All the sacrifices, all of the years I’ve spent planning my vengeance, and now I can’t see it through? I hover in the hallway, neither going forward nor backwards. I can’t, can I? Nothing's worked because I’m not strong enough. The gun was in my hand. It was there, pointed at him, but I couldn’t do it. Couldn't find the hatred to pull the trigger. And now I’m shut out, with Cane on the inside.
With my Benjamin.
The situation rolls around my mind time and time again, and nothing changes. There’s nothing I’ve missed. The cards are all stacked against me. Quinn and Nathan are now best buds with Benjamin, and I’m going to be exposed as a traitor.
Hot tears prick at my eyes and slide down my face without my permission. The emotion of it all brims to the surface, a nasty concoction of pain, guilt and disappointment—my personal brand of a pity party.
I storm over to the drinks cabinet and slosh a few fingers of Benjamin’s good scotch into a tumbler. I don’t bother with ice and tip the amber liquid down my throat. Maybe the burn will help eradicate the sick feeling in my mouth.
Panic. That’s what I’m experiencing—a simple combination of events and responses that my body isn’t processing. My logical head tells me that’s true, but my heartbeat doesn’t slow. My palms remain sweaty, and every time I picture Benjamin, the next vision I see is him standing over my bloody body. It makes my heart ache that he might kill me.
Somewhere along the line, I’ve fallen for him. He isn’t just a means to my goal and hasn’t been for a while. I might still hope to bring down the Cane empire and give those two spoilt brats a taste of what their father delivered to me, but not at the cost of the man I love. Surely that earns me some credence in Benjamin’s eyes?
I pour another double of scotch and wander around the apartment—my home—waiting for Benjamin and sipping at the alcohol. Dutch courage. That’s what I need. The only way I can see out of this mess is to confess now, before anyone can tell Benjamin what I’ve done. A scenario forms in my mind where he accepts what I tell him—that I’m the secret half sister to the Canes—and he confesses his own feelings for me, promises that we’ll bring them down together and go on to rule New York together, my own version of a fairy tale. It’s just as unrealistic. Love like that doesn’t happen in the real world. It resides between the pages of love stories or on the screens of epic movies. Real life is much, much darker. Mine is anyway. His, too, and I still wear the bruises to prove that particular point.
The click of the door breaks my wallow, and I listen for signs of his mood. I peer out cautiously into the living room from my position slumped against the wall of our bedroom. The view is obstructed by furniture, but I know those footsteps, know the rhythm of them.
Benjamin is home.
I jump up and brush myself down. I’m in the running clothes I went out to visit Andreas in again, nothing like the attire I normally keep on for Benjamin.
He stalks through the room but comes to an abrupt halt when he sees me. His eyes take me in, and I mirror his actions but find a horror scene as I scan his body. His hands are stained a rusty colour. Scarlet splatters his chest and face, and his suit looks ominously black. He’s almost soaked through with blood. My body quivers as I stand motionless. He doesn’t say a word, but his eyes scream at me. I don’t move a hair, like prey hiding in the grass, perhaps hoping that he’ll just walk past. He needs to calm down. Whatever happened tonight, it must have been bad. I’ve never seen him come home in such a state. He’s always been careful, precise before now, only ever getting his hands dirty in extreme circumstances.
The wait is painful, and the need to run and check that it’s not his blood is almost overpowering. He finally gives in, as if accepting something, and heads to the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
The sigh I breathe is from relief. Relief that he’s alive, but I don’t know if I’m ready to do this. I can’t confront him and tell him the truth. Not like this. He’ll explode if I do.
I wait on the chair for Benjamin to come back to me. The soft sound of the silence does nothing to calm my frayed and worn out nerves. A flash of anger runs through me towards the Cane brothers. This is their doing. All of this lies at their feet, including the years of pain I’ve suffered. Bitterness coils in my stomach again, warring to let loose and see this through.
Noise starts coming from the bedroom, grumbling and swearing, and with it, my heartbeat kicks up into a stampede. Benjamin has the ability to read people, an internal lie detector that is terrifyingly accurate. My whole demeanour at the moment is off. He’ll be able to tell something is wrong. The scotch does nothing to calm me, more the opposite. It amps up my internal war of worry and concern.
He appears in the doorway, his shirt missing as if he’s ripped it off his back. The red and purple bruising is faint over the breadth of his tattoos, with a particularly nasty mark on his rib.
“Are you okay?” I leap up and rush to run my hands over his marred skin.
“Don’t. Yes. Why are you dressed like that?” His snarl is a warning, but my hands don’t cease their inspection.
“Fuck, Hope, stop.” He grabs my wrists and holds me out in front of him. Tears threaten behind my eyes, and I will them not to drop with everything in me.
“What happened? I’m concerned, that’s all. You don’t always come home like this. That’s my job, right?” I snatch my hands back, and he brushes past me to sit on the opposing couch.
“No, your job is to do as I ask. Why are you ready to go for a run? Have you been out?”
“No, working out. What happened tonight? Are Quinn and Nathan okay?” I force the question out and a part of me thinks, just for a moment, that maybe if they aren’t it would solve all my problems. His eyes land on me and I see the scrutiny behind them. I need to tread carefully, but with my heart racing a mile a minute my head is all over the place. “Will you let me look at you properly? The cut on your face needs to be seen to, at least.” I approach and busy myself with the myriad of scrapes and bruises over his skin, smelling the faint trace of gun smoke in his hair. The bruises are nothing more than he’s delivered to me in the past, but somehow, I can look past that.
My fingers trail over his shoulder, down his chest, and my lips drop tender kisses in all the places I see bruises forming.
“Hope, stop.”
But I don’t. I continue and straddle his lap, gently pushing him back onto the softness behind him, perhaps hoping that he’ll soften his tone with it. He doesn’t resist, and I move to kiss his split lip, my hands roaming his skin. I'm desperate for him, worried for us and terrified of what’s to come. “Hope, back the fuck off me,” he growls. His hands grab me and push me away. In fact, they toss me like I'm nothing to him at all.
Nineteen
“The hell is the matter with you?” I spit out, detaching her from me completely.
She’s been all over me since I came in, not even letting me get a fucking drink. I push her further onto the couch and then cross the room, fingers reaching for a lighter as I grab a pack of cigarettes from the side. I’m tired, wound up, covered in fucking blood, and ready to annihilate anything that comes within a foot of me.
The last thing I need is whatever this shit is.
“What have you been doing?” she snaps, bitterness in her tone. Fucking bitterness? I spin back to her and light a smoke, eyes like slits at her feral attitude. She stares at my hands and stands as I pull the smoke from my mouth, her fingers pointing at them. “The blood. Why?”
“The hell’s it got to do with you?”
“I want to know.” She edges to the sofa, her ass hovering between sitting down again or remaining upright. I take another pull on the smoke, trying to work out what goddamn planet she’s on at the moment, and go pour myself a drink. She’s been like this for a while, like she’s changed. Not herself. “I need to know, Benjamin,” she stutters. I blow out into the room, looking at her through the haze of smoke. She seems edgy about something, fidgety. She was the same whe
n I walked in. If there are two things my Hope isn’t, it’s those.
“Why the questions?” Her eyes blanch away from me towards the floor for a second, arms wrapping around herself.
“I’m worried.” She might be, but that’s not all. She’s hiding something. Still, won’t harm her to know what hiding something from me gets in return.
“Ripped a cunt’s heart out. Enough information for you?”
Silence ensues for a minute. Thankfully. Although, I’m fucking interested now I’m thinking about this crap. I sip my scotch and keep watching her, remembering the feel of that heart in my fingers. She walks towards me a little, her mouth opening, then turns and looks out of the window, arms still crossed. Should have brought the thing back for her, a gift for those delicate little hands to play with.
“Where’s Quinn?” she eventually asks.
“Fucking his bitch, I expect.” Nothing comes back at that, but her eyes harden as she glares out at the skyline. “Why so interested?”
“You’re smoking again. When did that start?” she asks quietly. I roll my fucking eyes and storm from the room, uninterested in whatever the hell this is turning into. I’m too tired for this, especially given the vengeance still inside my mind. She’s gonna get in a truck load of trouble if she doesn’t back the hell off.
I start peeling the last of my clothes off and head for the shower, discarding them onto the floor. Stupid woman. I haven’t got the fucking energy for her mood swings. Not that I’ve ever noticed her having them before now. Something’s going on in her head, but it can wait until I’m in a better mood. I’m drinking and nothing more. She can damn well wait in there and drink with me, or she can go to bed. I don’t give a fuck anymore.
The shower pelts down on me as I step into it, rinsing the damage I’ve caused off me as it does. The colours run into the drain and I reach for the soap, amused at the sight of the reds swirling together. It’s been a while since I saw that. Years. It makes me check my knuckles and stare at the gashes there. I hadn’t noticed them before now, probably too lost in my own hedonism to give a fuck. I suppose the Cane boys are worth trusting now. Wouldn’t have taken much for him to take one extra shot, wiping me off the face of New York in one fell swoop. Could have been his new town if he pushed hard enough after that. He’s got the goddamn balls for it. I snort. For fuck’s sake. I like him, don’t I? Dick that he is. Guess that’s what comes when you go all in together to hunt threat. Trust.
My fingers scrub into my hair, eyes closed so I can see what we’ve achieved tonight. Apart from the bitch, we’ve managed to get two heads of section removed according to Nathan. Quinn made a call to him while I was dealing with the NYPD interfering in my city. He told him the names of everyone we could find. One of the guys we killed was setting up something big, his intel suggested, been meeting regularly with out of state Yakuza. He’d been following the cunt for some time, or his woman had. I like her. Cute. Loyal. And sharp. Hope needs to get herself a reality check and remember who the hell she is before I go wandering elsewhere.
The thought makes me frown and think of her and my own men, their constant allegiance to me. Whether they’re all here because of the money, the power, or the threat I bring with me, I don’t know. All of the above maybe. Who fucking cares as long as they keep doing what I tell them to? But Tony? He stayed by my side out of friendship. I miss that about him, miss his wry smile when he saw me about to lose it all over someone’s ass. I chuckle a little, remembering Quinn’s chaos filled grin. Violent. Maybe that new wingman is already here. He’s not Tony, but he’s onside; I know that much. And we’ll be strong together going forward. Intelligent. I’ll be able to use them, and they me, to a degree. Carefully.
My fingers wind the shower down, and I step out into the bathroom to towel off. I’m gonna drink, get drunk and relax, lick the wounds on my knuckles and smile about the night’s events. Feels good to be like this. Energizing somehow. Perhaps we can all relax a bit now. The warning should have been clear enough, and that’s just come from me and Quinn. The note I left should have sent enough credence, too. A pair of eyes and a heart knifed into the wall. That, along with the threat of multitudes of us going at them again, should suffice.
Still, no woman, and no Andreas.
That still reeks of problems.
“You want to talk to me now?” I scowl at her voice and head back into the bedroom, towel lobbed at the unit behind me. Talk? No. I snatch at some track pants and head into the lounge, pulling them on as I get to the drinks cabinet so I can pour another long-ass drink. The view stretches out in front of me, lights flickering from all the buildings and the darkness of the park. It’s cute, a fucking world away from what I’ve just been a part of. “Benjamin, what happened?”
“What is this?” I mutter out, bringing the drink to my lips and downing it. “Twenty goddamn questions?”
“No. But when you come home covered in blood, I’d like to know why.”
“You only need to know what I choose to tell you.”
“Not any more. Maybe before.”
“Before what?” What the fuck is she talking about?
“Before the dates. Benjamin, I know my place, but this goes both ways. You can’t play with me like this. Not now. I’ve put up with everything you’ve thrown at me.” Her voice grows more agitated as she goes on. She’s right. She’s taken everything without any questions. Until now.
“It’s just Cane,” she continues. I tip my eyes over my shoulder and reach for the bottle again, wondering what she means. “Everything’s changed since they arrived.” That it has. I smirk, enjoying their effect on me. Fucking politicians and never-ending negotiations. This is the old-school me now, part of what I was meant to be. I refill and down another, not caring for her opinion. “I mean, look at you.”
I do. I look straight into the window and have a good long stare at myself, smiling at the outlook. Dark everything, just as my family was before me, muscles still revved up from earlier.
“You’ve changed. You’re covered in fucking blood for God’s sake.”
“No, you’ve just never seen this before.” Maybe she never would have stood by my side had she known this part of me. I down another drink, enjoying the warmth that burns my throat. “You’ve had the light, Hope.” Wealth, decency, or some element of it anyway. At least since she’s known me. “You didn’t turn up ‘til after the dark. I’ve always been pretty for you.”
“I’ve lived more darkness than you can bear, you condescending asshole.”
The spin of my hand to her face has her ducking out of my way, finger pointed as she glares in return.
“Never again,” she spits. “Enough with that shit.”
My brow arches, amused at the wildcat in her. Words are irrelevant and she damn well knows it. If I feel like hitting her, I will. Not that I do entirely, but she keeps coming at me with crap like that in her mouth and I’ll throttle her with my dick to cause the same effect.
“I’ve been at your side for years. You ask of me and I deliver, whatever it is. Including going on fucking dates with you. Dates, Benjamin. You gave me your home. And now I ask a couple of questions and you block me? This is all Cane. All of it.”
What? I laugh, interested in why she’d think that.
“This is nothing like you. The smoking, drinking. Fighting and blood.” She paces, fidgety again, her hands balling into fists and relaxing. It’s amusing, so I drink and watch some more, waiting for what she really wants to say to come out of that mouth before I force it. “I don’t like them.”
“I do.” They’re my kinda people, and I trust them now, more so than half my fucking team. And her if she keeps this shit going.
“You shouldn’t. They’re no good, Benjamin.”
“They’re not?” I laugh, wondering who the fuck would think any of us are good. Good is something that left long ago, if it was ever even here to begin with. I refill another drink and down some more. I don’t care anymore. She needs to get a gri
p and leave me the hell alone before she gets something she’s not gonna like. “And you’re a fucking saint, I guess, Hope.” Jesus. Stupid bitch. I turn away, scorn for her tone winding me up. “You do know who pays for your expensive ass, right? What I do to earn that money?” Something smacks into the back of my head and bounces off the window. I look down at it and frown. A goddamn shoe? I spin slowly, cautiously, trying to contain the temper that’s riling itself all the way back up. She glares and puts her hands on her hips.
“What the fuck is going on?” I ask, having never known such a stupid fucking move in my life. She knows exactly what’s gonna happen if this carries on.
“I want them gone.”
“Why?”
“I can’t breathe with them here. The conversations, the secrecy.”
“I wouldn’t have to be so fucking secretive if I could trust people, Hope. That shit with the gun and Quinn, what the hell was that? Seems to me like I can't even trust you lately.”
That stops her in her path. The expression shifts on her face and if I were a decent man, I’d give a damn. Fucking hands on hips, at me?
“Who are you, Benjamin? A gangster now?” Always was.
I sneer at her attempt at anger, bored with it, and consider throwing her ass out of the window. The thought makes me grin, amusement coming with the booze, no doubt.
“You think this is funny?” she yells.
No. The last thing I think this is funny. It’s fucking infuriating. And the more she pushes, the less I damn well trust her. “You don’t get to dictate to me. I choose. Cane is part of my world. Now sit your ass down and have a drink.”
“Fuck you. Tell me what happened.”
Every hackle I have rises at her fucking mouth, eyes focused on this threat rather than any other. And if that wasn't enough to wind all hell up in me, Quinn's words filter into my thoughts. Who is she anyway? “What are you hiding, Hope? And think before you open that pretty little mouth of yours again.” She dares snarl at me, pacing to the side of the room and back again.
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