Dethroning the King

  “You don’t think he is abusing her or anything, do you?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see any bruises or anything. I think he just ignores her. I hope that’s all it is.”

  “Oh Dace.”

  “What could I do, Austin? I couldn’t very well bring her here? Hopefully I can find something on these files I downloaded from Michael’s system.” My eyes look back up at hers, and I can see the worry in them. “We will get her out of there safely and bring her to live with us soon. I promise.” She nods, and after a quick embrace, we both dive into the files to search from something— anything.

  My father, brother, and uncle all have lives to get back to, so they are taking turns protecting us, as they called it. Right now, the one in charge of babysitting us, Jeremy, is out getting supplies. He’s not the most social person in the world, so as soon as he was left alone to answer Austin’s endless amounts of questions, he decided he needed to run out for errands. His last words were, “Don’t wait up,” which means we probably won’t see him until tomorrow. With Antony and Preston busy campaigning and building a war against Michael, Austin and I are left alone to search through Michael’s files. I watched the whole exchange between Austin and Jeremy before he left. At first I assumed it was her typical cop nature to question someone until they ran away, but when she suddenly walks back into the room with me and sits down with a sigh, I notice something different about her.

  After I look her over a few times, “What did you do?”

  She turns fully towards me and smiles. “What do you mean?” she asks with her nipples poking through her shirt, her bare legs stretching out long and crossing over one another as she bites her bottom lip. I am not really sure what happened, but my brain is suddenly unable to form words. “Do you want to take a break?” I glance around the place before looking back at her. She doesn’t give me a chance to answer her. She walks over and sits down in my lap, pulls off her shirt, and lets her breasts bounce fully in my face. I lick my lips as I take a hold of them. They are so full and soft, and the feeling of her nipples on my tongue makes me crazy. She moves her hips over my rapidly growing cock until she gets it nice and hard for herself. She moves, and I sit back, sliding my hand down her back and ripping her skirt up so I can see her wet pussy craving to be fucked.

  I have no problem freeing myself and letting her play with it while I get a kiss and a promise. “I’ll let you have it if you promise to let me watch you enjoy it.” She steps off and pulls her skirt off before helping take my pants off. She sits back down on me and gently maneuvers her pussy over my tip until it slides in a little. She makes a sound. “You like that? Take it all.” She rubs her breasts and sits down, taking me in fully. I need more room. I wrap my arms around her and pick her up to carry her to a better place—the dead center of the room where I switch the cameras on her. The screens in the room suddenly pop on all around us, giving me the show I want.

  “Dace?” she says, suddenly becoming shy.

  “Don’t worry. They aren’t recording. I just want to see you perform for the camera. Come on. You know you want to. We’ve talked about it enough.” I give her some encouragement, kissing her deeply and rubbing her ass for her. “Come on, Austin, show me what you got. I promise I’ll respect you in the morning.” My words work. She is competitive, and she wants more than respect. She moves in and back up again, twisting and moaning as she dances on top of me. I grip her ass and enjoy the show. My girl looks gorgeous on screen and seems to enjoy letting me watch her. Twisting back up, she takes hold of her breasts and looks down on me while I feel her body squeeze me deeper inside. For the first time in a long time we are completely alone, and we are taking full advantage. Austin leans backwards while I feel up her stomach to her breasts and let her come up, sucking my fingers. Now that my fingers are nice and wet, I play with her clit, stroking it until she is quivering and dripping all over me. Her whimpering satisfaction is met with a kiss, but I still want more. I pull her up, position her down in front of me, and find that pussy from behind. Austin screams out, unafraid of who might hear. I take one look at the screen, watching her breasts bounce, her body heaving into my hips. Taking a deep breath, I feel one more, last, wet, tight … and I come until I fall over into the floor, gasping for breath. Austin crawls into my arms, vibrating. “We really have to get our lives back because I want to do that every single day.”

  “So, you still respect me?” she giggles.

  I curl around her, kissing her. “Respect would be a step down compared to what I feel for you.”

  “Good.” Holding her in my arms is something I never want to take for granted. “We should probably get back to work?”

  “No.”

  “I mean, so we can get our work done and be able to do that again and again.”

  “Yes.” I smile, kissing her once more. We both get dressed and dive back into the computer. It’s difficult to concentrate next to her now, but we manage. As Austin passes me, she shakes her ass and glances over her shoulder at me. “We have work to do, you know? You shouldn’t be teasing me while I am trying to work. It’s not fair,” I mumble because I am not sure I want her to stop completely. It is a lot of fun. My gaze unwillingly drifts back on the computer as I open the next file, and my eyes nearly pop out of my skull. “Austin!” I read on further, searching for all the answers, but am more confused than I was when I started.

  “What’s wrong? Did you find something?”

  “Yes, but it’s not good. I think I know why Sage is scared of Michael now. Look at this.” I show her the medical records showing that Michael doesn’t have the ability to father a child. He looked into it when he had plans to get Austin pregnant. The news clearly came as a shock to him then. He must have met someone who had potential because he recently pursued further investigation to try and reverse it, but it only proved that it was too late. The inability occurred from an accident he had when he was a child.

  “If he hasn’t been able to have children, then why did he think Sage was his?” Austin asks.

  I go back to earlier files about Wendy where he had Sage tested, but the tests were inconclusive. They only proved he and Sage were related. Austin moves further into the newer file and finds a new report that shows Sage is indeed related, but Michael is her uncle, not her father. I stare at it in shock, trying to understand. When I look over at Austin, she is staring at me oddly. “What?”

  “You slept with his wife and got her pregnant? Dace!”

  “What? No! I wasn’t even in the country when Sage was conceived.”

  “Then who? Ettore?” I laugh. “Don’t laugh. It’s one of you, Dace, and if not you, then who?”

  “Fuck, I don’t know. Ettore, I guess. I wouldn’t think Wendy would have had anything to do with him. I didn’t even know Ettore liked people.” Austin smacks my arm. “What? I didn’t!”

  “Well if he is her father, then maybe he has a way to get her out of there and protected. Don’t you think Ettore would step up and protect his own daughter?” I shrug, not knowing for sure. “Well, I think he would. Ettore is territorial. He likes to stay out of Michael’s way, but he would never let Michael hurt his own blood.”

  “You mean like his brothers?” I say smartly.

  Austin huffs. “Half-brothers. A daughter should be different, right?” She clearly doesn’t know Ettore very well.

  After a long night going through every document possible, including medical records, we can’t find anything to help us prove who Sage’s father is. The best we can do is confront Ettore and get him to prove his fatherhood himself. No way is Antony going to step foot near Ettore right now. His campaign is going way too well to get near his controversial, criminal brother. Austin and I decide our best option is to seek the help of her brother and his partner, Jessica. We let them know about Sage and our belief that Ettore is the father. Aaron is not at all that excited about having to speak to Ettore and ask him to help him do anything, especially if he can’t arrest him for anything. But
for the sake of a child’s life, Aaron wasn’t about to say no. Austin tries to give him pointers on how to approach the matter with Ettore, but that ended up like most of their brother and sister arguments—nowhere. Aaron left agreeing to do it however the hell he wanted to, and Austin stomped off, waiting for me to find her so she can vent, which means no sex for Dace tonight.

  In the midst of it all, John shows up, rushing in on us like he was afraid someone might have kidnapped us while he was gone. Austin and I look at him awkwardly, waiting until he can speak clearly. “Are you okay?” I ask him.

  “Jeremy should have never left you two alone. We agreed!” John swears under his breath.

  “John, you do know Austin and I are more than capable of taking care of ourselves? Right?” I remind him. He calms.

  “Yes, I just don’t like you two being completely vulnerable. You are supposed to be in hiding, not fighting for your lives without assistance to move you to a new secure place. I mean … anyway, so what’s going on?”

  “Actually, we thought you might be Aaron. We found out Sage is not Michael’s daughter but his niece,” Austin explains to him.

  “Dace,” John sighs, shaking his head.

  “She’s not mine! Damn! Why does everyone assume she’s mine?”

  “Alright, so tell me. If she isn’t Michael’s, then whose is she?”

  “Ettore’s. Austin’s brother and his partner where supposed to talk to him today about helping them get her away from Michael,” I let him know while searching through the bags of food he brought for the apple I was wanting.

  “She’s not Ettore’s,” Aaron says, walking in behind John.

  I jump up in shock. “What?! How do you know?”

  “Because when we suggested that she might be his, he laughed hysterically at us. He also said that he barely spoke to the woman. In fact, he barely has anything to do with any women. Apparently, he and Antony have a lot more in common than anyone thought. So we are back to …” Aaron motions towards me.

  “I am telling you. There is no way it’s me. I wasn’t anywhere near here. I hardly knew her. Outside of being at their wedding, I never saw the woman again.” I swear up and down, pacing the room and trying to figure out the puzzle. Maybe we have another brother we don’t know about? Everyone tries to offer ideas, but none of them fit, other than me. I try to recall even talking to Wendy outside of their wedding. Michael didn’t exactly allow me to be around her by myself. The only thing I know to do is ask Antony. Maybe he can recall something I can’t.

  We are all out of ideas when Antony and Preston finally arrive to help us piece this together. “What is going on here?” Antony asks, seeming nervous as we judge him carefully. “Why are you all looking at me that way? It’s making me very uncomfortable.”

  “Antony, did you know Wendy very well?” I ask, standing up to look him in the eyes. It’s the only way I know if he is lying to me or not.

  “Michael’s ex? No, not really. I mean, she showed up once while I was in college and took me out for some drinks, but other than that, no … why?”

  “Because Sage isn’t Michael’s child. She’s his niece,” I say, making note of his slight change of expression.

  “Ah Dace, how could you?” Preston says, shaking his head.

  “It wasn’t me,” I announce once again.

  “Nope …no, it wasn’t Dace. He wasn’t even in the country at the time, but I … oh no,” Antony says with an odd look on his face. “Oh no.”

  “Antony, did you sleep with Michael’s wife?” I can’t even believe the words that are coming out of my mouth.

  “Um … I might have.” Everyone moves to the edge of their seats while my jaw drops. “It wasn’t what you think. She came to town to make me feel better about you being gone. She was real nice, and she was concerned for me, she said. Anyway, she took me out and we had some drinks, danced, laughed, and had a good time, and then she paid for a nice hotel room nearby so we wouldn’t have to drive back. And…”

  “And what?” I ask in shock.

  “And, I don’t remember much, but I woke up the next morning in bed with her, and we both were naked. Stop looking at me that way. I was still confused about things, and she was a nice looking woman. We both laughed it off the next morning because we thought no one would ever believe it, so we promised never to say a word. She went home, and I went back to school. When I found out she was pregnant, I assumed it was Michael’s. I mean, why would it be mine? We only messed around that one time, and we were so drunk, and I think a little drugged to. Drugged for sure. I could have sworn she was Brad Pitt.” He laugh—by himself. “Would you all please stop staring at me?”

  “Antony, Sage is your daughter,” Austin says to him. “She’s afraid of Michael, and we think he is going to hurt her because he now knows she’s not his. He has to have figured out that she is yours.”

  I quickly find Antony a chair as he seems to have lost his legs, not that I blame him. “I have a feeling she knew Michael couldn’t get her pregnant and set you up,” I say to him, “She was pretty smart and had plenty of access to whatever drugs she needed, considering our family.” Antony looks up at me. “I remember her leaving me a message looking for me, but I had already left the country. I didn’t bother to call her back. I was afraid Dad was using her to ask me to come back. Wow, you have a child.” I look up at Preston who still has his hand over his mouth. I tell them both the rest of the story and what Sage said to me, not that it makes either of them feel any better. It does, however, help them understand our sense of urgency.

  “Well I don’t know about you jackasses, but I am sick of all this dancing around shit. Let’s get him and be done with this. This game is getting ridiculous,” Aaron announces. “Hell I got my gun. Let’s just all go over there and put a bullet in him and adios muchachos.”

  “I don’t think that’s exactly the right way to go about it, but we definitely need to step up the program and stop trying to kill him slowly,” I say, turning back to the files I downloaded. “We know he killed Wendy for sure now. Maybe we can prove it somehow.”

  “How? He didn’t exactly leave a murder weapon around. It was considered an accident, a car accident at that,” Austin reminds me.

  “I know, but there is no way she would have gone willingly. What was it, brakes or …”

  “No, she went over the embankment in a rain storm,” Antony says. “It was really awful. The car caught fire and blew up. There was barely anything left of her.”

  “Did she have any family or friends she confided in? I don’t remember meeting anyone at the wedding.”

  “She didn’t have any family at the wedding. Michael said they couldn’t make it. They were too poor to fly and too proud to let Michael pay for it he said,” Antony speaks up, finally snapping out of his trance. “But you know, I remember something when she came to see me. We talked a lot, and she told me a lot of things about her life. Like, she had a boyfriend before Michael, and she was conflicted about leaving him. She said she liked Michael, that he was charming, but she was still in love with this other man and she had decided to tell Michael that she was going to leave with the other guy. Except, before she could, the other man was killed in a robbery gone bad. She turned to Michael to help console her, and the rest is history. She was heartbroken, apparently enough to marry Michael even though he probably killed the man to take his girl.”

  “That’s for sure, but there’s no way to prove it. More than likely, he had someone do it for him,” I say, trying to figure out what to do next. If only there was some way or someone that might be able to point me in the right direction?

  “Maybe so, but it doesn’t hurt to check it out. Jessica and I will start looking into it, and we’ll let you know what we find out,” Aaron says before walking out with Jessica.

  The night finally comes to an end, with no resolution and no real ideas on how to proceed. I don’t think I was able to sleep a second all night. I can only imagine how Antony feels right now.
br />   The roof of the building has become a nice getaway for me. I get tired of being hidden in that hole of a place sometimes and need to find the sun out on the roof so I can think and breathe. It’s not anything special, but it’s fresh air with the birds, dogs barking in the distance, and me wishing to run back to my old team, hiding and moving from one place to another, trying to be anyone but me. The gypsy that my father, my surrogate father, I suppose, always accused me of being. He hated that about me. I have to laugh because, in the end, he said that— knowing when to leave and when to stay—was my most valuable strength. That conversation was full of secrecy and confusion, me not understanding what he already knew and him not understanding who the real enemy was:

  I imagine there could be some faithful women out there somewhere. Maybe this ‘Austin’ is one of them?” he says oddly. I shrug. “It was a sad funeral …” My father’s concentration drifts off, and I wonder whose funeral he is speaking of—Wendy’s or my mother’s? Considering he is twisting his old wedding band that has never left his finger since their wedding day, I assume it is my mother’s. He looks up at the sky and smiles before sighing back in my direction. “You were always a good kid. I find it ironic that you’re the one I trust the most.”

  “Oh yeah? Why? Because I am the one always running away.”

  “No, but now that you bring it up, you’re ability to know when to stay and when to leave is what will keep you alive. If you’re the only one left standing against Ettore, I left you something, an apology you could say. It will help you regain whatever stronghold you may need.”

  “An apology for what?”

  “It will all be in the letter. I have someone assigned to give it to you after I die. Look for a man named Hayden Stryker. He will know what to do.”

  I sigh, shaking my head. “I told you. I don’t want to take over. I am only here to help you and Michael, and then I’m gone. Let Antony be your prince in waiting.”