The F King: A Bad Boy Romance(111)

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

I shot to my feet and flung the gel packs, now barely below room temperature, off to the side. The woman took a half-step back, but the guy didn’t even flinch.

“The last guy who asked me that has to get his mommy to wipe his ass now. If you wanna fuckin’ join him, you’ve come to the right place, otherwise listen to me when I tell you this. Fuck. Off.”

If this dude didn’t leave soon, I was going to bury him on general principle. He looked unsure of himself for a second, as if this conversation had gone differently in his head. Big as he was he probably wasn’t used to any arguments. Well, I wasn’t like anybody else he ever met.

“Do you believe in fate?” he asked.

“Are you a fucking monk? Is this a motherfuckin’ mountaintop where you dish out your wisdom? You fucking cunt! Turn your ass around and walk out that door before I fuck you up in front of your bitch. You tell Gavino that Southgate’s going down. I’m doing my part and I’m coming for Skylar.”

The guy took a deep breath and sighed, a resigned expression crossing his face before he started taking off his jacket. The caged animal in me leapt for joy and fresh adrenaline started pumping through my veins.

Another big tough guy who needed to learn that being big wasn’t enough to try to fuck with me. A willing victim to beat the shit out of and let some of this pressure off. I fuckin’ welcomed it.

He handed his jacket to the woman, who looked at him with disbelief. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“He’s not going to listen until he’s tested me. I know the type, like the back of my own hand. There’s no respect except what you earn with your fist.”

A maniacal grin grew on my face and I flexed my hands, opening and closing my fists in preparation for a one-sided fight where most of it was spent with my opponent unconscious.

“Are you serious right now?” she said.

The guy held out his expensive watch to her, which she didn’t accept. Instead she looked back and forth between us with an expression that said “Men!” as clearly as any words could and threw up her hands.

“Austin. This is Jace Barlow… your brother. I’m Kendall Barlow. I’m your sister-in-law. This.” She patted her swollen belly. “Is your nephew.”

The monster-truck of my anger suddenly found itself in mid-air with no traction. I looked around, half expecting the host of some practical jokes TV show to step out of the shadows and point to all the hidden cameras.

“Fuck… off.”

The words came out on auto-pilot, weaker than before, the wheels of that monster-truck spinning as the engine redlined. What the fuck was going on here? I could fight a man, but how was I supposed to fight a mindfuck?

I took a few steps towards him and his eyes narrowed in concentration, muscles twitching in readiness for whatever I might do. The woman, Kendall if she wasn’t bullshitting, took a few steps backwards away from the two of us as I slowly closed the distance.

We were eye to eye, toe to toe, and he didn’t back down even an inch. He was exactly my height, probably would have been my size if he spent as much time in the gym as I did. He did look a little like a slightly older version of me.

What was I supposed to do? Fuck him up, or listen to this bullshit that I didn’t have time for?

“Is there somewhere we can sit down? Talk?” asked Kendall hopefully.





Austin





I sat in Ross’ chair behind his desk, halfway dumbfounded by the story Jace laid out for me. It was fucking insanity, but since the only person I ever told I was bought and sold as a baby was Skylar, he just seemed to know too much to ignore.

If it was true, then I was rescued from the womb of my dead mother after she and my father were killed in a mob hit in front of Jace, back when he was six or so. After that, I was stolen from the hospital and nobody ever heard anything more about me. Until now.

They tracked down the guy who’d been spotted on hospital security footage abducting me, some Picolli associate. He’d served fifteen years for kidnapping and manslaughter after saying he’d left me in a dumpster somewhere.

Well, through unsaid methods that were more convincing than what the city employed on him, Jace managed to get him to admit that he had, in fact, sold me to a guy here in New Ashby. When Jace tracked down that guy, he got the name Aquila.

“So, there weren’t too many Aquilas in the phone book, it didn’t take long to work our way through them. As soon as your name came up, I fucking knew it. How many times had I seen you on TV already? Right in front of my fucking nose the whole time. We got a hold of one of the towels they used to clean up one of your cuts, got the DNA tested. Just got the results back and it’s as close to certain as these things get. You are my brother,” said Jace.