Kinged Read online

  Kinged

  City's Secrets, Volume 2

  B. B. Hamel

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  KINGED

  First edition. March 19, 2015.

  Copyright © 2015 B. B. Hamel.

  Also by B. B. Hamel

  City's Secrets

  Undersold

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also By B. B. Hamel

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Interlude

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  Preview: Undersold

  PROLOGUE

  People don’t realize how chaotic real fights are.

  I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when a group of bro douche-types spilled out from the open doors of an annoyingly loud bar. One guy in a popped collar nearly toppled into me, and their little crowd was blocking the sidewalk. People were yelling and screaming, girls running everywhere, and the two idiot dudes were flailing around at each other like little kids. Everyone was too drunk to realize how awful they were acting.

  I couldn’t tell what the fight was about, but I had better things to do. Before I got a chance to walk away, though, one of the brawlers, a guy in boat shoes, short cargo shorts, and a pink polo shirt, got pushed directly into this cute young chick. The girl went down, her long blonde hair everywhere, and the guy went back after the other dude without so much as a “sorry.”

  That pissed me off. I wouldn’t normally get involved, but violence against women was always a problem. I walked over, reached down, and helped the girl climb to her feet. She looked up at me with these deep blue eyes, and it hit me square in the chest how fucking hot she was. Full lips that wouldn’t stop, a body she clearly worked on, and perfect blonde hair. I knew right away this wasn’t the kind of girl who went for a dude like me, but whatever. Her eyes ran down my arms, along my muscles, and lingered over my tattoos. I guessed she didn’t know what they meant since her expression didn’t change, which was good for her.

  “Thanks,” she said quietly. I grunted in return.

  “Stay clear of this,” I said.

  “Who are you?”

  I didn’t bother answering. I took her by the arm and led her a few feet away from the crowd, gave her a look, like, “stay here if you’re smart,” and then waded into the pile.

  The ring was three people deep at that point, but they parted for me easily enough. More people were spilling into the street, and I knew I only had a few minutes before the cops got there. I had to make it quick.

  The two brawlers were locked with each other, wrestling like morons. Pink polo was trying to spear button-down boy, but instead they were yelling and stumbling in circles like idiots. I pushed my way through the front of the crowd and entered the space.

  I heard some people yell something at me, but I ignored them. Fuck those pussies, whoever they were. Everyone was too much of a coward to get involved. Plus, that guy deserved what was coming.

  I walked up to the two of them, and shoved the pink polo guy down. He toppled over like a toy, and almost took button-down boy with him. I turned to button-down boy, and as he tried to give me a high five, thinking I’d come to help him, I dropped my hip and punched him in the jaw with a satisfying crack. He went down faster than I’ve ever seen. I guessed the boy had never taken a real punch before, but it was never too late to learn how. He was at least in his mid-twenties, and I’d been beaten more times than I could count by the time I was eighteen. And this pussy couldn’t even stay on his feet.

  The crowd let out a gasp and went silent. I looked around, seething with rage, and their faces were scared and blank. Typical rich assholes, yuppies, and douchebag bros, the kind of people who mocked me when I was a kid and ignored me when I was grown. Fuck all of them.

  Polo guy was climbing to his feet, and he looked confused. Before he had a chance to figure things out, I advanced on him. He had the brains to put his fists up, and even threw a weak right. I ducked it, stepped in, and jabbed him in the nose with my left, hard. He stumbled back a step and put his hands to his face, crying out. I followed with a leap in the air and dropped my fist onto his face. He went down, just like his buddy did.

  Before anyone else decided to be a hero, I pushed back through the crowd and made my way down the street. I had to get away as fast as possible before the cops started looking for me. Plus, I was already late for the fight at Drake’s, which meant Michael was probably going to be pissed. I walked quickly, but I didn’t run. I had to keep cool or else give myself away. This wasn’t my first escape, though, and I knew a few shortcuts out of there. I kept walking, and didn’t look back.

  I really hated fucking assholes that hit women.

  Chapter One

  I didn’t realize how chaotic real fights were.

  It was a brisk summer night and I was half drunk. The girls I had gone out with were totally boring, and I felt homesick for New York, but there was no going back anymore. I took a drag of my bummed cigarette then dropped it on the sidewalk and stubbed it out. It was a gross habit, and I wasn’t really much of a smoker. On the weekends I indulged sometimes, and I was feeling particularly down that night. I tried not to think about what my breath smelled like.

  Before I could slip further into my personal misery, a huge group of people came smashing out of the bar. Two guys, one in a button-down shirt and one in an ugly pink polo were fighting, and people swarmed around them like bugs. I moved to get out of their way, but was too slow. Before I could take a step, pink polo guy smashed right into me, his elbow catching my eye, and I tumbled down hard.

  I think I saw stars, but it might have just been the arms that helped me up. Covered in complex tattoos, they were ripped. I looked up at the guy, and my breath was suddenly sucked out of my body. His eyes were bright forest green, deep pools of anger and pain, and his face was covered in thin stubble. He had a small scar across his right eyebrow, and his nose looked like it had been broken in the past. Despite that, he was incredibly handsome, and I was absolutely struck by his lean, muscular physique. He was tall, easily over six feet, and I could sense something dangerous about him. Honestly, he was fucking hot, and I was blown away.

  I realized I was staring. “Thanks,” I said quietly, unable to summon enough strength to say anything more.

  He grunted in response. Totally cliché, super manly kind of grunt, but he pulled it off.

  “Stay clear of this.” He had a deep, gravelly voice.

  “Who are you?” I asked, and realized how badly I wanted to know. There was something hypnotizing about him, about his body, and his face.

  Instead of answering, he grabbed me by the arm and tugged me off to the side. I was too shocked to resist. The asshole seriously had the audacity to touch me and physically steer me where he wanted. There was something in his touch, firm and commanding, that made me follow along. Once we were a few feet away
from the growing crowd, he gave me this weird look, like it was a good idea for me to listen to him or something. Before I could say anything more, he was gone.

  I watched him walk off and start pushing through the crowd. I stood there gaping at his back, his thin, tight black T-shirt clinging to his muscled body and his cutoff jean shorts contouring his perfectly sculpted ass. I hadn’t seen a man like him in the whole city yet, and I liked it. Before he got too far, I started to follow him.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. He pushed directly into the ring of people and approached the two guys who were fighting. This man didn’t even pause as he shoved one dude to the ground and knocked the other one out. There was something graceful and dangerous about the way he moved, like he was used to being in a ring of screaming people. As soon as the first guy dropped, the crowd went silent, and there was a palpable fear suddenly rippling through everyone. The second guy, the asshole who knocked me over, approached, and tried to fight back. My sexy mystery man was too fast though, and ended up doing this crazy mid-air knockout, and sent the polo dude flying.

  I had no idea how fast fights were, but it couldn’t have been thirty seconds before the two guys were on the ground, groaning in pain. My big mystery man didn’t even pause to look at them, he just kept moving through the crowd, and went out the other side.

  I stood and stared at the two guys on the ground for a few seconds, and then something took control of me. I had no clue what happened or why, but there was something about that guy, something I needed to figure out. I ran after him as fast as I could, my heels wobbling. I wished I had worn better shoes, but my legs looked fantastic, long and lean. I didn’t have a lot of friends in the city yet, and maybe there was some loneliness still lingering inside of me that was driving me to talk to that guy. He was the first stranger to be genuinely kind to me in a while, and although I had an amazing best friend and a good job, I was still missing something. Maybe that’s why I was running down a crowded Philly street, half-drunk and breathing hard.

  I caught sight of him as he turned the corner ahead. I sped up, heels clacking, and hair flying. I knew I looked like a psycho, and people probably thought I was a drunken idiot, but I didn’t care. My mind was firmly on that mystery guy, his fist smashing into the polo asshole’s face. I didn’t understand why he got involved like that, but I wanted to ask him, and to find out his name. I wanted him to answer me when I asked him who he was.

  I rounded the corner and saw him just ahead. He was walking fast but not running. He didn’t look concerned or upset, like he had just knocked out two assholes in a street fight. As I got closer, he looked over his shoulder, probably alerted by my crazy loud shoes. Inwardly, I cursed, and wished I had been able to get closer before he saw me.

  Instead of running, he stopped and turned. That took me by surprise, and I crashed directly into his broad chest. He caught me in his arms and absorbed my momentum, stopping me short. I looked up, my heels bent at an angle, hair a mess, to see his handsome face smirking down at me. I could feel the muscles in his chest straining against his shirt, and his whole body rippled with strength and solidity. I felt something rush into me in that moment, and excitement spiked up my stomach. I felt embarrassed to be basically hugging some strange guy, but it felt good, and I was reluctant to let go. He was really not my type, not by a long shot, but I found myself wanting to know him anyway.

  “Didn’t have to catch up just to thank me,” he growled down at me.

  “I’m not here to thank you,” I said. What a presumptuous asshole.

  “Why are you chasing me, then?”

  I didn’t have a good answer for that. “Uh, I uh, I wanted to know your name, I guess.” I sounded really lame, but it was partly true.

  He laughed and gently moved my face from his chest. I stood up straight and adjusted myself. I got a better view of him: muscles, tattoos, tattered cutoff shorts, beat up old converse sneakers, more tattoos. He looked beautiful and wild, completely unlike any man I had been with before.

  “My name’s Rex,” he said. “If you want to keep staring, stare while walking.”

  Before I could reply, he turned and started off again at a brisk pace. I hustled to keep up.

  “My name’s Darcy,” I said.

  He grunted in return and kept walking.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Away from here.”

  Thanks, dick. I knew that. “But where?” I asked.

  He looked at me, but didn’t answer. I changed the subject.

  “Why did you do that?”

  He turned right at the next block and crossed the street. I had to work hard to keep up with his long, purposeful strides.

  “Didn’t like the dude that knocked you over. I thought he deserved a little punishment for being an asshole.”

  How chivalrous. He actually beat the crap out of two guys to protect my honor? I thought I would be confused and upset, but I actually found a spike of excitement run through my stomach.

  “You did that for me?”

  He gave me another look and laughed. “Not for you. Just didn’t like how he treated you.”

  “Is Rex your real name?”

  He laughed again, but didn’t answer.

  “What do you do, Rex?” It was like interrogating a statue.

  “I work at a bar in South Philly called Drake’s.”

  “Oh yeah? Do you like your job?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Maybe I should stop by sometime.”

  “You’re too hot for Drake’s.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I felt a little flattered, but also annoyed.

  He gave me a weird look, but didn’t answer. He made a left at the corner ahead, and cut across traffic. I had to stop and wait for the cars to pass, or else risk getting run over. I was shocked by how confidently he dodged the bikes and the late night traffic, like he was convinced he couldn’t get hit. By the time the cars cleared, he was gone.

  I hurried to the next cross street, but couldn’t find him anywhere. I checked the next few blocks, even looked into a bar or two, but he was nowhere. I had no idea how, but he vanished. He couldn’t have been out of my sight for more than a minute, and yet he managed to completely lose me.

  Frustrated, I walked slowly back to the bar. I couldn’t get his face and his body out of my mind, and the thought that he had knocked those guys out for my sake was driving me insane. I had met many guys in my life, and been with a few of them too, but I had never met a man like Rex, whoever he was.

  Chapter Two

  “Darcy! Where have you been?”

  A few days after meeting Rex, I was sitting in a small conference room in the overly bright Adstringo office building with my best friend Amy. We hadn’t seen each other for a few days, and even though she was going to act like I’d been the one MIA, the truth was she barely got out anymore. She was too busy with her then-fiancé billionaire Shane Green, who also happened to be everyone’s boss. She was something of a legend in the office, though she had no clue. That was my Amy, absolutely oblivious.

  “I’ve been around, kiddo. Trying to make some friends in the office.” I called her “kiddo” sometimes; it was a weird inside joke from when we were in college. I was her sugar daddy, or something like that. I couldn’t remember how it started anymore, but it stuck around.

  She had just finished telling me about the wedding proposal. Apparently, Shane had taken her to the roof of the Art Museum, and popped the question. He rented the entire building for them, brought in an expensive dinner, and had live music, the whole nine. It wasn’t something the Art Museum normally did, but a man like Shane Green could make it happen. I wasn’t so much jealous of her as exhausted by her good luck. Shane wasn’t my type, and the whole Art Museum roof thing seemed a little cheesy in my opinion, but Amy had found her soul mate, and that was something special.

  I had moved to Philadelphia from New York three months earlier. Things in the big city had gotten routine,
and I felt like I was stuck in a rut. I probably partied too much and met too many guys, but I had nothing better to do. Most of my friends had found a steady boyfriend, or had moved away from the city. It was hard; I was two years out of college, and still trying to figure out my life. When Amy said there was an opening in marketing at Adstringo, and that I’d be working directly with her on the app she had made, I jumped at the chance. They helped pay for my move, found me a decent apartment near the Art Museum, and the rest was history.

  Amy smiled at me from across the table. She had sent me a message earlier in the day asking to meet up for a quick recap on the app’s launch. We sat alone in a glass-enclosed room, with a plain white table in the middle, a small projector, and a small screen on one wall. Amy was projecting sales data, but neither of us was paying much attention to it.

  “New friends? I thought I was all you needed,” she said.

  I laughed. “Unfortunately you’ve been a bit busy lately with Mr. Billionaire.”

  “That’s true. I’m sorry.” She looked genuinely upset, and I felt a little bad. I shouldn’t guilt her into spending more time with me, especially when things were going so well for her.

  “No, it’s totally cool. I went out with Linda, Becky, and Marissa. It was pretty fun.”

  Amy smiled. “Good, I’m glad. I like Linda.”

  “I know, she’s pretty great. The other two are boring as rocks though.”

  “It’s like sitting in a quarry with those two.” I laughed at her joke.

  “Worse, at least quarries can be fun. Those two are just dull.”

  It felt good to be chatting like that. I had to admit I’d been feeling isolated lately. Getting used to a new city was tough, especially when you spent so many years in a place like New York. Philly was great, but it was different, smaller, and I had to make an effort to get to know the landscape. Amy tried her best, but she wasn’t that available. Still, she had done so much for me already, and I couldn’t be upset with her for not devoting every spare second to me.