Red Dreams (The Reaper Duet #2)

6. Kaden

6

KADEN

Warm blood slides down my arms as I take my first step into the foyer of Siren’s Call. The movement costs me. My right leg drags slightly, as evidenced by the ambush in the courtyard outside and all the men I had to take out to even make it to the doors.

They were expecting me. That much is obvious.

“Mr. Black—Scythe—are you good? All clear?” Ethan’s voice crackles through my earpiece, his natural state of panic evident despite his safe distance.

I risk a single glance over my shoulder to add a visual while I answer him. “They won’t be a problem anymore.”

Despite the automatic weapons trained on me, these guards had too much faith that such machinery would shield them from a man with a decade-old grudge. I'd been outnumbered greater and outgunned worse many times before. The first two fell before they could even raise their rifles, throats opened in crimson smiles. Spinning low, I hamstrung the third, my knife finding the femoral artery as he crumpled. Only then did I resort to the two pistols from my thigh holsters.

Time slowed as I entered the hyper-focused flow state that activates in moments like these. My arms moved of their own accord, my wounded shoulder forgotten, lining up shot after shot with lethal precision.

Pop. Pop-pop. Pop .

Four guards crumpled with neat bullet holes centered between their eyes.

As the remaining eight scattered for cover, I lunged forward, rolling behind a stone pillar. Chunks of concrete sprayed as they peppered my position with blind fire. Waiting for the telltale click of empty magazines, I vaulted over the pillar's remains and closed the distance.

That’s not to say they didn’t get some shots in. Grunting, I force my wounded leg to bear more weight and head deeper inside.

The foyer is cavernous, all gleaming obsidian and gilded accents. A stark contrast to the rusted, salt-sprayed exterior of the building. And eerily silent now, the gunfire echo fading into memory.

I scan for movement, for the telltale twitch of finger on trigger, but only my reflection looks back at me from the polished black walls. Dozens of Kadens, all bloodstained and wary.

“Talk me through this,” I say into the mic in my mask.

“Sure thing,” Ethan says in my ear. “There should be a path directly ahead to the dance floor. You’ll cut through there and find the private stairs to the VIP suites.”

I hum my acknowledgment and creep forward, using a pistol to part the black velvet curtains directly in front of me. When nothing darts out and shoots to kill, I slink through the fabric and into the main area.

The dance floor's empty—likely cleared for my arrival—but the strobes continue to pulse against the black lacquered floor, painting everything in stuttering shades of blue and red.

Adding to the sensory overload is a sudden blast of music, the bass pounding against my bones. I don’t jump in surprise at the intrusion, but it drowns out any chance of detecting enemies. I stick close to the edges, scanning in every direction.

It’s much too deserted.

“Ethan, where's the staircase?” I growl into the mic.

Static crackles in my ear, Ethan's voice breaking up. “Should be ... northeast corner ... signal's getting...”

The line goes dead. I tap my earpiece. “Ethan? Do you copy?”

Silence.

A cold dread settles in my gut. They're jamming the signal. Cutting me off.

I quicken my pace. Every instinct screams this is a trap, that I’m being herded, but I have no choice. Layla’s here somewhere, and I’ll be damned if I leave without her. The flashing lights throw jagged shadows across the walls, morphing them into phantom assailants with each strobe.

“Ethan, I need eyes,” I say into the mic.

Nothing.

The music swells, distorted notes clawing at my eardrums. I rip out the useless earpiece, accepting that I’ll be doing the rest alone.

Gritting my teeth against the pain lancing through my leg and joining in with my shoulder, I press onward, pistols at the ready. The stairs should be just ahead, according to Ethan's last transmission.

Just as the northeast corner comes into view, the music cuts out abruptly, plunging the dance floor into a silence as jarring as the previous cacophony.

I pause, every muscle tensed, expecting an ambush. But the only sound is the soft scuff of my boots against the lacquered floor as I approach the ornate double doors sealing the stairway to the VIP suites’ gilded carvings of mermaids. Once I push through the doors, soft, ambient lighting emanates from recessed sconces shaped like seashells, casting an eerie blue-green glow across the curving, black-carpeted staircase. Each step downward is a battle against the fire in my thigh and the ache in my shoulder, but I clench my jaw, forcing the pain into a distant corner of my mind.

The second my boot hits the first landing, I scan the dimness for movement. Nothing. Just closed doors leading to unknown rooms. Suites for Greycliff’s elite and their visitors to indulge away from prying eyes.

My focus doubles back when I spot the last door on the left standing ajar. I stare at it while lowering my guns. An invitation or a trap?

Probably both.

During my killing spree to get to this point, I didn’t think of Cassie. I couldn’t. But here, standing on the precipice of witnessing who she’s become and what she might’ve done to Layla, my feet turn to lead. On a silent inhale, I step toward the open door, my heart just another weight to contend with. My fingers tighten against the triggers of each pistol ever so slightly.

I can’t kill her.

Even the thought shortens my breath. When I broke into the Siren’s Call, I had one motivation, a single-minded goal: Save Layla.

The how of it, however…

Save her.

I shake myself out of it, keeping to the present. My grip tightens on the guns when I take that final step through the doorway, and my world narrows into a single point of focus.

The private suite drowns in shadows and electronic blue light from a wall of screens, broken only by rain-streaked neon bleeding through the windows. The light catches on wet patches across the floor that, at first glance, appear to be water.

Not water. Blood.

Then I see her.

Layla kneels in the center of the room, naked as the moment she was torn from my arms and brought here. The blood has dried in delicate patterns across her skin, like someone wanted me to admire their work. Her chest rises and falls in shallow bursts, but her eyes—when they find mine, the naked relief in them tears something loose in my chest.

“Kaden.”

Her voice breaks on my name.

Before I can respond, another voice cuts through the space.

“Dad.”

The title stops me cold. A glacial stillness takes hold, freezing everything but my focus as Cassie’s face seeps out of the shadows behind Layla, one hand tangled in Layla's hair. My daughter. My failure. She's beautiful in the way broken things can be beautiful, all sharp edges and jagged grace. The neon catches in her ebony waves, painting her in shifting shades of white and blue, making her look both younger and older than her years.

Cassie pulls until Layla’s head is forced upward and her chin juts out. “I made her scream for you.”

That sentence holds a familiarity that flays me open. Each word carefully chosen and precisely placed. Like the cuts decorating Layla's skin.

“Recorded every note. But you know what the best part was?” Cassie tightens her hold, and I watch Layla's cheek muscles spasm against whatever pain she's suppressing. “She tried so hard to stay quiet. To protect you. Just like I used to.”

The parallel hits like a physical blow.

“Let her go.”

The order comes out like a plea, stripped of everything but need.

“Layla’s never hurt you. This is between us.”

Layla stays perfectly still under Cassie's grip, but her eyes never leave mine. A steadiness cuts through the blood and fear—the same strength that's kept her alive through whatever hell the past days have brought.

“You want to hear something funny?” Cassie continues, her voice dropping to a whisper. “She wouldn't crack. Not really. No matter what I did.”

Her hand slides to Layla's throat, cupping the front until her thumb and forefinger dig under Layla’s jaw. “It's like she thought being yours would protect her. Like belonging to you meant anything.”

One twitch of my finger could end this, but the pistols feel like dead weights. The cost … Fuck, the cost.

My daughter stands in front of me, where every breath she takes is a miracle. The thing she's become wears my failures like a second skin.

And so, I shed the thing I’ve become. One gun clatters to the floor as I release my grip on it. Cassie tracks the weapon’s fall with eyes of ice. Raising my free hand, I remove the mask of the Scythe and let her see the man. Her father.

“Please,” I implore. “Talk to me. I’m here.”

“Talk?” Cassie's voice cracks. “Like when I was seven and you explained why Mommy wasn't coming home? Or when I was twelve and Papa Morelli explained why you stopped looking?”

I close my eyes against her reference to Frank Morelli— Papa —unable to hide the sifting agony under my lids.

“He lied to you. I never stopped?—”

“Or how about this.” Cassie forges on. “Let’s really get to know each other, all three of us. Happy little family. Oh, speaking of families, how many do you think you tore apart by becoming the Scythe?”

The silence after her question is as tangible as razor blades.

“Or would you prefer I call more of my men up here so we can watch them tear apart Layla?”

“Seventeen,” I finally say. The admission falls like a stone.

“Did becoming the Scythe help you forget? All those contracts, all that blood money... was it easier than remembering you had a daughter?”

Her question falters as she looks down at Layla. “He's so good at math. Always was. Even keeps count of his sins.”

“Cassie, you can’t possibly believe I would become this version of myself if I gave up searching for you.”

Cassie’s fingers sink deeper into Layla’s scalp. Layla’s nostrils start to flare.

“Want to know my count, Daddy? Want to know how many I’ve killed?”

Something beeps. Soft, almost subliminal. A flash of text scrolls across one of the screens behind Cassie by her elbow.

Ethan.

Through the monitors behind her, I catch glimpses of his work: security cameras going dark in sequence, emergency exits unlocking, backup systems failing. He's isolating this floor, ensuring Cassie's men can't reach us even if she calls for them. More importantly, he's making sure we'll have a way out once this ends.

I steel myself. Keep stalling. I can still get both of them out of here.

“None,” I answer Cassie. “You haven’t killed anyone. Because you knew exactly where I was. You just wanted me to suffer first.”

“Ding, ding, ding!” Her laugh could shatter the window. “Give the big, scary Scythe a prize. But you're only half right.” She jerks Layla’s head up until it’s painful. “I didn't kill anyone because Papa Morelli taught me something better. Want to see?”

My hand still holding a pistol clenches around the warmed metal.

I can’t. I won’t. I can’t. I must.

Cassie releases Layla with a shove. Layla grimaces and wheezes but keeps her gaze locked on mine, like I’m offering her solace.

But Cassie grabs the back of Layla’s head again, jerks it back, and graces Layla’s neck with a knife this time.

“I'm going to kill her because you love her.” Cassie’s voice breaks on every word. “Because you looked at her and saw something worth saving. Worth protecting. Worth?—”

Layla moves.

Her head snaps back, catching Cassie in the nose. The knife slides across skin but misses her artery as Cassie staggers. I'm already in motion, crossing the space between us like death given form.

But Cassie's faster than I remember. The gun I’d let fall to the floor appears in her hand like magic, leveled at Layla's head.

“Choose,” she snarls through bloody teeth. “Shoot me and watch me die, or drop your weapon and watch her die.”

I stop short, my pistol raised and aimed at Cassie's heart. The impossible choice robs the air from my lungs. Shoot my own daughter, or let the woman who's woken me from a deep, hollow sleep die before my eyes. Layla, who's suffered so much already, who's given me a reason to hope again. I can't lose her. I won't survive it.

But Cassie...

Layla remains still under Cassie’s hold, a gun pressed to her temple. But her beautiful, mismatched eyes never waver from mine, and in them, I see her unspoken plea to do what needs to be done. Even now, even with her life on the line, she's trying to be strong for me.

My heart implodes in my chest. Cassie's finger tightens on the trigger, her eyes alight with a manic desperation. She's trembling, tears streaming down her blood-smeared cheeks, but her aim stays true.

This murderous version of her mixes with the little girl who used to fall asleep in my arms. The child who trusted me to keep the monsters at bay, never knowing we would become ones ourselves. Shooting her would be like putting a bullet through my own heart.

And that’s when the idea comes.

I turn my gun, pushing the muzzle against my chest, right above my heart.

Cassie’s gaze narrows as she follows the movement.

“I choose neither,” I say, my voice steady despite the tremor at the base of my throat.

Shock flickers across her face before it hardens into a sneer. “Do you think I won’t pull the trigger and make her die on your corpse?”

“I know you will.”

I take a step forward, the gun pressing harder against my chest to hide my trembling grip. “And I know why. Because I failed you, Cassandra. In every way a father can fail his daughter. I wasn't there to protect you.”

Her hand shakes, the muzzle of her gun wavering against Layla's temple. “You don't get to do this. To make this about you.”

“But it is about me. It always has been. My failures, my sins, my inability to save the ones I love most.” I chance a glance at Layla, apology and regret bleeding from my stare. “I thought becoming the Scythe would help me find you, would give me the power to bring you home. But all it did was turn me into the very thing I was trying to destroy.”

“Shut up.” Her fingers flex around the gun. Layla's rapid breaths syncopate with my pounding heart. “You don't get to—you can't just...”

“I can,” I say softly, my own voice rough with unshed tears. “Because it's the truth. I let vengeance consume me, let it twist me into someone I didn't recognize. Someone who couldn't see past his own pain.” I take another step, the gun digging into my chest until I feel it rubbing against bone. “But I see you now, Cassie. I see my little girl, hurting and lost. And I am so, so sorry.”

A single tear slips down her cheek, catching on a scar at the corner of her mouth. A scar I should have prevented.

“It's too late,” she whispers, but there's a waver in her voice, a hairline fracture in her cold facade. “You can't fix this with pretty words.”

“I know.” I hold her gaze steady, letting her see the sincerity, the bone-deep remorse. “I let them take you. I let them hurt you in ways no child should ever be hurt.”

Tears stream freely down Cassie's face now, landing on the top of Layla’s head and soaking through the dirtied blond strands. It kills me not to look at her, not to include her in this and reassure her somehow, but I have to stay on Cassie. She has to drop the gun.

“I hate you,” she whispers.

“And I'll never forgive myself. But Cassie, this path you're on, this darkness you've embraced ... it won't heal the wounds inside you. Trust me, I know.”

Cassie's face contorts, tears and blood smearing together as a sob wracks through her tall, slight frame. Fuck, she’s grown so much…

I’m so wrapped up in the heartbreak of her that I miss her eyes darkening, the storm building behind the blue.

“Papa showed me the truth. That love is a lie, a weakness to be toyed with.” She presses the muzzle harder into Layla’s temple, making Layla sob. “He taught me how to turn it into a weapon.”

It takes all my willpower to fight the urge to lunge for the gun. One wrong move and someone’s blood will paint the walls. And I don’t want anyone here to bleed.

“Cassie, listen to me. Whatever Morelli told you, whatever he did, it was wrong. He poisoned everything good and pure inside you.”

“No!” she shrieks, the sound bouncing off the walls. “He made me strong. He showed me my true potential.” Cassie then flicks her attention to Layla, a cruel smile curling her lips. “Just like I'll show you.”

Denial wrenches from my throat at the same time Cassie shifts the gun and slams the butt of it against Layla’s head.

Layla crumples to the floor, her body going limp after the pistol connects with her skull. A ragged shout tears from my throat as I surge forward, desperate to reach her.

But Cassie moves like a viper, all lightning speed and venomous grace. She becomes the apprentice other criminals whisper about, the ones who fear both her intelligence and viciousness. The one who Morelli groomed himself.

She sidesteps my charge and brings her knee up into my stomach, driving the air from my chest. I stumble, wheezing, but manage to catch her wrist as she aims the gun at my head and tries to shoot. We grapple for control, our faces inches apart. Her eyes blaze with a feral intensity, the madness of a caged animal finally set free.

“Cassie, please,” I rasp, my fingers digging into her skin. “Don't do this.”

She snarls, baring bloodstained teeth. With a burst of strength, she wrenches her arm free and reverses our positions, slamming me back against the wall. Stars explode across my vision as my head cracks against the concrete because I let her. I can’t retaliate the way I normally would. I won’t.

“You still don't get it, do you?” she hisses, pressing the gun under my chin. “I'm not your little girl anymore.”

“Cassandra Black.” I try again, my voice strained. “That’s who you are. Who you’ll always be.”

She digs the gun barrel deeper into my flesh. The pain radiating from the back of my skull wars with the ache in my chest, both physical and emotional.

Cassie laughs then. “Black? Like the family we never were?”

Her free hand comes up to grip my jaw, her sharpened nails biting through stubble and into flesh. “You really are pathetic, clinging to this fantasy that you can save me, like there's anything left to save.”

I swallow against the pressure on my throat, against the truth in her words. “There's always something left to save.”

My fatal mistake comes before I can stop it. I let my eyes wander, allowing them to land on Layla’s unconscious form on the floor, blood trickling from the gash on her temple and staining her hair crimson.

Cassie notices it, her expression transforming into cold fury before a humorless laugh escapes her lips. “Oh, Dad. Convincing yourself that you’re the hero trying to save the princess when you’re the story’s villain. But this isn’t your little girl’s fairy tale. Layla isn’t your light to guide you home. This is a nightmare, and I’m not letting you wake up.”

I force myself to face the hatred and betrayal blazing in those ice-blue eyes that once looked at me with such love and trust. “Cassie, I?—”

But before I can finish, she moves with a speed that defies logic. In a blur of black and crimson, she slams the butt of the gun against my head, and an explosion of pain blooms behind my eyes.

I tilt sideways, the room swaying as I fight to stay on my feet. Cassie takes advantage of my disorientation, driving her knee into my groin and making me double over in a painful whoosh of remaining oxygen.

Gasping, I buckle, my vision swimming. Through the haze of agony, I see Cassie step over my body, her heels clicking against marble as she approaches Layla’s unmoving body.

Cassie looms over Layla, her form wavering and splitting into multiples. The gun dangles loosely from her fingers. She crouches down, bringing her face level with Layla’s.

“I win, Daddy,” she says as she trails a finger down Layla’s cheek.

This isn’t a game to me, I thought I could say, but I can’t move my lips.

I try to reach for her, for them both, but my vision is failing.

Paralyzed by the insidious pull of unconsciousness, I blink once, twice, helpless as Cassie hovers over Layla.

Then everything goes dark.