49. Emery
FORTY-NINE
EMERY
We burst in through the back door of the clinic. The same door that I came through when I’d been brought in by the ambulance. I should have known then that something was amiss. That there was truly something treacherous in the underlining of Kane’s life.
And the only thing I could think was, Please, be okay, please, be okay .
As if Charleigh could hear the prayers dropping from my spirit, she squeezed my hand as we ran inside.
“He’s going to be fine,” she promised.
Sickness boiled in my stomach and my head felt light, and it took everything I had not to crumble to the floor when River tossed open the door that led to the secret examination room ahead of us and I found Kane sitting up on the stretcher.
Awake and alive.
Hooked to a bunch of tubes and wires with the softest smile on his gorgeous face.
“Oh my God.” It wheezed out of me.
Supplication .
Praise.
I didn’t know.
The only thing I knew was I was pushing around River and Charleigh and throwing myself against him.
He grunted when I made contact, though those arms wrapped around me.
Strong and fierce and unrelenting.
A sob tore out of me. “Kane.”
A hand ran down the back of my head, his voice a gruff murmur at the top of it. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”
“I was so scared,” I choked around a sob.
He urged me back to look at him, his hands never ceasing in their caresses, those magic eyes flaring as he stared back at me. “I told you I would never leave you.”
Tears blurred my sight, and I could barely get the words out with the way cries clogged my throat. “You were shot.”
There were uncountable questions in the muddled statement.
How and who and what was he involved in? How was this possible? Because I didn’t understand the details of his life. Who he really was or if my niece or I were safe. If I was making a horrible mistake by allowing my heart to be right here with him, bleeding all over the floor.
His thumb brushed over a tear that slid down my cheek. “It’s okay.”
My brow knitted in the disorder of fear and relief. “Is it?”
Kane sent a wary glance at River who I felt hovering right behind. His own turmoil flooding out.
Kane’s regard dipped back to me. “We need to talk.”
“But first I need to make sure you’re stable,” Dr. Reynolds cut in. The man was probably in his mid-seventies, his hair completely grayed and a litany of wrinkles carved into the map of his face.
Kindness and care leaked out with what almost seemed irritation.
“Told Theo that I was fine, but he freaked out.”
River grunted. “You fuckin’ blacked out, man. Theo thought he was losing you.”
Something vicious streaked across Kane’s face. His voice a blade. “Are they safe? Don’t know what happened once I got on that plane. ”
I could feel River’s reticence. The way he glanced at me in speculation and worry before he gritted, “Yeah. Once Theo got you to that airfield, he made his way back to the transport truck with them. They’re secure and on their way.”
Kane breathed out a strained sigh. “Thank fuck. Wasn’t sure we were going to make it out of that one.”
My attention ricocheted between the two of them. Dread so thick I could hardly breathe. What were they talking about?
“And that scumbag who came after them?”
More hesitation from River, then the scraping of words. “He’s down. Permanently.”
Nausea spun, and Kane hugged me closer.
Energy curled between us.
Both disorienting and comforting.
“What’s the status?” River asked, turning his focus to Dr. Reynolds and Charleigh who’d been bustling around on the other side of Kane during the exchange.
“He was stable on the flight. Blood pressure is good. The injury was mostly superficial, and he lost only a small amount of blood, though I have no doubt that it hurt like hell.”
“Like bloody hell.” Kane grinned.
My chest tightened. This wasn’t funny. Wasn’t a joke. Wasn’t something to be written off.
As if he sensed the turmoil, Kane squeezed me tighter, coaxing me to bury my face in the sanctuary of his chest, his voice rough when he muttered, “If I’m all good, then I’m going to need you all to step out.”
I started to straighten.
“Not you, Little Warrior. Need you right here with me.”
“That should be fine,” Dr. Reynolds said as he scribbled something into an old-school chart before he patted Kane’s opposite shoulder. His words turned poignant. “You did well.”
Confusion continued to race, and River hesitated. Charleigh came around the table, her hand brushing across her fiancé’s chest to scoot him back before she ran a tender hand down my arm.
A soft show of encouragement before she ushered everyone out the door. It clicked shut behind them, and the dense air only thickened more the second Kane and I were alone.
A pounding that thudded against the walls. Reverberating. Multiplying the tumult that barreled through me.
“Hey,” Kane murmured.
I peeled my head back enough to look at him.
Intensity blazed from his expression, those magic eyes so full of emotion, lapping and swimming with secrets and truth.
“Who are you?” I finally managed to whisper.
Mournfulness flicked and flashed across his striking face, and he brushed back a lock of hair stuck to my tear-stained cheek and tucked it behind my ear. “Told you I wasn’t a good man. That you weren’t going to get a white knight but a dragon.”
The warning filled the enclosed space.
Ballooning to unbearable.
I sniffled. “You never told me what that really means.”
Severity creased the corners of his eyes. “You want to know, Emery? Do you really want to know me? You want to see inside to the man that I really am?”
My nod was frantic.
A fool.
A fool.
Wanting to dive straight into whoever that was.
“I tell you this, Emery, and I’m letting you into something that can never be revealed to anyone else.” Ferocity underscored the words. “It’s a secret that we carry. One that very few know about. One that I want you to hold and share with me.”
His throat bobbed harshly as he studied me. “And I’m fucking terrified that you might run when I do. Terrified that I’ll lose you. Terrified because I love you so fucking much that I don’t recognize myself any longer.”
Moisture continued to pool, my own emotion cresting. Rising up and overflowing.
His confession sounded so sweet in the middle of the hurricane .
“I love you so much,” he pushed on. “So much that I’m willing to face any consequence for the chance of you loving me back.”
My heart burned.
Burned and blazed as the confession poured from him.
“But if I have any chance of that, then you need to know me. You need to know this .” The last word cracked.
“What is this ?” I begged.
Kane inhaled a steeling breath. “You know that I met my crew while living on the streets of LA. I ended up there after my mother was killed. Desperate and alone and trying to find a way to survive. And we did that by falling into a bad crowd. A really bad crowd, and we got involved in really bad things.”
Apprehension expanded, my breaths coming short and haggard while I watched the demons play through Kane’s eyes.
The grief and regret.
The shame and the torment.
My fingers trembled with the urge to reach out and smooth them away.
“Our hands are dirty, Emery. Fucking filthy and tainted. Brutality. Barbarity.” Shadows of shame crawled across his striking, intimidating face. “I’ve done horrible, abhorrent things.”
My throat was so thick I could hardly breathe, and I clutched his hand to keep myself grounded. Tied to his reality that he didn’t want me to face.
Remorse shook his head. “So many years passed like that, and I don’t know if we all came up on a T in the road at the same time or what. If there was something that popped up inside us that told us we all had to make a change.”
Kane hesitated, sweeping his tongue over his bottom lip before he forced himself to continue. “This one night…”
Pain oozed out of him on a torrent. “This one night, I ran straight into a T, Emery. A dead end.” He swallowed hard, barely able to speak.
“These bastards that we’d gotten messed up in were asking me to do something I absolutely could not do.
I don’t think I realized I still had a conscience until that moment. ”
I couldn’t get the air into my aching lungs while I waited, my eyes trapped by the torment that thrashed in Kane’s penetrating gaze.
“What…what was it?” I finally managed to ask.
Grimness shook his head, and he brushed a trembling thumb over the apple of my cheek. “I’ll spare you that, Little Warrier. The only thing you need to know is I couldn’t go along with what they had planned. So, that night, I betrayed these guys who were supposed to be my brothers.”
He inhaled a shattered breath. “Not one of my crew knew what I’d done.
None of them knew I was basically a dead man walking.
I hid out for a couple of weeks, trying to lay low, though I kept an eye on Theo and the rest of the guys to make sure they were safe.
I couldn’t let what I’d done blow back on them. ”
My heart was hooked on every word that he confessed.
Kane let go of a disbelieving chuckle. “Thing was, those monsters we’d gotten involved with? About a week later, that whole group imploded, and they scattered like the fucking rats they were. So, I went back home—to the house I shared with all the guys and Raven.”
He pushed out a heavy sigh before he continued. “Two nights later, River showed up with this woman…”
Kane blinked a bunch of times, as if he were taken back to that time. His voice ground like gravel. “River had overheard an altercation between her and her boyfriend. Had heard this guy beating on her. Her pleas and cries.”
He paused, staring at me, worried that he was revealing too much.
My entire being rattled. Sure of the direction he was going, but needing to hear him say it, anyway.
“Tell me,” I rushed on a whisper.
Kane gave a soft nod as if it would lessen the verbal blow he was about to deliver.