Page 32 of Lethal King

I freeze when I see the caller ID. It’s from the one person I can’t ignore.

My father.

Fuck.

“Hello,” I answer, swiping aside the call screen to look back at the comforting mosaic of raw code and tangled data.

“How are you doing?” Dad asks.

Static cracks behind his voice, a by-product of all the protective measures I’ve put into place to disguise our communications.

“I’m fine,” I grumble, curling the fiber cord up the tick’s spine. “How are you?”

“Rian.”

“I promise, I’m fine,” I lie.

“It’s alright not to be fine.”

“Well, that will be good to know in the future, when I’m not fine. But right now, I’m guts deep in a piece of technology I’ve never seen before. And you know how happy that kind of shit makes me.”

“A piece of technology the Black Cat left behind?”

“Yes,” I reluctantly admit. “A silver tick.”

“Pets tend to do that.”

My steady fingers pause at the word pet. For a moment, my fading rage flares up again, and a red-hot image appears behind my aching skull.

Rozalia Dorn. On all fours. At my feet. Gagged and bound in a leather leash.

“Fuck...” I grumble, stomping my heel into the ground to divert the blood rushing into my growing cock.

I should have jerked off in the shower—whether I deserved the relief or not, it doesn’t matter. I need to stay focused.

“Find anything interesting?” Dad asks. He doesn’t sound nearly as bothered as he should be.

“Not yet,” I admit. Scrolling the tip of my finger along my phone screen, I search for a clue. “But I’m looking.”

“And your men are waiting,” he reminds me.

“So, you’ve already talked to Maksim…”

“He gave me the rundown of what happened today. All in all, it doesn’t sound so bad.”

“You weren’t the one drenched in pig’s blood.”

“I’ve been drenched in a lot worse,” Dad chuckles.

The lightness in his voice makes me second guess the heaviness in my own. Why isn’t he taking this as seriously as I am?

“How’s everything going over there?” I ask, hoping that maybe it’s because he has some good news.

“Still preparing for war,” he sighs, dashing those hopes. “Figuratively, of course. The US government is too strong to take on in any kind of physical battle. But legally, they are bound by a tangled web of rules and regulations. We’re using that to our advantage. Who knows, maybe they’ll get frustrated enough to give up.”

“You know that won’t happen.”

“No harm in hoping,” Dad says, and I can practically hear him shrugging. “But you’re right. This isn’t just another money laundering scheme or extortion plot. They want blood. Payback for what they think we did to Congressman Olsen’s daughter, and revenge for what one of our new members actually did do to Senator Polanski’s son.”