KENNICK: A Bad Boy Romance Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

whose
name needed to be cleared, you would have brought us here, anyway. Jenner
doesn’t understand that. But you know his familia would be embarrassed to hear what he’d just said to us. He’s the only bad
blood.”

 
    “For how long,” Kennick wondered aloud. “How long ‘til
he gets his fingers into them…”

 
    “They’ll stick by you the way they stuck by our
father. You know, no one really wanted to
come here. You didn’t even want to
come here. But everyone agreed to – for Pieter. For you. For us. Jenner…he’s
not a team player. He’d lead this kumpania right into hell if it was in his own best interest.”

 
    “Still,” Kennick said, looking at the last trailer in
the park, set right next to the woods. “We need his cousins for the plants.”

 
    “We don’t,” Cristov scoffed. “I got that covered,
Nick.”

 
    Cristov was the only one who ever called Kennick by
his childhood name, Nick.

 
    “And Sam and Nal aren’t exactly Jenner’s biggest
fans,” Mina pointed out. Sam and Nal Surry were Cristov’s right-hand men when
it came to tending their stock of medicinal products. Cristov grew it, and Mina
prepared it into teas and edibles. It was high-quality, medicinal grade
product, and it beat shit out of the synthetics that were flooding the market.
Synthetics were dangerous, the exact opposite of medicine. There was no
question; most of the buyers weren’t exactly looking to cure their rheumatoid
arthritis, but at least they wouldn’t get addicted and go insane because of the
chemicals and impurities of low-grade synths.

 
    “You worry too much,” Cristov said. “Aren’t we
supposed to be getting ready to go?”

 
    Kennick grunted and nodded, but his mind was still
stuck on Jenner's accusations. It was true, there had been some reluctance when
Kennick pressed the issue of coming to Kingdom. The town, small and rural, had
left a bad taste in many a mouth. But it had been agreed, in the end, that it
would be right and just to fulfill Pieter's final wish.

 
    He remembered the growing unease he'd felt as the caravan
of trailers approached the town. With a population just under 10,000, the whole
town of Kingdom seemed like it was on the outskirts. Small farms dotted the
Delaware landscape before yielding to a more suburban area of one-story
shotguns and split levels. The town's schools, one elementary school and one
high school, sat kitty-corner to each other just off the main road.

 
    Two miles down, the suburban part of town broke open
onto a small Main Street that was more shuttered than not. Kennick had done his
research in advance, already making offers on a number of properties to lease
in the town center as well as further out towards the highway. But reading
about Kingdom's bleak financial state paled in comparison to seeing it: it
looked like a ghost town in the making. Of the few shops that still looked to
be open, most were actually bars or pubs.

 
    All the same, it was still a rather beautiful town.
The large swaths of forest that surrounded the town, edging into every
backyard, were lush and green in the early summer heat. Two streams sandwiched
the town between them, now running fast and high with the spring's abundant
rainfall.

 
    The storefronts on Main Street were charmingly
old-fashioned, and despite the dust and “for lease” signs in the windows, there
was a hint of what had once been lingering in each one. Many of the now-defunct
businesses still had hanging signs that declared the ghosts of themselves on
antique wood and chipping paint: “Kristy's Stationery and General Store”, “All
You Want Hardware”, “Ricotta and Basil: Fine Italian Dining”. A tiny library
tucked between a still-open frame shop and a closed-down butcher shop gaily
advertised a summer reading program.

 
    The municipal buildings at the end of Main Street, of
which there were two, screamed small town. All white exterior, white columns,
white balustrades.