And for what, even if he did? He couldn’t be what she needed. Sexually, maybe. Intellectually even. But emotionally, no. She needed a deep connection, something he wasn’t willing to grant anyone. Not since Arana. Not since his heart had been torn out. He would see this through and then five, ten, fifty years from now, Caitlin would become a distant memory – just like the female he’d been with the night of Arana’s death. He owed his sister far more than some VCU agent. That had to stay forefront in his mind.
But still it simmered: how he could let Max and Rob go with a confession; leave the lycans in the detainment unit to rot; get them to drop Xavier in it first. But none of those things were sufficient justice for what they had done to Arana.
Not just because of the way he was feeling about Caitlin right then.
She had no life anyway, just a lonely and solitary existence based around work. And now even that had been torn apart; she wouldn’t trust anyone again. Her life was over anyway.
But she had fallen for him. The beautiful, brave, closed-off shadow reader had opened up to him. And he could never have softened to her more as she gazed deep into his eyes, her own resonating a deep and painful hurt. It was more than a physical attraction. More than just the thrill. She had seen something in him that she had liked.
And he couldn’t deny how he’d felt when she’d escaped – that excruciating emptiness of not having her there. But he couldn’t live like that. He couldn’t have her in his life when she’d started to mean something to him. He couldn’t have the pressure of worrying about her every day, of needing to protect her, of keeping her happy, of being what she needed him to be. For her to walk away one day when she realised just how damaged he was. Because he was damaged. He was too used to being on his own, of not feeling responsible for anyone, of doing whatever he wanted. Of keeping his finger off the self-destruct button only so he could make the people who had hurt Arana pay. And once that was dealt with, he didn’t know what was out there for him.
He had no place falling for Caitlin. Not for the girl whose self-preservation, even then, was astounding. Many would have given up faced with the things she was, but she was going to fight him to the bitter end. And because of it, one way or another, he was going to end up hurting her.
He needed to get out of there before he acted against his better judgement. He needed fresh air. He needed space from her. He needed to remind himself that she meant nothing. She was just a means to an end.
Her beautiful eyes narrowed in their distress. ‘What was going through your head as you saw me falling for you?’
‘Trust me, you don’t want to know.’
‘Why? Because if I finally see you for what you are, all your progress will be shattered?’
‘Because what is going on in my head is none of your business. I made it clear what I wanted you for. I fucked you, you were willing. That’s all there is to it.’
Caitlin drew back her hand and slapped him hard across the face.
He knew he could have stopped her. But he also knew it was justified. And the pain in her eyes at that moment was excruciating, twisting his insides and sickening him. He took a moment to compose himself then looked back at her. He couldn’t be angry with her or feel indignation towards her when she looked as startled and uncomfortable as she did. It had been an instinctive emotional response and one he could clearly see she hated herself for.
‘I guess I deserved that,’ he said.
Her eyes glossed, her lower lip trembling almost undetectably had he not become used to studying her so closely. ‘Do you really feel so little, Kane?’
He broke from the intensity of her probing gaze, from the need in her eyes. And he hated himself for bringing her to that. Out of all the questions she could have asked him, it was the one that pierced the deepest. And as he looked back into her heartbreaking eyes, honesty slipped from his lips before he could contain it. ‘Sometimes when I touch you it’s almost painful. Standing this close to you now just makes me want to consume you. It makes me want to forget my principles and intentions and just let myself go with you. And right now I’m feeling so close to the edge, it’s taking everything I have to stop myself throwing you down on the floor and forgetting every part of my plan just to have one moment as I really am with you. Only, sure enough, you’d hate me for it. You’d hate me for what I really am. So that’s why I can’t back down, Caitlin. For both our sakes.’
Caitlin snapped back a breath, her eyes flared. He’d thrown her off kilter. He could almost see her playing his words over in her mind. She didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t know what to do with herself.
He glanced at her clenched hands then back at the lips he wanted to graze with his own. And because of this, never more did he need to remind himself of who and what she was, and the damage her family and the people she cared about had done. He had to remind himself of how much she irritated and aggravated him with her dogmatism and defiance. She was a VCU agent. She was the one arrogant enough to think she could hunt him down. He couldn’t feel anything for her. She couldn’t feel anything more for him than infatuation. And that would pass. She could never love him. Not enough. She’d come to hate him. They’d tear each other apart.
But those eyes didn’t glimmer with hatred or anger now, they softened with shock and confusion.
But there was something else. Something he couldn’t work out.
Her lips were parted ready to speak. But she was hesitating. Deliberating. She looked worried. Panicked even.
Betrayal struck him hard and fast, wounding him more than he knew it should have as he realised what had happened.
He caught hold of her wrist and pulled her close. ‘You got to a phone, didn’t you?’
She didn’t even need to answer him – the flare in her eyes said it all.
He let her go and marched up to the wardrobe. He gathered the book and packets from the top shelf.
‘Kane, you have to let me go,’ she said, tears welling behind her eyes.
He didn’t even look at her as he passed her on his way across to the door. He yanked it open and marched across to the car. He opened the passenger door and shoved the book and packets into the glove compartment before pressing the remote for the automatic garage door.
He strode back towards her as the late-night breeze seeped into the enclosure.
‘Kane, please,’ she said, taking a backward step to the threshold.
He caught a scent. Human. Male.
Felt the shot in his back.
Three further shots sent him to his knees.
He heard footsteps. Two sets.
He didn’t need to look over his shoulder.
He knew exactly who it was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Caitlin stared at Max and Rob approaching from the open garage door with their guns still poised, then back at Kane laying face down on the floor.
Max hurried over. ‘Are you okay, Caitlin?’
She nodded as if on autopilot. She should have been elated, overwhelmed with relief. Instead, unease stirred in the pit of her stomach. All she could think about was what Kane had said. Those words hadn’t been about getting her soul, they had been about bearing his own – a soul that didn’t exist but was represented nonetheless by depth and pain and turmoil.
She looked from Kane’s unconscious body back to Max. His face seemed different, unfamiliar, as if she’d been away for weeks. But she knew it wasn’t that. He felt unfamiliar to her because of the secrets that had leaked out. A secret she needed him to deny, even more than she needed Rob to deny it. She needed to know that her father, and Max – the man who had then stepped into his breach – were not capable of what now seemed all too real in her head.
And she felt sick. Had felt physically sick as Kane had looked deep into her eyes during those last moments and told her how he’d felt. Because she’d believed what he’d said. And right there, right then, she needed to know she hadn’t made the worst mistake of her life calling them for help.
Max ste
pped past Kane and hurried over to her as he tucked his gun back in his shoulder holster. He swiftly assessed the grazes on her knees and knuckles, the bandage around her foot. ‘What’s he done to you?’
‘What really happened to Arana, Max?’
She didn’t intend for it to come out that quickly. That directly. She wasn’t even sure she was ready to ask.
The silence was palpable. The panic and disconcertion in his eyes was all the confirmation she needed. But he wasn’t panicking because she had found out – Max was panicking because he realised Kane had found out.
Her heart pounded, almost deafening her. Her attention snapped to Rob, his gun still poised on Kane. The look in his eyes only verified the truth in Max’s.
Max took another step towards her. ‘Caitlin…’ he began, adopting the negotiator tone she was all too familiar with.
She took a step back, uncertain how she would react, flinching and wincing at the pain in her foot despite the generous bandaging. ‘Tell me you didn’t help set her up. That you didn’t give her to those lycans.’
‘Caitlin, this is not the time or the place. I don’t know what Kane—’
‘Tell me!’ she demanded, trembling fiercely.
Max reached for her arm. ‘Okay, Caitlin. We need to get you out of here. We’ll talk back at mine.’
She clenched her fists and took another step back, sickness gathering at the back of her throat. ‘Kane told me Xavier wants him alive. Is that right? That he wants him to work for him. That you killed Arana to get him to do just that. That Xavier set him up because he wasn’t getting his own way.’
Max sighed, his eyes sullen but patient. ‘Caitlin, not even you know how dangerous Kane is. Why do you think he moved to this area? He wants to own this place. Just like he’s owned every other place he’s been allowed to slither his way into. He would take over. Our unit, everything we stand for, would mean nothing compared to the influence he would exude. We couldn’t allow him that power.’
‘So you set him up.’
‘We had to do something to incite him. We had to have him go after the lycans. We had to get enough to convict him outright.’
She swallowed the anger responsible for the lump in her throat. She had never felt the need to defend someone so strongly. Someone who now lay on the floor at her feet because of what she had done. ‘I read those reports, Max. I read what happened to her.’
‘We did what we had to. We did it for the good of this district.’
‘The reports said the lycans tied her to a post, but they didn’t, did they? You did. You all did. Then what? You stood back and watched?’
‘Caitlin, we had tried everything else. He was no innocent. You know the crimes he’s committed. You know how impossible it has been to pin anything on him. Xavier had tried for years. It was a last resort.’
‘So he went after the one and only thing Kane cared about.’
‘He’d already weaved his way into the community. The fact we couldn’t get anyone to speak against him was proof of that. With Kane in control, this district wouldn’t stand a chance. Everything we have to keep order would have been out-ruled. This is what we’re about – to stop them getting too powerful, to protect the masses. You advocate that.’
‘I would never advocate what happened to Arana, what she was subjected to. If Xavier was that desperate, he could have killed Kane. He’s not untouchable. He could have sent in a task force to execute him. But he wanted him alive, right? Xavier wanted Kane Malloy under his thumb to extend his own authority. This is about his power trip, not Kane’s. And you went along with it.’
‘It’s my job. It’s our job.’
‘Our job is to keep the peace and to keep the third species in line, but only to protect them from their own as much as to protect humans.’
‘Be real, Caitlin. You knew there was more going on behind the scenes than just that interrogation room. Do you really think shadow readers are our only ways to get convictions? There are two sides to this business. You knew that the VCU was the darker side of law enforcement. You were warned when you joined that things happen that probably shouldn’t. But we are combating things that have no regards for principles, or morals or laws of any kind.’
‘And some of us fight that with fairness and justice and by upholding what is right.’
‘Kane was a risk to us all. To everything we advocate. He could wipe out our influence within months and then there would be anarchy, and it would be our kind that would suffer. People get caught in the crossfire of a war. It’s a fact. This time it was Arana.’
She stared at Max. The only man she had trusted those last few years now felt like a stranger. ‘How long did it take them to kill her?’
‘It was over in an hour.’
‘An hour.’ Her stomach clenched. ‘You stood by for an hour. You let her be brutalised and murdered and you did nothing. You slaughtered an innocent vampire just to control her brother.’
‘She was no innocent,’ Rob cut in. ‘You don’t know the half of it. She was as dangerous and unruly as him. It was the only option we had to protect our own kind and to protect vulnerable third-species members.’
‘To protect them?’ She exhaled curtly. ‘If Kane hadn’t discovered the truth, you could have started a civil war with your stupidity! Which is exactly what Xavier wanted, wasn’t it? Discord in the ranks and Kane the instigator. Or every lycan baying for his blood until he did exactly what Xavier asked and turned to him for protection. Xavier must have been very disappointed when everything fell quiet. And you must have thought you’d got away with it.’
‘We covered our backs and the backs of those lycans. It was part of the deal. The lycans gave themselves up and we offered them anonymity in order to protect their families.’
‘You put them in an impossible situation, you mean. Damned if they did, damned if they didn’t. And they chose a lifetime in detainment rather than face Kane’s wrath. And you took them in because you didn’t want to risk them spilling the truth. And Xavier let them live in case they ever became useful in his quest for Kane.’ She glanced to the floor and shook her head before looking back up at them. ‘Just tell me Xavier made you do it. Just tell me he threatened you like he threatened those lycans. He threatened my mother. Or me. Tell me you had no choice.’
‘We did what was good for the district.’
Their resoluteness infuriated her. ‘Illegally and immorally. Did my mother know about this?’ she asked, dreading that Max might say yes.
Max shook his head and the sincerity in his eyes told her it was the truth. ‘No.’
‘We have to go,’ Rob said. ‘Now. Those sedatives will only last so long.’
‘Frightened of facing him, Rob?’ she snapped. ‘Because I would be if I were you. I’d be terrified.’
‘I’m sure he hasn’t told you the whole story.’
‘Between him and Jask, I know enough.’
Max’s eyes flared in panic. ‘Jask?’
‘Yes, Max – Jask. They both know. They both told me. Those two lycans went to Jask before they came to you.’
Max glanced across at Rob then looked back at Caitlin. ‘The car’s outside. We’ll get Kane in it and then we’ll talk.’
‘All these years,’ Caitlin said. ‘All these years and you said nothing. You let me chase him down, you let me come on this mission and you said nothing.’
‘I tried to talk you out of it,’ Max reminded her.
‘You should have told me the facts the minute I walked out of that interrogation room!’
‘I tried to stop you. But how could I without letting you know everything else that had happened?’
‘Without telling me the truth, you mean.’
She turned her attention to Rob. ‘You could have told me the night you came around. If you cared anything for me, you would have.’
He should have looked remorseful, but he didn’t. She thought of the times they had shared, the person she thought he was. Now to think of what he was c
apable of sickened her. Any confidence she’d had in her ability to read people had been torn out by those closest to her. Those she should have been able to trust more than any others.
‘We didn’t think Kane could have possibly found out,’ Rob said. ‘We thought he was after you for your shadow-reading. He was coming after you regardless. If you’d known the truth you could have let it slip, and then you would have been at worse risk.’ He looked back at Max. ‘We really have to go.’
‘You’re not taking him to HQ,’ Caitlin warned, her gaze snapping from one to the other. ‘Not now.’
‘We’re not taking him back to HQ,’ Max said.
Caitlin frowned, her chest clenching. ‘Then what are you going to do with him?’
Max looked at Rob. Rob met his gaze. The exchange sent a chill up her back. She was about to demand they tell her, when Max spoke. ‘We need answers from him.’
‘Answers?’ But a split second later, she didn’t need any clarity. Pain lanced her chest at the betrayal. ‘You’ve known all along. Kane was telling the truth about that too. You know it’s coming for me.’
Max held out his hand again. ‘Caitlin–’
Caitlin recoiled. ‘You let me think I was insane for believing there was a link. For thinking it was coming for me. You kept telling me that I was imagining things, looking for patterns in things that weren’t there. Do you know that’s what the counsellor told me? She said I needed resolution. I was punishing myself as sometimes people do when they lose a loved one. And thinking of something coming for me was a comfort. A comfort? She actually used those words.’
‘I wasn’t going to let you live like that, Caitlin,’ Max declared. ‘Letting the years tick away in fear.’
‘You looked me in the eye,’ she said to Max, ‘and you told me there was no link.’ She glowered at Rob. ‘And worse than that, so did you. Is that why you left me, Rob? Were you too ashamed to face me? Or were you too scared of what was coming for me?’
‘We tried to find out what it was,’ Rob insisted. ‘We worked flat out trying to get a name for it so at least we could ask the right questions. But no one would talk to us. No one knew anything.’
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