by Tijan
“The climactic part was finding her,” he said.
“Coming! Hold on. This door jams sometimes.”
It was Brooke. She was fumbling with the door.
She started to open it, but it got stuck. “Oomph! So sorry. Again. Crappers. I don’t have the strength.” One big tug and the door swung open, almost clipping her in the face.
I kept my face half turned, my eyes drilling into Kai’s.
He’d been casual, but the closer Brooke came to facing us, all that dropped from his face.
His jaw firmed, and he straightened from where he’d leaned on the wall.
Brooke pulled the door all the way open and stopped, staring at me. “Uh… Where’s the food?”
My chest lifted, and I pivoted swiftly to look at my old roommate.
Her eyes popped open and her mouth fell. “Wait! What? Riley?!” She started to step out at the same time Kai decided he’d had enough.
He spoke into his hand. “GO!”
And he moved forward at an alarming speed. He had grabbed her around the throat, pushing her inside, before either of us comprehended what was going on. Once inside, he held her against the wall.
“Wha—KAI!” She began twisting around, hitting at his arm.
“Kai!” I tried to pull him off.
His arm was cement solid, but I could see the hold he had on her throat was tightly controlled. He wasn’t hurting her, just pinning her in place. She wasn’t gasping for breath. I didn’t think there’d even be redness when he let her go.
Her eyes were wild, taking me in too. She flailed and jerked like a wild animal.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER, YOU ANIMAL? YOU PIECE OF SHIT. YOU MURDERER. YOU—”
“Enough!” he roared.
The front door of the house busted in, and his guards began a sweep.
Kai looked around, still holding her in place. “Who else is here, Brooke? Who else is here?”
She couldn’t stop looking between us. “No one! And why is Riley here? What did you do to her? You brought her into this?!”
He snapped back to her, moving to invade her space. “No.” His nostrils flared. “You did. You brought her into this the second you showed up at her house, and you know it.” His jaw clenched, a vein pulsing at the side of his neck.
Brooke saw it too, and gave up the fight. Her head leaned back against the wall, and her hands fell to her sides.
She began crying instead. “What did you do to him? You’re the reason he’s not answering my calls today, aren’t you? What’d you do to him, Kai?” Her hand balled into a fist. She raised it and pressed down on his arm. “Please, Kai. Don’t hurt him. I love him. Please don’t hurt him.”
I backed away.
The guards were moving behind us. Three thundered downstairs.
Their yells of “clear” ricocheted around us.
“What is she talking about?”
Both Bennetts heard my quiet question. Both stilled.
Brooke frowned, her bottom lip pausing in its trembling. Understanding dawned, and her fist fell away from his arm again. “Oh, Kai.” A whispered regret. “What did you do?”
“All clear,” one of his guards yelled for the last time.
Kai dropped his arm from his sister and pointed downstairs. “Down. Now.”
She pulled her gaze from me, meeting his. “What did you do to both of us?”
She didn’t expect an answer. A defeated slump in her shoulders, she headed down.
I started to follow.
Kai’s hand touched my hip, halting me.
He inclined his head, his voice so soft only I could hear. “Please don’t think the worst of me right now.” He caressed my waist a moment, then rested his forehead to mine and expelled a sudden rush of air. His entire body had been tense. Some of it now dissipated.
I watched as the tension returned, and he moved away, his head down.
“I haven’t earned it with this one,” he added.
He went downstairs to deal with his sister, and as was my pattern, I followed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“Pack.”
Kai pointed to the bedroom as soon as he got downstairs.
The basement was filthy. There wasn’t a better word to describe it. The couch Brooke sat on looked like it had dried milk on one end, right over its mustard paisley pattern. The rest of the room wasn’t any better. Empty water bottles filled one corner. Pizza boxes littered the floor. A television sat on a card table, a PlayStation on top and game controllers down below. A faint musty smell lingered, mixing with old cigarettes and dried puke.
The Network didn’t use places like this. If the upstairs looked the same, I would’ve tagged this as an addict’s house. The Network used empty apartments, houses that had been foreclosed. Not places like this.
Brooke remained on the couch, at the one end that seemed fine to sit on. Her hands were tucked between her legs, and her eyes narrowed on me again before she wrinkled her nose. Raising her chin, she rolled her shoulders back.
“I will not.”
“You will too.”
Kai went to the bedroom, grabbing a bag from the ground and throwing it onto the unmade bed.
“Kai, don’t!” Brooke was off the couch, heading in.
He began rifling through the closet, tossing clothes onto the bed. He threw another handful over his shoulder. “Start packing, Brooke. I mean it. You are not staying here.”
She grabbed the clothes from the bed and began putting them away in a drawer.
I watched for a second. There was something slightly comedic about this, and in that second, I knew Kai was telling the truth. This was a sibling fight. Brooke huffed, her eyes strained. She wasn’t crying, pleading. She wasn’t scared for her life. She was…annoyed.
She’d been wailing before, but the second he began to force her to leave, her chest puffed up in indignation.
“You lied to me.”
I hadn’t meant to say it, and both of them paused and looked over at me.
I stared at Brooke, the wind knocked out of me.
She bit her lip and her head folded down, but not before I saw the regret.
“You told me it was life or death. You told me if he found you, he would kill you.”
I was floored.
My voice rose. “You have no idea what I’ve put myself through, what you put me through! Was your boyfriend worth it?”
She looked back up. A shimmer of tears rested there, ready to spill. “What do you know about him?”
I could feel Kai watching me, could feel the weight of his gaze.
I moved my head from side to side, resting a hand on the doorframe. My legs felt as if they could go out from under me. “Just that all this was for him. Were you ever scared your brother would hurt you?”
“Yes!” She clutched a shirt to her chest. “Levi is everything to me. Everything! He’s my air, my food, my—my—my world! He’s the sun and the moon and the stars…”
Then where is he?
If he was the reason for all of this, why wasn’t he with her? Why had we gone to New York?
But I didn’t ask those questions, because my loyalty had switched. I moved to stand behind Kai.
He cut her off, tossing the rest of the clothes on the bed. “Enough talk. Fill your bag or I’ll have my men take you outside while I fill it. Those are your choices. Do it now.” He brushed past, stopping to talk to a guard before heading up the stairs.
Brooke watched him go, and she broke out in a sob, collapsing on the bed.
“Everything is ruined. Everything I was trying to do. All gone.” Tears slid down her face. “Did Kai tell you anything?”
I sat next to her, rubbing her back. “No.”
Her whole body shuddered. “Levi and I met in Mexico. It was a spring trip with a few female friends, ones Kai approves of.” She snorted, wiping a hand over her face. “Hell, I can’t make just him the bad guy. Tanner and Jonah, they’re as bad. But these girls are daughters of our c
olleagues, if you know what I mean. Other families.”
Other mafia princesses. I bobbed my head. “Got it.”
“Levi came along because he knew one of the girls, and we hit it off. It was a crazy week. If you’ve ever had a fling, think on that and multiply it by ten—instant love. And I mean it. I can feel it in every inch of my body.”
She crumpled the shirt into a tight ball as she spoke.
“I know I can come off as frivolous and empty, a spoiled mafia princess, but I’m not. Levi saw that. He saw through what everyone else doesn’t care to look past. I love him so much, Riley. I don’t know what I’ll do if Kai hurts him.”
“Where is he?”
She shifted to face me. Her crying stopped. “You mean you don’t know? I would’ve thought Kai would say something. He always had a soft spot for you.”
What? “A soft spot?”
“Yeah. When I left school, he kept tabs on you. I asked him to in the beginning, but when you went into the 411, I told him to stop. He didn’t. I lied about the P.I.”
I snorted. “Really?”
But the soft spot…
“What has he said to you?” She drew her leg up and leaned forward. Her eyes grew determined.
A guard came down the stairs at that moment.
Brooke moved back, watching him.
“Boss said to finish up.” He looked at me. “He wants you upstairs.”
Brooke flicked her eyes upward. “Yeah, yeah. We’re going.” But she cast me a quizzical look as I stood and crossed the room for the stairs.
Kai was leaving the kitchen as I arrived, his lips pressed together.
I felt his fury blasting me. “Did she say anything to you?” he asked gruffly.
Really? A soft spot?
“Not really. Just that Levi is the galaxy to her.”
His lips thinned, a shadow of a grin there, but it vanished right away. He stepped behind me, his hand coming to the small of my back. “Let’s go.”
I tried to look over his shoulder, to see whatever had made him so furious, but he moved to block my view.
“It’s better if you don’t see.” His words were soft, but laced with authority.
I looked down and went outside, Kai still behind me. I started for the car, but he urged me toward one of the SUVs.
When I got in, he lingered in the opened door. “Do you want to ride with Brooke?”
I always kept myself walled in, protecting my feelings. But little by little, that wall to him was being chipped away. I felt anger and hurt at Brooke for what she’d done, but there was more for him. Just more of the other feelings.
“If you’d asked me that an hour ago, I would’ve said yes. But now, I want…” I took a deep breath, trying to see my way clearly. “You.”
His eyes darkened. Desire, lust, and another ominous emotion wound its way down my spine.
“Give me a moment.” Then he was gone.
A few minutes later, he slid back in next to me.
The guards led Brooke past our SUV into another one parked in front of us. Two guards got in on either side of her, and a minute later, our whole caravan was leaving.
We turned down the block, then went around the corner to the next block—the street behind the house Brooke had been in.
I felt the explosion through the SUV’s floorboards. It was that powerful. Twisting around, I found myself speechless for the third time since coming to this state. I couldn’t say or do anything.
I could only stare at the fire lighting up the sky, the dark black smoke swirling up around it.
Kai had blown up the house.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
We drove north, away from the city.
We kept on for five hours before we turned off onto smaller roads, and finally we turned on to a gravel road again. This place felt similar to the New York home, with the driveway that wound back into a forest of pine trees for almost a mile. Finally we pulled up to the cabin, which perched on a cliffside overlooking a lake. It was still large for my standards, but not one of the oversized mansions we’d been using. Water stretched out for what seemed like another mile around us. We were so far up, it was a little scary.
Forest packed us in, with trees that seemed to stretch as far as the water did. Miles and miles. Stepping out and stretching my legs, I took it all in. A shiver went down my spine. I couldn’t even see the roads out there, though I knew they were there. We’d just come from one.
Looking for even another house nearby, I saw nothing.
That shiver doubled, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I wrapped my arms more tightly around myself, and Kai approached. He didn’t touch me, but he studied me, his eyebrows pulling together.
“You okay?”
Brooke got out of her vehicle, her bag close to her chest. She marched past us, glowering. “Traitor,” she hissed under her breath.
Something inside me snapped. “YOU LIED TO ME!”
I wasn’t sure who was more shocked by my outburst. I think me.
“You have no idea what you have done, what lives you have uprooted, what futures you have changed,” I told her in a fury. “No idea! Your lie had a domino effect. It brought your brother to me. It pulled me out of the life I was living, a life I loved. It brought me away from my roommates, my job, my mission in life—and it’s not even just me. Hiders from my Network were affected by your decision. My roommate was affected. You, you—since leaving my father, everything has made sense in my world. Everything. I knew right and wrong. I was good at what I did. I loved what I did, and then your brother had me brought to him, and ever since then, everything has been turned upside down. All because of you. All because of your lie!”
I started forward, ready to slap her. But I caught myself.
No one said a word. Brooke gasped and jumped in reflex, but even she didn’t speak.
They all would’ve let me hit her.
I stopped myself. I did. Not them. That clicked with me.
There was no moral compass here. They were mafia. They worked for the mafia. A slap was nothing to them, but that wasn’t true for me. Not for the little girl who cowered before her father, or the teenager who ran from him, or the adult who was defying him.
I’d been waiting, hoping to lean on others for cues about what to do or where to go. Blade had helped with that before. Carol too. My job. Even the people we hid. But it wasn’t the same here.
I was alone.
Breathing hard, my ribs feeling stretched, I lowered my hand.
But I did not apologize. I would not. It was wrong to use violence, but I wasn’t wrong to have the emotion behind it. Just like it was wrong to act on jealousy. It was an emotion just like all others. You couldn’t deny an emotion. If you did, that sucker burrowed down inside you and would work its way out whether you wanted it or not.
Am I jealous of Brooke? I asked myself.
I was.
I was jealous she had a family who loved her. I was jealous she had a family of brothers, because even though Kai was furious with her, he loved her. So did Tanner and Jonah.
My throat stung. “Words matter.” My voice was hollow, but I had to still say it. “Actions matter. To be reckless with words is to be selfish, and combine that with power, and it is dangerous. Be better.”
I walked past her. I walked past the guards around her, and I moved past the house.
There was a trail leading around the side, going into the woods.
I started down to it.
“He—”
“Leave her,” Kai spoke over the guard.
I didn’t hear whatever else he said. I had already slipped away into the trees.
• • •
A twig snapped, and I looked up.
I had walked for a mile until I came upon a large boulder. It was on the side of the trail, stuck firmly into the ground overlooking a small clearing in the trees. The lake glistened before me.
I didn’t move as Kai came to sit next t
o me. There was just enough room for two of us. Perhaps a third could’ve climbed on behind, but for now, two was perfect.
“I’ll never be a Hider again.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I wondered what that was about.”
“You are a murderer. You hurt people. You traffic women across the nation.” I caught his look and amended, “If you don’t, you allow it. Drugs. Guns. There are so many horrible things you do.”
He kept quiet, letting me talk.
“I loathed you.” My gut rolled over. “I loathe what you do. I don’t think that’ll ever change.”
He nodded, looking at the lake again.
I watched his profile, adding softly, “But I’m beginning to hate myself instead.”
He tensed, his eyes closing.
“You are a big part of the ‘bad’ in life, and I was part of the ‘good.’ I was doing my part. That’s what I told myself. I liked that feeling. In some small way, I was giving my father a middle finger because while he was in Milwaukee hurting someone, I was helping someone twenty hours from him. It meant something to me.”
My chest hurt. I took a deep breath.
“Then your sister showed up, and everything was destroyed. It seemed like it took days, weeks, the last month, but in reality, it took only the moment when she decided to come find me. I helped her. I told her how to hide from security cameras. I told her to use a disguise, walk with someone else, literally be someone else. I didn’t tell her to pretend to be an elderly woman, but she took my advice. She evaded you because of me. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
It was a weird emotion, feeling at the precipice of two worlds. I’d been fighting against admitting this, but I couldn’t any longer.
“I’m going back to my father,” I said.
Kai turned to look at me, a strong emotion shining in his eyes.
I didn’t name it. I looked away. I didn’t care.
“He can’t hurt my cousin. He can’t hurt anyone else. He has to pay for what he did to my mother, what he wanted to do to my mother.”
“I’ll help you—”
“No.” I was firm. “I want to do this myself. I have to.”
He was quiet before nodding. “Okay. When?”