Page 4 of Just Like That

TWO

JP

Thirty minutes earlier. . .

My shoes clacked on the sidewalk as I made efficient progress toward my small downtown office. The sidewalks were unusually busy for mid-August, even though it was still considered tourist season in Outtatowner. People were milling around, seemingly searching for something. They all appeared preoccupied by it, but I didn’t have time to stop and ask what new drama was unfolding in my small town.

Also, I didn’t care.

My life was already too full with carrying the stress of managing a billion-dollar company in the face of a scandal. It was plastered all over the news, and the sharks were out for blood. My father had royally fucked us, and I was charged with making it right.

Outside of his tattoo shop, my brother Royal was scanning the sidewalks when I approached.

He held out his hand in greeting. “JP.”

I nodded and took it. “Royal.”

I exhaled and squinted against the sun as we watched the tourists filter in and out of the downtown shops. “This fucking town ...”

I was never supposed to be stuck here.

King Equities was meant to be the launching pad of my own successful empire, not the family company that had the potential to ruin my entire career—not to mention my reputation. If I wasn’t careful, my father’s actions would dismantle my entire life brick by brick.

“You could do it, you know,” Royal eventually said. I glanced over, unsure of what he meant. “Get out of here,” he clarified. “Start over in a big city where you can make a new name for yourself.”

I nodded slowly, looking down at my shoes and trying to find the right words to explain the many, many hours I’d spent dreaming of doing exactly that. “I could.” A shrug was all I could muster. “I might.”

Shock and disbelief at what my father was accused of had made its way through town like wildfire. He’d all but admitted he’d murdered our mother when we were children. She had found out about a second family in Chicago, and she’d had plans to leave him and take us with her. Instead, he took her from us, and we’d spent our entire lives believing she had simply abandoned us.

I was still grappling with the guilt that I’d blamed her for so long. She was trying to take us with her––to leave him behind and keep us safe––when he’d killed her for choosing her children over him.

Many in town went out of their way to express their support for our family. Others stood by the man they had thought my father to be and vehemently denied he was ever capable of murder.

They branded our mother a whore and a flake—claimed my father was a saint for raising six kids when she left him.

They have no idea of the hell we lived through.

I had the money and the power to leave it all behind me. All I had to do was sacrifice any relationship I had with my siblings and I’d be rid of them and the curse of the King name.

I simply didn’t have the balls to do it.

“Who am I kidding?” I sighed, hoping Royal didn’t detect the slight wistfulness in my voice. “There’s too much shit here to take care of. Who’s going to help you keep the Sullivans in check, if not me?”

Royal chuckled and clamped a hand on my shoulder. “I appreciate that. You know, I have been thinking Wyatt is due for a little pestering.”

Our small town was a ridiculous place where centuries-old family rivalries morphed into grown men pulling pranks on one another and acting like idiots for no good reason. At least, reasons none of us could remember.

Hell, our sister Sylvie had even married a Sullivan and had his kid.

I forced a smile and shook my head. “You are such a child.”

Royal pushed my arm. “Nah, I guess they’ve been all right.”

In fact, the family we’d been groomed to hate had been more than all right. Over the past three weeks, the Sullivan family had rallied behind us Kings after we’d uncovered that our father was behind the disappearance of our mother. He had let us all believe she’d left us as children, but we’d uncovered the truth.

He’d taken her from us because she had chosen to love her children more than him.

Together we petitioned the Department of Natural Resources to allow Wabash Lake to be dredged. We didn’t know what we might find, but if there was any chance our mother’s remains were there, we wanted to know.