Fuck me, but I couldn’t even remember the last time my kid had smiled fully at me.
“Hey, son,” I said, patting his back.
“Hey.” He eyed me carefully. “Did everything go okay?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
He rolled his eyes, but the small smile never left his face, and I could count that as a fucking good thing.
“Do me a favor?”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“I want you to find out everything you can about the men who head FHM Capital.”
His eyes widened slightly in surprise. “The Four Horsemen of Chicago?”
I nodded.
“I thought they were allies of the King’s Men.”
“They are,” I agreed. “Allies. Not friends. And even if they were friends, I’d still want to know as much about them as I can.” The background check I had done on them when Julian Levine approached me only told me the bare minimum. But Kai had skills that even I couldn’t dream of.
“I don’t think they’re easy to track.”
“And that’s why I don’t trust anyone with this but you.”
His blue eyes brightened a bit.
Things had been bad with Kai since the incident. For a moment, I’d thought I lost my son. It felt like I could no longer get through to him. But the more I involved him in my business—both legitimate and illegitimate—the more he seemed to focus.
It helped that I fucking created a genius.
Kai was a whiz when it came to computer shit.
I do all right myself, but hacking was on another level that went beyond my skill set.
My boy was fucking good.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, trying—and failing—to not sound too excited about the prospect.
“Just be careful. If you’ve heard of them, then you know who these men are. You know their connections, and I don’t have to remind you what they can do.”
“I always am. I’ll be in and out before anyone even realizes I was there to begin with.”
I smiled and ruffled his hair even though I would get a grumbling from him for messing it up. Sure enough, he pulled away and glared at me.
I laughed and grabbed his beer, chugging the whole thing, my eyes coming back to him, daring the kid to lip off.
He smartly kept his mouth shut.
He flagged the waitress for another beer.
I had to force myself to hold my tongue.
The kid was twenty-three.
Hell, I had done a lot worse than drinking in the middle of the day when I was his age.
