King's Reign (Sydney Storm MC #6)(61)

I smiled and nodded. Was this a trick question?

“Get your ass up there and get naked. I’ll be up in a minute.”

I didn’t wait for any further orders.

I did as he said.

But as I went, I grabbed my bag he’d brought in and left on the couch, because I had toys and I’d be making him use them.





25





King





“Ghost isn’t giving us any hell,” Nitro said after church early Monday morning. “He’s staying with his sister still, and his brother has thrown him some work. I’ll keep an eye on him, but from what he’s told me so far, he doesn’t seem interested in stirring up any hell.”

It had been two weeks since Ghost had been released, and I hadn’t seen him or heard from him. And that was exactly the way I liked it. I’d had Nitro and Hyde lay down the law with him, making it clear Storm wouldn’t hesitate to deal with him if he was even seen looking at the feds.

“Good,” I said, turning my attention to Kick. “Where are we at with D’Amato?” The last he’d told me, there was nothing happening there, but my gut told me that if the feds knew about Moses, it was only a matter of time before D’Amato got wind of it, too.

“There’s nothing to report. He has a routine that’s more anal than any I’ve ever seen, and he doesn’t seem to deviate from it. Monday through Thursday is work and family. Friday is work and then boxing with his Pulp Fiction friend.” He stopped talking for a moment, grinned, and then said, “It’s the craziest shit, the guy looks like that actor from Pulp Fiction. And the weekends are mostly with his family. I got Zane to tap into his phone, and there hasn’t been any talk about us or the feds or anything that would lead me to think he knows.”

Hyde leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “So where the fuck are the feds directing their attention? And how fucking long are they gonna drag their feet on this? I’m tired of sitting around waiting for the shit to hit the fan.”

He wasn’t the only one. Axe’s guy had advised me that regardless of what Detective Stark had told us, the case wasn’t as tight as they’d thought. Eliminating Romano had helped with that, but also the information he’d given them had proved not as useful as they thought, because after all our visits around Melbourne and Sydney, no one was willing to talk about Storm to the feds. Also, their new witness looked likely to walk. At this point, I was more concerned about the fallout from D’Amato if they talked to him about Moses to confirm that information. And that all circled my thinking back to Stark and the fact I hadn’t dealt with her like I should have.

I looked at Hyde. He was pissed I hadn’t handled Stark, and had been very fucking vocal about it. “Getting Stark on our payroll is an option,” I said.

“You’re fucking kidding me, King. If you’d just done what you went there to do, we wouldn’t be sitting around discussing one of your shittiest fucking ideas yet. You’re going soft, brother.”

“You’d do fucking well to watch what the fuck you say,” I snarled. “Removing her from the case would only lead to them replacing her, and the body count would just keep rising.”

“It’d send them a fucking message,” he snapped, his shoulders squaring like he was preparing to go head-to-head with me rather than backing down.

I shoved my chair back and stood, more than ready to meet him where he was. “It’d fucking have them out for our blood more than they already are!” I bellowed, my fists clenching.

He jerked up out of his seat and came at me, fists raised. Before he managed to land a punch, Nitro had his arms around Hyde and halted his progress. “Not a fucking good idea, brother,” he said as he spun him around and pushed him away from me. “We’re all fucking exhausted and need to get our heads together. This kind of bullshit is what the feds want.” He looked angrily between Hyde and me. “They fucking want us to fall apart and take ourselves down, and I refuse to let that happen. I am not fucking going back inside because you two motherfuckers couldn’t hold your shit.”

Fuck.

I blew out an angry breath.

He was fucking right.

I glared at Hyde one last time before sitting back down. “Right, this is our fucking plan going forward. I’m gonna pay Stark another visit and push her to do what we need her to do. The fact we took care of her husband should go a long way towards us getting what we want. Kick keeps watching D’Amato until we sort Stark out. Everyone else gets on with our usual shit. With any fucking luck, we’ll have figured everything out and taken care of Gambarro by the end of this fucking week.” I exhaled sharply again. And then I can spend the weekend fucking my woman without having to think about any of this bullshit.

Hyde hit me with a filthy look as he stalked out of the room. I ignored it. We’d had worse trouble between us before. This shit would blow over.

“For what it’s worth, I would have done what you did with Stark,” Devil said after everyone left.

I nodded. “Yeah, brother.” I believed he would have. We’d handled some stuff together that had shown me how similar we were in some ways.

He watched me thoughtfully. “You okay with this shit?”

I knew what he was asking. Had it stirred up memories for me when I’d walked away from Isabel Stark? Had it reminded me that I allowed Margreet’s killer to go on living after I discovered he was a single father to a daughter who needed him more than I needed vengeance?