Concede (The Diamond Empire Book 1) by Kathy Coopmans (bts book recommendations .TXT) 📕

sweats when she started rolling her hips, making him hard within seconds.

So, yeah, to say Gabe’s timing is off would be an understatement. I probably shouldn’t have answered, but this is Gabe. The man who raised my brothers and me as if we were born of his blood.

I’d answer his call anytime, just like with Lexi and my brothers, for that matter. Family is family, and I have a damn good one.

“And that’s what she was, Gabe. A problem. It’s solved. We can discuss this later. Swear to you I’m good,” I say as my free hand slides up one of Victoria’s thighs and takes possession of her hip through the black satin short nighty that’s driving me mad.

Victoria Hughes, the best thing I’ve claimed in my life.

“No, you’ll let me finish. I need you to hear this for my peace of mind. Remind you that psycho bitch is the one who chose to walk into Rocco’s place and murder his girl. There wasn’t anything either of you could have done to stop her. I would have given anything to be the one to pull the trigger instead of you.”

My body stills over the last sentence. He’s never once said that to me in all these years. Now, this is Gabe, my father talking. The guy is worried about one of his sons, not the hitman like me in some ways, but different in others. Namely, he doesn’t have the same appetite for blood as I do. He kills quickly.

Now his call makes a lot more sense. Gabe wants to make sure I won’t drink again because of Rocco’s information on who the suspect is in having the other ring. I’d called Gabe this morning to tell him after a sit down with Rocco where he laid it all out to me, Roan and others.

Karina Daniels. The younger sister to Maxim and Mikhail. From what Rocco gathered, their mother gave birth to her a few months before she died. There’s no trace of a birth certificate, nothing at all before the brothers took Karina to an orphanage.

A couple right here in New York adopted her. Both dying when Karina was twenty from a head-on collision. The security tapes Rocco got ahold show that about three months ago is when the brothers started coming around.

Now he can’t find anything on her these past couple of weeks. She and her boyfriend, Jack, have vanished. Not a trace, not a sighting, not a dime withdrawn from either of their bank accounts.

Wherever they are, Rocco won’t stop digging until he finds them. How he can weave his way through the internet and find information others can’t, I’ll never know. He needs to let go of that club and come work for Roan. The bug was planted this morning, so we shall see.

Memories start to tumble.

They’ve been stomping around in my mind most of the day. The high pitch of Meghan’s screams. The frightening look on her face. Rocco losing his shit, bawling like a baby while covered in blood. Him putting a gun to his mouth days later, and Logan talking him down from killing himself.

Goddamn fickle mind. It sure knows how to spin up shit that should stay buried, pushing them to the forefront.

At times it’s undependable and a whole lot unstable.

“Ever the protector, aren’t you, Gabe?”

Victoria gives me a knowing look as if to say sounds like someone else I know. Then she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. My cock twitching at the sight.

“Always when it comes to my sons. That said, every man has weaknesses. Even men like you and me. Yours just happens to be one that’ll haunt you for the rest of your life. Mine happens to be you, your brothers, and my grandkids.”

Killing a deserving woman isn’t my weakness. The woman on my lap is. If anyone were to hurt her in any way, I’d be a shell of a man.

“I love you too, Gabe.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know you do, Seth. It’s killing me knowing you’re two thousand miles from me. First time since you boys moved in with Lena and me, I’ve had to choose between my sons. Come to New York to help find these fuckers or stay in Texas to keep watch over the rest of my family.”

My throat tightens, hearing him speak of Lena. The woman was a saint. She’d look at the three of us as if she knew what we were going to say before the words came out of our mouths. Half the time, she beat us to it. With me, I swear she knew I had a dark side inside me before I recognized it myself.

“There’s no choosing. You’re where you need to be, old man. Come up here, and I’ll have to use those skills you taught me out on your ass. Besides, we don’t know if Karina is involved.”

My gut tells me she isn’t. Not with all the other information, we know about her, but I know better than most how appearances are deceiving. Take one look at me, for example, and you’d never guess there’s a monster living inside.

“I’m serious, Gabe.” Not a chance do I want him here any more than I do my brothers. He’s my father. He can stay right where he belongs.

He chuckles.

“Next time I see you, I’ll show you how age doesn’t have a thing to do with putting you in a headlock and whipping you to the ground. And you’re right. She might not have a thing to do with what happened. If she does, and you’re asked to kill her, remember what you went through, and then look how far you’ve come. Look at what you have waiting at home when it’s all done. Don’t fuck up the best thing that’s ever happened to you by turning back to the bottle.”

There they are. Those words I was waiting for.

“I appreciate you calling to check on me, but if it comes down to me having to kill Karina, I’ll