I was heading out of the house when my dad’s voice stopped me in my tracks. “He won’t know, and we will keep it that way.” His tone, which was usually smooth and controlled, was now a little shaky toward the end of every syllable. I backtracked a little, hoping to hear more of the conversation when his voice snapped through again. “Bishop?”
Fuck.
I grinned, even though he couldn’t see me. “Yeah?”
“Stop snooping and get your ass in here now.” Like I usually did, I followed his instructions, pushing through his office doors. He and Rob Rodrigues were near the large window that overlooked the entrance to our house and the long driveway. Dad’s office was always a little outdated compared to the rest of our house. It was all mahogany wood, high ceilings and a bookshelf that was rooted to the tarnished flooring, reaching right to the beams in the ceiling.
“Yeah?” I shut the door behind myself and entered, taking the chair beside Rob. Dad leaned back in his red leather chair, a cigar in his mouth. “I need to talk to you about something important. A new girl. Call a meet.” Even though I didn’t understand why the fuck he was telling me about some new girl, I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my phone, opening a group message to the Kings.
Dad is calling a meeting. My place - now.
I let it rest on my lap, ignoring the vibrating notifications and took my attention back to Dad. “Why does this matter?” I was raised with secrets, and it somehow managed to morph me into who I was today. But all this time, without even knowing it, I was being engineered to take the gavel when my dad passed. There was a knock on the door and Eli, Nate, Brantley, Hunter, Cash, and Chase slowly walked through the doors, searching between Dad and me.
“Come on in, boys.” I still wasn’t sure what the fuck Dad was playing at, but whatever it was, I’m sure someone was about to die. None of us, though, because it was against the law to do so. Yeah, we had our own laws.
“There’s something I hadn’t told any of you before, not even Bishop. Well, I had hinted at it once before… but, there’s a chance that a Silver Swan has slipped through the system. We know what lineage she has come through, and we know everything there is to know, except what she looks like. Seems there are no photos of this girl. But I wanted to make you boys aware because she is in your generation.”
“How do you know?” I asked, leaning back in my chair and running my index finger over the edge of my upper lip. He was most likely being paranoid—like usual, but I guessed in his life, paranoia came with the job description. Only when he got paranoid, blood was always spilled.
My dad’s eyes shot to Rob and then came back to mine. “A valuable source. In the meantime, we are hunting down this error so we can take care of it once and for all, but just so you boys know, this will be in your jurisdiction to take care of.”
“What? That’s not what we do…” I began to state, obviously a little annoyed that I’d need to add to my kill count. “I’m not a Lost Boy.”
Dad leaned forward, his eyes hardening. “You will do as I say, son.” Then he leaned back, his cool demeanor coming over his face—yet again. Pretty sure the old man was a psychopath. “Consider it a test.”
“Fine.” I stood from my chair. “Is that all?” He nodded, and then dismissed us all with a simple flick of his wrist. We were walking out to our respective cars when Nate, being Nate, was the first one to say something.
“Yo, I can’t be all up in this drama. My mom has this new fucking man, and apparently his daughter is moving in today. I can’t be coming home with blood on my shit. Might freak her out a little.”
“—She hot?” Eli interfered, getting into the back of Nate’s pick up. Nate flipped him off. “I don’t know—dick.” Rolling my eyes at their bullshit, I beeped my car unlocked and got in. My phone dinged and I opened a message from Adriana.
Miss me?
I shot her back a reply. My dick does. Then I floored it forward, shooting past all the boys as we raced our way to school.
The next day, classes went annoyingly slow, I swore every single year it went slower. We were sitting around in the atrium when Nate started. “Dude, I’m not playing, my new stepsister is fucking hot with a capital H. Think Madison Beer—only she doesn’t know how hot she is. But she plays with guns and shit, so I ain’t with it. I don’t think. But fuck me, that’s a fine piece of ass living under my roof. Her mom...” His words drifted off when I noticed a girl walking into the atrium, alone, holding a lunch tray. She was new here, obviously, because not only did I know every single person who attended Riverside Prep, and their social security numbers, but the way her features withdrew and her fingers clamped around the tray nervously was a dead giveaway, too. She had long dark brown hair, fair skin that held a tint of something exotic, long fuck—fucking long legs that I could latch around my waist easily and then, in slow motion, her wandering eyes looked right at me from across the room as though she could feel my gaze on her, like a lion being caught hunting its prey. I didn’t break eye contact, I relished in how her eyes stared back at me with a storm so chaotic it could put a category 5 cyclone to bed. I watched as her cheeks flushed, right before she quickly sat at a table with Tatum. Fucking Tatum. That annoying bitch needed to be put in line. I shook my head, seemingly irked that a fucking high school girl could steal my attention so effortlessly. Pulling out my phone, I sent another text to Adriana.
My house at nine.
“Oh! There she is!” Nate pointed to the table where hot girl had just walked to.
Nah, no way.
“That’s her, dawg, that’s the new stepsister. I wanna play with her for a bit.”
“Play with her, how?” Just the mention of playing and her in the same sentence had my dick swelling in my jeans.
Nate looked at me knowingly. “You know how.”
“Yeah, no offense, but the last time we all shared, we almost killed the girl, so unless you want to kill your new stepsister, I’d say no.”
Nate chuckled. “I don’t know, there’s something different about her.”
I rolled my eyes because gaining Nate’s attention wasn’t hard to do—keeping it was impossible, but gaining it was easy. I went back to my phone. Recognition slowly frosted over my bones, and my eyes leisurely drew back up as I watched her laugh at something Tatum had said.
That smile.
So familiar, so…
“Fuck.”
“What?” Brantley barked, his eyes still on the new girl, but his frown etched so deep into his face that you would think this girl for real insulted his existence.
“She’s the Silver Swan.”
Brantley didn’t jump in shock, but his eyes hauntingly remained on her. Nate sucked in a breath, Eli jumped from his seated position, Hunter, Chase, and Cash both let out a mixture of noises, and then it hit me.
I knew this girl.
My mom knew this girl.
My dad knew this girl.
Why the fuck did I know her?
A French fry hit my face, yanking me out of my memory lapse, which was a fucking good thing, considering what happened next. “Earth to Bishop.”
“We’re throwing a party. I was going to book the ring at Backyard Bucks, but I have a better idea.”
Justin’s eyes came to mine, worry etched into them. “Dawg, I just—”
“—You know how it is.” Was all I had to say.
“How what is?” Madison asked absently, kicking off her shoes and tucking her legs under her ass. I knew, if I didn’t already know, I knew right then and there, that it didn’t matter what this girl had done. It didn’t matter what she was about to do, and even though my thoughts and feelings were always conflicted where she was concerned, make no mistake, I’d end any motherfucker who dared come near her. With her, it always felt right, and that’s cliché as fuck, but she had a habit of doing that. Bringing shit out of me that I didn’t know was ever there. I just needed her to remain oblivious for now, and I needed to put a wall where my feelings were until I knew I could trust her. I’d never given my heart to anyone, not only because I struggled to give enough of a fuck to pull it from my chest and hand it out, but because I knew no one wanted a washed up, lifeless, damaged mess of what whatever the fuck was left of it.
“The consequences to fucking with what’s mine, that’s what.”
Madison’s body stilled beside me. She looked between Justin and me, and then she opened her mouth. “What? What do you mean?”
Justin chose that time to interfere. “Are you having the party here?”
I shook my head, propping my foot on the coffee table. “Nah, at the condo.”
“Mommy dearest doing you a solid, huh?” Justin grinned.
“You have a condo?” Madison yelped. “Oh wait, yes, Nate said something about that.”
“Yeah, Mom got one in the city, close to campus.”
Her eyes dropped to her hands as she fiddled with her fingers. “You’re going to NYU?”
I shrugged. “Possibly. My mom went there, and her dad and so on.”
Madison’s phone dinged in her pocket. She read something on the screen and then shot off the sofa. “I need to go home.” My eyes darted to Justin, who knew exactly why I was holding Madison here. To keep Nate from telling her what was about to happen at this party.
“I’ll take you.” If Nate bitched out and spilled everything to her, it’ll only make his punishment worse.
I jogged up the steps to my house and slammed the door open. “Dad!” I called out, heading straight for his office. He had his phone pressed to his ear, but his eyes flew to the entrance when he saw me appear. “I’ll call you back.”
My chest rose and fell. “That girl.”
“Yes?” He seemed interested.
“She’s the girl you showed me all those years ago, isn’t she?”
My dad’s grin deepened. “You met her? She’s at your school?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Then you know what you have to do.”
“You’ve never seen what she looks like?”
Dad shook his head. “Only when she was around ten. Why? Is she ugly? Not your type?”
“Something like that,” I lied. “I’ll do what I need to do.”