King

King Kate Bonham Midnight Dreary Publishing Copyright Copyright © 2023 Midnight Dreary Publishing All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, real people, and real placed are used factiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are products of the Author’s imagination and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, organizations or places is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. This book is intended for the purchaser of this book only. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the express written permission of the Author. All songs, song titles and lyrics contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders. Authored by Kate Bonham Book Cover Design by Wingfield Designs Edited by Ravenna Poe Edits ISBN: 978-0-6456537-5-5 Contents 1. Prologue 2. Chapter One 3. Chapter Two 4. Chapter Three 5. Chapter Four 6. Chapter Five 7. Chapter Six 8. Chapter Seven 9. Chapter Eight 10. Chapter Nine 11. Chapter Ten 12. Chapter Eleven 13. Chapter Twelve A Note from the Author About Kate Prologue HalenHe came for me with intent. Good. I wanted this over with. He’d tried to fuck with me too many times and I was over his dominant behavior. He needed to know he couldn’t defeat me anymore. I wasn’t a kid. I blocked his attack and made a fist before I shot him with an upper cut into his ribs. He groaned as he backed off me a little so I could get a better stance. I nailed him with another shot to the ribs. This time he hunched over and tried to suck in air but I could see he was struggling. I stood back and waited. No use in kicking him while he was down. I didn’t want to win that easily. “Fuck you,” he grunted as he stood up, favoring one side better. “Get out.”“No,” I said simply before I spun around and nailed him in the side of the head with a high kick. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell back, unconscious. He was alive. I knew how to hurt without killing someone. And I also knew how to kill someone. Smiling at what I’d done, I left the room and headed down the hall to the dining room. My mother Raina was lighting the candles she had around the edge of the room for every family event. I abhorred these family dinners more than anything but I still came. “Where’s your brother?” she asked. Zane was always the first one to come, followed by my other brother Percy when he wasn’t off gallivanting around the world on his yacht, and then there was me. The least favorite son. “He’s sleeping,” I said with a smile. It’s not like I was going to tell her I’d knocked her precious son to his ass. “Best not to wake the sleeping beast.”She was about to argue when my father Charles entered. “He’s right, Raina. Leave the boy be. He has a monstrous temper when woken.”He got that off our dear mother but no one would dare say that to her face. “Sit,” Charles said as he took his high backed gothic era chair at the end of the table. Raina sat next to him and I sat adjacent to her, leaving my brother’s seat empty. Percy didn’t look like he would be joining us so it was going to be a quiet dinner. Thank fuck. I hated the questions about my future and what I wanted to do. Zane would follow in Charles’ footsteps with the business. I’d be lucky to get any properties to manage but then again, did I want that responsibility? My parents’ wait staff brought out the dinner on large silver platters and left them in the middle of the long table. I could smell the roast from under the caloches already. My mouth was salivating. It had been too long since I’d had a warm and homey meal since I moved out. “Halen,” my father’s voice boomed as the caloches were removed and the steam from the meal permeated the air. “What are you doing with yourself now?” “Probably impregnating half the city,” my mother’s loving and caring voice said under her breath but I heard her well enough which meant my father did too. He paid her no attention, as usual, and waited for me to answer. “I’m living in the apartment I rented out from you and looking for work in the club down the street.”“What club?” he asked. “Do I own it?” To be rich enough not to know what properties and businesses you owned was never really a dream of mine. I just happened to be born to the man who owned half the city. “No,” I said. “It’s fairly new but it’s popular.”“What’s it called?” he asked, digging into his meal. “Obsidian.”“Who owns it?” he asked me, now looking at me once again. “Kent Dagger,” I said. “I believe. I’ve never met the man myself.”Charles nodded and continued his meal. I didn’t quite know why he was so interested but come Monday I knew Kent would get an offer he’d never be able to refuse to sell his club to my father. The man who didn’t take no from anybody. I cut into my roast, but the meat was tasteless. My own father, still controlling me even though I was old enough to live on my own. What I would give to be free of his shackles and live freely. The doors to the dining room flew open and I saw Zane standing there, seething, a cut to his head, bleeding. Raina gasped and made a move to run to him but he was faster than her and he ran for me. I was barely able to get out of my seat