Cuckoo (Kindred Book 3)

by Scarlett Finn

  Cuckoo wasn’t discouraged. “Do you know where Caine got the scar on his neck?” she asked, stroking her throat in the place Caine’s scar was. Zara didn’t but said nothing and let Cuckoo continue. “He got it from Raven. Caine walked in on us having sex in his bed, and the lunatic lost his mind. He tried to attack us, tried to attack me, and Raven got between me and Caine’s blade. He took the knife from him and in the struggle… he cut Caine’s throat.”

  Her words slowed as the story progressed, not out of disgust or regret, her smile grew in time with her satisfaction. Cuckoo was enjoying this. Zara’s sixth sense twitched, warning her of danger. She might not have liked the woman before this story, but watching the pleasure Cuckoo experienced while recounting it revealed to Zara what Art had seen in this woman. Mischa was cold. Unable to feel remorse for getting between the two men. She saw nothing wrong in what had happened and rejoiced in retelling the tale like it was something to be proud of.

  “Caine loved you,” Zara said. Although he hadn’t gone the right way about expressing it, she did feel sympathy for Caine in that moment. Walking into your own safe space and finding your girlfriend wrapped around your idol’s idol must have split Caine’s heart in two.

  In much the same way as she imagined Brodie would react if he walked in on her screwing another guy, Caine lashed out. It probably hadn’t been Brodie’s intention, but the scar he’d left on Caine’s neck was a constant reminder of that day, of that betrayal. One that Caine would see every single day in his reflection. It was no wonder the man had been driven half mad. Every time he looked in the mirror, he probably replayed that experience. Remembering how he felt when he opened that door and absorbed the sight before him.

  “Men often do fall in love with me,” Cuckoo said, lifting a hand to comb her long digits through her luscious locks.

  “How terrible for you,” Zara muttered, quite at a loss as to how one person could love themselves so much.

  “You’re wrong though, unfortunately.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  “Caine and I did not separate forever… after Raven left me, we reconnected,” she said, appreciating her own symmetry.

  “Caine and you did not separate forever,” Zara repeated, not believing the beauty for one second.

  “No, we didn’t. He’s a dutiful little puppy dog. He sits and stays and begs on command. Whenever I have use for Griffin Caine, all I have to do is snap my fingers. I haven’t even had to demean myself by having sex with him for the last three years. He just does my bidding if I pout, it’s entertaining. He’s desperate to please me and drools all over himself until I give him a command.” Cuckoo laughed and swung forward and back like they were gal pals exchanging salacious gossip. “At first, I had to force myself into his bed, I had to make up some of that ground to get him back to the land of the living. After losing me, he turned into a hopeless disgusting drunk who just whimpered and moaned and cried. There’s nothing manly about him, nothing attractive.”

  Zara began to listen. She’d been listening before, but Cuckoo’s ranting was giving Zara the chance to make connections. “Why would you go back to him if you weren’t attracted to him anymore?”

  “I was never attracted to him,” she insisted. “I needed to find someone, someone who could do what needed to be done. I needed the best and once I heard Caine was the closest follower of the man I needed… Sleeping with him was just the easiest way to get what I wanted.” So a relationship that Caine thought was real had just been a ruse on Cuckoo’s part to tempt out Raven. “The plan worked perfectly, Raven came to me and we… came together.” She smiled as her focus drifted, and Zara told herself not to yak all over Grant’s carpet.

  “Caine walked in on the two of you, got his throat slit, managed somehow to survive, but lost the will to live and so turned to despair. While you and Raven were cozy, you didn’t think about Caine again. You didn’t care about him… until Raven left you.”

  Cuckoo picked up a letter opener and squeezed her hand around the handle. “It was his ridiculous chief. I know it was. We were happy. Then suddenly, poof, he was gone. On another job he said, but he never came back. The bastard.”

  Zara wasn’t sure if she meant Art was the bastard or Raven. But admitting that Raven didn’t return to her contradicted what she’d said earlier about them always coming back to each other.

  “That’s when you went looking for Caine?”

  “Found him lying in a pool of his own vomit, it was foul.”

  And from the sneer on her face, Zara would guess that Cuckoo didn’t enjoy the memory, which was odd given how she’d enjoyed recounting the story of her infidelity. “Why did you go looking for him?”

  “Caine had skills. A unique skillset that I needed. He had experience that no one else could boast.”

  Zara’s mouth opened a good three seconds before she managed to talk. “He could track Raven,” she whispered in a single slow breath.

  After learning who Raven was, Caine had followed his work, both Art and Brodie had told her that. At the time, he’d probably been young, impressionable, and over-eager. But having been Raven’s groupie once gave him the knowledge that Cuckoo needed to track the man who’d scorned her.

  “Yes,” Cuckoo said and she was smiling again.

  “How long have you had him on a leash?” Zara asked, bouncing to the front of her chair. Cuckoo didn’t answer, but the proud jut of her chin that enhanced her cleavage told Zara all she needed to know. “It’s you. Caine isn’t following Raven because he’s waiting for his time to strike. He’s following Raven because you’ve got him wrapped tight. It’s you… isn’t it? You’ve had him watching Raven, reporting back to you with everything. You told him to come into Purdy’s and threaten Raven in front of me because, why? You wanted to see what I was like? Wanted to see what I would do?”

  “I assumed that you would whimper and hide under the bed. You can’t imagine how annoyed I was when it brought you closer to my man.”

  “Your man,” Zara said and almost wanted to laugh, but she settled for slouching instead. “Yes, he’s your man, if the qualification is the duration of obsession. My God, you’re so narcissistic that you wouldn’t even stalk him yourself. Why waste your own time when you can waste someone else’s? You’ve got Caine putting his own life on hold to do what you’re too lazy or busy to do. How the hell do you get a guy to do something like that and for years no less?”

  “He has an obsessive personality,” Cuckoo said. “And he’s pathetic, serious self-esteem issues. He believes that I think more of him for being so ridiculous. He honestly thinks we have some kind of relationship, that I value him.”

  “But you don’t. He’s worthless to you.”

  “His worth is what he tells me about Raven’s life. You can’t imagine how overjoyed I was when I found out his absurd keeper was dead,” Cuckoo gasped in joy and opened her hands on the arm of the chair that rocked in motion with her excitement. Zara bit back her own fury. Art’s death wasn’t something to be happy about, except for Cuckoo who’d seen it as an opportunity. “The stage was set… but you just wouldn’t go away.”

  “You sent Caine to me every time. You told him to call Grant and offer protection after the Purdy’s raid. You sent him to that bar to pick me up. It wasn’t Grant that wanted me in Sutcliffe’s house. It was you. You’ve been watching us since the beginning.”

  Coming close to the desk, Cuckoo bent over and decreased her volume. “I have been watching Raven since long before either of you knew the other existed.”

  “And Caine just follows your orders.”

  “The best part about it is, I don’t have to be in his physical company,” Cuckoo boasted. “He does his work and reports to me by email or telephone. He has to be where Raven is.”

  “And that’s nowhere near you,” Zara said, her jibe earning an eye roll. Cuckoo was an even more despicable person than she’d initially thought.

  “A few sexy words, a quick flash on a webcam, he’s
putty. He has no mind of his own; he’s a drone who does as he’s told.”

  “You told him to come to me last night, to cause friction between Raven and me.”

  “Raven and I haven’t had much alone time recently. I didn’t want Caine around, so I made sure he stayed on you. Caine’s loathing of Raven is real. I don’t want them in the same room together with me, it would become a pissing contest. Caine doesn’t know how to control himself, he’s a lunatic when it comes to Raven.”

  Sure because the guy had been conditioned by this wench who used sex to take over his existence. “You’ve had Caine watch me when he can’t get to Raven. Why? Wouldn’t it have been easier to kill me?”

  “It may have come to that, but watching Raven destroy you would have been much more fun. He will leave you eventually, and I plan to be there to see it. Caine had to stay close, I had to know when Raven was ready. Without his uncle to restrain him, it was only a matter of time before he emerged. Once he returned to missions, I knew that would be our time to be together. I’m sorry, Zara. You can’t get between us.”

  She wasn’t sorry, but Zara wasn’t dubious about Cuckoo’s delusions. They would never come true. “You think that I’ll be Caine, that one day I’m going to walk in on you two fucking in my bed?”

  “He did put me in your apartment. It’s poetic. I had hoped that last night would be the night, that’s why I sent Caine to watch that blasted house of his.”

  The manor would put a kink in any stalker’s plans because the best they could do was watch from a distance, and it would be quite a distance because the manor was covered by heat detectors, motion sensors. Every toy Falcon had ever built was guarding their home.

  “But Raven left you unsatisfied,” Zara said, pleased that she’d been the one to receive his satisfaction. “So you sent Caine in to stir up the pot.”

  “He will leave you—”

  “You keep saying that and yet here I am, completely unconvinced.”

  “I love him and he loves me,” Cuckoo said.

  It was a shame that Mischa seemed as certain as Zara felt. Only one of them could be right. “And you’re just using Caine. You’d flush him if Raven did come back to you.”

  “When Raven does come back to me, he’ll take care of any unfinished business Caine and I have. Taking out the trash, as you put it.”

  “Maverick,” Zara said. This woman had no compassion, no ability to feel. She had used Caine for years, and if she did achieve her goal—which Zara knew she wouldn’t—she planned to have her new boyfriend put a bullet in the old one. To Cuckoo it was clean and simple. Caine wouldn’t see it that way, and neither would Brodie. “You’ve used Caine for years, you plan to terminate him when he’s no longer of use…”

  Cuckoo was not dissuaded from her position. They were at an impasse and enjoyed their stalemate for a few seconds before Cuckoo spoke up with a toss of her hair. “Now I have given you something. You must return the gesture.”

  Zara hadn’t made any deal; Cuckoo had spoken on her own. One positive quality most narcissists shared was loving the sound of their own apparent righteousness. It made fact-finding easier when the mark started spilling details all on their own.

  “Sorry, Raven has a mind of his own, and I don’t auction off sexual favors from my boyfriend to women who have interesting information. I can’t make his dick dance for you.”

  Cuckoo exhaled unimpressed impatience. “I don’t need you to tell me how to arouse him. I’ve done it more times than you have.”

  That could be true, but she and Brodie had had a lot of sex since they’d been together. The comparison was stupid anyway because she planned to be with Brodie for a long time, so her odometer would tick past Cuckoo’s in due time. Zara also had the pleasure of falling asleep in Brodie’s bed in his house, and she could call out the name he was given at birth while doing it. Cuckoo was not going to succeed in belittling Zara into doubting the certainty of her future with her love.

  “So, what do you want from me?” Zara asked.

  “Game Time,” Cuckoo said, much as she had at the start of their conversation.

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Caine says different.”

  “Caine thinks you’re some kind of goddess,” Zara said, mimicking Cuckoo’s earlier eye roll. “He has issues with reality.” Leaving her seat, she glanced at her watch, estimating the time it would take her to calm down and get coffee at Purdy’s. Kahlil would be there soon. She was in demand today. “Now if you excuse me, I have another meeting.”

  “I’m going to keep pursuing this,” Cuckoo said, leaving her chair. “I will get my hands on it.”

  “Yes,” Zara said, calling over her shoulder as she went to the door. “You will get your hands on Game Time on the same day Raven admits his love for you and dumps me.”

  Turning full circle as she opened the door and swung around it to witness the European’s frustrated satisfaction, Zara made a beeline for the elevator, trying not to make eye contact with anyone who might bring her CI work.

  She got to the lobby and out into the fresh air. After she gasped in a heaving breath, she panted out her amazement. Caine wasn’t who they thought he was. His motivation was almost the complete reverse of what they’d suspected, and now Cuckoo wanted Game Time. From Zara’s perspective, the reason Cuckoo coveted it was because other people did.

  Cuckoo was immature, selfish, and crazy in love with Raven. Though Zara couldn’t fault her for the last one, she could fault her methods. Getting this meeting with Kahlil out the way was the next point on her agenda, and then she had to get back to Brodie because boy did she have news for him.

  FIFTEEN

  For the first time in a long time, she was relieved and relaxed when she went into Purdy’s. The time of day no doubt had an effect on her mood. It was lunchtime. The atmosphere was relaxed. Daylight still shone outside, lessening the likelihood that there would be a criminal attack or an amorous admirer trying to seduce her into revealing her secrets.

  At least, that was what she thought.

  “Zara!”

  When she twisted in her chair to see who was calling for her, she wished she’d gotten something stronger than a coffee. “Julian,” she said in greeting, and he came over to sit at her table. “I’m waiting for somebody.”

  “Oh,” he said. “A date in the middle of the day so close to work?” He didn’t quite nudge her and wink, but the shift of his brows was enough to make her force a smile.

  “It’s not a date. It’s business. And I don’t work at CI anymore.”

  He lost his cheer. “Yes, I heard you had a run-in with the new CEO, what a shame. She’s great.”

  It wasn’t a surprise to her that Julian liked Cuckoo. He liked a woman who looked good in business wear. “It was time for me to move on.”

  “Is that what you’re doing here? Do you have an interview?”

  “No,” she said.

  Julian took her hand from her cup. “I will be sorry not to see you at work. You’re capable and beautiful, and if there’s ever anything you need…”

  This presented an opportunity, one that she hadn’t considered until he just made this fortuitous offer. Turning her body toward his, she tightened her grip on his hand. “There is one thing that I need, something you might be able to help me with… if you can keep a secret?”

  He blinked, he hadn’t expected her to ask for something. “What do you need?”

  “I need a list of Grant’s personal accounts.”

  Julian was intrigued, which was a better reaction than suspicion. “His personal accounts? Why?”

  “His personal accounts as they link to CI. I think he was funding a company project with personal funds.”

  “That’s messy,” Julian said. “And would be frowned upon by the board and the IRS.”

  “I know. That’s why we have to keep it a secret, to protect his memory,” she said. If Grant was a faultless party, she might feel guilty about suggesting altruistic motives. “
But he was the CEO, he could do whatever he wanted. This was an important project for him, a bit of an obsession.”

  “What is it you’re looking for?”

  “I wouldn’t want to betray his confidence. Is it something you can help me with?” Using the techniques Brodie had nurtured during her seduction of Leatt, she blinked and maneuvered her arms to enhance her cleavage. Julian noticed, more in passing than anything else, but it was enough.

  Julian’s attraction to her became an advantage to the Kindred. This was the last piece of the puzzle and quite possibly their last chance to stem future work on Game Time. When in relation to death and destruction, Zara was happy to manipulate whoever needed to be manipulated.

  “His accountant has been involved in executing the will,” Julian said. “I’ve been in a few of those meetings, I should be able to get those accounts for you without answering too many questions.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  It was hard to believe that just a few days ago she was doubting her ability and her right to be part of the Kindred. Today proved that when she maintained her focus, she could achieve many things.

  “I’ll email you with what I find out,” he said and left the table. “Enjoy your meeting and keep in touch.”

  It was sweet that he would miss her. Life at CI was so frenetic that she was sure she’d be forgotten in a few days, not because she didn’t have an impact there, but because life moved on quickly in business. There was little time to mourn. With Grant gone and her distanced from the company, she was allowed a new perspective on what her life had been pre-Brodie.

  There was no permanent monument to her work at CI, she would fade away just like every other employee who moved on. During her time there, she’d believed she was making a difference in the world, now she could see that was an illusion.

  She’d been with the Kindred for less than a year. But if she left their ranks tomorrow, she wouldn’t be so quickly forgotten. For one thing, she was sleeping with the chief. He couldn’t ignore her loss and he’d proved that by coming back for her then chasing her to her father’s doorstep. She had rapport with Tuck, more so since their clash that morning. Thad was a bright beacon who wouldn’t let her fade away. Zave was just Zave. Even she was becoming accustomed to what that meant.