Page 55 of I am Dressed in Sin (Death by Daybreak MC 2)
Still, Kian didn’t hurt Queenie. He loved her. The child inside of her, that was his baby, too.
“Why?” I ask, still staring at the floor, still trying to figure it all out. It could be simple: Cat didn’t want his daughter fucking a mafia brat. Moreover, he didn’t want her leaving with a mafia brat and possibly giving away club secrets. But it’s never that simple.
Kian was supposed to meet Queenie at a park. That’s where the club found him. They planned on running away together.
“The casino …” I start, thinking about Cat’s reaction to it.
Beast leans forward with the creak of leather, putting his elbows on his knees.
“The casino was laundering money for the club,” Beast tells me, in as frank a way as any man has ever spoken to me in my entire life. Since before I can remember, I’ve been toddling around this place like a ghost, a presence that’s tolerated but never acknowledged.
Everything is different now. Today. Because of what I did with Grey. Because of these men and their reaction to it.
“The casino … that the mafia now controls?” I suggest, turning so that my face is just inches from my future husband’s. His gaze drops to my mouth, and I bet he’s fantasizing about what it would feel like were I to wrap these warm lips around his cock. My hand slides over Beast’s inner thigh, tracing his denim with my nails.
His eyes narrow slightly, but otherwise, he doesn’t move.
“The mafia took the casino,” I declare, the realization heightened by the presence of alcohol. “The club wanted retaliation for the casino.”
“Kian told Cat about the mafia’s plans to wipe out the club,” Beast admits, watching my hand on his thigh like it’s a wild animal he might very well need to catch and kill. “He thought that by telling Cat what he knew, it might endear him somehow. Maybe he’d be given Queenie. Shit, the cocky bastard thought he could prospect in.”
I cock a brow at that.
Pretty ballsy on Kian’s part.
“Cat thought he might know more than what he was saying,” Beast finishes, grabbing my hand in a firm grip. He very purposefully puts it back in my lap. “Wedding night, sugar.” And then he’s rising to his feet and leaving me there with a scotch and information induced high.
He opens the door in time to meet Crown, and then steps aside.
They have some sort of murmured conversation, and I see Crown’s eyes narrow before they trade places for the night.
Beast disappears down the stairs as Crown closes the door behind him.
“No wonder Cat was so interested in hearing about the casino,” I offer up and Crown curses. He looks so tired right now, like I’ve stolen his soul and taken it for myself. I will, if given the chance, but I’m pretty sure we’re not quite there yet. “Especially if they backed out of a deal with the intention of sucking the mafia’s dick.”
“You’re really digging into this, aren’t you?” he asks me, his voice dry. He stands over me the way he’s always done, lording and looking and judging. I ignore him, sipping the scotch and mulling Beast’s words over in my head. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough? Maybe it’s time to step back and let us handle things. It’s what we do, Gidge.”
I give him a look that he returns with one of his own. Meanwhile, the gramophone prattles along in the corner, an almost eerie backdrop to our conversation. There’s something wicked about its tinny, scratchy sound as the spinning record comes to a slow stop.
Crown turns to look at it, tilting his head slightly to one side before moving over to reset the needle and crank the handle. The song restarts, the voice of its singer plucked from the cobwebs of lost nostalgia.
“Eddie Morton,” Crown says, which surprises the shit out of me. He stands there, grinning and listening to the oddly appropriate lyrics while I gape at his back. The fuck does this asshole know about gramophones?!
“I hate a moral coward, one who lacks a manly spark; I just detest a man afraid to go home in the dark; I always spend my evening where there’s women wine and song; But like a man, I always bring my little wife along!”
“Um,” I start as Crown very briefly adds his voice to the recording, singing some line that feels plucked out of the ebony sky like a shard of fate: “Bring your wife and trouble, it will never trouble you; Make her a member of the Midnight Crew!”
“You know this song?” I croak. “It’s like a hundred years old.”
He puts his hands on his hips, staring down at the gramophone like he’s lost in memories.
“My mother collected antiques; she had this exact recording.” He smiles and gestures in that general direction before turning around.
