Royally Bad (Bad Boy Royals #1)

by Nora Flite

  I’d been dreaming . . .

  But before that, hadn’t I died?

  Strong, solid fingers captured my shoulders. “Sammy, you’re awake, I thought you might never . . .” Kain never finished. His pupils were tiny, they were lost in the white expanse of the rest of his face.

  The ringing in my ears faded so fast I barely realized it had been there. Turning my cheek to the pillow, I saw the machines beside me, the IV in my arm. “I’m in a hospital,” I said stupidly.

  Kain cupped my chin, trying to get my attention. “You’re fine, you’re alive.”

  Keeping my voice calm, I said, “Someone else better be paying these medical bills.”

  His lips cracked into a surprised pucker. The grin that grew after that lifted some of the weight from my soul. That was what I needed.

  “If you want,” he said slowly, “I can take care of them for you. But you know it’ll cost you, right?”

  “How could I not know that by now?” I meant it as a joke. His wince reminded me of why we were here—the favor he’d done when he’d taken me to see my mother.

  Sitting up, I looked him over with rising fear. “Oh, fuck, you were shot! I was shot. I—my mother, oh, no.” Covering my mouth, I let my tears rise and fall. I didn’t have the energy to stop them.

  “Shh,” he soothed me. “I’m fine, and you’re fine.”

  “But how?” Brick had us locked down. I remembered sitting there, knowing that we were both about to die. And then . . . my attention swam up, I stared Kain down in wonder. “I must have been fading away, because before I blacked out, I swear I saw my father.”

  Kain’s eyes darted to the door.

  “Stop,” I said quickly. “Don’t fuck with me. My dad’s dead, I know that. I was hallucinating.”

  Gently, he disengaged from me. That was when I realized he was limping. Ice sank in my gut; how injured was he? Each step toward the door thudded like a drum in my heart. Twisting the knob, he leaned into the hallway. “I think you should come inside,” he said to someone.

  Without waiting for me to ready myself, he entered the room. He was wearing a long-sleeved, tan shirt, and I instantly thought it looked too big on him. Too big on a man that had always been a giant to me.

  It had been over a year since I’d last seen him alive, and in that time, my father had thinned out. It didn’t look right, his gaunt cheeks, knobby fingers, fading hair.

  But there was no doubt it was him.

  I’d know that smile half a world away.

  “Sammy,” he said softly.

  Yanking the IV stand along the floor, ignoring how every machine began to beep, I threw myself into my father’s arms and bawled.

  He was alive.

  Impossibly . . .

  My father had come back to me.

  We sat for hours. We talked continuously.

  I still had trouble wrapping my brain around everything.

  “Mom is seriously okay?” I asked, knowing I was repeating myself. I just didn’t know how to handle being so lucky.

  Nodding, my dad said, “I got her out of there the night before. I’d seen Brick on the road once nearby, that was enough for me.”

  My head wagged side to side in gentle disbelief. “How did she handle seeing you? Her poor heart.”

  “She slapped me a bit.”

  Chuckling at the image, I said, “She probably had no clue what to think. I don’t even know what to think. Is everything Brick said true? You led the Deep Shots?”

  He frowned severely; it made me miss his comfortable smile. “It’s true. I was their leader until about a year and change ago. The rising trouble within the ranks of the Deep Shots, the number of times my life seemed to be in danger, I’d decided it wasn’t worth it anymore. When I told them I was stepping down and backing off, I assumed that was that. Frock was a good enough guy. I never pictured one of his own putting a hit out on me.”

  “Brick.” I spit his name out like it was dirty dishwater. “What happened to him?”

  Kain cleared his throat. “Dead.”

  It was such a blunt, ugly word. As much as I hated the man for trying to kill me and so many people that I loved, I didn’t want him—or anyone—dead. Shifting uneasily, I looked back at my father. “Then, when that car was found in the water, you weren’t ever in it.”

  His laugh was gritty. “Oh, I was. The hit man Brick hired was a cheap one, some upstart punk desperate for money, I’d guess. He came out of nowhere on the road, shot at me through the window—and he missed. But the shattered glass got me.” Tilting his head, he combed back his hair to show off the reddish scarring. “It was the last straw. I realized then that as long as I was around, whoever was after me would keep trying. It put you and your mother in danger. So when my car went off that edge and I managed to swim to shore without anyone seeing . . . I let everyone think I was gone.”

  The reminder made me shiver.

  Reaching out, he took my fingers and squeezed. “I’m so, so sorry you had to go on so long suffering like this, Sammy. I thought I was doing what was right.”

  “I’m kind of tired of everyone trying to do what they think is ‘right’ for me,” I mumbled. Kain’s eyes went downcast at that. “Listen, I’m still struggling here. How did you run the Deep Shots for so long without me ever knowing?”

  “How could you even guess? I went by a different name, I made sure to keep my private life and my family life apart. Until Brick decided to make sure I never tried to come back and take control from his father . . . it was working.”

  Turning, he said to Kain, “I never expected your family to get involved with Sammy. I always kept the Deep Shots away from the Badds, didn’t want to start a gang war we couldn’t win, but I did meet your dad once—only once.”

  Kain blinked. “When?”

  “It was years and years ago. I used to take Sammy riding at this farm—”

  “White Rose,” he whispered.

  My dad smiled kindly. “That’s it. Anyway, usually your parents sent you there with a nanny. But one time, you were completing this course. Your father showed up to watch. I knew who he was, of course. He didn’t speak to me, but my wife, Jean, she went right up to him and scolded him for letting you pick on Sammy.”

  That memory was so fuzzy. I gripped my forehead, trying to recall it. “Huh,” I said. “I guess you were a jerk as a kid.”

  Kain wasn’t listening, he was busy staring at my dad. “Jean said that?” Something crossed his face. “That’s why she acted so strange when I introduced myself. She knew who I was.”

  “Speaking of Jean, I should call her and tell her everyone is fine.” My father stood with a brief wince. At my nervous glance, he waved me away. “I’m just sore. I hadn’t fired a gun in a long while.”

  I suspected, from how he looked, that it was more than that. A man who’d been hiding out for so long, watching his family from afar . . . of course he’d suffered from it. The bags under his eyes gave his stress away.

  The door clicked shut as he left; I turned toward Kain. “That did just happen, right? I’m not still dreaming?”

  “It happened. That, or I shook the hand of a very firm ghost.”

  “You shook his hand?” I asked, stunned as I tried to picture that. “Why?”

  “Well, he did save my life, for one. But you don’t remember, do you? Back at the jail, I joked about your looks and manners and . . . never mind.” Sitting beside me on the bed, he grunted. I noticed how he favored one leg. Before he could stop me, I sat up, pulling at his belt.

  “Whoa!” he laughed, eyeing me closely. “Down, girl, I don’t think you’re ready for this ride just yet.”

  Ignoring him, I yanked his pants down so that I could see the top of his thigh. The bandages were thick, the sight of them made me freeze.

  “Sammy,” he said insistently.

  Reaching out, I snatched the hem of his shirt and ripped it over his head. His hair stuck up in places; it would have been funny, but the padding on his left
shoulder sobered me. We were inches away, I snapped my eyes to his. “Your dad was right. You got hurt because of me.”

  “Yeah. I did get hurt.” He said it so crisply that I did a double take. “Before you came into my life, things were much easier. I didn’t struggle as much, I definitely didn’t make as many risky decisions.”

  His honesty wasn’t making me feel better.

  “But you know what else?” Kain asked, leaning into me. “I also didn’t smile as much . . . or feel as much. I didn’t try to make sure someone else—someone besides me—was having the time of their life.” His eyes twinkled, silver flecks set deep in crystal. “My world is a much better place since you came along.”

  The center of my heart stretched and strained. It couldn’t fit inside of me, this sensation of expanding was too much for anyone. A small sound fled my lips; a hiccup, then a sniffle.

  “Sammy, are you all right?”

  Pushing my hands into his chest, I laughed and smiled and welled with tears, all at the same time. It was the only way to keep from shattering into pieces—my love for this man pushed my body to its limits.

  Sobbing, I said, “Stop making me cry!”

  Kain bent over me, kissing the corner of each of my eyes. “Is this that ugly cry you were telling me about?” Grabbing his shirt, I flapped it into my face. He chuckled, snatching my wrists, forcing my arms down. “Don’t hide.”

  “You literally just called me ugly!”

  “No, not at all. I was going to say if this is your ugly cry, then it’s not so bad. I don’t know why you acted like mine was so impressive.” He smirked sharply. “Or do I need to make you cry more to see the real thing?”

  “Please, no.” I laughed softly, dabbing at my eyes. “You’ll get more snot, that’s all.”

  Snuggling me against his bare chest, he slid us more comfortably onto the hospital bed. Well, as comfortably as one could ever get on one of these hard things. But truthfully, in Kain’s arms, I could have sat on jagged rock and felt wonderful.

  My eyes tracked over his naked torso. His tattoos glimmered in the hospital lights, the red-and-black crown a heavy reminder of who Kain was.

  But it wasn’t his history that had caused our conflict. It was mine. A past I knew nothing about. What would happen from here? Was my father going to return, would things get easier . . . or would they get worse?

  How could things get worse? I asked myself, studying the old scar on his stomach. We’ve already been nearly killed. “We match now,” I said suddenly.

  He blinked. “What?”

  Lifting my pale green gown, I touched the gauze and padding that was strapped over my belly. “We’ve both got bullet wounds on our stomachs. It’s kind of neat.”

  At first he was silent. The initial shakes of his laughter startled me, but his full-on bellow turned me to stone. Calming himself, he took my hand, placing it on his old scar. “It’s from having my appendix removed.”

  My eyes ached from how wide they were, they were drying out as I considered this revelation. “You mean . . . that for weeks, I’ve been thinking that you had this old wound from some wicked gunfight . . . and it was just . . .”

  “Yup. Though I did get to stay out of school for a bit. That’s pretty wicked, right?”

  I lost the ability to talk. In the quietness, the knock on the door made me jump.

  Not knowing who to expect, I was beyond lost at seeing the familiar face of Detective Stapler. He was peering into the room, one hand holding a white envelope tied to a gigantic, teddy-bear balloon. The instant he saw Kain and me—him shirtless—tangled on the bed, his whole head flushed.

  “Oh—I—I’ll come back,” he stuttered.

  Ignoring Kain’s giant grin, I flapped a hand. “Wait! It’s fine.” Was it fine? “What are you doing here?”

  His eyes tracked all over the room, but not at us directly. “Mmff. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. Heard what had happened.” He glanced at Kain, then away, like seeing a member of the Badd family wasn’t what he was hoping for.

  I wondered if he’d come to chide me, pointing out that he’d been right about the Badds being dangerous. He’d walked into something else entirely, of course.

  Kain’s grin became a cheeky smirk. “Hey there, boss.”

  The detective inched my way, handing over the balloon with the card attached. “Thanks,” I said earnestly, taking it. The colorful bear was smiling for all eternity. In the mirrored back of the balloon, I saw how pale I was. “Were you with the cops that arrived at the scene?”

  “I was,” he said grimly. “I wasn’t shocked to hear about a fight between the Badds and the Deep Shots, but when word came down that there was a young woman seriously injured at the scene . . .” He shook his head, seeming to relive last night. “Actually, I had a question that one of you can hopefully answer.” Finally he looked at me, his warm, brown eyes shifting with curiosity.

  “Shoot,” I said, instantly regretting my choice of phrasing.

  The detective didn’t get the joke, or he knew enough to ignore it. “We found something at the scene that I couldn’t make sense of.”

  I glanced at Kain—did he have any idea what this was about? “What was it?”

  “A very pink high heel.”

  “Pffftt.” It was the only sound I could make. My lips fluttered as I tried not to crack up. I’d forgotten all about that fucking shoe.

  Kain tapped his fingers on my headboard. “That is weird.”

  “I could swear I’d seen those heels before,” Stapler said.

  Tears broke through the corners of my eyes. Not from sadness, but from the sheer pressure of trying not to explode at the absurdity of all of this. The detective froze, noticing the wetness as I rubbed at it and entirely misunderstanding. “Forgive me, you’re still recovering, and everything is so fresh. I didn’t mean to bring up memories of the attack. I’ll go, I’ll—right. Farewell.”

  “Hold on!” Tapping the card he’d given me against my palm, I offered him a genuine smile. “Thanks for checking in on me. And . . . thanks for being one of the good guys.”

  He flushed all over. “Yeah, well, I just hope I never have to see you again, Miss Sage.” Tipping his head at us both, he backtracked to the door. “Enjoy the card.”

  Alone with Kain again, I met his stare with my own. “Wow,” I mumbled.

  “I think you have a fan.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “I don’t usually like cops following me around like puppies, but in this case . . . it might not be the worst. He did have a keen eye and a good question. Why were those shoes with you? I thought that I’d—”

  “Hidden them away in your bedroom to worship in private?”

  His grin cut sideways. “What’s creepier, me keeping them or you sneaking into my room to take them back?”

  “I didn’t sneak in at all. Lula gave them to me.”

  Kain’s eyes widened while his smile crumbled to dust. “Okay. Now I’m really fucking lost.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Why did you keep those ridiculous shoes?”

  His arm slid around me possessively. “Saying it out loud will sound insane.”

  “Then let it,” I said earnestly.

  Kain looked down at me, judging how serious I was being. I passed the test, I suppose, because he began to talk. “The day of the wedding, when I took you to the impound lot, I was spending so much time just thinking of a way to keep you from avoiding me. I wanted to prove I was better than . . . well, I guess better than someone who’d gotten you thrown into jail.”

  The contours of his warm voice slid through my ears and into my heart. Which was good, because the memory of being handcuffed was a cold one.

  He said, “But then you climbed into your car, and you didn’t even give me a damn moment to say good-bye. There was nothing, no opening—you were done.”

  My hand clutched at my lungs. He sounded so damn sad. Had he really felt like that? “Kain . . .”

 
Blue skies free of clouds—that was what his eyes reminded me of. This man, he stared at me without a hint of doubt, speaking from a soul I would have once called tarnished and sinful. “Then you handed me those shoes. They were sparkly and pink and everything you weren’t. I’d helped you walk in them, they were all I had to represent the tangled-up way I felt about you.”

  Abruptly he laughed, his hair falling across his eyebrows with how his head swung low. He whispered, “I actually thought—well, if I’m a prince, and these were the shoes you’d cast off, I’d keep them . . . I’d use them to find you . . . because you were my own personal Cinderella.”

  My heart opened up, tingles spreading up my throat and to my brain. They made my nose tickle, a sneeze that never came because the pressure in my skull was from something sweeter entirely.

  “What about you?” he asked, pulling me in for a kiss. “Why did you keep them?”

  Flushing wildly, I let myself smile. “I’d never wear them again, but the fact you’d hid them away made me understand how much every minute we’d spent together had meant to you. I guess I couldn’t let them go.”

  “But you did. Into Brick’s head.”

  “Right. The mystery weapon.” The shoe that saved our lives. I remembered the envelope Detective Stapler had given me. Peeling it open, I slid out the big and bright get-well card. It had a pair of dancing mice on it. “Why pick mice, of all the . . .” I didn’t finish.

  Inside the envelope, the detective had left me two very familiar slips of paper.

  The ink on the bottom right of one was a messy scrawl: Kain’s signature.

  Mama Badd’s was much neater.

  I hadn’t expected to see that thirty grand ever again.

  - EPILOGUE -

  SAMMY

  Kain had tried to warn me that the meeting would be intimidating.

  I’d been sure I was ready.

  Then I’d entered the den.

  Every chair had a person, every corner . . . every wall . . . they were covered. Each of them belonged to either the Deep Shots or to the Badds. The ocean of faces was useless to me; I only knew a few.