Ruthless Heir: Epilogue 1

3 months later…

My heart overflows with so much fucking love as I watch them sleep.

Bianca lies flat on her stomach for the first time in months. Little Jakub rests peacefully next to her.

His hair is already coming in. Jet black. Just like mine.

But when those tiny eyes are open, they are a stunning shade of crystal blue, just like his mother’s.

Goddamn.

Despite all that’s been going on lately, I find myself fully encompassed by the peace emanating from them.

The pressure of the outside world fades. And I just watch the soft breaths puttering out of my baby boy’s lips as he snuggles up against his mom’s cheek.

All I want is to crawl back into bed and hold them so close.

… Then, I feel my phone vibrate.

Fuck.

Duty never sleeps. Especially when you’re the king of the west coast underworld.

“What is it?” I ask, only answering the call after I’ve stepped out into the hallway and quietly clicked the bedroom door shut behind me.

“I’m here.”

Rian’s voice is nothing more than a growl.

Shit. This can’t be good.

“I’ll be downstairs in a second.”

Taking one last look over my shoulder, I gaze longingly at the closed door. I can still sense the beautiful slice of domestic bliss hiding just behind it. It’s intoxicating. And

the only thing that allows me to pull myself away is the confidence that it’s not going anywhere. Not if I have anything to say about it.

Still, the tranquility quickly evaporates as I make my way downstairs to meet Rian—I do my best to let it go gracefully.

For as much as I enjoy that calmness, it’s not something I can carry with me. Satisfaction leads to sloppiness. And when you run a mafia empire, sloppiness can get you and everyone you love killed.

I’ll do anything to protect Bianca and Jakub—and that includes pushing them from my mind as I march downstairs to meet an angry lion.

Rian Kilpatrick is waiting for me in the foyer. I can practically see the smoke billowing from his flared nostrils.

“I’m guessing you finally decoded that message,” I say, preparing myself for the worst.

“She’s losing her touch,” Ryan rumbles. “This one only took me a few days to decrypt.”

“Maybe,” I murmur, sincerely doubting his first claim. “Let’s go out back.”

Turning around, I lead Rian through my home. He follows closely behind, a thunderous black storm cloud ready to burst at any moment.

Shit.

Rian is fucking pissed. And that’s bad news. But not just because of what he’s about to tell me.

It’s how he’s going to tell it to me.

When the lion gets angry, he also gets very fucking loud.

A year ago, I wouldn’t have cared. Now, though? I can’t have that in my household. Upstairs, my family is sleeping soundly, a rare occurrence these days. They need to rest.

But I never can.

This shit is too fucking important.

For the past two months, someone has been sending taunting messages to the Kilpatrick prince, desperately trying to goad him into making a foolish move.

By now, it’s clear who that someone is.

Roz.

Her wicked obsession with the Irish lion is only matched by his raging obsession with her.

I’m worried their lethal game of cat and mouse is going to end in a deadly explosion. One that might take out more than just the two of them.

But how do I stop two forces of nature from colliding?

“They’ve turned two more of our politicians,” Rian barks, the second we step out into my backyard.

“Who?” I ask, my mind already racing.

I’m trying to be the calm one here, but it’s hard when we’re being outmaneuvered like this.

It’s infuriating.

We have the most powerful standing army in the underworld, but somehow, Roz and Tytus are managing to get their hooks in every crooked politician from here to New York.

“Christopher Housley and Jake Suter,” Rian sneers.

“Those are fucking senators,” I realize, immediately recognizing the names. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I try to fight back an encroaching headache. “How the fuck are they managing this?”

“The bitch’s newest message explains how in painstaking detail,” Rian curses.

A flash of rage eviscerates my growing headache. But I keep myself from reacting too violently towards Rian’s words.

Roz is supposed to be my enemy now—but old habits are hard to kick, and I still get defensive when someone attacks my former friend.

“Tell me what she said,” I grunt. Turning my back on Rian, I look out over the endless courtyard that is my backyard.

I’ve come so far.

But my work is never done.

“She tricked us,” Rian says. “The black widow set us up when we needed her the most.”

“What do you mean?”

“Back in the tunnels, when we were looking for Bianca. Remember how she sent you the schematics for Drago’s security system?”

“Yeah,” I nod, a knot tightening in my gut. “She sent them in encrypted files so Drago wouldn’t know we were trying to breach him. Right?”

Rian shakes his head. “That’s not all she hid in those files. There was something else. A digital lockbox filled with the deepest, darkest secrets of nearly every significant politician in the country.”

My stomach drops.

“Blackmail?”

“That’s right. Blackmail that was locked away so tightly, not even she could get to it. But I could. And she knew it. Fucking hell, I decrypted it all without even knowing it…”

Just like that, it all clicks together.

No fucking way.

This is why Drago wanted Rian so badly. He didn’t just send me after the lion as a distraction. He really wanted me to capture Bianca’s fearsome cousin so that we could force him to decrypt some invaluable trove of information.

But how would we have forced Rian to do anything he didn’t want to do?

Easy. if we had Bianca. All we’d have to do was threaten her. Then what choice would he have?

Shit.

“Where the hell did all that blackmail come from?” I ask, still confused about how Drago would know that such a thing even existed.

“I went back and checked,” Rian says. “There was the faintest digital signature carved into the bottom of the strongbox. A claim of ownership.”

Turning back around, I see the scowl twisting the lion’s face.

But do I also spot a sliver of sympathy in his sharp blue eyes?

“Tell me the name,” I demand.

Rian only hesitates for a second.

“The blackmail belonged to Sonia Caruso. Your mother.”

“What the fuck?”

I can hardly believe my ears… until a repressed memory comes rushing out from the back of my mind.

When I was hanging from the rafters in Westwood’s gymnasium, Drago told me something. Something that I could have easily ignored. Something that I didn’t even think twice about at the time.

But now, it’s the piece that puts this entire puzzle together.

Drago said that before they’d married, Kamil had killed my mother’s first husband, the son of a prominent senator. Then, they’d run away together.

Their pockets lined with political blackmail, and so much leverage in the war to come…

Fuck.

“Are you sure?” I ask, naively holding out hope that the damage isn’t that devastating.

“Look for yourself.”

Ripping out his phone, Rian pulls something up on his screen, then hands it over to me.

“Does she mention anything about El Blanco?” I mutter.

That name still haunts me. I feel like it must be connected to all of this, but I haven’t even been able to find any crumbs yet.

“No.”

Shit. That’s a mystery that still needs solving. But it will have to wait for another day.

“Don’t be fooled by some of the things she says,” Rian warns. “She’s just trying to play with our heads.”

“How?” I ask, glancing through the decrypted message.

“Somewhere in there, she claims that Tytus rigged smoke bombs in the tunnels surrounding Drago’s underground office. Apparently, that was supposed to help you get a jump on the small army standing watch outside. I guess they were watching the whole shitshow from afar.”

Damn. I’d wondered where that smoke had come from. Without it, I’d never have had a chance to get as close as I did before taking my first shot. And who knows what Krol would have done to Bianca if he’d known I was so close…

“What else do they claim to be responsible for?” I ask, hating that I feel any gratitude towards Roz and Tytus right now.

They may have helped me save Bianca. Hell, they might have even saved my life. But that was before they broke my heart.

Still, the timeline is confusing. As far as I can tell, by that point they’d already decided to betray me.

So, why the hell did they help me?

“A whole bunch of bullshit,” Rian grunts. “I’ve already told you the important parts.”

He’s right.

As I scan through the message, I recognize Roz’s voice, as well as her taunting confessions.

It makes my heart clench.

Why did it have to come to this?

“Where does this link lead?” I ask, reaching the end of the script. At the bottom, there’s one final sentence.

CLICK HERE!

The blue font is underlined twice over.

I’m so absorbed in my own thoughts that I find myself clicking on it.

“Don’t fucking touch that!” Rian shouts.

But it’s too late. The screen pixelates and distorts as he rips the phone from my hand.

“What was it?” I ask, pissed at myself for being so careless.

“I don’t know, and I wasn’t going to touch it until I did.”

“Well, it’s too late for that now. We might as well—”

“No fucking way.”

Rian’s eyes go wide as he glares down at the phone screen.

For a second, he’s frozen in shock. Then, a blistering rage engulfs him.

“What?”

Stepping forward, I glance down at the screen.

My shaking heart fucking stops dead.

On Rian’s phone, I see a crystal-clear video of Bianca and Jakub. They’re still sleeping in the exact same positions I left them in earlier.

“This is a live feed,” Rian growls, pointing down at the running timer near the bottom of the screen.

“Roz hacked into the nanny cam…” I realize.

That’s one step too fucking far.

But before I can react any further, the video trembles and pixelates again. Then, a black bar juts across the top of the screen. Inside that bar, a message appears.

I’m coming for you.

The threat is surrounded on each side by two smirking devil emojis.

That’s fucking Roz, alright.

“I’m going to rip her fucking throat out,” Rian roars. But before he can storm inside and wake the whole house up, I yank him back.

“She isn’t in there,” I say, my fist trembling. “Roz is just trying to get a rise out of you.”

“Well, it’s fucking working,” Rian sneers, pointing down at the screen. “That’s my nephew she’s threatening. That’s my cousin.”

“And it’s my son. And my wife,” I assure him. “I know how to protect them.”

The only thing keeping me from blowing my top right now is remembering the promise that Roz had made to me back at Overwatch Point, in the shadows of those raging flames.

She swore she’d leave Jakub out of this—even if she did threaten to make him an orphan some day.

Fucking hell.

“No. You don’t know how to protect them,” Rian charges, his blue eyes white with fire. “Look at how calm you are. You’re still trapped in the past, Gabriel. How can I expect you to protect anything if you still think you’re fighting a couple of old friends?”

The accusation cuts through me like a fucking knife.

“Don’t you dare question my will to protect my family!” I snap. Grabbing Rian by the collar, I shove him against the wall.

“Then pick a fucking side already!” he shoots back, before pushing me off.

“I have! Bianca and Jakub are my side. They are all that matters.”

“And what about my family, huh? What about me? Do we matter?”

“That depends,” I caution him. “Do you really believe what you just said, or do you trust me to protect what’s mine?”

“I’m having a hard time trusting anyone right now,” Rian grumbles, fixing his collar. “Let alone someone who can’t decide on whether he wants to destroy our enemies or beg them to join us.”

Fuck. He’s right.

For the sake of my family’s safety, I can’t go on like this.

But I can’t go after Roz like she’s just another criminal, either. That switch isn’t flipped so easily.

Hell, I’ll admit to myself that I’ve been putting more effort into looking for Drago than I have for Roz and Tytus—even though the dragon might as well be a ghost, and my two former friends are causing more trouble every day.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask, still unsure of just how the fuck I’m going to deal with this.

“Let me loose,” Rian snarls. “Let me go after her. Let me do whatever it takes to neutralize this threat.”

“Why do you need my permission to do that?” I ask, slightly taken off guard.

This is the notorious Irish lion I’m talking to. His father, Aiden Kilpatrick is king of everything. East coast. West coast. It all falls under his crown. Sure, I rule this side of the country with an iron fist, but only because I’ve gained their trust. My throne sits in the shadow of Aiden’s. And someday, that throne will belong to Rian.

He doesn’t need to ask me for shit.

“Because I know how important you are to Bianca…” Rian relents, white fire still thrashing behind his harsh blue eyes. “And to our empire. And while I may be reckless at times, I still don’t want to jeopardize any of that. Not if I don’t have to. I’ve learned from my past mistakes.”

“How would you even find the time to go after her?” I stall. “Haven’t you been called back east?”

“I have,” Rian admits. “But a king can do whatever he fucking pleases.”

“A king… Does that mean?”

The revelation hits me like a mac truck.

“Yes,” Rian nods. “Just like Ray did for you and Bianca, my father is preparing to step down… and hand the reins over to me.”

“Fuck,” I curse, hardly believing it. The man I just shoved against the wall is about to become the king of all kings.

I’d be happy for him, if I wasn’t so shocked.

“We can’t have these distractions threatening our empire,” Rian says. “But more importantly, we can’t allow anyone to threaten our families. And I mean anyone.”

He’s right.

Fucking hell.

A bittersweet acceptance finally washes over me. I feel myself give in.

“Fine,” I sigh. “Go after Rozalia. But what will you do if you catch her?”

It’s like he’s already thought about it a thousand times over, because he doesn’t even hesitate.

“I’m going to use her,” Rian sneers, hardly blinking. “Just like she used me.”

“Use her? What does that mean?”

I can’t help the protective instinct that flares up inside of me. But I quickly force myself to snuff it out.

This is the only way.

Roz made her choice.

I can’t protect her anymore.

I won’t.

“First, I’m going to lock her up in a tiny little cage,” Rian growls, his twisted scowl morphing into a sadistic smirk. “Then, I’m going to break her.”

I’m not quite sure how to react.

“She might not be so easy to break,” I warn him. “Hell, she could be one of the few people on this planet who could break you right back.”

The Irish lion only huffs at that.

Running his fingers through his dirty blonde hair, he lets those sharp blue eyes trail off into the distance, like he’s already picturing what he’ll do to my former friend.

“I’d like to see her try,” he growls. “It will be more fun if she fights back.”

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