“He could be armed,” Brodie growled.
Zara didn’t seem to care about or acknowledge Caine’s innuendo, as she was more focused on chastising and calming her husband. “His hands are up,” Zara said.
“He could be wearing a wire.”
“Well, the only thing that’s been revealed so far is that you’re an arrogant fuck, and that’s no secret, and,” Zara said and narrowed her eyes on the man on his knees, “what are you doing here, Caine?”
“What I always do,” Caine said. “I’m looking for a better offer. All you have to do is match Saint’s and you’ve got yourself an inside man.”
Devon didn’t know whether to believe it, and neither did the others because they exchanged measured glances. But she couldn’t see Caine’s face until Brodie moved further around, until he was once again behind Caine. Brodie made eye contact with Zave, with Tuck, and then Zara.
Zara was still looking at the man on his knees. “Would you look at that?” Zara said, folding her arms. “I think we just caught a break… It strolled up and knocked right on that front door, beau. Did you see that?”
It took about an hour before Brodie would let Caine sit down. He was allowed off his knees after ten minutes but kept by the door, and the weapon was pointed at him constantly. Devon thought that it showed quite remarkable restraint that Brodie didn’t accidentally on purpose trip and pull the trigger. The tension between these men was visceral.
Bess had arrived a while ago and been shocked by the scene, but there was no time for explanations. When Zave showed her to her room, they were gone for more than a few minutes, and then he came back and Devon hadn’t seen Bess since. She understood Zave’s want to keep his aunt far away from Caine.
The rest of them were in the apartment’s living space. Kadie brought Caine a drink from the kitchen and put it on the dining table in front of him where he’d been allowed to sit. Kadie sat beside him. Zara was at his other side. Devon went over to stand behind Kadie because she was fascinated by this man and how he’d had the courage to walk in here, given that he was supposed to be allied with Syn, and all of the men in this room were his enemies.
Brodie was leaning against the wall behind him, just at the edge of the kitchen. He had his arms folded, and the gun hung loose beneath his arm.
Caine sat back and went for his pocket. Brodie leaped forward, chambering that round again. Caine must have heard it because he held up his hands. “Just going for my cigs, Rave. Cool your jets.” Caine looked at Zara. “Is he always so quick to fire? Must lead to a lot of disappointment for you.”
Kadie put her hand in the jacket pocket he’d been going for on her side. She took out his cigarettes and his lighter, opened the pack, and took one out, showing that there was nothing sinister inside the carton.
“You know what I notice?” Caine asked, picking up the cigarette and putting it between his lips to light it. He took a long draw and then exhaled toward the ceiling. “I notice how twitchy all you guys are. Rave, back there…” He nodded backwards. “And you two…”
Zave stayed near the bottom of the stairs, glaring, almost as intent as Brodie was. Tuck paced towards the covered window and back again, the length of the table to the kitchen and back around. He was a caged tiger, he needed to do something but couldn’t leave this confinement.
“You’re a piece of shit,” Brodie grumbled.
Caine didn’t respond and continued his thought. “All you twitchy fuckers, glaring at me, pointing your guns at me, ready to take me apart.” He took another draw. “You know what I see?”
“What do you see, Caine?” Brodie growled from behind him.
“All your fucking women love me.”
Even Devon hadn’t noticed it, but he was right, not that they loved him but that they had no fear. Zara was so close to him that her arm brushed his and her foot rested on the high crossbar of his chair, making her shin come into periodic contact with his thigh.
Kadie had angled her chair so she faced him, her body fully exposed toward his, and Devon stood behind Kadie with her elbows on the back of the chair. He switched his cigarette to the other hand and rubbed Kadie’s knee, which made Tuck stop, but before the hacker could object, Caine switched fingers again and leaned over to kiss Zara’s cheek.
“Stop it,” Zara said and leaned back to look at Brodie. “Don’t rise to it.” She was clear in her commands.
Caine’s eyes slunk around to Devon, and he winked. “You can come sit right here,” he said, leaning back and stroking his thigh. “You and me got no rules. You’re the only gal here who’s slept in my bed.”
She straightened and saw Zave’s jaw tick. “You weren’t in it,” Devon said, “and it wasn’t by choice.”
“That’s what they all say,” Caine said, amused by his own joke as he took another draw of the cigarette. “We can sit here all day; we’re achieving fuck all.”
As relaxed as Caine was, the others were still uptight. “Then why are you here? What do you hope to achieve?” Tuck asked.
“I didn’t do so bad on the mission that saved your boy’s ass, did I? Howie, right? That boy gets himself in a lot of trouble. I saved your girl and his,” Caine said, resting an arm along the back of Zara’s chair. “I don’t feel much gratitude from you fuckers.”
“Maybe that’s because you knew Grant McCormack was alive and you never told us,” Zara said, kicking his shin beneath the table.
“I was as shocked as the rest of you,” Caine muttered.
“Were you?” Zara asked, taking no shit. “You were in Sutcliffe’s compound with us, Caine. You saw Leatt put those bullets in him. When we left, you were still there. Are you telling me you didn’t see Grant move?”
Caine inhaled. “Leatt told me to split, and I did. Far as I was concerned, Saint was gone.”
There was so much history here, and it was hard for her to keep track of everything that these people had been through together. Caine was deep inside, yet not in the Kindred and certainly not trusted. As far as she could figure, everyone who was part of this mess was here for a reason, nothing was a coincidence.
“Are you related?” Devon asked the inappropriate question. But it seemed only relatives and those closest to the Kindred knew Grant as “Saint.”
Caine laughed. “Not a fucking chance. Why, baby? You like keeping it in the family? I can be your brother, your cousin, your daddy, anything you want me to be, babe. I told you I’d share you with the doctor. I’ll share you with the genius too.”
Zave did better than Brodie at not reacting to the jibes. But Devon could tell that he was growing tenser.
Zara moved the conversation on, probably trying to prevent Zave and Caine from coming to blows in the same kind of way she calmed Brodie with distraction. “So how did they get you?” Zara asked. “I haven’t seen you since you left Sikorski’s place. The last time you called me, you were in Hong Kong.”
“So was Mitchell,” Caine said. “I didn’t even know the fucker when he walked up to me. I still don’t know how he found me. I don’t give a fuck.”
“You don’t give a fuck about anything,” Zara said.
Caine made eye contact with the woman beside him. “I give a fuck about plenty.”
Something went unsaid between the pair, and Zara took them back to the point. “So he approached you?”
“Yeah,” Caine said. “And it was your doctor that told him to do it.”
“Bullshit,” Brodie said.
The startling outburst made Devon look at the sniper, but he was focused on Zave, who was once again looking at the floor. Brodie probably believed it of Thad. She certainly could and he was cynical enough. But it was toughest on Zave, who’d invited the man into his home on an almost daily basis, to find out he’d been plotting for some time.
“Is that what you came to tell us?” Brodie asked, shoving away from the wall to swagger around the table. “You came to tell us that Thad is a rat? We knew that. But he wouldn’t vouch for you in a million years.
No member of the Kindred would.”
Brodie put his hands down on the opposite side of the table from where Caine sat, the gun still conspicuous in his right hand and his forefinger resting over the trigger. Devon looked to Zara, and she knew she wasn’t the only one focused on the newest Mrs. McCormack. If anyone in the room would vouch for this man, it would be her. Maybe it was her friendship with Caine that had made Thad think he could be a good guy.
“It doesn’t fucking matter,” Caine said. “Don’t you get it? How I ended up with them doesn’t. Fucking. Matter.”
“I’ll tell you what fucking matters,” Brodie said.
Caine wasn’t intimidated by the growl in Brodie’s eyes like she was. He stayed loose as he finished his cigarette. Flicking most of his ash to the floor, he then dropped the butt into the liquid Kadie had put in front of him.
Caine swiped the glass aside and linked his hands on the table to glare at Brodie. “Are you gonna take the risk of sending me out that door without asking what I know?” Caine asked. “It’s not like we don’t have reason to hate each other. But I’m not here to save your ass.”
“Then why are you here?” Brodie spat. “You sure didn’t come running because Zara called. You never even spoke to her, and she didn’t leave a message.”
“Watch her make the call, did you?” Caine asked. “Are you that insecure, Rave?”
Zara groaned out impatient frustration. “Stop taunting each other!” Standing up, she chastised them both. “It’s pathetic and it’s juvenile. Lives are at stake and you two are sniping? Haven’t you learned by now that it doesn’t matter whose dick is bigger? What matters is that we take Syn down.”
“And we’re not gonna ask for his help to do that until we know what’s motivating him,” Brodie said.
“Do you really care?” Zara asked her husband.
“Yes,” Tuck answered. “Because he’ll be working both sides. This is Caine, for fuck sake.”
Caine wasn’t insulted. “They don’t know I’m here,” he said.
“And they just let you saunter out the room without word?”
Caine sneered. “When I want to leave a room, I get up and walk out,” he snapped at the hacker. “I’m not a pussy like you, I don’t need to ask no cunt’s permission. I don’t have a woman carrying my balls in her purse like you fuckers do. Or a master who puts me on a leash.” Caine glared at Brodie again. “You guys get so stuck on your chief’s fucking rules, on the way Art did things.” Caine shot to his feet, shoving his chair away from behind him when he locked his knees. “Look around you, do you see Art? He’s fucking dead! They played it well, Syn blindsided you, and now they’re holding all the fucking cards. You guys are running around trying to mop up spilled milk, wondering how the fuck all this happened on your watch! You want to know how it happened? Him!” Caine tipped his chin toward Brodie. “All this is his fault.”
Zara wasn’t taking that. “Shut the fuck up,” she said, jabbing his chest with two knuckles. “This started long before Raven ever picked up a gun. This started when all of these guys were just kids. It started with Frank Mitchell and his greed. He orchestrated Brodie’s parents’ death because he wanted to control Game Time. He got scared. He ducked for cover, and it wasn’t until he saw Grant’s potential that he realized his dream wasn’t lost. All it took to get it was destroying Falcon’s parents! That’s all he’s ever done; he destroys everyone who gets in his way.”
“That’s a lovely story, really,” Caine said, patting his chest. “It gets me right here, goosebumps, really, huge sympathy for these grown men and their mommy issues.”
“Caine,” Zara whined.
But he turned on her. “Mitchell is a maniac. A man with big ideas who trained Saint to believe in the same fucked up ideas. Do you think he’d have gotten this far without Grant McCormack? You said it yourself, he couldn’t do it alone. He wussed out of it until he had Saint backing him up. Saint’s the real brain. Don’t act fucking surprised about it, either,” Caine said, thrusting an arm behind him to a four o’clock position without taking his eyes away from Zara. “Your Falcon is one of the smartest men in business today, and your hapless hubby, well, he’s come up with a half-decent strategy or two in his life. It comes from Art’s side. From Bess, Melinda, Philippa, they’re the brains. They always held the reins. Why do you think Brodie puts up with you when all you do is nag his ear all the time? You’re just like Melinda.”
“You’re not the first person to say that to me,” Zara said, drawing her eyes away. “Does that matter? Does it matter who’s the smartest or the quickest or the—”
“Yes,” Caine said. “Because you guys aren’t looking at this right, all you see is Syn’s slick move. They have me and Leatt, Thad, Mitchell. We outman you.”
Brodie sniggered. “I get that you’re not academic, fuckwit, but there’s six people standing here and only five in your seedy motel across town.”
“Right,” Caine said, turning to Brodie before he nodded at Devon and Kadie. “That pair count as one if you’re lucky. Sorry, darlins, you’re easy on the eyes while we’re laying around, but you just don’t have the experience, and your men have kept you shut up for too long.”
Devon couldn’t argue against having a lack of experience. Her brother had kept her shut away from as much of the evil in the world as he could too. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brodie said.
“You can call in Rig,” Caine said. “He’ll bring a couple of guys, but if you’re talking about getting dicks lined up on opposite sides of the battle lines, well… it’s all gonna be about ponying up the dough, and then you’re gonna have a full-blown war. Where the fuck are you gonna do that and stay covert?”
“You said we were looking at this wrong,” Zara said. “How should we be looking at this?”
“Someone who appreciates me,” Caine said, winking at her. “It comes down to those minds. Falc, Rave, they share the blood, just like Grant and Thad.”
“So it’s going to come down to a battle of the cousins?”
“Yeah,” Caine said. “And you guys have got the advantage because the only one who used that brain for strategy, combat, conflict like this, was Art. And who did he train?” Caine looked at Brodie and then at Tuck. “You have to use that.”
“Admitting that you’re fodder?” Brodie sneered.
“I’m muscle. You think I’m gonna work up a sweat for Syn? Fuck that. When I got Mitchell’s offer, I was doing fuck all else. They offered me money and creature comforts.” Devon took that to mean hookers and hotel rooms. “But I didn’t sign no contract or agree to die for these guys. You know me, Zar, I like to watch, and I figured whatever they were cooking would clash with the Kindred one day.”
“So you went in there to look out for us?” Zara asked, understandably dubious.
“I went in there to look out for me. Free digs and every demand catered for? Ha, who wouldn’t take advantage?”
“They gave you the offer and you thought, ‘Why not use these people’s resources?’ Was that it?”
“Something like that,” Caine said.
“You could’ve picked up the phone,” Zara snapped. “You could’ve told me what was happening.”
Caine smiled that slow, sinister smirk that he wore so well and touched a fingertip to Zara’s nose. “Now where’s the fun in that, button?”
Zara took his finger away from her face. Keeping hold of it in a fist, she made eye contact with Brodie. “We don’t have to trust him to use him.”
Caine bowed to murmur in Zara’s ear. “You can use me for anything you want, sweetheart. But first I say, let’s order something to eat. I’ve got another couple of hours before I have to saunter back into that room.”
Watching the men’s power play intrigued Devon. Caine wasn’t really hungry. He didn’t care about the food. He just liked to delay things to give himself more time to watch the Kindred. So while the others accommodated him, Devon went to Zave, who’d been quiet for quite some
time.
She went up close, and Zave didn’t even react to her proximity. Pressing her palms against him, she tried to get him to make eye contact, but it took her a good ten seconds to achieve her aim. “Do you think he’s gathering intel?” she whispered. “Could Syn have sent him here to find out what we plan to do?”
“Yes,” Zave said, glancing at the table.
FIFTEEN
Everyone was busy. Zave put an arm around her and guided her up the stairs into their bedroom, where he closed the door. The brilliant light up here was jarring after being in the dark lower floor of the apartment for so long.
The privacy panels were good, she had to give them that. It seemed like the middle of the night down there when it was actually only the middle of the afternoon if the sun up here was an indication of the time.
Zave took her over to the bed and sat her down before hunkering in front of her. “Do you want to go back to the island?” he asked. “Now that Bess understands what’s going on, I’m sure she’ll go with you and you can—”
“No,” Devon said.
“You don’t have to be afraid. I can have security on the island at all times. It will be a fortress. We can have choppers in the air, no one will be allowed to approach. Security will be armed, and they’ll take down anyone who threatens you. Are you concerned about what Swift said?”
“I’m concerned about what Caine said,” Devon admitted, brushing her fingers through his hair and down his jaw. “And I’m concerned about you. You’ve been so quiet today. I don’t like it when you go into your own head and leave me out here alone.”
“You’re not alone,” he said, curling his hand around hers.
“The Kindred will need to come up with a plan.”
“You can be a part of those meetings if you want to. Don’t listen to Caine when he says you’re not valuable. You are. You’re the most important person in this apartment, in this building, in this world.”
Finch (Kindred #6) Page 16
