25. Kinsley

25

KINSLEY

I come to, feeling chilled and disoriented. I open my eyes, then snap them shut again as my head spins.

“It will get easier. Give it a few minutes.”

I frown. “Cannon?”

“Yeah, I came after you. They got me too.”

“It was Rossi?”

“His man, Elf, is the giant. Not sure what they did to you, but they shot me with a Taser and then injected me with something while I was down.”

I slowly peel my eyes open, and Cannon comes into view. I realize he covered me with his jacket at some point.

“How long have we been here?”

“Since last night. It’s after ten in the morning now.”

I rub my head and groan. “It must have been some good stuff to knock me out for so long.”

“Let me help you sit. There is some water.” Cannon sits me up beside him and then hands me a bottle. “It’s not drugged. I drank some when I woke a couple of hours ago, and I’m still okay.”

I nod and guzzle down the water. “Do you know where we are?” I ask, my gaze fixed on the steel bars of our cell.

“The secret bunker on Rossi’s property, I’m guessing. We won’t get out of here without help, which is an issue.”

“How far underground are we? Don’t bunkers go deeper than basements?” I can’t keep the fear out of my voice.

“Don’t think about it.” Cannon wraps an arm around my shoulders and lets me rest my head against him.

“As we are locked under here, will you tell me why you hated my mother?”

“Oh, Kinsley, I never hated Anna. She is the only woman I have ever loved.”

My breath catches in my throat. I lift my face, but he pushes me back into his shoulder. “Let me get this out. It’s painful to speak about.”

“Okay,” I whisper, feeling vulnerable about what he might say.

“I fell in love with your mother when I was sixteen. She was ten years older than me. Employed by my family to tutor me in math. The only subject I ever failed.” He takes a deep breath and releases it slowly. “She was full of life. Had a vibrant way about her. How could I not fall in love with her?” His voice turns wistful. “I hid my feelings from everyone, even Beckett. He used to tease me about my pretty tutor.” He pauses.

I stay silent, hoping he continues.

He does. “Everything changed after my seventeenth birthday. We were out by the lake near my house. There is a ten-foot drop from part of the embankment. A dog came out of nowhere and knocked her into the water. I jumped in after her, scared she might have been hurt or worse. I got her out of the water and didn’t think. I just kissed her.”

I glance at Cannon as shock races through me. “You loved your father’s?—”

He covers my mouth with a hand.

“Kinsley, my father never touched her. It was me. It was me she fell in love with.”

“Oh!” Realization dawns on me.

“We loved each other, Kinsley. I had to go away for a geography field trip. When I returned home, she was gone. My father told me she’d married Jude. I went crazy. He told me to stay away, or he would have her jailed.”

“You’re my father, Cannon. That’s what you’re telling me, isn’t it?”

He nods and swallows hard. “I didn’t listen to my father. I couldn’t believe she would marry someone else, regardless of the threat. But she did. I hadn’t known she was pregnant. You see, I was still seventeen at the time, and my father had convinced her that he’d have her charged with rape if she didn’t stay away from me. Jude agreed to marry her.”

“Oh God!”

“I was there when you were born, Kinsley. I held you. I fed you. I changed your diapers. I saw you every week until you started to talk, then it had to be from a distance. It killed me. We couldn’t risk you telling anyone about me.”

I stare at him in silence, at a loss for words.

“Jude loved Anna,” he continues, “but he couldn’t be the husband you’d expect. He had, um, sexual issues, which is why he agreed to marry her. Although we lived apart, Anna and I were together up until her…death.”

I can’t help but notice how he struggled over the word “death.” It’s clear he truly loved my mother.

I cling to him as we both cry. I’m not sure how long we remain like this, but eventually, we settle into silence. Then I ask, “How did you come to have the necklace?”

“Jude had a meeting at a hotel, and Anna went with him to be with me. They left ten minutes before I did. We traveled the same route. I came upon the accident.” He stops, his voice raw with emotion. “I found her… Sh-She was barely hanging on. She told me she loved me and to look after our daughter. She died in my arms.” He swallows hard. “I took the necklace, wanting to keep it. But then I thought of you, our daughter. You deserved to have it. There is an engraving on the reverse side.”

I shove my fingers into my dress and pull out the chain. I turn the heart over and read the inscription.

I will always love you.

CE x

I place the chain over my neck and crawl into Cannon’s lap. I cry in his arms.

“I love you, Kinsley. I have since the second I knew your mother was carrying you.”

“You’re my daddy.” A sob breaks free.

The silence is shattered by the sound of hands clapping. “How touching,” Rossi sneers.

I jump up and grab the steel bars. “Tiberius will tear you apart when he finds us.”

Cannon moves close and pulls me away from the bars, shifting me behind me.

“Us?” Rossi asks. “There is only one of you to find.” He pulls out a gun and fires.

I scream as Cannon crumples to the floor. “No! You bastard!”

I fling myself down beside Cannon—my father—begging him to wake up. I gather his head into my lap and let out a piercing scream—then another, and another. I curl my body over him and sob. Tears flow freely as I whisper words of regret to his lifeless body. The pain in my chest is unbearable—a physical ache that matches the emptiness in my heart. Nothing will ever be the same. I only had a brief chance to get to know him, and now that bastard has taken that from me. Taken him.

When I lift my face, I find Aldo is still in the room.

“Go to hell! I will kill you, and I will kill your daughter,” I promise, meaning every word of it.

“Don’t you want to know why I took you?”

"Fuck you!"

"I can see you are not ready to listen to me," he says and exits the room, leaving me alone with Cannon’s body.

I whisper, "Daddy, I'm so sorry.”

Sometime later, two men enter the room. They watch me carefully as they unlock the cell.

“What are you doing?” I glare at them.

“Getting rid of him,” one replies, indicating Cannon.

I snarl and cover as much of Cannon as I can reach. “You’re not taking him anywhere.”

“Like hell they’ll listen to you.” The huge giant from last night enters the cell and lifts me up.

I kick and scream, trying to get free as the two men remove Cannon—my daddy.

“No!” I shout at the top of my lungs.

I bite down hard on the giant’s hand. He drops me to the floor and grabs a handful of my hair.

“You bitch.” He drags me to my feet and slams his fist into my face, leaving me to see fucking stars.

The bunker door creaks open, and footsteps approach. I peer out of my left eye as my right is swollen shut.

A huge man stands behind Rossi, and when he speaks, I recognize his voice. He is the man I heard meeting with Jude that day I came home from school early. Now I know he was there on Rossi’s behalf.

“Will you listen to me now?” Rossi asks.

The large man places a chair outside my cell for Rossi to sit.

“That’s better. I am sorry about Cannon.”

“No, you are not. He was my father, and you killed him.”

“Cannon wanted to be a real father to you since the day you were born. I will give him that. When he loved, he loved fiercely. I knew it would be a matter of time before I had to kill him. I knew he would come for me once he figured out I had Anna killed. She was an accident. Jude was the one I wanted dead. She wasn’t supposed to be in the car with him. Pierce found out what I’d planned for Jude, so he had to die to keep quiet.” Rossi waves a hand around, done with that part of the conversation.

“You deserve to rot in hell for what you’ve done,” I say through gritted teeth.

“Oh, don’t be so judgmental. Beckett has blood on his hands too.”

“I know,” I snap.

He stares at me a moment before continuing, “So do you want to help me before someone else you love dies?”

“Will you let me go?”

“Eventually.”

I laugh. “Sure, you will. I know things now. I saw you kill my father. You also killed my mother, my grandfather, and Jude.”

“It’s Jude now, is it?”

“Why did you want him dead?”

“Because he was working with me.”

I frown and tilt my head. “I don’t understand. Jude was a good man.”

“To you, yes. But he was a liar, a killer, and a thief. He paid the price for it.”

“So did my mother and father,” I snap. “Why am I here?”

“You are here because I want my drugs back, and Beckett will bring them to me in exchange for you.”

“You expect me to believe you are just going to let the exchange take place? And how will you explain killing my father? I won’t let you lie. You killed him in cold blood.”

“He should have stayed out of my business,” Rossi roars. “Right now, Beckett is running around blaming Edge for taking you. Eventually, he will find out it was me. Then we will deal. So, get comfortable, Kinsley. You could be in for a long wait.”

He waves a hand over his shoulder, and a large cooler, along with a food container, is carried into the room. “Dinner, drinks, and snacks,” he says. Another man carries in a plastic bag. “These are yours from the house,” Aldo snickers. “Marie brought them for you.”

The cell door opens, and everything is placed on the floor.

“I suggest you keep your strength up.”

Once I’m alone, I look in the bag and find my sweater, jeans, and black biker boots. Should I be grateful Marie rummaged through my things?

Of all people, I never suspected her to be a traitor.

I look around my cell.

I’m alone.

My real father is dead.

And Marie, whom I thought of as a friend, turned out to be an enemy.