As he drove away, he felt a calm settle the beast inside him. Cricket had surprised him with her statement of honor and all that crap. Honor was fine if you could afford it, most couldn’t. But there was something in her eyes that told him she had been telling the truth.
Her life had been hard and losing her parents had hurt her but she was with her sister until recently. What had her sister done to her?
He’d been unable to trace Orrin and Grace after they left his home. They had gone underground so he wouldn’t find them, then they had a family they kept secret from the rest of the world. They even lived off the grid, so there wouldn’t be a paper trail he could find.
The first thing he was going to do when he got back to his home was track the name Tannis. Bane lifted the edges of his lips but never quite made them smile. Only Orrin would choose that name. Knowing he would never think to search it out. That was the last name he would ever think to look for them under.
Tannis. Tannis was their mother’s maiden name backward. Sinnat was the name she’d been born under. His mother had been Becka Sinnat until she met and married Frank Jessin. All his life until he’d gone to live with his grandfather, his mother had been almost afraid of him. She had told his father it was her or Bane, but one of them would be leaving that day. She told him if she left she would be taking Orrin with her and he would never see either of them again.
Her voice had been loud enough she knew he would hear it when she made her demands. And like a fool, his father had given in to them. His father had been a weak man in his eyes.
But he got his own back when he’d seen the hate in her eyes turn back to fear as he plunged the knife into her heart. She had known when he found her that her life was over. She’d read it in his eyes and she never pled for mercy. She knew he didn’t have mercy for her in his heart. She had turned her back on him three years earlier and only death would give him peace, if there were any peace in his life to have.
But for her, he had no mercy and he got no peace from her death. After he buried her and the man who did her bidding, he’d just gone home to Theo’s house and found Orrin there with their grandfather. Neither of them said anything when he announced he’d taken care of the pair of them. He had avenged their father and nothing more was said about it.
He hadn’t even shed a tear when they buried Frank. Only Orrin cried that day. In fact, his lack of feeling anything for the death of his parents hadn’t even bothered him at all. Theo told him that too, was an old family trait. Those that shared this lack of normal feeling had been diagnosed as severe psychopaths. It helped their chosen paths as assassins but it also made it harder to live within their own societies.
Bane had been hard pressed to be around people. In fact, people made his skin crawl but he could stomp down his feelings when he had too. His entire body was on alert when he had to be around them but he could overlook them. His skin had certainly crawled just now in that clubhouse.
But now driving away he felt something lift inside him. He felt an odd lightness to his being but he didn’t know why. The girl Cricket looked just like her mother. She had the same hair color and her eyes were Grace’s. Then he frowned as he thought about it. She was Grace’s daughter, one she had with Orrin.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. She had with him what she wouldn’t with her husband. He hadn’t been ready for a family back then but now he wondered what his own children would have been like if they’d had a family. Would they have been more like him or more like Grace?
Bane closed his heart slamming it shut forever on that idea. Grace was the only woman he’d allowed to get that close and she’d shown him that he was unlovable many times. He’d never opened himself up to that kind of pain and ridicule ever again. He used women when his body had the urge and it got out of hand but even that occurrence was rare.
He thought about it as he drove down the highway and couldn’t help but wonder what Cricket would do with his challenge. Would she run or would she perhaps try and find his gem jar?
Then he smiled. There was no way she would find the jar. He hadn’t even told her what to look for and only Orrin and Grace knew what they took from him on their way out of his house.
~*~
Bane opened the door to his home a few hours later and walked through the dark wood hall to his bedroom, he felt his mission was a success. He was one step closer to getting what was truly his.
He went over to his dresser and picked up the photograph sitting there. A young woman looked at him. She wasn’t smiling and there was the hint of fear in her eyes as she looked at the camera, but Bane didn’t see it. All he saw was his wife. His possession. She might not have loved him, but she was the one thing in his life that held back the darkness from completely swallowing him whole.
The more he thought about it the more he was convinced that the girl Cricket reminded him of his Grace. She had her mother’s elegance and her eyes. He could feel the rage burning in his gut but at this point, he could control the beast inside him.
She told him about a sister, Cordelia, but that Cordelia was already gone. He hadn’t known that Grace had had a child, let alone two. He couldn’t help but wonder what kind of woman Cordy had been. To take a man’s children away from him was almost something he would do? That raised another question in his mind but it was a question he didn’t want to ask out loud.
He hadn’t told Cricket what the item was he wanted her to return for a reason. His hands still trembled at the betrayal Grace and Orrin had served him and it might be petty, but he knew Cricket would figure out her mission. If not, he would visit her again and this time the beast would win, but he would only take her out. The MC was never his intention, but she was. The moment he’d seen her he knew Grace was gone but he had to hear her say the words, he had to know how she died and how Orrin died.
He hadn’t felt the relief he desired as they had beaten him to the revenge he’d craved. Because he hadn’t been the one to see them dead that part of his revenge had been left undone, but he still had Cricket and with her, he would take his revenge at long last. She was the last of his family but that didn’t matter. His family had never been high enough in the order of things to matter to him.
For now, he would have to wait and see what she would do next. He almost hoped she would find the jar her parents had taken from him, almost…
~*~
When Bane saw his silent alarm blinking on his computer the next evening, he zeroed in on the room that had been breached. He was in his office at the time trying to run down any info on Cordelia Tannis or Cricket Tannis he could find. He’d been growing restless because there wasn’t anything out there. Neither of the girls had a birth certificate. He hadn’t found Grace’s death certificate either. Although Orrin’s death certificate he did find. He couldn’t help but wonder what other secrets those two had hidden all these years.
When he saw it was his study, his heart froze for a moment in his chest. There was only one reason for her to be in that room. She must have known what he wanted from the beginning. It had only taken her a day to find it and bring to him what was his. The rage inside him began to build.
He watched the shadows moving and he stared at the computer screen. That’s when he saw her replace the jar that Orrin had taken so many years ago. The prize was almost his, so close he could almost taste victory.
When he saw Cricket duck back into the shadows, he got up and noiselessly made his way into the room. He could sense she was still there. He couldn’t see her, but he knew she was there all the same. His senses told him that much.
“So, Miss Cricket you either lied about not knowing what I was looking for all this time or you knew in your heart I really would kill to get this back. I don’t know, and I don’t really care what the reason is, but I am glad to have this back.” Taking the jar over to the desk, he reached inside the drawer and pulled out a knife. Breaking the seal, he opened the jar and poured out the gemstones on top of the blotter.
T
hen he saw something else fall out. Among the gems was a key. A very old key. Bane lifted the key and held it up in his fingers. His grandfather had often spoke of this key but he never needed it until it was gone. Now that it was back, he would finally know what his brother and his wife had left for him inside the safe. Then he grasped the key tightly in his hand. He sat there at the desk with his eyes closed for a moment.
Then leaning back in his chair, he relaxed as much as he could and he began to talk. He felt she needed to know the reason he’d been looking for the jar since his brother stole the only woman he ever cared about. “Let me explain the dynamics of my family to you so I know you will finally understand the truth. Grace was my wife, not Orrin’s. She was never married Orrin because I never gave her the one thing I knew she wanted most, her freedom. They lived in sin because she knew I would never allow her to divorce me. Back then, I was just making a name for myself, working for the New York Families or anyone who could afford to pay my price. I traveled all over the world, until I became the best hitman who ever lived. At some point in your life, a person just knows what they want to do with their lives, for me that realization came early. I knew by the time I was fourteen that I wanted to kill. Some people may not understand that statement but for me it just made sense. There was some kind of rage inside me. I couldn’t feel other emotions like most people. It used to bother me when I was growing up but by the time I was fourteen, it no longer bothered me. My grandfather saw this trait in me and he encouraged it. He knew this rage intimately for he suffered from it as well. I worked hard to master the weapons I would use but I also studied the human body. I became very well versed in how the human body worked in order to know when and where to strike with my choice of weapons. My grandfather trained me in the use of many weapons, some of them dated back hundreds of years. He had a grand collection of weapons, both old and new.”
He inhaled deeply and when he exhaled, he continued with his story.
“I saw your mother for the first time in Chicago when she was sixteen and I was twenty-five. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I know she was the first woman I ever felt anything close to real feelings for. I can’t say I ever felt real love for her, but I did feel something. It was probably the closest thing I could feel.” He shrugged. “I never let the fact that she didn’t feel the same way for me bother me too much. I brought her home with me without giving her a choice. I admit that. We were married and even though I knew it was only because she feared me, she became my wife. I really tried to show some kind of emotion toward her, but I knew I couldn’t give her what she needed. I did feel lust though. I wanted her in my life and in my bed. I went on to become the best assassin in the world. I was gone a lot back in those days. Shortly after we were married, she told me she was pregnant with my child.” He paused then ran his fingers through his hair. “I may not have been the most understanding person I could have been. I wasn’t ready to start a family at the time. I had to go to Europe the next day for two weeks on a delicate job. We argued the night before I left. That was the only time in our marriage she stood up to me. She was very angry with me and she never even said goodbye when I left.”
~*~
Cricket stayed in the shadows and didn’t say a word as he recalled the past. Tears of pain for her mother rolled down her cheeks. She never knew any of this before today and she wasn’t sure she really wanted to hear his side.
“When I returned fifteen days later she was gone. She had escaped my guards and had vanished. I couldn’t find her and believe me, I searched for her. From one coast to the other, I searched for her. I finally found her ten months after she disappeared. I had called her parents and told them if she didn’t return to me I would kill her entire family. I found her sitting on a beach in Malibu three days later. She called and gave me an address. When I asked her why she left, she wouldn’t tell me. In that ten months without her I had changed. I became more focused on my work. As hard as I did try to show my feelings, I feared I didn’t do a very good job. I looked at her leaving me as a betrayal and I had lost touch with any sort of human feeling I ever had, except for the lust I felt for Grace. I still had that, but for her that wasn’t enough. I watched her struggle for over a year to adjust to the way things were now. I thought she knew I cared for her as much as I honestly could care for anyone. Then I came home early from a business trip. I was supposed to be gone a week and I came home on the third day.” Bane stopped speaking for a moment and sat down in his chair.
Cricket almost held her breath. She couldn’t leave as she might be trapped here if he saw her. He was a madman and there was no telling what he might do.
He seemed lost in the past. “I walked into my bedroom and was stunned by what I found. Grace was there with my brother Orrin. They were so caught up in their passion, neither of them heard me come in.” Bane’s fingers tightened on the arms of the chair he was sitting in. “You have to understand that Orrin and I were as different as day and night. While I loved death and all its glory, Orrin was a pupil of making things blow up. His brain was wired to figure out how to destroy things, not people. His brain was also wired to break into anything that can be locked. Whether it’s a room, a safe or a locked box.” He ran his hands down his face as if he were washing away the memories. “When I found them together, the emotions I felt that day were very real. The rage that I could control up until then exploded. I tore him out of her embrace and literally beat the hell out of him. I wanted to kill him, and I certainly did my best to achieve that goal. Then I went after her. She betrayed me in the worst way a woman can betray a man, her husband. She told me then that she tried to love me, but there was nothing for her to love. I was more a robot than a man. This was the first and only time they had given into to their feelings for one another, but I didn’t know if I could believe her lies. Looking back, I could almost believe her about this being the only time they’d been together. At least I’d like to think I could believe her.”
Cricket felt the tears running down her cheeks. Her poor mother trapped with this monster. It must’ve been hell on earth.
“I took out my rage on her as any feelings I had left died in her betrayal. I used and abused her and for the first time I truly didn’t care. I got no joy from the union that day and when I was finished I turned my back and walked out of that bedroom. I knew I had to leave or I would have killed them both. I got on a plane and didn’t return for three days. I had calmed down by then and could think rationally. That rationality lasted until I found the two of them were gone. They had run off together.” Bane leaned his head on the back of his chair and closed his eyes. “Grace left me a note. She said she couldn’t live this kind of life anymore. She couldn’t stay with a man that was more monster than real man. With Orrin, she could at least feel something akin to love. She told me that what she’d felt for him in the short amount of time they were together was more than she felt for me in the four years we’d been together. She begged me not to try and find them because if I did, she would rather plunge a knife in her heart than have to come back here. Orrin also left me a message. He told me they had left something for me in the safe my grandfather left me. The safe was one of the first safes ever made here in the states. It was an old bank safe and it meant a great deal to our grandfather, so in turn it meant a great deal to me. He told me he finally figured out the combination. He said he’d found some very interesting items in there.”
Cricket felt confused. A safe that had secrets in it?
“My grandfather told me that while he never figured out the combination, he had a key. I never told Orrin about the key, but he found it. Then he was clever enough to find the combination. I knew if anyone could open the safe, it would be him. He told me in his note that the key had been so close the whole time and we never knew it. It had been hidden all along in Grandfather’s jar of gemstones, the whole time.”
Bane’s eyes went to the small glass jar of diamonds, rubies and emeralds. The jar was as big as his
hand, from the tips of his fingers to his wrist and as wide as his hand. The jar had remained sealed because Bane never needed the money the gems would bring him. Instead, he kept the jar intact as his grandfather left it. The jar had been on display sitting in a place of honor on the mantel of his office. The safe in question had been built into the wall next to the fireplace.
“My family built its fortune on being in the service of others. My grandfather left the jar of gemstones to the oldest grandson along with the safe. That was me. So when Orrin told me he’d been in the safe and had taken the key with him, that betrayal was worse than the one where he took my wife. Orrin also told me there was no other way to get into the safe. He’d ruined the tumblers so even if I could figure out the combination the tumblers would never open again. I knew he hadn’t lied about that. Orrin knew what he was doing around locks.”
Cricket listened to his words, but she could never understand what he felt. From his words, she had a better understanding of how Cordy had felt all these years, being a coldblooded killer, but she couldn’t understand what had made them both the way they were.
“I tried to put the pair of them out of my mind, but I found I couldn’t. I did look for them, but I also went on with my life. I honed my skills while I began to plot what I would do to them when I caught up with the pair of them. It took me more than eight years to find them. When I did, I watched them for a few days before I approached their love nest. I waited until Grace was gone before I came to Orrin. I wanted him to feel the absolute horror at the thought he could lose everything he had taken from me. I watched his eyes that day and I could see the terror in his soul. It felt a bit like revenge, a strange emotion at the best of times, but that day I felt it and I have to admit I felt good that day. Yes, I could have killed him that day in Utica and perhaps I would have but he told me Grace had taken the key and only she knew where it was. I told him to get the key and I would be back later for it. I would be merciful if they gave it back but if they didn’t I would kill his whole family. I would tear his whole world apart and not feel anything but relief I had taken everything from him just as he had done to me.”
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