11. Layla
11
LAYLA
My fingers trace the new ink etched into my throat, a map of my own execution drawn by the daughter of the man who'd destroy worlds to protect me. The swollen lines burn beneath my touch.
“Don’t.”
I flinch as Kaden brushes my hand aside, his calloused one surprisingly delicate as he examines Cassie’s handiwork. I lie tangled in silk sheets, my body aching. Kaden sits beside me, his weight dipping the mattress.
“Hold still,” he murmurs.
The damp cloth in his hand is cool against the inflamed flesh, a temporary balm to the violation I can feel all the way to my bones. I haven’t moved from the bed, too shocked to so much as sit up after Cassie flounced out of the room, taking her horrible men with her. She didn’t say when she would come back, but she never has. Cassie just … appears.
Kaden’s clinical and assessing touch contains an undercurrent of possessiveness in the way his thumb lingers on my pulse point, as if reassuring himself that I'm still here, still breathing.
“I will burn every one of those assholes alive,” he says, his gaze locked on my neck. “Without hesitation.”
I should be horrified by his words, by the casual brutality of his conviction. But a part of me, the part irrevocably changed by what I’ve endured, approves. That would do the same for him, consequences be damned.
“I know,” I murmur, reaching out to brush a strand of hair from his forehead. I linger on the jagged scar that curves under his brow, a reminder of the battles he's fought and the demons he carries.
He leans into my touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment.
“Cassie...” His voice is rough with an emotion I can't quite name. “What happened to her ... what Morelli did...”
I wait, my heart in my throat, as he struggles to find the words.
But he trails off, his gaze distant and haunted.
“Why did she do this to me?” I whisper.
I can tell my question slices through him, cold and cruel. But there’s something else beneath, an undercurrent of rage that I was stolen from him. I want to assure him that Cassie may have branded my skin, but Kaden has claimed my soul.
“This doesn’t change anything,” I say fiercely. “I’m yours.”
Black flares in his gaze, fierce and feral. He bows his head until his lips touch the side of my neck.
“Mine,” he growls before kissing the hot, angry skin.
The word is a vow, a promise sealed in ink and blood. A shudder ripples through me at the declaration, his lips on my skin.
I tangle my fingers in his hair, holding him close as his lips trail along the edges of the tattoo, each brush a searing brand. But the desperate edge to his voice, the rawness, speaks of the scars Cassie left on his soul this day. I know the memories are tearing at him, the weight of the past threatening to drag him under.
I tug gently, urging him up until I can see his face. His eyes are storm-tossed, a tempest of rage and anguish.
“Kaden,” I whisper, my thumbs brushing his cheekbones. “Talk to me.”
He exhales a sound that's almost a growl. “She's not the little girl I remember. That Cassie is gone. I don't know if there's anything left to save. What she’s done to you … if anyone else did this, anyone , I would’ve given them a slow, violent death. I’d want them to suffer. I would’ve let you watch me tear them open to get your justice. Cassie has made it impossible for me to save her, yet I can’t kill her to save you.”
I swallow past the permanent lump in my throat. Kaden’s feelings for his daughter and me are tearing him apart, but I’m not as conflicted. Cassie has tortured me, played numerous mind games, and enjoyed putting me on display for her men. She allowed their threats of rape and assault so I’d stay terrified and complacent, no matter how many knives she sharpened against my skin. I never knew the twelve-year-old whose younger years are frozen in time and scattered around me, covered in rose petals and blood. Yet I never knew love growing up the way she did with Kaden. Cassie knows what real love feels like. She must remember her time with her dad. Doesn’t she miss it? How can she truly believe Kaden abandoned her for all these years?
“You’re right,” I say. “She’s not that little girl anymore. She’s grown now, and she’s made her choices.”
“What about the choices taken from her?” he counters.
“You can't blame yourself for that.” I stroke my fingers through his hair.
“Wraithling, you’re ten years too late,” he says with a quiet rasp.
My heart clenches at the anguish in his words and the fear that Cassie is gone forever.
We stay like this for a long moment, me running my fingers through his hair, him kissing away the pain, drawing strength from each other.
Reluctantly, I tug on his hair, gently pulling him back so I can see his face. “We need to get out of here. Please. After that, we can figure out what to do about Cassie.”
The thought of her return churns every organ inside my body, all of them shriveling with remembered agony. The sound of her laughter still rings in my ears.
Kaden works his jaw, his attention snapping to the wall panel that hides a bank of computer screens. He replies under his breath so surveillance won’t catch his voice. “Ethan. He’s on the outside. He’ll be working to shut down the network and initiate a blackout so we can escape.”
Kaden frowns, as if reluctant to admit the next part. “It was our plan B.”
I blink, surprised, but manage to keep my reply at the same low octave as his. “Ethan’s still involved? With you? You two are working together?”
Guilt twists like a knife at the center of my heart. When I confessed to Ethan about the illegal AI all employees at Pulse Dynamics were inadvertently creating, I didn’t expect him to want to stay by my side when I broke into the building and tried to destroy Project Oracle. Ethan was determined to remain in communication with me, but all of that went away when Dawson found me, drugged and stripped me, and…
I clear my throat, forcing myself away from what happened next, and focus on the loss of the smartwatch Ethan and I used to keep in touch.
So many terrible consequences occurred after Dawson took that watch. Kaden broke in and violently killed Dawson. Then he sought his vengeance on Morelli, killing him next. Cassie revealed herself soon after, shooting Kaden and incapacitating him enough to kidnap me.
During all that, Ethan was cut off—or was he? Could he still hear everything on the watch Dawson tossed aside? Is that how Kaden got out of the server room? Did Ethan…?
Kaden predicts every panicked thought. “The idiot saved me. He pulled me out, hid me in a basement, and patched me up. Did you truly believe that boy would leave you to be kidnapped by the Mafia?”
“Patched you up? The same Ethan who nearly passed out when I accidentally stapled my thumb?”
The memory of Ethan's pale face and shaking hands that day in the office feels like it belongs to another lifetime.
“People adapt.” Kaden's thumb traces the edge of my tattoo.
I lower my eyes in understanding. This unwanted tattoo is now a part of me, whether I survive long enough to remove it or not. I haven’t asked Kaden to describe it to me or take me to a mirror. It doesn’t matter what the design is. It’s a reflection of this place, this torture, and it’s as dark and unwelcome as hell would be.
“He's still out there,” Kaden says, eyes fixed on the wall panel. “And he knows what he's doing.”
“What if she hurts him?” I say, the fear for my friend making my voice rise an octave. “What if she uses him to get to us?”
Kaden cups one side of my face, turning me to look at him. With his features so shadowed, his scars seem deeper, his eyes harder. But something else is there too—a carefully banked fire.
“Right now, just believe in me.” His words carry the weight of every kill, every calculated move that led him to this point. “I will get you out of here, and Ethan will be safe.”
I clutch at his hand holding my face, letting his conviction anchor me. “Ok?—”
A sound pierces through the momentary peace we found in each other’s arms. A scream, high and agonized, bleeds through the walls.
I jolt upright, my heart pounding against my ribs. Kaden tenses, his grip on me tightening reflexively.
“Fuck,” he murmurs.
The scream comes again. It's a sound of pure, unadulterated agony, the kind that can only be wrung from a human throat by the most unspeakable horrors. I've never heard anything like it in all my time here, and the unfamiliarity of it makes my blood run cold.
“What is that?” I whisper.
Kaden’s on his feet in an instant, stalking toward the door. I scramble after him, my legs tangling in my loosened robe and bundled sheets.
“Kaden, wait!” I hiss as he presses his ear to the door.
For all we know, a gun is pointed directly at his temple on the other side.
He pauses and looks back at me.
“I can't just sit here and listen to that,” he says. “Not when I know what she's capable of.”
I swallow hard, my stomach churning at the thought of what Cassie might be doing to elicit such horrible screams. But I force myself to take a deep breath, to think past the terror that threatens to overwhelm me.
“If we try anything, we’ll just make it worse.” My voice shakes despite my effort to keep it steady. “For both of us.”
Kaden's hand tightens on the doorknob, the tendons in his forearm standing out in sharp relief. For a moment, I think he might wrench the door open anyway, consequences be damned. But then he exhales in a harsh sound that seems to billow around the room.
I close the distance, my bare feet soundless on the plush carpeting. I reach up, wrapping my hands around his neck. Kaden’s skin is hot to the touch, as if fury is burning him from the inside out.
I press my face against his chest, bared within the V of his robe, trying to ground us both. Movement catches my eye. The scattered photos on the bed shift as the sheets settle from my frazzled exit, and one slides free and drifts to the ground.
It's not Cassie and Kaden. The girl in this photo is a stranger, maybe in her twenties, with long dark hair and terrified eyes. She's bound to a gold-embellished antique chair, and tears stream down her face. Behind her stands a man I don't recognize, his expression haunted as he watches whatever's happening outside the frame.
My hands fall from Kaden's neck. “There are more.”
He turns, following my gaze to where other photos have spilled across the sheets. We stride to the foot of the bed as one, studying the other photos we missed when we were so focused on ourselves and Cassie.
Sifting through, I find ones showing different girls with different older men—fathers forced to witness their daughters' suffering. Some photos are clearly recent, others aged and worn. All of them document the same sick game Cassie's playing with us now, though she’s never within the frame.
“She's been planning this,” I whisper, the realization hitting me like a wave of salty, fish-scented water. “All this time, she's been collecting daughters. Testing them.”
Kaden's hands clench at his sides as he stares at the evidence of Cassie's obsession. “Not testing. Conditioning.”
Oh God. I want to throw up. “Conditioning for what?”