hundred million on the line with John. You were worth nothing to him unless you took your place at Kingdom and married the Mafia princess. Then the bastard died. And well, John knew his chance at Kingdom was over.”

Cross steps back into him. The lit Zippo at his neck once again. “It was you. You were the one who called in the anonymous tip to Marsha.” That was who the news reported Mia to be-Mafia princess. “But why? You said she was the best-kept secret? Why would you out her to the world?”

He clenches his mouth, refusing to answer that.

“Enemies.” Grave is the one who speaks. “If the world knew who Bones was with, it would put a target on his head. Every enemy he ever had would come after him, knowing she would be his weakness.”

Richard wanted me dead so he could take my Queen. That’s the only way he was going to get her. Over my dead body. I’ll never give her up. And I don’t plan on dying any time soon to give him that opportunity. So I’ll do what needs to be done.

“Bones?” Grave gets my attention, placing his hand on my shoulder, and I jump back.

Richard laughs at my unease, knowing he’s gotten to me. It’s time to end this. My queen is waiting for me at our house, in our bed. And I want to be there, holding her, fucking her. Reminding myself that I may have failed her before, but it won’t happen again. I will be the one she can count on.

Going over to the cabinet, I open it up and grab what I need before going to stand behind Richard. He’s trying to look over his shoulder to see me on either side but is unsuccessful. I grip the concertina wire at each end and then start wrapping it around his neck.

He’s shouting, blood instantly running down his neck and chest as I wrap it around three times. Once satisfied that I’ve done it enough, I hold the ends, feeling the sharp blades digging into my palms. But I don’t let go. Instead, I pull on it harder, watching them cut up his neck like it is my hands. “I’m going to hold this here until you slit your own throat.” I growl through gritted teeth.

“If I was you, I’d make it quick,” Titan adds, and Grave laughs.

His body thrashes in the chair for only a minute before he stops, and then it sags. I let go of the wire, and it doesn’t move, the blades now embedded into his neck doing exactly what I intended.

“Christ, Bones.” Grave sighs, looking down at my hands.

I drop my eyes to look at them as well and see blood. “I’m fine,” I say, wiping them on my jeans, ready to get the fuck out of here.

“Go.” Titan nods to the door, reading my mind. “We’ll take care of him.”

Normally, I wouldn’t leave the Kings to clean up my mess, but for once, I have a reason to want to go home. I mumble my thanks and rush out the door.

I make it home in less than fifteen minutes. I enter the house and go straight to the shower. Turning on the water, I get undressed and step inside. Just as I turn to let the water wash off the blood, I spot Mia entering the bathroom, rubbing her sleepy eyes. I woke her up.

“Dillan?” She yanks the door open and steps inside, not even bothering to remove her Kingdom T-shirt. “Are you okay?” Her wide, silvery-blue eyes drop to my bloody hands before meeting mine. “What happened?”

“I’m fine,” I say, reaching out to her, and she doesn’t flinch when I grip her hips with my bleeding hands and pull her body flush with mine.

“But-”

I lower my lips to hers, and she doesn’t hesitate to kiss me back. I spin her around, pressing her back into the wall. My cut and bloodied hands gripping the hem of her T-shirt, needing her naked and my cock inside her. Needing to remind myself she belongs to me. Tonight, tomorrow, and the rest of my life.

Twelve years old

“No self-respecting man marries for love, Dillan,” he states while sitting across from me at the table.

“Then why get married?” I wonder.

“For power. Wealth.” Leaning back in his chair, his eyes meet mine. “You will one day marry, but it will be who I choose for you. Think of it as a business transaction.”

“And if I don’t want to?” I ask.

His eyes harden on mine before he answers. “The Reeds aren’t weak, son. You’re not a motherfucking sheep. You’re a goddamn King. And a King does whatever it takes in order to run his Kingdom, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Pulling away, I watch her open her heavy eyes, and for once since my father died, I wish he was still alive. He never brought up marriage again. It was as if we had never had that conversation, and I now realize why. Somewhere along the line, he found the woman he would force me to marry. Too bad the fucking bastard isn’t here to see how much I love her.

He was right about one thing. I’m a fucking King, and I will rule my Kingdom with my Queen. But she will come first, even if that means destroying everything I have for her.

“I love you,” I tell her.

Her eyes search mine, the concern in them evident. “I love you,” she whispers, her eyes dropping to my bare chest, and I lower my lips to hers again, ready to prove to her just how much.

THE END