SWNOVELS Tiny Dark Deeds: Chapter 49
Ramses
I studied Prinze in the driver’s seat.
We shared a similar state.
Royal Prinze was just as amped up as I was, restless. I supposed that was a big reason we were both in the car instead of somewhere else. We both had conflicts of interest, me for my daughter.
And him for his dad.
The term was loose for that son of a bitch, and had I had it my way, things would be going very differently tonight. I’d made a promise to my wife, and that was the only reason things were different. Me being involved with what we were all doing tonight wasn’t possible.
I was too close to things.
Instead, I’d been forced to sit here, watch Prinze. His Tesla hummed while we surveyed a parking lot. It was just after 3 AM, and we hadn’t heard anything from Reed or Ambrose.
We should have heard something by now.
Prinze’s phone lit on the dashboard.
It was as if a call from God, Knight Reed’s name on the front of the screen. Prinze and I barely exchanged a look before Prinze swiped it off the dash.
“Brother?” Prinze said into the line, waiting. I’d known Royal for so long, and he was doing his best to remain calm here. I didn’t know his thoughts on the matter, but if my friends were inside of a building trying to take care of my father, I might have some thoughts on it. I wouldn’t want to have an opinion about that, but…
It was hard, a history there. I knew Prinze’s situation was a little more turbulent than mine was with my dad when he’d been alive, but with either of us, one fact couldn’t be denied.
They were our blood.
“Royal, you need to come inside. Now,” Reed said, his voice steady, low. “We’re sending a guy to your car. He’ll take you. Hurry.”
“What’s going on?” I took the phone from Prinze. My throat flicked. “Is the job done? Is…” I closed my eyes. “Did your people take care of it?”
“The job is done, and you both should probably come upstairs.” Reed clicked off about the same time one of our guys came to Prinze’s car. We both got out, the air chilly. We made haste behind a guy with legs the size of tree trunks. Reed knew military folks, and many of them had volunteered for this. We’d had to act quickly when we finally found out where Prinze’s dad was. It’d been a long search, many hours and no sleep.
The job’s done.
Reed’s voice played in my head, Prinze ahead of me. We met up with Jaxen Ambrose on the way upstairs. He lingered in a hallway, at a post waiting for us.
“Hey, this way,” Ambrose said, our location a stairwell of one of the nicest hotels in the city. It was a perfect setting for a man of arrogance, and we’d all been floored to find out Prinze’s dad had been staying here. He’d made his threats against my daughter, caused chaos in my family’s lives and stolen so much time…
Yet, here he was, the king of his castle. He’d taken over the entire top floor, but no one seemed to be around now but our men. Prinze and I passed them all, Ambrose with us.
“Jax, what’s wrong?” Prinze asked Ambrose, but the question stopped in front of the door of a room. The room wasn’t empty, several people inside. The first was Knight Reed, the dude built like a semi and basically shielding the scene behind him.
Though, not enough.
He couldn’t cover the woman behind him, nor the man who lay on the floor below her. The man was covered in blood, a hand to his chest, his eyes open as if he’d been trying to get in one last sight of the world.
But I wasn’t focused on him, and Prinze wasn’t either. He rushed into the room, and he immediately went to the woman. She was his wife.
And for some reason was covered in blood.
December Prinze had her hands cuffing her arms, her eyes haunted and scanning the body at her feet. She just stared at it, unblinking. I didn’t know if it was Reed or Ambrose, but someone had her sitting in a hotel chair, the rest of the room filled with military people. The men and women in black holding walkie-talkies were clearing out the scene, wiping things down and bagging things. One of those items was a gun, and I panned away just in time to see Prinze grab his wife.
“Em,” he said, her head shooting up. December, my best friend of many years, basically launched herself at her husband.
“Royal, oh my God,” she gasped, shaking in his arms. She gripped his shirt, blood all over her hands. “It wasn’t me…”
She breathed out the words, soft, light, and I swallowed.
Prinze himself appeared horrified, a trembling woman in his arms.
His father at his feet.
Callum Prinze was dead, a jewel-topped cane beside him. It’d been flung across the floor like he’d answered the door, then been surprised from the front.
I came over too, and my own horror at the scene I was sure was just as evident as Royal Prinze’s. What was December doing in here?
“Em?” Prinze questioned, blinking back and forth between his wife and his dead father. He squeezed her. “Em, what?”
He couldn’t seem to get out the words in the moment, and I had none.
“We found her,” Reed explained, Ambrose entering the room too. Reed scanned the room. “Found him here with her.”
“He was already dead, brother,” Ambrose said, staring at Prinze. At this point, Prinze had his hand behind his wife’s head. He cradled her, holding her tight. Ambrose frowned. “She said he was already shot when she got here.”
But why was she here?
“Em?” Prinze pulled December back. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I…” She blinked down, her eyes widening at the dead man on the floor. “I came in, and he was already on the floor. He was bleeding out. There was so much blood.”
“But why were you here?” he asked her, and her eyes averted.
They fell on me.
I came over, my hand on her shoulder. She took it, squeezing before looking at her husband.
“He had to pay for our children,” she said, shocking both Prinze and me. Reed and Ambrose looked away, as if she’d already told them.
Maybe she had.
“He had to pay for all of us,” she stated, her head lowered. She wet her lips. “But when I saw him there, I couldn’t just leave him. Why couldn’t I leave him?”
She seemed to ask herself the question, her cringe evident.
Ambrose stepped forward. “She said she was with him in his final moments.” He cuffed his arms, eyes heated on the body. “Though, lord knows the bastard didn’t deserve it.”
“But why would you come here, Em? Why?” Prinze asked her, her face in his hands. “You knew we were going to handle this.” He brought her close, his mouth to her head. “We were going to take care of this. I was going to take care of this. Why didn’t you let me?”
She had no words for him, silent. We all stood around as we watched a man comfort his wife, our own wives waiting for us, and I was sure I wasn’t the only one who thought about a significant other at this moment. Instead of Prinze and December, I saw Bri and me here tonight, me holding her while she tried to explain to me what she’d come to do here tonight. She definitely would have too.
I knew my wife.
She wanted to protect our family just as much as I did because that was who she was, so I wasn’t surprised to see December Prinze here this evening. We’d all been about to do the same thing and make the same sacrifice. I’d never been responsible for killing a man, but I’d been going to tonight, with the aid of friends, family. There wasn’t a distinction anymore, and there hadn’t been for a long time. When someone crossed us, they crossed all of us, and these men and their wives definitely had my family’s back tonight. I was sure I wasn’t the only one who’d never been responsible for taking a life before.
If that wasn’t family, I didn’t know what was.