by Sienna Blake
I expect him to argue. But he doesn’t. There’s long pause and then the door closes. He’s gone. He gave up. So easily. I can’t help the slump of my shoulders.
All of a sudden my chair is being lifted with me in it. I repress a startled scream. Holy Jesus. Caden hasn’t left. The bastard closed the door behind him and crept across the room like a goddamn ninja. He has grabbed the two sides of the chair and is lifting it up. Jesus Christ, what does this guy eat for breakfast? Steel bolts and iron bars?
The chair tilts back as he stands up straight and my back falls against him. The heat of him warms me instantly and I almost melt against him. No. I can’t touch him right now. Not if I wish to stand my ground. I clutch for the chair arms and my hands grab the tops of his strong, warm hands. Crap. I snatch my hands away from his and grab at the front edge of the seat. I pull my torso forward towards my thighs so that my back is no longer against his chest. Caden starts to turn us around.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand with as much dignity as I can whilst clinging to this piece of furniture mid-air, legs dangling like a child who can’t touch the floor with her feet.
“Picking up this chair.”
I roll my eyes even though he can’t see it. “Yes, I can see that. Why are you picking up this chair?”
“‘Cause I want to move it.”
“Excuse me. Did you not notice that I’m currently in it?”
“Oh, really?”
I repress the urge to hit him. “Well I demand that you put me down this instant.”
I feel myself descending and I clutch onto the chair tighter. The chair jolts slightly when it touches the carpet and stabilizes on the ground. Well I’ll be. He actually listened to me.
Then I see he has turned the chair around a complete 180 degrees so that I’m now facing the room instead of out of the window. He moves around me so that he’s standing in front of me. I realize he didn’t put me down because I asked him to, he put me down exactly where he intended to put me down.
I stand up, glaring at him with all the venom I feel. “You have some nerve−”
“Sit down. Please.” He pushes me down with his hands on my shoulders and I plonk back onto the seat. He kneels down in front of me so we are eye to eye.
“You’re being a bastard.”
He snorts. “What’s new?”
“This is no way to treat me. I’m a material witness.”
“Kitten−”
“I demand to be transferred to another safehouse with other cops. Anyone else but you.”
“Kitten, please−”
“Right now. I want to go right now. I’m going to file a report with your supervisor for−”
“Will you shut up for one second? Jesus Christ, I’m trying to apologize to you.”
I huff and cross my arms. He can apologize all he wants. I don’t care. I can tell he’s trying to catch my eye, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of looking back at him.
He begins, “I… I made a mistake. A big mistake.”
I squirm in my seat, conscious of the way he crowds out the air that I’m struggling to breathe, conscious of the way his gaze paints heat across my body. I clear my throat. “Thank you. It’s very big of you to admit that. Now please leave me alone.”
“I’m not finished.”
“Yeah, well I am.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me that.”
I hate him. I turn my head first, keeping my gaze lowered. I see his hands resting on either side of my legs on the seat, close but not touching me. I lift my chin up. Then finally I lift my gaze to his eyes. “We’re finished,” I barely whisper out.
“You’re lying. This isn’t over. This…” He lifts one hand, brushing past my thigh as he does. The light touch sears me and makes my muscles clench. He points his finger between us, “This is not even close to being over.”
“FYI, you suck at apologies.”
“Kitten, please.”
I say nothing. I just glare at the wall.
He sighs. “I know, I haven’t been the most forthcoming about who I am. When you live the kind of life I have for so long, keeping secrets just becomes a part of you. You get so used to being someone else that who you are feels… like a lie. Who I am doesn’t feel like enough. This isn’t an excuse for the way I am. I’m just trying to make you understand.”
“I understand why you feel like you need to hide things from me. But it’s not enough for me anymore, Caden.”
“I know. I know. I want that to change with you. I want to… try. But you need to be patient with me. I’m asking you to be patient with me.” He reaches for my arm, still crossed over me like a shield, eyeing me as if he’s afraid I might run away. I let him touch me but I don’t move. I’m not sure that I can.
The first hot tear escapes my eye and drops to my lap.
“Oh, kitten,” he breathes as his fingers move to brush my cheek. “I know why you want to walk away. I know all the reasons you should, even all the reasons that you don’t know yet. But I won’t let you go without a fight. And if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s to fight for something. I’m going to fight for you. If you don’t say you’ll let me try, really try to change today, that’s okay. I’ll come back tomorrow and the day after and the day after for however many days it takes to win another chance with you.”
“I’m sure that’s called stalking.”
“It’s not stalking if you’re in my house.”
“No, you’re right. That’s called kidnapping and holding me against my will.”
“It’s called protecting you, keeping you safe. I’m not going to apologize for doing that. Ever.”
“I−”
He interrupts me with a hand. “I want to show you something and I promise if you let me I’ll leave you alone afterwards. If that’s what you want.”
“You’ll leave me alone? Really?”
“Well,” he gives me a small smile, “at least until tomorrow.”
I sigh. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
“Of course you do. You can choose to say no and I’ll come back tomorrow and try again.”
I snort. “Okay. Fine. Show me whatever it is.”
Caden stands up and holds out a hand for me.
I stare at it. “I don’t think−”
“Just take my hand.”
I sigh and place my hand in his. I hate the way my hand fits in his.
He leads me through the mansion and we walk in silence. All the while my mind is whirring. Where is he taking me? What is he going to show me?
Finally we come to a closed door. I frown at it. I thought that he might take me to the locked room, but this isn’t it. Why this room? What’s so significant about this room? I’m sure I looked inside this room yesterday when I was wandering around, but I can’t remember what was inside. Caden pauses, his hand on the handle. I hold my breath. He glances over to me. Then he pushes down the handle and opens the door.
I take a few steps inside the room and frown. Even in the dimness I can see that it’s empty. Caden turns on the light behind me. The room is another large and high ceilinged space. The walls are finished with this gorgeous dark green and black flocked wallpaper, the curtains that fall down from the three tall casement windows are a matching green. But the floor is bared down to the structural flooring. All the carpet has been ripped away.
What is this place?
I turn to see Caden stepping to a spot near the door. I realize that the concrete below his feet is slightly discolored.
He swallows and clears his throat. “My sister, Hayley… she died here.”
Oh my God. This is the room. This was Mr. Lexington’s office where he, his wife and his daughter were murdered.
I stare at Caden. I want to go to him but I’m rooted to the spot. I want to say something, anything, but what the hell do you say to a man who is standing where his sister was murdered fifteen years ago?
He continues talking, his eyes fading to a d
ull moss. “They killed her first. She wasn’t even supposed to be here. But she must have woken up, heard something… come to investigate…”
Caden walks to the center of the room to another discolored spot, his footsteps echoing his solo march. I turn toward the spot silently as my eyes follow him.
“This is where my mother died. They made my father…” his voice breaks, “they made him watch before they killed him…” He took two steps to a final patch of stained concrete. He opens his mouth but nothing more comes out.
My heart breaks into pieces as I watch Caden, the towering strong man he is, transform into a scared boy of nineteen before me.
“Oh my God,” I realize, “You’re the one that found them. Caden, I’m so sorry.”
He looks over to me and his face looks so lost and scared that I can’t help the tears forming in my eyes.
“I didn’t find them.” His voice is just a whisper. “I watched them die.”
Chapter Nineteen
My mouth drops open in shock. “You… watched them…”
Caden turns and walks over to the wall to a huge black fireplace so tall that the mantle would be up to my shoulder. I follow him and stop a few paces from where he stands by the fireplace.
He takes a deep breath before he speaks again. “My grandfather built this house. He was paranoid about all sorts of things, he was especially scared that we would be broken into. He made all sorts of secret passageways, escape routes, hidden rooms in this house just in case... not that it ultimately helped.”
I watch him fiddle with a spot on the engraving in the mantle and I hear something click. He steps into the large grate and pushes at the back section. I gasp when it moves. It’s a secret door, hinged in the center of the fireplace and made to swivel.
“I was supposed to be here that night. In bed after a night of dutiful study. But… I never wanted to heed my father’s rules. I had snuck out earlier that night. This passageway goes from the servant’s quarters and passes by here on the way to my room. I was sneaking back in when I heard noises from this room. So I stopped…”
“But…” I say as I remember the article, “you were out… you were with your girlfriend. You lied?” The blood drains from my face. “Why? Why did you lie?”
“Don’t you get it? I stood here, and watched as those bastards killed my whole family. My little sister rushed in. But I didn’t even move.” His face screws up. “I didn’t even try to save them. I was here, watching them, but I didn’t try to save them.”
“Caden, you can’t think like that. You were just a boy… you would have been terrified.”
“I was nineteen and a coward.”
“They would have killed you too.”
“Maybe it would have been better that way.”
I gasp. “Don’t say that.”
He turns away from me to stare at the fireplace. I can see the strain in his jaw as he bites down hard. I get it. He was so ashamed of himself that he lied to the police. And he got his girlfriend to cover for him too.
“That’s why you became a cop, isn’t it? To find the men who did this.”
“I guess I did. I spent six months after their deaths in a very dark place. I did everything I could to avoid dealing with it. Drugs… alcohol… women...”
My stomach stabs with jealousy at the thought of another woman touching him. Did he have his rules then? Or did they get to see more of him than I ever have? Did they get to touch him whilst I never have? These thoughts burn me like I’m standing in fire.
He gives me a small smile. “I guess I understood the dark place you were in when I saw you at Bound.”
I nod. He understood me then. Now I get to understand him.
He sighs. Then he shakes his head like he’s shaking the emotions off him. “It’s ancient history now. I just wanted you to know… I figured, if I had lost you anyway I wasn’t going to lose anything more by showing you the worst of me. You’re the only one who knows the full story so… I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself.”
I understand how hard this was for him to bring me to this room and confess to being here when his parents died. I understand that by telling me this he’s offering more of himself to me than he has given to anyone in a long time, maybe ever. The significance of this moment is not lost on me. It seems so momentous that I feel the weight of his confessions on my body.
I take that last step between us. “Of course. I’ll take it to my grave.” I reach for his hand and I squeeze it. “Wylie doesn’t know you were here when it happened?”
He shakes his head. “I think he always suspected, but…”
“Where was he that night? What about the other staff?”
“My father gave them all the night off.”
I frown. “That’s so odd. That the night that no one was here, you were broken into.”
Caden looks at me and there’s an emotion lying across his face that I can’t decipher. “Don’t you see?”
“See what?”
“It wasn’t a coincidence that the staff were sent away.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My father knew his attackers. They called him by name. They knew the name of my mother and my sister, too. He let them into the house. The police confirmed it – there was no sign of forced entry.”
“But… why did he let them in?”
Caden shook his head. “I found some papers amongst my father’s things after he died. I think… I think my grandfather may have used the… services of some very bad men to make his construction business successful. My father didn’t want to continue it after my grandfather’s death. He was trying to find a way out of that sordid business connection. But they weren’t going to let him go. Everything I have now and everything I lost was because of that decision.”
A sudden thought crosses my mind. “Oh my God. Was it the Tyrells?”
He gives me a small weary smile. “No. Ironically, the men who killed my family were part of a rival family to the Tyrells… the Veronesi family…” His voice trails off and he suddenly looks tired. I don’t push. He has given me enough.
“Did you ever catch them?”
“We could never find enough evidence to pin the murders on them. Or any other crime for that matter. These crime families don’t become powerful by being stupid.”
“So what? They just went free?”
Something dark crosses Caden’s face. The way his eyes flash sends a chill down my spine. “They got the justice they deserved.”
“What does that mean?”
“The men who were here that night and the man who gave the order are all dead. Their deaths were long and painful. They suffered just like my family suffered.”
I am afraid to ask but I do anyway because I’m not stopping now. “How do you know?”
“Because… I killed them. The law couldn’t do anything to put them away. So I hunted them down and I killed them.”
My body feels suddenly numb. “You killed them?”
He turns directly to me. I am struck by how powerful he is just standing there. The full breadth of his chest and shoulders seems to block out the light. His eyes bore into me and his face is as serious as I have ever seen it, his jaw tight and stern. “Do I scare you now? Do I? Do you understand me when I say that I’m a bad man?”
My head is whirring. I don’t even know what I’m feeling, let alone what I’m supposed to be feeling. A part of me is horrified that Caden could take another man’s life. But…
“If it were me,” I say softly, “if I had to watch my grandparents being murdered and I wasn’t getting justice, I’d want to kill them too.”
His eyes fuse with mine. “Wanting to do something and actually doing it are two different things.”
“I k-killed Mack, remember? You were in the car with me.”
“That was self-defense.”
“So was what you did. You just did what you couldn’t do fifteen years ago.”
He grabs me by my arms and shak
es me. “Those two events were almost twelve years apart. It wasn’t self-defense, it was premeditated. I hired assassins to help me infiltrate their complex and I killed them. I planned it. I executed it. Don’t kid yourself and say it was the same thing as what you did.”
As I stare at him I realize he’s still trying to push me away. He has shown me that he truthfully wants to open up to me. But at the same time he is showing me the worst part of him to see whether I can accept it. “Caden, you did what no one else could. You brought justice to your family.”
His eyes drop to my mouth and the emotion that flares in them is raw and lustful. “You think so?”
My lower belly clenches and I lean closer to him. “Yeah. I do.”
“You don’t think I’m a monster? I’ve murdered people, kitten. I’ve tortured them. They begged me to stop but I didn’t. I watched them die at my hands.”
My voice drops to a hush. “Sometimes I fantasize about killing Jacob for everything he’s done to me. I dream about hurting him like he hurt me.” As I speak we’re leaning in towards each other. I press my palm to his cheek and rub his skin with my thumb. “So if you’re a monster, then… so am I.”
We’re so close we’re breathing the same air. He reaches a large hand around the back of my neck and plants his palm firmly, but instead of pulling me closer, he uses his hand to just hold me there. His eyes roam my face. It’s like he’s looking for something. Truth, perhaps.
Slowly, a small smile pulls at the corner of his lip.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re a cute little monster.”
I smile back. “You’re my beautiful monster.”
“Is…” He licks his lips and shuffles his feet around so that his body is facing mine. “Is what I am enough for you. Is who I am enough?”
“Yes.”
He pulls me to him and slides his lips over mine, sucking lightly on my bottom lip, moistening it with his tongue. This kiss is slow, tender, loving. This kiss is shared between us like an intimate secret, like the secrets he just shared with me that no one else knows. This kiss is me confirming to him that I am his and that I will protect his secret like I will protect both our hearts.