Chapter 15 Cayce
CAYCE
Tiernan badges us through the steel door and the lock answers with a clean click.
Cold fluorescents come up in sequence, a measured path of light along painted concrete.
The room is as it should be—white tile, stainless, bleach and metal.
No shadows to hide in. No noise but the hum of a vent and the soft, impatient beat of my own blood coming back down.
“Any issues?” I ask without looking at him.
“No,” he says. “No tails, no messages. He didn’t call anyone on the way in. He doesn’t have anyone who would pick up if he did.”
We step past the sink, past the rolling cart arranged like a tidy argument, to the chair in the center.
The man is awake now. He came around fast—bad luck for him, good for the ledger.
Tape at the wrists and ankles. Plastic apron under the chair.
His breathing’s still in that stubborn rhythm of men who think they can negotiate with reality.
“Name?” I ask, for the part of me that likes to know which headstone to imagine when I’m counting sleep.
Tiernan answers. “Doyle. Low-level collector. Hired six months ago by Carrick’s crew. We thought he’d wash out but turns out he was useful because he didn’t mind scaring people.” A beat. “He’s hurt three women since he started wearing a watch on our time. Two we found. One won’t talk.”
The man looks at me then—really looks. The recognition isn’t sudden, it’s slow. The way a deer finally understands a road.
“I—” he starts.
“You talked enough at the reception,” I say. “You’re done.”
He jerks against the tape. The chair doesn’t move. The hum of the vent gets louder because that’s how memory works—you start hearing small things to avoid the big one.
Tiernan steps in closer. “No family,” he adds, flat. “No one who cares where he sleeps. A cousin in Worcester who owes him money and won’t miss him until rent day.”
“Good,” I say.
I take off my jacket and fold it over the clean hook. Cuff links next, rolled carefully into the pocket like I might see them again. I wash my hands because it’s what we do before we eat and before we work. The room smells like preparations. I’m calm. That’s important. This is a job, not a thrill.
Doyle starts to talk again—bargains that aren’t bargains, a name that isn’t relevant, a promise that doesn’t balance a sheet. I let it pass. Tiernan moves to my shoulder the way he did when we were boys and I tried to fight too fast. His presence is a metronome. My temper keeps time to it.
“You insulted my wife,” I tell Doyle. No ornament, because ornament is for men who need to convince themselves why they’re here. “You did it so other men would laugh.”
“I was drunk,” he says. “I didn’t mean—”
“You meant every single word you spoke,” I say. “Drunk just means you said it out loud.”
His mouth goes stubborn. The kind of stubborn that got him as far as a paycheck and nowhere near a pension.
I take the axe from the peg. It’s not a theatrical thing; it’s a tool. Balanced. Clean. Tiernan set it out because I asked him to earlier, in the car, when I felt that old weather moving in and didn’t want to give it any more power than naming a cloud.
Doyle starts to beg. Tiernan doesn’t look away, and I don’t look at Tiernan. I don’t remember Blackvine when I work. I remember Pop, hands steady, voice low as he issued the edict. Do what you came to do, and do it clean, or don’t come into the room.
I do it clean.
I take his hands because he used them to touch girls who told him no. I don’t explain it to him. explanations are for men who get to learn something. He won’t be taking any lessons with him. The chair takes the weight. The sound is what it is. I don’t make it poetry.
Tiernan passes me what I ask for when I need it. He doesn’t flinch. I don’t either.
When it’s time, I take his sight. He doesn’t need it where he’s going, and he doesn’t deserve it after what he looked upon.
It’s not art. It’s not rage. It’s the end of a sentence that started at a cocktail table with a laugh at the expense of my queen.
When it’s over, it’s over. Tiernan checks for a pulse out of habit. There isn’t one. He nods once, the way he nods when a door is shut and won’t open again.
“I’ll handle the rest,” he says. He means the part where floors get mopped and trash goes where it goes and a phone gets switched off for good. He means the part where the world forgets a name that shouldn’t have been said at my table.
“In-house,” I say. “No favors.”
“In-house,” he confirms.
I wash again. Water too hot, then not enough. I scrub down to where the smell lives and then past it to be sure. I don’t look at my face in the stainless. I know what I’ll see.
“Anything else?” Tiernan asks.
“Yeah,” I say, drying my hands slow. “Make sure his crew understands it wasn’t for a debt. It was for disrespect. They’ll remember the difference longer.”
He grunts once. He’s already writing the message in the air.
I leave the jacket on the hook and take a fresh one from the locker. Spare shirt. Different shoes. Pop’s cuff links back in, like a ritual I perform to bring my heartbeat back into something human.
Tiernan keys me out. The heavy door swallows the light.
Upstairs, the hallway is what it was before—quiet, carpets, the kind of lamps rich people pick when they want to look like they don’t notice money.
I pass two of our men who pretend not to know where I’ve been.
They nod with their mouths and not their eyes.
In the master suite, the shower is already running.
Someone thought ahead. I step under it and let heat do its one honest job—bring me back into body.
The water runs pink for one breath, then clear.
I stand there until the anger isn’t heat anymore, just a thought.
I scrub the smell out of my hair and the noise out of my ears.
I turn the water off when the mirror fogs all the way.
She’s not asleep.
I can feel it before I see her. Caterina is propped against the headboard, hair unpinned, nightshirt a soft nothing. No makeup. Her rosary on the nightstand. Her eyes on me like a truth I have to pass through to get into the room.
“You’re supposed to be asleep,” I say, drying my hair with the towel like I haven’t just been in a different world.
“Were you with another woman?” she asks. The words are calm. Her eyes are not.
“No,” I say. “I was killing the man who insulted you.”
Something in her shoulders tightens, then releases. She slides her knees apart, making space like she’s got work for me. I cross the room and set my palms on the mattress and crawl between her thighs because I need the anchor and she decides when I get it.
“Do you think I’m a monster?” I ask. I don’t do drama. I need the truth.
She looks at my mouth, then my eyes. “I think you’re mine.”
“That’s not the question.”
She wraps a hand around the back of my neck and pulls me down to her like she’s putting a leash on a dog that will only ever heel for her.
“Monsters don’t come home and ask it out loud,” she says.
“Monsters pretend they were at a bar. You came home. You told me. Use me if you need to. Let me be your sanctuary.”
“Sanctuary.” I take a breath, then take my time, and use patience to find every one of her pleasure points.
I crave her. Crave every point of contact. Her hands in my hair. My mouth on her throat where I count every pulse of her heart. She tips her chin when I tell her to, and when I call her good girl she makes a sound I want to hear every night until the house falls down around us.
“Mine,” I say into her mouth, and she answers, “Yes,” like the world was waiting for this connection between us.
“I am so ready to taste you, baby.” I growl against her skin. “I need it.” With my hands and mouth I explore every inch of her body until I reach her center.
“Spread your thighs, kitten. Put your legs on my shoulders, and don’t be afraid to squeeze my head.”
She’s already wet and throbbing when I press my tongue to her, a slow, possessive stroke from the bottom of her heat to the tight little bundle that makes her gasp.
I anchor her hips with my hands and lap again, lazy at first, letting her roll against my mouth, letting her sweet sounds get rougher, uncoordinated, greedy.
Her fingers dive into my hair and tug while I groan against her, and the vibration makes her choke on my name.
“That’s it,” I murmur into her, lips wet, chin slick with her arousal. “Give me everything, kitten.”
I seal my mouth around her clit and draw her in, tongue circling, then pulsing—measured, relentless.
She arches hard, thighs bracketing my head.
I welcome the pressure and flatten my tongue, building a rhythm that turns her breaths into wrecked little cries.
She tries to squirm away when the pleasure spikes; I haul her closer, pinning her to my mouth, and she breaks for me—trembling, clutching, a helpless, beautiful mess.
I don’t stop.
I ride her through it, tasting the stutter of her release, swallowing the sound she makes when she tips over the edge a second time because I won’t let her drift anywhere but back onto my tongue.
“Cayce—” Her voice is shredded silk. “Please.”
I lift my head just enough to speak against her, lips brushing, tongue teasing. “You’re going to come for me again.” I slide two fingers through the heat of her and ease one inside, slow, deliberate, watching her face.
She gasps, thighs clamping around me. I add the second, scissoring gently, curling until I find the spot that makes her whole body lurch.
“There,” I say, satisfied. “I’ve got you.”
I fuck her with my fingers and my mouth together—steady thrusts, tight circles—until she grabs the sheets and shatters. Her hips jerk while my name tears out of her. She’s wet and shaking and perfect in her innocence and debauchery.
I don’t come up for air until she’s limp and smiling like she can taste the stars.
I kiss the inside of her thigh, then the other, and crawl up her body, dragging my mouth along her skin as if I can mark a path back to where I started.
She catches my face in her hands and kisses me deep, tasting herself on my tongue, making a needy, desperate sound that snaps what little restraint I was holding.
I line up and push in slow, inch by inch, watching her go wide-eyed and wrecked all over again. She’s tight, hot, and clutching at me, heels digging into my back. I bottom out and hold there, forehead to hers, chest to chest, feeling the beat of her heart slam against mine.
“Look at me,” I say, and she does, eyes dark and glassy. “You feel what you do to me?”
She moans and rolls her hips. “Move.”
I do. Long, deep strokes that drag a curse out of my throat every time I pull back and slide home. She meets me, greedy and sure, nails scoring my shoulders.
I shift her knees higher and stroke harder, faster, the slap of skin loud in our room, the headboard knocking the wall.
She’s babbling now—my name, half-words, half-broken pleas that make me feral.
I angle my hips and find that spot inside her again; she jerks, claws at me, tries to pull me deeper. “Right there,” she gasps. “Don’t stop, Cayce—don’t—”
I don’t. I pin her wrists over her head with one hand and drive into her, merciless and devoted, the other hand holding her jaw so I can take her mouth while I take her body. Her thighs tremble as her core flutters around me and her breath stutters in my mouth.
“Come for me,” I growl, teeth grazing her lower lip. “Now.”
She breaks, convulsing around me, tearing a ragged cry into my mouth. The way she tightens is savage, milking me, forcing me right to the edge. I lose the rhythm and pound into the aftershocks, chasing the heat that’s been chewing at my spine since the moment I tasted her.
“Good girl,” I rasp, and that’s the match. I slam in deep and come hard, groaning into her neck, holding her down like the world might try to steal her from beneath me. She’s still fluttering around me when I finally breathe again.
I don’t pull out. Not yet. I rest inside her, heavy and satisfied, kissing the corner of her mouth, her cheekbone, the soft pulse beneath her ear. She hums, boneless, and slides her freed hands into my hair, scratching lightly at my scalp until my eyes threaten to close.
“You’re not sleeping,” she murmurs, teasing. “We’re not done.”
I smile against her skin, lift my head, and look at the woman who ruined me with a single yes. “No, kitten,” I say, rolling us so she’s on top, my hands spreading over her hips. “We’re just getting started.”
After, the night returns to regular size. My breath evens out where her shoulder meets my mouth. She cards her fingers through my hair like she’s counting something private.
“I chose you,” she says into the quiet. “Monsters and all. You can be the boogeyman. I’ll be what drags you out of closets before you startle the kids.”
I huff a laugh against her skin. It feels like she plugged me back into the house. “Deal.”
We lie there with the sheets a mess and the world far away. The heat kicks on and the vent clicks. Somewhere downstairs a door opens and closes softly because Tiernan is good at his job.
“Cayce,” she says, after the part where silence is comfortable and before it turns into sleep.
“Mm.”
“I have a plan,” she says, and the way she says it is the way she said I’m dangerous a few hours ago at an altar. “To destroy the men who hurt you.”
That pulls me up on one elbow. “Tell me.”
She reaches to the nightstand and takes up her rosary. It’s the one she carried when she thought the rest of her life would look like early mornings and prayer and work that didn’t require a ledger. The beads are worn smooth in one place where a thumb has lived. The crucifix is simple, honest.
“We use this,” she says and sets it in my palm.