Played: Manhattan Ruthless - 5

Chapter

Four

T his is a mistake. I know it is, but I pull up his number anyway. I still have some good contacts in New York, but apparently none of them are connected enough to get me a ground-floor two-bedroom apartment in three days. This is my last resort. Despite how dangerous it might be given the potential Pandora’s box I could open, if I don’t do this, then I let my Grampa down—not to mention his sweet nurse who, as of today, is out of a job.

I press call, hoping he hasn’t changed his number since he moved back to New York. He answers after a few rings. “King? You’re a blast from the past, buddy.”

I smile at the sound of his voice. It feels like a little slice of Chicago is right here with me. “Hey, Drake. It’s been a long time.”

“Sure has. What can I do for you?”

I screw my eyes closed and summon all my courage. It pains me to ask for help, having been entirely self-sufficient since the age of eighteen and left to fend for myself from way younger than that. “I need an apartment, and fast. And I was hoping you could help me out. You know anyone who has an empty space available? I figure I’ll need it for six months at most. Ground floor or something easily accessible for a wheelchair.”

“In Chicago?” He sounds surprised.

“No. New York.”

“Oh, I see. Who’s the client?”

I run a hand over my head. “Not for a client, Drake. It’s for me. Me and my grandfather.”

“Shit! You’re in New York?”

“Yup.”

“Wait until I tell Nathan we have the best PI in the country right here in Manhattan. He’s gonna want to meet you. We have a ton of—” He stops speaking and clears his throat. “Sorry, buddy, I got a little carried away there. You said you need a place. For you and your grandfather? Is everything okay?”

The only thing I hate more than asking for help is telling people my personal business. But I suck it up—for Grampa. “My grandfather is sick. He doesn’t have long, so I’m moving back here for a while to take care of him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, King.” He sounds sincere, and I thank him, but I’m growing increasingly impatient.

“I have a meeting in ten, but then let me make some calls and see what I can do,” Drake says. “We have a few properties, and I’m sure one of them is vacant. I’ll check with my brother. He knows more about them than me.”

Dread balls in the pit of my stomach. He has four brothers, King. There’s only a twenty-five percent chance he’s going to talk to that one.

I take a deep breath and keep a lid on my emotions. If Mason finds out I’m in New York and in need of an apartment, so be it. If I have to beg him to take pity on me, I will. Even if I don’t deserve his help, I’ll swallow my pride and ask if that’s what I need to do. “Thanks, Drake. I appreciate that.”

After I end the call, I mentally check another task from my shit list of awkward conversations to have today. Now it’s time for the one I’m dreading most.

This old house is no less imposing now than it was when I was a kid—or when I walked out of it eighteen years ago, vowing I’d never set foot in the place again.

And I kept that promise for five long years, but something brought me back. Guilt, perhaps. Or maybe the fact that no matter how far I ran, I was still their son, and nothing could ever change that.

Eventually, I succumbed to my father’s requests to come back and visit. I kept them infrequent and brief, twice a year at Easter and Christmas. They were stilted, uncomfortable affairs at first, but as time went on, they grew increasingly tolerable. That was until Christmas a few years ago. Ironically, it was also the Christmas when my parents told me they needed my help.

My father was mixed up with some dodgy shit, which wasn’t unusual for Kyngston Worthington III, whose business dealings have always been barely legal. Despite his shady business practices, he’s managed to maintain a respectable public facade. However, on this occasion, he got himself in far too deep with the Russian Bratva and had heard I’d done a little work for the Cosa Nostra and the Bratva up in Chicago, so he asked me to use my contacts to “smooth things over.”

And of course I was going to help. They’re my parents, and some deeply ingrained part of me has always sought their approval, particularly his. And what better way to achieve it than to help them out of a bind. I did also take a little pleasure in thinking about getting my father in a room with Dante Moretti and Dmitri Varkov and having the opportunity to watch him postulate and peacock with men who could wipe him from the face of the earth without breaking a sweat. But I was wholly prepared to help my parents. They were desperate, and I knew it—mostly because my mother managed an entire dinner with no cruel comments or withering looks in my direction.

However, when it came to it, neither of them could help themselves. Couldn’t help showing their innate hatred and inherent disgust at what I am.

Grampa came for dinner too, able to tolerate my mother for the sake of Christmas dinner, even if not my father. We were talking about fishing of all things, surely a safe topic of conversation. Grampa let it slip that his fishing buddy had sparked up one joint too many and fallen asleep on their little boat. He wasn’t used to the stuff, but he’d been so stressed about his son’s upcoming wedding, and it was his son who’d handed him a couple joints and told him to “chill out.”

My mother asked some innocuous questions about the venue and the color scheme and remarked how beautiful a winter wedding in the city could be, and then Grampa dropped the bombshell. Entirely by accident, he let two he’ s drop into the conversation.

My father’s sneer stopped the conversation dead. “His son is marrying another man?”

My blood ran cold.

Grampa rolled his eyes. “Men can marry each other now, Kyngston. Isn’t it about time you brought your views out of the Dark Ages?”

“It’s disgusting and unnatural.” Father spat the words, derision seeping from every cell of his body.

My mother’s face twisted in an expression of disgust to mirror his. And even that slight I could have overlooked. I could have endured their disdain for two men I didn’t know.

But it was the sideways glance my father gave me, filled with so much revulsion and vitriol. I’d tried to be the good son, had renounced my “mistake” and lived my whole life pretending to be someone I wasn’t, had hidden every illicit interaction and came away each time feeling so much shame and guilt that it made me physically sick. Although I did all of that to please them and protect their “wholesome family values” image and their standing in their bigoted conservative circle of friends, it wasn’t enough. They hated me anyway. And that look, fleeting as it was, is what I couldn’t move past.

Grampa simply shook his head and went back to eating his turkey, and I left. I did smooth over my father’s fuck-up because I knew I could, and I didn’t want their deaths on my conscience, but I made sure they never found out I had a hand in it.

And now I’m back. Staring at the Gothic mansion and creepy-as-fuck gargoyles and wondering what the hell I’m doing here. I came back to New York for Grampa, not these two. But my mother asked to see me, and … I don’t know. Maybe the impending loss of her father has made her more reflective. More … human?

The gravel crunches beneath my feet, and every step I take makes the knot of emotion in the pit of my stomach grow heavier. It’s grief and dread and shame all tangled up together, and the farther I get from my bike and the closer I get to the door, the more tangible it becomes. I reach the steps. Now I can taste it. It clambers up my throat, desperate to be let out.

I swallow it down.

The door opens, and a new housekeeper I don’t recognize from my last visit offers me a wan smile. “Mr. Worthington.” She greets me with a polite, practiced nod.

I follow her into the lounge at the front of the house. My mother’s domain. It’s overfilled with expensive art: Fabergé eggs and rare nineteenth-century Spanish plates sit beside a Jeff Koons sculpture. A Degas hangs on the wall beside a Hockney.

It’s like she collects them because she can. There’s no pattern. No attachment to any of the things, merely a desire to have what so many others cannot. She misses the point of art entirely, because not a single piece in this room makes her feel anything.

I do like the Hockney though. It reminds me of a summer I spent with Grampa on Long Island.

My mother sits curled up in a Louis Vuitton cocoon chair with a blanket over her lap and a glossy magazine in her hands. She raises her head a little, eyes glazed. As I suspected due to the time of day, she’s already polished off her nightly bottle of wine. At least it used to be one bottle. It could have increased to two or three by now. My mother is a functioning alcoholic. Socialite and investment banker’s wife by day, lush by night. She would deny that flat out of course and say her evening wine is merely her way to “unwind.” Perhaps anyone having to endure being married to my father needs something. I’m sure I’d be downing more than a bottle of wine every night if I had to live with him. Although live with is a stretch. They coexist under the same roof.

“Kyngston.” She says my name like an insult—or that’s simply how I hear it.

“Hello, Mother.” I address her with her preferred title. I was never allowed to call her Mom. It was always mother and father. So fucking stiff and unnatural. The opposite of Grampa. How did a man like him raise the ice maiden in front of me?

He looked so frail earlier. So small and vulnerable. He’s not a man big in stature, but he’s always been a man who could fill a room with his presence. “I just saw Grampa.”

“Oh” is all she says. No emotion. No asking how he’s doing or if he’s in any pain. You know, normal human responses. Not my mother.

Anger bubbles up in my chest. “He says you want him to move in here.”

She sniffs like she smelled something foul. “It’s for the best.”

“The best for who?” I raise my voice, but she doesn’t react to that either. At least with my father there’s an occasional display of emotion—albeit mostly hatred and anger—but with her there’s nothing. Just … cold. It’s like she’s a fucking robot.

She doesn’t answer me.

“He’s not coming here,” I insist.

She regards me coolly. “Then where do you suggest he go, Kyngston? He is too ill to travel to Chicago.”

“I’ll get us a place. He can stay with me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He will be coming here.”

I don’t bother arguing further. It’s a pointless endeavor with her. She’s ungoadable. Unmovable.

“Why did you invite me here?” I ask, sighing.

Her lips twitch like she’s trying to force a smile but can’t quite manage it. “Your father and I would like you to come home too, darling.” Come home? Darling? As a rule, that’s a term she uses only in public. When she has witnesses.

“I’m leaving, Emmeline.” The vaguely familiar voice comes from behind me. And now the darling makes sense.

She manages to muster a faint smile for him. “Goodbye, Graham, darling.”

I turn around and come face-to-face with the family lawyer, Graham Reese. He smiles in recognition upon seeing me. “Kyngston?” There’s that damn name again. “It’s good to see you.” He strides into the room and slaps me on the back before grabbing my hand to shake. “How are things?”

I’m immediately suspicious. Graham has been my parents’ lawyer for as long as I can remember. He has the charm of a snake-oil salesman and the morals of a shark—like a lot of lawyers in my experience. But what the hell is he doing here?

I squeeze his hand in a firm grip and let him pump mine twice before I pull it away. “Well, my grandfather is dying, so …”

He closes his eyes for a beat and then plasters on a sympathetic look. “I was so sorry to hear about Arthur. My condolences.”

I scowl. “Aren’t condolences for the dead?”

If he’s bothered by my reaction, he shows no sign of it. He keeps that fake look of pity on his face and says, “I understand it’s only a matter of time.”

“We’re all dying, Graham.” I allow a little of the anger swirling inside of me to bleed into my tone. “Some of us sooner than others.”

He blanches, his facade slipping. Hastily, he bids my mother and me goodnight and leaves.

I focus my attention on her again. “Why would you think I’d consider coming home?”

“For your grandfather,” she says absently, her attention back on her magazine.

Without another word, I leave the parlor and go to find my father. Can’t imagine any encounter with him will be more pleasant than the one with my mother, but at least he’ll give me something. And that means there’s a much higher chance of getting information from him. I can’t shake the feeling that Graham was here for a nefarious purpose—and that his purpose had something to do with Grampa.

My father is drinking a glass of cognac when I walk into his study. The half-empty bottle of Rémy sits open on his desk, with an empty glass I assume to be Graham’s sitting beside it. Cognac is my father’s drink of choice when he’s celebrating something. So what the hell were those two celebrating?

“Kyngston,” he says, sneering. “The prodigal son has returned.”

I resist the urge to walk out. “You wanted to see me?”

Immediately, his body language and facial expression change. He’s less hostile. Businessman Kyngston rather than my father. He indicates the chair opposite his desk, and I drop into it. “You’ve seen your grandfather, I assume?”

“Of course I have. He’s the only reason I came back here.”

“He’ll be moving in as soon as we can have the equipment he requires set up.”

That doesn’t make sense. They called me two days ago. Someone with my father’s pull could have had that stuff set up in a matter of hours. “Why?”

He blinks at me. “Excuse me?”

“Why is he moving in here?”

“Because he’s your mother’s father, and he’s sick.” His tone is incredulous, like I’m a monster for asking such a question.

The rage that simmers beneath my skin when I’m around this man bubbles out of me. “But you fucking hate him.”

“How dare you!” His right eye twitches. He wants to argue, maybe even fight me, but he knows better than to try the latter with me these days. Not now that I’m bigger and stronger than he ever was. It grinds his gears that he can’t push me around the way he used to. Little does he know that every single weight I lift, every punching bag I hit, every pound of muscle I add to my body—all of it is because of him.

“But it’s true, isn’t it? You can’t stand the man. You never cared about his health before, so why now, Father ? What’s your angle?”

He pulls at the collar of his shirt, visibly working to control his temper. Visible to me at least, the kid who spent years studying him until I learned every tell in his otherwise carefully curated cool persona. It’s the mask he wears for his adoring public, but one he can’t sustain indefinitely. “There is no angle, Kyngston.”

I don’t believe that for a second.

He glances at the newspaper on his desk. The headline grabbed my attention too when I saw it earlier today. “I see that actor’s kid was finally found. He wasn’t kidnapped after all, just went on vacation with some buddies. Ungrateful little upstart. I would have cut him off and left him to rot if it had been me.”

Why is he trying to establish rapport in the form of verbal sparring? “Well thank fuck it wasn’t you then, eh?”

He scoffs. “Who in their right mind names their kid Indigo anyway? That’s looking for trouble if you ask me.”

Well, nobody did ask you, you despicable asshole. They can’t be worse than the kind of people who name their kids Kyngston. I don’t say that to him though. He has something to tell me or something to ask me, and I’m not going to make it easy for him. The less I converse with him, the quicker he’ll get to the point of why I’m here, and the quicker I can leave.

I stare out the window behind him, watching droplets of rain run down the glass and wishing I were anywhere but here. Maybe that same feeling is what drove Indigo Bernard out of his house and into the arms of an opiate addiction.

The disgusting noise of my father clearing of his throat snaps me from thoughts of Indigo.

Kyngston Worthington III looks uncomfortable. Edgy. He bristles like his clothes are itching him. And then he smiles. It’s not genuine and doesn’t reach his eyes, but he’s smiling. At me. “Your mother and I would like you to move back here too, Kyngston. While your grandfather is here. To make the last few weeks of his life more comfortable.”

So my mother was serious. Of course she was—she’s never anything but. It takes every ounce of restraint I have not to laugh in his face. I simply shake my head. “No.”

“Kyngston. Please,” he says more than asks. “For your grandfather.”

All my instincts scream at me to get out of here. He’s up to something, but what? He hates both me and my grandfather, probably with equal passion. So what the fuck is his game plan? This can’t be about the will. Grampa might have a few hundred grand stashed away in some bank account, but my parents have millions.

My pride wants me to tell him that I’d rather die than spend a night in this house. I’d rather die than let Grampa come and spend his last remaining time with two narcissistic sociopaths who have never shown an ounce of compassion for him.

But prudence kicks in, and I remain silent. I’ll move Grampa in with me somewhere. I’ll have a lawyer draw up a contract giving me power of attorney if that’s what it takes to keep him out of this monster’s hands.

I lie with ease. “Let me take a few days to think about it.”

“He might not have a few days.” His tone is laced with anxiety, but it’s not about Grampa. Why is he so desperate?

I shrug. “Take it or leave it.”

As I’m climbing onto my bike, Drake’s name lights up my phone. I answer it quickly and let out a sigh of relief when he tells me that he spoke to his brother, Elijah , and they do have a two-bed, ground-floor apartment in Marble Hill available.

“I can’t thank you enough, buddy. You’re a lifesaver.”

“Anything to help out a friend.”

Emotion clogs my throat once more, and I silently curse myself for being so sensitive. What the hell is wrong with me lately? It’s just nostalgia. Drake and I shared some good times back in Chicago. He’s right—we are friends. Nothing wrong with that. It’s not like I purposely sought him out because his last name was James. I had no idea who he was when I first met him.

“I’ll ping you the addresses to the apartment and the office of our realtor, and you can pick up the keys tomorrow and make all the necessary arrangements with her,” he says, bringing me back to our conversation.

I thank him again.

“You’re welcome. I hope you and your grandfather are happy there. If there’s anything else I can do …”

“Actually …” I tip my chin and look up at the starless sky. “You mentioned work?”

“Yeah?”

According to Amanda, Grampa mostly sleeps during the daytime, and she’ll be there to take care of him every day. I’ll need something to keep me occupied so I don’t lose my mind—or do anything stupid. “I’d be grateful for anything you can toss my way while I’m back here.”

He laughs. “King, I have a fuck-ton of work I can send your way. When can you start?”

“How about now?” I offer, eager for a distraction. Anything to stop intrusive thoughts and self-loathing from creeping in and eating up my insides.

“Perfect. You have the same email?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll send you a file now,” he says. “Nothing overly exciting. It’s a nasty lawsuit over some art, but the plaintiff is being very elusive, and I could use someone who knows what they’re doing to help track them down.”

“Sounds right up my alley. Send it on over.”

After agreeing with his assertion that we should meet up for drinks soon, I slip the phone into my pocket and run through today’s shit list of to-dos. Get an apartment: check. Visit with the spawn of Satan and his bride: check. Make contact with the brother of the man I should absolutely avoid at all costs: double check.