“Saint?” He grabs my hand and squeezes, intertwining our fingers together while pulling me into his chest. He spins me around to face Veronica while his other hand is pressed against my lower belly, shoving me closer toward him until my back is hard against him. Veronica smirks, bringing the end of her cigarette to her lips. “Veronica is my mother.”
“I like it here,” I said as she gazed into the bedroom. This time she stood in the center, right beneath the light bulb. I wanted to push her, see how far she would go, but I had to remind myself why I was here.
“Who are you?” she asked. Such a simple question, yet simple was not something I was familiar with.
“I thought that was obvious?” I chuckled, circling the small room with a scrape of my nail. “Do you know what this room is?”
She followed me closely. Good. She was catching on.
“No. Though if I had to guess, I would say I’m dreaming.”
“Tsk, tsk…” I wiggled my finger. “Such a basic answer.”
Her eyes closed. “What do you want from me?”
“I want to play a game.” I clapped my hands and the walls melted away, placing us in a dark forest filled with fireflies and trees so tall they almost looked mystical. She began to panic. Good. She should. That meant she was smart, smarter than I initially gave her credit for. “I’ll ask you a question, and if you answer incorrectly, I’ll bring back one of the memories from your childhood —”
She started to interrupt, but my hand went up, stopping her.
“—I must say, I’ve seen most of them and they’re not pleasant.”
“You’re not Brantley…” Saint whispered so softly, I almost didn’t hear it above the wind whisking through the leaves.
I stepped closer to her until my face was all that was in her view. “Are you sure about that? How well do you really know him?”
Her eyes crawled up to me, her shoulders back in defiance. God, she was hot. She had this innocence about her that was so fucking sexy and untouchable. Or maybe that was because she literally is untouchable. Well, at least she was. I knew if I wanted to have her, I could. But the thing about me, I liked to play games.
So the real question she needed to answer was if she was sure I wasn’t Brantley?
Brantley
Seeing Saint cry was like a cold dagger being dragged over my heart, but not to pierce it, just enough to warn me that it could. I didn’t fucking like it. At all. Never in my years have I given a shred of a fuck about anyone crying until just now. As the tears on her cheeks dried, my anger only intensified. I wanted to tell her about Veronica, but V being V, she couldn’t part with the lifelong secret that she was, in fact, still alive. Little did she know, The Kings knew. Hector and his generation may have kept secrets from each other, but we all agreed that wouldn’t be how we ran things once it was ours. I told Bishop as soon as we started initiation, but we all kept it from Hector’s generation. Bishop started keeping secrets from his dad the second he started threatening Madison.
I shove my way through the back doors and find Saint sitting beside the pool, her legs hanging in the water. After finding out about Veronica, she didn’t say a word. She simply turned and left the room. Typical Saint.
“I really miss Hades and Kore.” Her voice is soft.
“We’ll go home.” I kneel down beside her. “Saint, look at me.” She doesn’t, her eyes glued on the water. I glide the cushion of my thumb over her chin, tilting her head toward me. “I wanted to tell you, but it’s complicated.”
She shuffles, turning her body toward mine, while her eyes immediately summon me. “Do you remember when you gave me this necklace?”
She hadn’t left her room today. I was already feeling agitated, so I probably shouldn’t have been around her, but I needed to be. I made my way through the back garden, ducking beneath the vines and floral roses. It smelled like honey and leaves. It smelled like Saint. She turned to look over her shoulder, dirt smudged on her cheek. “Oh. I thought I could sense you.” She placed the metal watering can onto one of the garden railings. “Is everything okay?”
I fisted the diamond necklace in my hand before holding it out to her. Her wide eyes fell on it, her mouth agape. “Brantley—did you steal that?”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t need you to wear it yet, but when it’s time to, I need you to understand the importance of what this necklace means.”
She searched my face, tugging her bottom lip into her mouth before zeroing in on the necklace again.
“So you don’t want me to wear it right now?”
I shook my head. “No, but you need to take care of it now.”
Her brows pulled in as she slowly reached for the gold Cuban chain and diamond crown. Anytime our skin touched, there was always a flood of warmth that followed, but like always, I swallowed it like a shot of whiskey. I may be a billionaire outlaw, but what she was capable of making me feel was something I would never be able to afford. My pockets were deep, but not deep enough for love. Not ever. Not even with her. So what I offered would always have to be enough for her.
She took the million-dollar necklace into the palm of her hand. The heavy gold was a contrast to her dirt-covered hands. The lozenge-styled icicles fell off the crown sharp and precise between her fingers. “I’ll look after it. What does it do?”
I smiled tensely at her. “One day I’ll tell you.”
“That necklace is from this part of your life.”
“—Brantley, can I talk to you for a second?” Veronica interrupts from the patio.
“Go make sure you’ve got all your shit. I’ll handle this.” I grit my teeth, standing and making my way toward where V stands, her eyes never leaving mine.
“Hmm, I’m interested to see how you plan to allow this to carry on with her.”
I pass Veronica and enter the main living area, falling onto the sofa.
Veronica places a cigarette in her mouth and lights the tip. “You do know that this can’t last?”
“This isn’t anything. She’s my responsibility.” Even as the words leave my mouth, I feel like a fucking liar. The famous words I’ve always used as a shield to hide the truth.
Veronica flicks off the ash of her smoke into the crystal ashtray. “She belongs here, Brantley. You know it, I know it—hell, even her sisters know it,” she mumbles, crossing her legs. “Even if Frankie doesn’t like her, she still understands that Saint belongs here.”
“Saint.” I bare my teeth. My anger is hanging dangerously close to the edge. “Belongs everywhere I am, not this coven or you. I appreciate you taking her under your wing while I needed to handle business on my side, but she’s coming home tonight.”
Veronica looks at me, eyes slit and lips in a straight line. She may be my mother, but everything between her and me has always been strictly business. She left when I was a kid, faked her death, and got in contact with me when I was old enough. There’s zero love between us. Everyone assumed I got my coldness from Lucan, but that’s because they’d never met my mother.
She sighs, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “Brantley, I think she has broken our curse.”