by Nora Flite
Does he always need to get his way? If I spent any more time with this guy, I’d have to teach him that every interaction didn’t have to be about someone “winning.” Snuggling into the warm jacket that smelled exactly like him, I breathed deep—then choked.
Wait.
Did I really just consider spending MORE time with Kain?
The guy who treated police stations like hotel lobbies? The son of a family that Detective Stapler had warned me about?
I really, really needed a break away from all of this insanity.
But as Kain slammed his heel into his bike, propelling us off into the night toward the estate I’d vowed to never return to . . .
I had an idea things were just getting started.
- CHAPTER EIGHT -
KAIN
Someone tried to hurt her.
It felt like someone had shoved a pine branch down my gullet. Every taste bud was bitter, the flavor of my fear and disgust cloying. How dare someone pull Sammy into this? Whoever had more balls than sense was going to get a set of knuckles in his teeth.
I’d personally make sure of that.
The entire time we flew down the highway, my mind was ensnared by tendrils that kept pulling me back into a pit of hate. No one messed with my family; that was a given. This new attack had crossed into a whole other realm of bullshit.
Someone tried to hurt her.
That phrase tattooed onto the wet mass of my brain. It remained there the whole drive, I knew it would remain till the morning, and there was a good chance it would remain long after I was dead and buried.
Crushing the handlebars, I felt the high heels clattering against my wrist. Sammy hadn’t commented on the shoes, but why would she? She’d thrown them at me to give back to my sister. To her, the shoes being with me made sense.
She couldn’t know how illogical it was. She just couldn’t.
I’d been thinking of her as my Cinderella. I was already a prince—in a sense—so why couldn’t it work? We’d dance, I’d put the shoes on her perfect feet, and we’d kiss and laugh, and all would be fucking sparkles and hearts.
Someone. Tried. To hurt her.
Did fairy tales ever end with the prince murdering someone?
The iron gates split as I approached, welcoming me back home. The estate was a huge, sprawling mass of gardens and fields and forest. I’d lived here since I’d been born, I’d never felt unsafe.
The police raid hadn’t even registered as a blip to me. I didn’t like being cuffed, and Frannie was still fuming about the whole mess. But was it dangerous? Nah.
What had happened to Sammy was.
Bright lights illuminated the large front doors. A shadow moved behind the decorated glass. Probably Mom. She’d called me a few times today, telling me to come home and rest. I couldn’t tell her that I was busy spying on Sammy.
Hawthorne thought she was an enemy.
Tonight, I’d learned she was a target.
If I hadn’t been watching her . . . Fuck. I hoped she never asked what I’d been doing so close to her house. Surveying her place from the street wasn’t going to sound normal, even I knew that.
Parking the bike, I helped her off of it. Her toes touched the flat rocks of the driveway, then she looked up at me through her messy bangs. “I think I’ve gone without shoes for a full day, almost.”
I pulled her by her elbow. “Let’s get you inside.”
Together we climbed the steps. The overhanging roof darkened us, and the lamps glowing through the warped windows created gold highlights all around. Sammy tightened her fingers on my forearm. I luxuriated in that touch; so basic, so real.
For a second, I felt like this badass of a woman needed me.
That she trusted me.
I’d have traded a year of my life for more of that feeling.
“Kain!” My mother threw the door open, shocking us both. Sammy pulled her hand away, the gap between us as good as a mile. “There you are! I was getting worried!”
Scratching my neck, I shrugged. “Ma, come on. I texted you an hour ago.”
“An hour is a long time.” Her serious eyes focused on my guest. “Wait. Sammy? Why are you here?”
Motioning with my chin, I walked around my mom, trusting Sammy would follow me; she did. “Where’s Dad?”
“Kain, what happened?” Closing the door behind us, my mother wrapped her long, silken blue robe tighter. The suspicion in her elegant face melted into fear. “Never mind. I’ll hear it from you when you tell your father. Come on.” Her slippers scuffed along the polished floors. Even in her before-bed state, my mother was graceful.
Like a true patriarch, he was waiting for us in his sitting room. He was dressed like he had plans to go out on the town: fine trousers, an ironed button-down of deep black. Maverick Badd had never been cruel to me, but even as a grown-ass man, I was still unnerved by my father.
But I didn’t have time for that.
“Mav?” my mother asked, stepping to the side. She followed the thick man’s gaze as it rolled over me, then Sammy.
He looked at me with a patience so heavy it could crush my lungs. Seeking out the still-crisp anger in me, I stepped forward. “Dad, someone broke into Sammy’s house and attacked her. This has to be related to the raid, there’s no way it’s a coincidence.”
His eyes traced over to Sammy. “The Deep Shots caused the raid. Felt talked to our inside man and called me an hour ago to confirm it. Why would they go after her, of all people, afterwards? She’s a nobody to them—no offense, sweetheart.”
Sammy’s face went all pinched. “Calling me sweetheart offends me more. I don’t care who you think attacked me or who I am to anyone. I’m only here because Kain convinced me that it was better to talk to you than to the cops.” Her glare cut my way. “I don’t know why I listened to him. Give me a phone.”
Disbelief darkened my dad’s expression. I had to cover my mouth; I was too close to cracking up. I didn’t want him getting all pissed off, but fuck, seeing him lose his cool because of Sammy was just too delicious.
My mother broke the silence first. “You’ve got a pair of balls on you, girl.” Unlike me, she didn’t hide her amusement. “Mav, hear what she has to say.”
He’d gone from slumping to leaning forward. More than ever, he looked like some beastly gargoyle, ready to pounce. A heartbeat passed, two of them—then he sat back and smiled at my mother. “Only because you asked, Carmina.”
“Go on,” I said to her.
Sammy gave me a quick look. Facing my father, she stood as tall as possible. “This evening, a man broke into my upstairs bedroom. He tried to attack me, but I got away.”
“How?” Maverick asked.
She took a second, then said, “I cracked him in the head with a coffee mug.”
That made me look at her all over again. “A coffee cup?” I whispered.
She just shrugged sheepishly.
My father leaned sideways in his chair, he didn’t seem certain what to think. “I’m still not sure what that has to do with us. Kain, let her talk to the police if she wants. It sounds like a robber just tried to sack her place and got a concussion instead. Why don’t—”
“Wait,” Sammy blurted.
Each of us stopped, gazing at her curiously. “What is it?” I asked gently.
Her eyes widened, then they kept going. It was the sort of look you had when you suddenly remembered not just the dream you’d had, but how awful the details had been. “It wasn’t a random robber. I’ve seen him before.”
“Where?” I asked.
In wonderment, she looked my way. “Here. He was one of the guys serving drinks at the dinner party.”
All muscle and fury, my father pushed out of his chair. “Call your brothers,” he snapped, pulling out his cell phone. “Tell them to get their asses here.”
He didn’t say who he was going to call instead, and I didn’t ask. I had other things to worry about. “What should I tell them?”
“That
we need to find out the name and face of every single person that was here yesterday.” Leveling his fierce blues on me—eyes so unlike my mother’s—he loomed closer. His voice came out softer than it had any right to be. “A rat in our kitchen can be handled, but it sounds like this one has brass balls and rabies both.”
I’d started to dial, but the sight of Sammy stopped me. In my oversize jacket and no shoes, she was the epitome of vulnerable. Yet there she was, standing right in front of my hulking father, her face daring him to knock her aside.
What the hell was she doing?
Her hands fisted by her hips. “Listen,” she said, like she wouldn’t consider letting anyone interrupt her. “I know the face of the man who attacked me. Maybe he’s even the one who got me arrested. But the more I think it over, the more I want to call the police so they can handle it.”
“Sammy,” I started.
Maverick held up a hand, not looking away from her. “My gut says the reason someone went after you tonight had to do with us. I owe it to you to keep you safe.”
She was already shaking her head. “The police can keep me safe.”
His laugh was a bellow, it made his shoulders shake. “That’s what you think? Do you have any idea what the police care about? Here’s a hint: it isn’t bystanders like you.” Leaning down so they were eye-to-eye, he said, “Money. It all comes back to money.”
Sammy thought we were all scum, but the cops were more corrupt than my family could ever hope to be. They also sucked at doing their jobs. If she went back with them, they’d do nothing to keep this mystery man from getting his hands on her again.
The cops around here were dirty.
I knew too well that promises from dirty cops meant shit.
Sammy didn’t break their staring contest. She didn’t even twitch. “You want to act like my bodyguard until, what, you find the guy who’s after me?” she asked.
Lowering his brows, he considered her as if seeing her for the first time. I had to smile; I knew he was recognizing what I had. He said, “I’m not going to be guarding you.” His attention jumped to me. “Kain is.”
Her mouth quivered: the first sign of her uncertainty. Sammy watched me with such wide, emotive eyes that I thought I could stare hard enough—long enough—and eventually peek right into her soul.
She spoke to me, but she was addressing Maverick. “I’m flattered. But I seriously don’t need anyone to watch over me.”
He was halfway to the door, his phone to his ear and my mother at his side. “You don’t have a choice. No one leaves these grounds until I know what’s going on.”
“I—what?” She looked so small; had she always been like that? Turning, she took two steps after him. “I can’t stay here! I’ve got a business to run, and my mother . . .”
Her mother?
Maverick slowed in the doorway. “Tell Kain about anything you need. My family will take care of you, Sammy.” His hand braced on the frame. “We’re not your enemies,” he said firmly. “We can keep you safer than anyone.”
She watched him go, his broad back tight as he vanished. I could hear him murmuring into the phone, my mother whispering as she hung on his arm. Then we were alone, just me and the girl I’d whisked away from danger like a hero from a fireside story.
Except the way she was glaring at me . . .
I didn’t feel like I was her hero at all.
“Sammy,” I said.
Slipping my jacket off, she dropped it on the floor. I winced at the sound it made, a gentle rustle that rang as loud as funeral bells in my heart.
“Sammy, listen. This is only temporary, my father just wants—”
“Did you know he’d do this?” Sammy had barely moved. Every fraction of the air that she touched, I felt it resonate with me. I was hyperaware of her, and I had no idea how to turn it off.
My arms came up; her eyes went down. “No. I did plan to guard you until this was figured out, but I didn’t think he’d forbid you from leaving.”
“I never thought I’d be a prisoner twice in one day,” she whispered.
“You’re not a prisoner.”
Smiles should never be so hurtful. “Don’t joke around. We both know I am.”
She’s right. Sammy was trapped here, and I was trapped by her very existence. I was impossibly connected to a woman who looked at me like I’d just run over her pet dog. How could I survive this kind of torture?
As I watched her leave the room, I had one simple, morbid thought.
Maybe I won’t.
- CHAPTER NINE -
SAMMY
He followed me down the hall. I didn’t have a clue where I was going to go, I just needed to move.
I needed to be away from him.
From all of them.
These damn people! I couldn’t have predicted this situation. I was without any of my things, stuck in a mansion belonging to a corrupt family. They didn’t want me to leave . . . and I didn’t know what I could do about it.
And he had the gall to say I wasn’t a prisoner. Shooting a look over my shoulder, I froze him where he was lingering on the other side of the room. “Quit following me. Aren’t you supposed to be summoning your brothers or whatever?”
Waving his phone, he gave a half smile. “I can walk and text at the same time.”
“Well, aren’t you talented.”
“I like to think so.”
“Don’t try to be cute,” I snapped.
Kain crinkled his nose. “I can’t exactly control it.”
I was done with his jokes. Pulling a 180, I stomped his way. I’d told him before that my father had raised me right. I didn’t believe in violence, but I was at the end of my already-frayed rope. It was so easy to blame Kain for all the bad things in my life.
His back thudded on the wall; I’d pushed him so roughly that the impact made a framed photo clatter to the floor. Glass spread, tinkling like sweet music. “How dare you?” I growled, fingers curling in the front of his shirt. “After everything, you think you can pretend we’re fine? That we can joke like we’re friends?”
My voice was rising; I couldn’t stop it, I didn’t try. Upstairs, I heard movement. The ringing in my ears blocked the world out, my eyes aching as I glared at the man I wished I’d never, ever met.
Kain put his hands on mine, gripping so I couldn’t escape. Even now, his touch was warm. “Sammy,” he hissed. “Look at me.”
“I am!”
He held me tighter, his nose coming close to mine. “Do you see your enemy? Do you see someone who wants to hurt you? You, of all people?”
His words were a fuse that started to light a firecracker. It sank into me, more acid than fire, burrowing low into my belly. Kain talked to me like he knew me, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.
So why was I suddenly listening?
Black clouds swam through the blue sky of his eyes. “You ran out of your house screaming for help. What the fuck was I supposed to do?”
My wrists were numb where he was squeezing. “Take me to the cops.”
The dark storm grew deeper. “No,” he growled. “That’s what we keep telling you. If I turn you over to them, they won’t do a thing to keep you safe! If someone wants you dead, then . . . anywhere but here, anywhere I’m not . . . you’d be—”
“No,” I blurted.
“Yes.” I’d never heard such certainty from anyone. “I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.”
The skin around my eyes tightened. “We’re strangers, don’t care so much.” I was trying to distance myself, but his honest admission was wrapping around my ribs. I couldn’t breathe without tasting him, and my ears were full of his promises.
His fears.
Kain’s mouth made a shape it never should have. Is he going to kiss me? Now, here, after everything?
His voice slid over my lips, stirring my heart. “I don’t know how to not care about you.”
Gravity pressed on the top of my head until every grim thought began to compact
and crumble. Down they went, past my eyes, which were trapped by his, through my lungs, which were full of the same air he breathed.
Each bit of hate collapsed until there was nothing left in me but a thread of disbelief. How did Kain do this to me? I’d wanted to hurt him . . . to make him see he was wrong.
I didn’t know what I believed anymore.
But I did know that I wanted to kiss him.
Behind us, a feminine voice squeaked, “What the hell? Kain, don’t make out with your side chicks right out here where everyone can—Sammy?” Francesca was gawking at me, her skin covered in some kind of mint-smelling cream, her long hair piled on her scalp.
Hot shame kicked me in the teeth. Ripping away from Kain, I choked on some sort of explanation for why I was here. Why she’d witnessed me about to kiss her brother.
Francesca rushed at me, her hands tangling in mine. I wasn’t ready for her hug, she was deceptively strong. “Sammy! What are you doing here?”
Holding her at arm’s length, I glanced at Kain. “It’s a long story.”
“I love long stories!”
Scrunching my tongue against the back of my teeth, I thought over what to say. Kain pushed forward, acting like he hadn’t just been pulling back the veil to the vibrant emotion in his soul. “She’s going to be staying with us for a while.”
His sister froze. I watched the gloss in her eyes turn into suspicion. “Something happened. Tell me.”
“Fran—”
“Kain,” she seethed. “Fucking tell me.”
Footsteps marched down the hall, three men rounding the corner. I recognized two of them: Maverick and his intimidating son, Hawthorne. The third was a lean man only a hair taller than all of them, his smooth skin marred by a scar that stretched from right eyebrow to the bridge of his nose.
If anything, the old wound added to his sharp looks. I couldn’t have said if he was more gorgeous now than when he’d gotten the scar. I just knew that few people could have made such a blemish look so bold—so complementary.
He locked his eyes on mine: blue like Maverick’s, lighter than even Kain’s.
Hawthorne pulled up short, studying all of us. “You guys having a party?”
