Chapter 5

five

Kane

True to her word, Candace called Tav and Cash. I haven’t been able to leave the hospital as I wait for the test results that determine whether or not she’s staying in the hospital or free to go home. She’s not going home to the place she was assaulted. I won’t let her.

Fuck.Dropping my head into my hands, I see the image of her bruised face with the stitched cuts branded there on my eyelids. Those eyes had looked at me with such fear only a week ago. For a week, I’d thought of little else but her. Hell, she’d entered my thoughts so much, I’d thought, feared, I was edging on obsession. The thing that made my father crazy for my mother. The illness she vowed she loved him for regardless.

It’d been that fear that stopped me from looking for her. From using her license plate number to find her. From crossing boundaries better left uncrossed.

A heavy hand falls on my shoulder. “Worried about you, man.”

“Yeah.” I say, and add in my mind, me too.

There’s a heavy pause before Cash mutters, “Been off since Wrenlee.”

It’s hard for him to say those words. Hard for him to go back to that place. Harder for him than me. Still, I flinch. But I say nothing. I allow not a single thought to pass my lips. Not a, “The death-gray color of her skin haunts me in the night.” Not, “The way you screamed her name like a prayer and threat to Heaven above scarred me.” Not, “I’d thought she’d been killed. Murdered. Snuffed out. Just like⁠—"

I cut off the thought. I’m not going there. Can’t go there.

It’s the reason I left my home and family behind. The training. The flame I’d snuffed and the mother that had screamed. The way her knees had cracked against cement in grief, my father’s hand on my shoulder as he made me relay the news—her child had been a traitor.

Show no mercy.

Entertain no compassion.

Stand tall at the top.

“You’re a monster who walks within the skin of a man.”

I force the thoughts from my mind. The memories. All I’d done before and after.

I keep the monster contained now. Imprisoned. Under sex-heavy sedation.

But I’ll let him free for her.

I’ll let him loose on the world—let him demolish everything—for her. For Sunshine.

For warmth where I’ve felt nothing but barren cold for so long.

I lift my head from my hands, seeing my brother’s look at me with caution. “She’s mine.”

I haven’t shared my past with my brothers, not really. They know what I can let them know. It’s as much to protect them as it is to keep their opinions of me intact. That mask fitted firmly in place. I’m the fun guy. The never-serious, fling-loving, guy. For a while, I enjoyed living life so carefree. After the way I’d been raised, a man of two faces, the back-up to the golden boy who sits on the throne of Volk Vault Bank, and the next in line to the devil who rules over the hell of the Volkov Bratva. I’m the third brother. The spare. The one who takes over when the first fails—if the first fails. It’s no wonder I have multiple personalities. That I flip between masks as easily as another might change an outfit.

Clearing my throat, I sit back to look at my chosen brothers. The men born into families I was initially sent to infiltrate, to grow connections with for both sides of the Volkov businesses. They’ve become so much more than connections. They’re my family.

I say again, “She’s mine.”

“Yours?” Tav’s deep voice charges the small corner of the hospital waiting room where we’ve gathered. “How do you even know her?”

“My soul knows her,” I explain simply, using the explanation my mother uses when she speaks of my father. “I’ll get to know her.”

Tav looks at me like I’m insane, his eyes darting to Cash and communicating a silent but clear, ‘Should we commit him?’ that has Cash shaking his head.

Cash leans forward to plant his elbows on his knees. “How are you planning to do that?”

“I’m going to take her home with me. She’ll be safe with me.”

Tav chokes, but gathers himself quickly enough to say, “You know you can’t make her move in with you?”

Cash chuckles deep and low. We both look to him as he shrugs. “I kind of did with Wrenlee.”

Silence. It throbs between us as we stare, dumbstruck, at our friend.

My ears ring.

“Come again?” Tav is the first to speak.

“Second that,” I mutter, eyes locked on my friend.

Cash rubs the back of his neck. “It’s a long story.”

“Got time,” I assure.

He shrugs again, like it makes no difference to him. “We started fake.”

“What-now?” Tav shakes his head, face scrunching in disbelief, like he thinks Cash is pulling our leg. He’s not, I can tell. Tav’s pitch is high when he asks, “Fake?”

“Overheard Addy from Addy’s Ace telling Wrenlee she sucked at waitressing. Wasn’t cutting it and was close to firing her. I’d been watching Wren already, so I knew I wanted her. Didn’t know how I’d make a girl like her interested in a man like me, but when I overheard that conversation after we’d played one night at the club, I knew I had my in. I propositioned her to be my fake girlfriend, move in with me, show the world I was off-limits. In exchange, I provided a safe place for her to live, food, and the ability to sleep without working herself dead. With her in my space, it wasn’t so hard to make her fall for me.”

“You freaky fuck. You stalked the girl before you manipulated her into falling in love with you,” Tav accuses, wagging his finger at Cash in reprimand that makes Cash grin like the genius he is. “That’s what was happening that night I caught you cornering her in the hall at Addy’s Ace, wasn’t it? Because before I knew it, her ass was living with you.”

“That’s the night.”

“Shit.” Tav blinks and repeats, “Shiiit.”

“Genius,” I breathe.

Cash sits up straight. “If you’re serious about the girl, all you gotta do is make her an offer she can’t refuse. Table something she can’t deny, and make sure you get her out of the deal.”

I grin wide at my brother and tell him again, “Genius.”

Tav just mutters, “Here we go.”