Page 1 of Kneel for Me
1
Adrian
Isighed and paused typing, looking up at James, the Don of the family, as he stepped into my office. I arched a brow at him. “Ever heard of knocking?” I asked.
He grunted and dropped into the chair across from my desk. At nearly forty, James was still fit, and it was clear he took damn good care of himself. But even I knew his back and knees weren’t what they were ten years ago. Definitely weren’t what they were when he became head of the Jackson family.
Hell, none of us were. In fact, just the other day, I’d ordered a standing desk I was still waiting to be delivered because sitting at my desk for hours on end waskillingmy back.
“Don’t need to knock,” James said.
I scoffed. “It’d be nice if you did,” I retorted. “You know, thisismy personal space. What if I’d been jerking off?”
He arched a brow at me. “You going to do that with the door open, Adrian?”
I scowled at him. “Fuck you, James.”
He snorted. I went back to typing out the email I’d been working on. James had tasked me with arranging a meeting with the new chief of police, and I was just finding time to get around to it. Darren, James’s brother, might have been home for a few years now, and Jaxon, James’s head-of-security-turned-consigliere, might have gotten a promotion not long after, but that didn’t mean my workload was any lighter, especially since James mainly kept them out in the field and not doing up-close-and-personal work with people like politicians and law enforcement officers.
Neither of them were… fit for that kind of work, honestly. They were savages in their own right. Jaxon was a monster beneath his calm and cool exterior, and he wasn’t all that great at keeping his cool when something irritated him. And after spending nine years in prison, Darren wasn’t all that civilized either. The only person either of them werealwayscivil around were their wives and the kids.
“What do you want, James?” I asked. I tapped the pile of paperwork on my desk, drawing his eyes to it. “I have shit to do.”
James shook his head. “Jaxon will be coming to get all of that.” At his words, I paused again, turning my head to frown at him. Why the fuck was Jaxon coming to get my damn work? The manhatedsitting at a desk, and he would fight tooth and nail on it. Which meant if he was taking a desk job, something was wrong.
“What the fuck is going on, James?” I demanded.
James scrubbed a hand down his face. “We have a rat amongst us, it seems. Ivan brought it to my attention when a contact of his let it slip that he had some… valuable information about the Jacksons in exchange for his life.”
Ivan Volkov was the goddamn bane of my existence. I respected him because Ihadto, butfuck, I hated him, too. He was a cocky piece of shit who’d risen to power extremely fast, and he basically ruled all of Russia. Granted, I understood to some extent why he was like that considering hewasthe youngest man to ever become Pakhan at just the age of twenty-two. But I’d have thought that damn near being thirty now would have chilled him out a bit.
It hadn’t.
I could barely stand to be around him. There was a way he looked at me that put me on edge. Like he could see right into my fucking soul and to all the dark bits of me I hid from the world. The unhinged pieces. The parts of me thatreveledin a kill.
The monster thatcravedthe blood of others on my skin. A monster, that if unleashed, would destroyeverythingJames had worked hard to build.
It was why, while I hated working a desk job as much as Jaxon or Darren, I didn’t bitch about it. I didn’t put up a fight. Because I was terrified I would one day succumb to those urges and go off the fucking rails. And while James was a hardass, I wouldneverput him in a position that he had to put me down himself or order a hit on me to save this family. We were brothers in every sense of the word except blood, and I knew having to take me out would be something he’d never get over.
“Still doesn’t explain why Jaxon is taking my paperwork,” I pushed, getting agitated now.
James sighed. “This persondidhave valuable information. Information about mywife. Mychild.” I gritted my teeth. Going after us men was one thing. Going after the wives and kids of this family was something else entirely. “They knew where we were keeping our guns and drugs. They knew the codes to my fucking club.” He now had my undivided attention because theonlypeople who knew the codes to the club were me, him, Darren, Jaxon, and Gemma, the manager of the club who’d been with us for damn near two decades. “They knew the code to my fucking private quarters, Adrian.”
“What thefuck?” I snarled. “Howthe fuck?—”
“I don’t know,” James ground out, cutting me off. “Which is why I’m putting you on this. You’re my best friend. You’ve been with me through thick and fucking thin, Adrian. I made you my second and my closest confidante for a reason.” He blew out a soft breath, like heknewhis next words were going to piss me off. “And you’re the only person who doesn’t have attachments and can work closely with Ivan to find out who is after us while we work from here on our front.”
It took a moment for his words to register, and then, I shook my head, jabbing my finger at him. “You’ve lost your fucking mind.” I wasnotworking closely with Ivan for however long this fucking took us to solve. That could be mere days, or it could bemonths.
I would not survive either with my mental health intact.
He ground his teeth before forcing his jaw to unclench. “Adrian, don’t be fucking unreasonable. As a man in your position, sometimes you have to do shit you don’t like. Get over it. Ineedyou on this, Adrian. Myfamilyneeds you on this.” He was hitting me with the low blows, and he knew it. But when it came to his wife and kid, nothing else mattered to him. He stood to his feet like the conversation was over. Done. Like I’d fucking agreed to this—which Ihadn’t. “Besides, Ivan will be here tomorrow for a meeting, and he’s prepared to take you back to Russia with him.”
I glowered at his back as he headed for the door. “I hope Ivan’s fucking plane crashes on the way here,” I snarled. I couldnotwork with the cocky son of a bitch. I couldn’t be around him for that long. He made me feel… volatile. Out of control.
“He’ll be arriving around ten in the morning, so have your bag packed and ready to go,” he told me, ignoring my childish remark, just as I knew he would. I might have been James’s best friend, but that didn’t mean he put up with my shit.
“Burn in hell,” I barked as he disappeared into the hallway.
