Red Dreams (The Reaper Duet #2)

12. Layla

12

LAYLA

Kaden picks up one of the older photos.

A man in a business suit stares at the camera, his expression a mix of despair and resignation. In his hand is a pair of pliers, poised over the delicate fingers of a young woman bound to a chair. Her face is a mask of white terror.

Another photo shows the same man, his features twisted in anguish as he closes the pliers over the girl's index finger. Her mouth is open in a silent scream, and in the background, I can see another girl, bound and gagged, her eyes wide with horror. That one has blond hair, like him. Striking green eyes, like him.

His daughter is watching him torture another girl.

I grab a bunch of photos, then rifle through them with shaking hands. The early shots show fathers forced to watch as their daughters are subjected to unspeakable torments—burned, beaten, cut. Their faces are studies in helpless agony, the kind of pain that goes beyond the physical.

A chilling pattern emerges the deeper I delve. The same fathers appear again and again, but their roles begin to shift. No longer just helpless victims … they become active participants in the torture.

One sequence shows a father, his face gaunt and haunted, holding a glowing branding iron. In the next photo, he's pressing it against the bare skin of a sobbing girl, his own daughter visible in the background, her face a mix of relief and revulsion.

Another series depicts a man wielding a whip, his hands shaking as he brings it down across the back of a screaming young woman. The progression is sickening. By the final photo, his face is an impassive mask, the whip striking with cruel precision.

Photo after photo tells the same story: Fathers forced to make impossible choices, to inflict pain on others in order to spare their own daughters from worse torments.

I look at Kaden, unable to prevent the horror from leeching the blood from my face. Cassie's not just collecting daughters—she's breaking their fathers, reshaping them into ghouls of her own creation.

“She's turning them into weapons,” I say. “The fathers. She's conditioning them to do anything, hurt anyone, to keep their daughters safe.”

A muscle ticks in his cheek. “Once she breaks them, she owns them. They'll be loyal to her, to the Syndicate, because she holds their daughters' lives in her hands.”

The scream comes again, muffled by the walls but no less agonizing. I flinch, the photos fluttering from my fingers.

“The men she constantly has with her,” I breathe, the realization hitting me like a punch to the gut. “Do you think...?”

Kaden's eyes meet mine, a maelstrom of rage and anguish swirling in their depths. “Morelli gave her these men as playthings, and given her brilliance, she turned them into her personal servants.”

I think back on Harris, the man who gave me the tattoo currently throbbing at my neck. All the men who came in here were leering and throwing around threats but never acting on them.

“What kind of men is she finding?” I ask, more to myself than Kaden.

“Ones who will do anything for their daughters.”

Kaden lowers his chin and rubs his weary eyes with a fist.

“Yes, but who are they?” My vision unfocuses as I ponder this. “Cassie likes to talk to me when she—well. When she’s in here visiting. I’ve come to learn she doesn’t do anything without reason. She wouldn’t just be collecting random men who have kids. She’d be doing her research.”

Kaden grabs my hand, his thumb brushing over my knuckles. “Cassie wants us to know she’s building an army of men loyal to her not out of greed or fear but out of love. The most dangerous kind of devotion.”

“The AI I tried to destroy.” My spine goes ramrod straight from the implication. With an army of broken fathers at her command, men in positions of power and influence, Cassie could reshape the very fabric of society. CEOs, politicians, judges…

“By controlling key players in the economy, they could help implement the AI's influence over markets, elections, and God knows what else.”

And at the center of it all, Cassie herself, a queen of shattered glass, ruling over a kingdom built on the bones of innocence.

I’m cold, almost numb, but I force myself to ask the question that haunts me. “Kaden, if she’s using me…”

My voice cracks, the rest of the sentence sticking in my throat, but I don’t need to finish my thought.

Kaden’s eyes snap to mine. His squeezes my hand to the point that it hurts, then pulls me into his chest, his startling warmth seeping into me and keeping the chill at bay.

“I would tear apart both heaven and hell to protect you. I don’t give a shit that these men started off innocent. I will burn each of these fathers alive the very second I have an opening. And I swear to you, on everything I have left, that I will not let her destroy me.”

He tips my chin up, his eyes boring into mine. I reach up, my fingers tracing the hard line of his jaw.

“I know,” I say. “I know because I would do the same for you.”

Something flares in his eyes, hot and bright. His arms tighten around me, drawing me closer until our breaths mingle. “You are my fucking universe.”

I surge onto my tiptoes, capturing his mouth in a bruising kiss. He groans, crushing me to his chest. I pour everything into that kiss—my fear, my love, my desperate need for him. He meets me with equal fervor, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, claiming me, consuming me.

I cling to him, my lighthouse in this storm of madness.

Another scream rips through the air, closer this time. Another girl we can’t save.

The pain and exhaustion finally catch up with me, and my body sways where I stand. Kaden notices immediately.

“When did you last sleep, Wraithling?”

His voice carries an edge I recognize. He's realizing how much Cassie's “visits” have deprived me of basic needs.

The photos still litter the bed, evidence of other women's suffering that I can't bear to sleep among. As I reach to clear them, my hands shake with fatigue.

Kaden's hands, strong and sure, close over mine, stilling their trembling. With a gracefulness that belies the fury simmering beneath his skin, he guides me to sit on the edge of the bed, then gathers the pictures himself.

He stacks them in his hands, his jawline so pronounced I fear his teeth might crack from the pressure. Every line of his body is taut with barely contained rage, a predator poised to strike in a depleted, controlled environment. He prowls to one corner and tosses them in a small trash can so hard, it nearly tips over. But when Kaden turns back to me, his expression softens, the typhoon in his eyes calming to a soft rain.

“Let's get you to bed,” he murmurs. “It’s not ideal, but you’ve got to sleep. I’ll watch over you.”

He eases me back onto the pillows, drawing the covers over my abused body.

I wince as the fabric brushes against the raw wounds on my skin, a whimper escaping through my teeth.

Kaden stills. For a moment, I think he might put his fist through a wall. Or worse, tear the door off its hinges to hunt down every man who hurt me and tear them apart with his bare hands.

But I’m aware that he won’t. Because the real perpetrator, the one responsible, is the very woman he can’t hurt.

Kaden takes a deep breath, then perches on the edge of the bed, his hip pressing against mine. He runs his fingers through my hair, carefully untangling the damp snarls.

“Close your eyes,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “I won’t let any harm come to you while you dream.”

I want to argue, to insist that he needs rest too, but my eyelids are already drooping, my body surrendering to the exhaustion that drags at me. What helps is the steady pressure of Kaden's hand in mine, an unspoken promise that he'll still be here when I wake.

His thumb traces soothing circles while sleep tugs at me, its insistent fingers dragging me under despite the adrenaline still pumping through my veins.

But as I hover on the edge of consciousness, the noises next door begin to change.

The dull thud of fists meeting flesh takes on a frenzied cadence, each impact landing with sickening irregularity.

A voice rises above the cacophony, female and achingly familiar. Cassie.

Her words are indistinct, lost to the barrier of brick and plaster, but there's no mistaking the fury that laces each syllable. It's the auditory embodiment of a gathering storm, dark and seething and poised to obliterate everything in its path.

“What’s going on?” I ask Kaden.

Cassie's voice pitches higher, the words coming faster now, a staccato burst of vitriol.

Kaden replies without tearing his attention off the locked door. “I believe she just saw me tucking you into bed.”

The blows next door reach a crescendo, each one punctuated by a gurgling male scream. I burrow deeper into the covers, pressing my face into the pillow as if I can block out the horror unfolding on the other side of the wall.

Kaden shifts beside me, resting his free hand on my back. Even through the fabric of my shirt, I can feel the heat of his touch and the pounding pulse that thrums through his body.

“Breathe, Layla,” he murmurs, his voice a low rumble that vibrates through his hand and into me. “Focus on my voice, on my touch. Let everything else fade away.”

Another scream rips through the air, this one high and thin and filled with a despair so profound that it makes me moan into the pillow. It's the sound of someone being unmade, of a soul being split into a thousand pieces.

And through it all, Cassie's laughter weaves like a discordant melody, and she follows me all the way into oblivion.