by Riley Pine
He jerks, his surprise almost imperceptible. “What?”
“Peter Cain... Dante Price...he’s your brother. At least, your half brother.”
“But...that’s impossible.”
“Is it?” I lean in speaking quickly. We don’t have much time. “His father was the earl of Northumberland. You come from Northumberland. You don’t know who your real father is.”
“Mother didn’t like to speak of him.”
“He was her employer. She was the maid to the earl’s wife. They had an affair while his wife was pregnant with her third child. You were the product of that affair.”
“This is impossible.”
I caress his clenched jaw. “You are opposites, but with similar features. You are dark. He is light. But that is where the resemblance stops. Because your heart is good. And his...his is twisted.”
“Why didn’t he ever tell me the truth?”
“And expose his father’s affair? He’s far too proud for that.”
“But you knew?”
“He did have feelings for me. Does have feelings. And he likes to drink too much sherry.” I shrug. “When he drinks, he talks. After we reconnected recently, he told me about how he found in his dead father’s papers some tuition bills for Frasier Academy, but they had your name on them. Not his. He did some fact-finding and uncovered the whole secret. That’s the crazy part of it all. Your father barely tried to hide it. It was almost as if he wanted to get caught, like he wanted to acknowledge the son he was proud of. He secretly supported you and paid for you to attend boarding school, but he did little to cover his tracks. You just never looked.”
“And all this time I thought it was a scholarship.”
The window behind him shatters, glass shards filling the air.
We’re out of time. He’s found us. Dante Price knows I betrayed him.
But the face that appears isn’t Peter Cain. Nor a paid goon. It’s a friend, wiry and squinting behind thick spectacles.
“Beta?” I gasp. The last person I expect to see here is my bookish friend from the Order. “What on earth are you doing? Did you shoot our driver?”
“L-L-Lora. Fancy meeting you here.”
But then he peels off his face, one quick gesture and the features change. Whatever was Beta is cast to the concrete. And there he is. The opposite of X in every way, and yet utterly familiar.
“Hello, Lora.” Peter Cain smooths his thin blond hair with a smug leer. “And Max. I’m afraid the real Beta is all tied up. Has been so for a few days in fact. But where are my manners? Long time, no see, old chum.”
X
I scramble for my gun, having lost it in the crash, but Cain is quicker. He grabs me by the shoulder and injects something into my neck. I know it’s not truth serum. It’s not information he seeks from me. Everything slows, my movements sluggish. But I fight to remain conscious. I stay awake long enough to see him backhand Lora, tie her up and gag her.
Strange, but I see the resemblance. As the darkness closes in, I curse myself that I never noticed before.
Lora doesn’t scream or fight, and I both love and hate her for that. She does it for me. Because despite wanting out of this life that has consumed us both for so long, she would never leave an agent behind.
She would never leave me behind.
My last thought as darkness pulls me under is that brother or no, I will kill Peter Cain.
* * *
My eyes open, but I can see nothing. Either it’s pitch-dark wherever I am, or whatever Cain injected me with has affected my sight.
My limbs are stiff, aching, but I’m standing upright. I realize my hands are bound above my head. I try to wriggle free, but rough metal chafes at my skin.
“Chains,” I say aloud. “Nice touch.”
A light flickers in the corner of whatever room I’m in, and I wince as it illuminates fully, my eyes too sensitive for the sudden change.
“Where’s Lora?” I ask through gritted teeth.
My captor claps slowly. “Bravo, Max. Really. I do love how you let her think you were dead for two decades—how you fucked your way across the world all in the name of saving those less fortunate—and now you’re playing the protective lover. It’s such bullshit.”
I blink hard, forcing my eyes to adjust, and see Peter Cain emerge from the pool of light.
He wears a well-tailored suit, much like what I wore on a daily basis while in the employ of the royal family of Edenvale. But where my hair is thick and salt-and-pepper dark, his is fair and wispy. But he’s no longer the slight, strutting lording he was in school. He has filled out, his body clearly the benefit of intense training, and I do not doubt he would be a formidable opponent in hand-to-hand combat.
I’ll still win.
Cain clasps his hands behind his back. “What if I let you go right now? You can tell the Order where I am, and they can send their minions to retrieve me. You save face, prove your loyalty, and sweet Lora and I move on to our next location as the chase continues. All you have to do is exactly what she asked of you—help her leave the Order.”
This is a game. There is no way he’d let me set Lora free.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Cain clucks his tongue. “Come on, Max. This was never about her. She was a great tool to use against you, but you know the truth now. I heard everything she told you in that limo—everything she was supposed to tell you like she was spilling her heart out. But come on...brother. She’s betrayed you more than once already. What makes you think this is any different now?”
I yank at my iron chains, knowing if I pull too hard I’ll dislocate my shoulder again, but the pain does nothing to deter me.
“Enough games, Cain. What the hell do you want?”
He shrugs. “If you won’t let me leave with her, then take her from me. Kill her.”
“Fuck you.” I spit the words at him.
He blows out a breath. “I was afraid you’d need some convincing.”
He taps on the wall on the opposite end of the room we’re in, and a scene lights up on the other side of a window.
I thrash and growl as I stare beyond the glass, straight at Lora. She’s chained to a wall much like I am, but her ankles are shackled, as well. Where I am fully clothed, Cain has her dressed in nothing but the mesh chemise she wore our first night at the Lion’s Den. She is blindfolded with the silk scarf she wore in the limo. But blood trickles from the corner of her mouth and from her nose.
“Lora!” I roar. “Lora!”
Cain hums. “She can’t see you,” he says. “Or hear you. In fact, I already told her you escaped, killed a guard and left her for dead. She thinks I’m trying to get her to spill secrets on the Order.” He laughs. “She doesn’t even know that the Order’s mole has been nothing but my biggest pawn.”
My brows crease, and Cain laughs.
“You thought I loved her and wanted you dead, yes?” He shakes his head. “On the contrary, bastard brother of mine.” His smile morphs to a sneer. “It has only ever been about destroying you, and tonight I will.”
He mumbles something into the face of his watch, which sits on the underside of his wrist.
Almost immediately someone dressed head-to-toe in black, his or her face masked, as well, enters the room carrying a small dagger. He drags the blade across Lora’s thigh, a superficial enough wound, but one that bleeds bright crimson red.
She doesn’t flinch, but I do.
Something feral tears from my chest as I thrash so hard at my chains that my wrists bleed and my injured shoulder pops clean from its socket.
I don’t fucking care. Not when I am helpless to save her. Not when he wishes to torture me by torturing her.
“I’ve got all the time in the world,” he tells me. “Of course, my associate won’t kill her. Only injure and maim her enough
for you to change your mind. Once you do, it will only take a bullet to put her out of her misery. I will remove her blindfold, though, so she can see who her savior is.”
I squint at what I swear is a smile playing on Lora’s lips. Then I see her hands moving ever so slightly in her chains.
Cain is an idiot.
“Actually, Cain, your time is running out. The only person dying here tonight is you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Z
I CAN GET FREE whenever I want. But when I make my escape, it will be at a time of my choosing.
Cain has tried to make me believe that Max escaped, that he sold me out and left me behind to face a traitorous death alone.
But I know my Max wouldn’t leave without me. Just as I know Cain would never kill me.
The thug in front of me rips off my blindfold and sneers. I pretend to cower, make my eyes go round and hitch my breath.
The idiot believes it.
His gloat makes me sick. This asshole is a man who likes to hurt women.
I’ll make him pay, but for now I’m going to rest and save up my strength.
I flutter my eyes, let my head loll and pretend to swoon in abject terror.
“That’s right, bitch,” he spits. I can hear the smug tone of self-satisfaction. It will be glorious to wipe it off.
Meanwhile, I let my mind wander.
How strange to have Peter and Max together. A surreal reunion.
I met both of them when we were all teenagers, just turning fifteen.
I’d just started noticing boys.
Max was the sporty one. The achiever. He was always the best at everything, even though he made it seem easy.
It was only if you watched him carefully, studying his nuances, that you could see how much he pushed himself. How he might have an easy smile and nonchalant shrug, but he’d tear his body to pieces to win.
I did some light hacking on him. Not hard. Frasier Academy records were like taking candy from a baby for someone with my abilities. I learned he was a scholarship student. Then I learned about who paid his bills.
I tried to care for Peter when he was there for me after Max disappeared. I truly did. He was fascinating, but also cold. It was like admiring an iceberg in the North Atlantic. And his depths were as treacherous as my own.
“Blend in,” my father had said when they’d dropped me off in Scotland.
“Never let anyone see how special you really are,” my mother had whispered in my ear. “The world is a dangerous place. Someday you will meet someone you love, but never let down your guard all the way.”
And in that moment I realized that even though she madly loved my father, she never let him know all of her.
And I resolved to be the same. Beautiful but distant. Confident but lethal. And, of course, charming.
If I half succeeded in following in her footsteps, I’d be a force to be reckoned with.
And I’d like to think I have.
But I’ve had enough.
Someday I want to stand in the sun, on a beach, far away, where no one knows my name or history. And I want to look over one shoulder and see a man who knows me to my core and still wants me. Who isn’t scared by my past. By the fact that I can kill a man with my bare hands. I want him to see my strength but also my gentleness. I want to truly be known.
And if I get out of here alive, I want that man to be Max.
I let my thoughts steal to him. Even though Peter didn’t have proof until years later, my guess is he suspected Max was his bastard brother long before. Bad things happened to Max at Frasier. A pipe burst in his room, ruining his laptop, one for which he’d had to scrimp and save.
Then one night there was an electrical fire when he was lifting weights after rugby practice. He almost didn’t make it out alive.
When I lost Max, Peter was my only connection to the boy I loved, so I didn’t push Cain away. I kept my enemy close. I never gave him any true affection, but I always let the promise of seduction remain on the table. It kept him in my orbit. I don’t know exactly what it was about me that fascinated him. Probably the idea that Max wanted me.
As a private person, I tried to hide our growing connection. How after we were caught in the storm we began to spend time in the library together. How I began to learn that he was so much more than a star athlete. That he was kind and brave and dreamed of adventure. He had grown up poor—his mom had worked herself to the bone to provide for him while being diagnosed with cancer right before he went to Frasier.
Then one night we kissed in the nonfiction section. His tongue slid over mine with a confidence well beyond his years, as if he had done this a hundred and one times and knew my body better than my own.
One kiss led to another and another and then kisses in other places. I remember the first time I opened his pants and saw the full, proud length of him. The size had scared me. How was it going to fit in my mouth let alone between my legs? But then I looked up and saw Max watching me, lips parted, open awe in his blue gaze, and I realized it was just the core of him, and how could I ever be scared of his essence?
Even now after all these years, the memories of my early fumbles with Max drench my pussy. But it’s more than a physical craving. When Max is with me, I feel as if I have a home, an anchor in the storms of my life.
And I know he is somewhere close by, no matter what Peter says.
I’ve pretended to care for Peter for so long just to keep tabs on his plotting against Max. I’ve had to bear witness to cruelty and jealousy. How he felt like his father loved his secret son more than his legitimate ones. And how Max fooled everyone into thinking he was so amazing. Peter’s hatred blinded him from the fact that Max was competent and respected for good reasons.
Peter enjoyed manipulation. He wanted to inspire fear and took pleasure in causing pain. He saw the world as chaos and thrived on instability.
I played a dangerous game pretending to be his friend, but it’s time to beat him.
The guard mutters to himself that he has to take a leak. And the minute he steps into the bathroom, I free myself from my chains. I have a lover to save.
X
It takes everything in me not to react when I watch Lora escape. There is no way Cain truly knows her if he is fool enough to think those chains could bind her. She played him better than she ever played me. Which means she never cared for him. I take comfort in that.
Who am I kidding? I’m gloating. Cain just doesn’t know it.
“How would you have me kill the woman I love?” I ask, toying with him enough to keep him occupied. Beyond the two-way mirror, I watch Lora dispatch her attacker with an upturned palm to the face as he returns to the room zipping his damned fly. Blood pours from his nose as he goes down like a sack of potatoes. But Lora is quick to catch him before his body hits the floor, easing him onto his side, likely so he doesn’t choke on his own blood.
She is more merciful than I would have been. Even though Lora was just her playing her part, watching that asshole drag a blade across her skin was enough to wipe the definition of mercy clear from my memory.
Cain strolls closer to me, his arms still clasped behind his back.
“A bullet between the eyes would be too easy,” he says. “Not personal enough. I was thinking more along the lines of strangulation. I want you to watch the life leave her eyes. I want you to feel the blood stop beating through her veins.”
Come on, I think. Just a little closer and I can take you out myself, Cain.
Instead, I grit my teeth. “Why?” I growl. “Because of your goddamn daddy issues?”
Cain lands a jab across my jaw. My lip splits where it hits my teeth, and I laugh, spitting blood at him as I do.
“Guess I hit a nerve, huh?” I taunt. “I didn’t even know the man. Yet you’ve made punishing me your life’s work. Might be time to reeva
luate your priorities, Cain. Because they’re a little fucked.”
“Silence!” he roars, backhanding me on the other side of my face.
I try to shrug and am reminded with searing pain that I dislocated my shoulder again.
“Fuck!” I grind out. Then I force my best placating grin. “What do you say we get me out of these chains, maybe open a bottle of scotch and talk this out like we are both civilized men...instead of man and the sociopath we both know you are?”
He steps in closer, likely to hit me again, his false sense of security now heightened by my injuries. So I strike.
First, it’s a side kick to the ribs, then one lower to the knee I remember he injured in a horseback riding accident at Frasier.
He roars in pain as he goes down.
“Hey. What are the odds? We’ve both got a bum knee. Think it’s in the genes? Or am I just repaying you for the gift you gave to me a while back?”
He sneers, and I have my answer.
He rolls to his good knee, scrambling to get up, but his hand braced on his side tells me I likely cracked a rib or two. It’ll take him a minute to get to his feet.
On his side now, he pushes up on an elbow toward the back wall. Toward the window to Lora’s torture chamber. But she’s not there.
Cain lets loose a monstrous howl.
“Where. Is. She?” he yells into his watch.
And that’s all it takes. Two armed men burst into the room beyond the window, pointing their guns in every direction.
Though I’m not religious, I say a quick prayer, hoping to hell the glass is bulletproof.
“Now, Lora!” I shout, knowing she must be near.
A door hidden in the wall to my left opens, and she slinks in, catlike in her grace.
“Hello, boys. How’s the family reunion going?”
Cain is on his feet now, but he’s unsteady. Other than my busted shoulder and lip, there’s another thing that makes me uneasy.
Cain’s maniacal smile.
