Chapter 83 Kane
KANE
Watching Delilah feed her nephew doesn’t stir any feelings other than fear.
The old me wanted the typical family the world convinces people will make them feel fulfilled, but I don’t want a child in a world where I’ll constantly be in fear of them being taken away.
Or worse, twins. It all ends with me, the last person with tainted DNA because the only way to stop history repeating itself is by making sure it remains history.
I just want my wife. A life with her far away from anyone else where we can’t be found while Sasha’s crazy ass complains about being hungry.
I’ve already been shouted at by Seraphim, when I picked up the plate Ruby set on the table which was apparently her dad’s special plate.
I don’t know what else I could’ve done wrong.
But I’m questioning myself as she stares at me, looking at each of my arms individually as she twirls her fork through the noodles. “Where’s your arm?”
“Eat in the other room,” Ruby says like I haven’t anticipated the question coming. Her daughter always stares.
“It’s fine. I lost it.”
“Oh, my dad can get you a new one. Can’t you?” She looks at Daigon as she pushes her fork into her mouth.
“I’m sure he can do it himself,” he says from his own seat since he’s allowed Ruby to sit somewhere other than his thigh.
“Well, he can. Or did you leave them at home?” She looks back at me when Daigon doesn’t answer. “You might have to wait until we go home but my dad can get anything and he—”
“Other room,” Ruby repeats more forcefully.
“What? I was being nice like you said, because he kept putting his fork down so he could drink.” She rolls her eyes, drawling, “I’m sorrrrrryyyy,” then picks up her plate, biting the rim of her glass to carry her meal into the living room.
“Sorry.” Ruby looks at her husband and he shakes his head once. “She doesn’t really understand it’s something people might not want to discuss.”
“I don’t think she has a filter anyway,” Delilah mutters.
“Why filter words?” Seraphim shouts. “Unless you’re talking shit.”
“Language, little madam.”
“I don’t mind,” I say again as I look over my shoulder where she’s isolated from her family. “You don’t have to make her sit alone because of me.”
“I’m not alone,” Seraphim shouts over. “I have the TV. You have each other’s boring company.” She flicks through the channels. “Dad, what’s the password?”
“It’s called child lock for a reason, little demon. No more scary movies.”
“So let this child unlock it.”
I don’t want her to be on her own, so I take my plate and sit on the other side of the sofa to make small talk.
“What scary movies do you like?” I ask.
“The really old ones, like your age. They’re so bad, they’re not even scary.”
“First of all, I’m not old. Second of all, you take after Delilah.”
“I’m not dumb,” she fires back then bares her teeth in an awkward smile. “I mean, she’s not dumb. She just doesn’t pay attention to everything around her. Like she tried to ask my mom a question, but I was sitting right there so I could obviously read her lips.”
“She likes scary movies too,” I deflect. “She’d laugh at the old ones because the guts were made of foam.”
“Yeah?” She turns towards the kitchen, hanging off the back of the sofa. “Auntie Delilah, what’s your favorite one?”
The smile on my wife’s face at being called an aunt is pure fucking joy. “I have a few but I forget everything I watch.”
“The great Delilah and Kane movie marathons are going to start again,” Scarlet groans. “If you two giggle when the little weirdo in a mask chases the girl, I’m going to hit you.”
“Does she chase him back?” Seraphim asks.
My wife looks at me, a smile playing on her lips, eyes lighting up. But her eldest sister answers, “No. They always end the same, with the man in the mask being someone who’s in love with her.”
“Well, that’s stupid,” Seraphim huffs as she goes back to her plate. “I bet Dad would shout at me if I didn’t take their knife and chase them back.”
“No one’s ever chasing after you, little demon,” Daigon grits.
“Exactly! You’d give me the knife.”
“You’re not chasing anyone,” Ruby says. “With or without a knife. Eat your food.”
The teenager looks at me through the corner of her eyes, mouthing, They’re so boring.
If Seraphim could see her dad as he whistles with a bat over his shoulder, I’m sure she’d change her stance on him being boring.
Daigon doesn’t know the Leroux house like I do, so I walk ahead.
He’s already disabled the alarm, but my wife is even more eager as she skips steps entirely as we walk up the stairs.
I couldn’t deny her revenge when the fucker raped her for years, drugged her so he could sell his own child. She’s beautiful with her righteous anger as she squeezes the handle of a knife in her fist.
I’m stuck in the middle of two psychotic fucks as Delilah copies her brother-in-law’s whistling.
They stay in tune with each other as we walk around the staircase to the main bedroom where Harkin’s snoring resonates through the thick wooden door.
A tremor works through her limbs the closer we get until she loses the eerie whistle and kicks into the wood.
There have been many different facets of my wife.
The lost girl who was looking for a friend, the confident teenager who never gave a fuck about anyone, the quiet contemplation under the stars she would only ever show me, then the crazy I misguidedly forced on her.
This is a new one—rage. She has never been as beautiful as she is in this moment, flicking the lights on to look at her startled parents, who spring up in bed.
“What? No welcome home for the baby of the family?” she asks as I wrap my arm around her waist, standing at her back.
Harkin’s eyes widen when he looks at me, sleep deepening his voice. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
Before I can answer, she fires back, “Well, the thing about Kane is that he has a bad habit of faking his death. Don’t worry though, I’ll make sure you don’t rise again. Where the fuck is the island?”
They prove they never take her seriously as they lay back down. Her father looks at my arm while her mother scoffs, “Don’t be silly. You don’t have the capability to harm us.”
“Are you forgetting your daughter killed Asher?” I ask as Daigon steps into the room.
“That’s enough family bonding.” He stops in front of their bed, stretching his neck around the metal bat. “Give them the location they want.”
“You can’t harm us,” Lizbeth says with a current of fear working through her.
“Can and will. You see,” he leans forward, grabbing her right hand so tightly I can see her bones distorting beneath her skin before it snaps, “the child you tried to kill is mine. I now have all of your children, all of your money, and your house. You have nothing. Are nothing. So give them what they want, or I’ll begin my fun. ”
I let Delilah go when Harkin moves. She wastes no time to stab him in the dick. The smile on her face is radiant as she twists, elongating his screams. “Hurts, doesn’t it, Daddy?”
There’s only one thing they care about, so I take out my phone as they get in position beside my rotten in-laws. Daigon doesn’t lean down so their heads are aligned. Delilah does the same, and I make sure there’s nothing in the shot to show this is forced as Daigon says, “Say cheese.”
It takes three attempts for them to look like they’re smiling. “What will your master think if she finds out you paid your son-in-law to save your daughter from the hell she put her in?”
We have enough information to know how they all operate thanks to Ruby and Daigon filling in the gaps.
They had to keep their family safe after Harkin sold Ruby to Rowan, who tried to kill her while she was pregnant.
The one thing Lizbeth and Harkin used as a safety net was isolating their daughters.
Lennox gave Delilah enough information to help too.
Now there’s nothing they can surprise us with.
Their business is crumbling.
Helene’s ego won’t allow them to live if she thinks she’s losing control of them, but their stubbornness stops them opening their mouths. Daigon is all too happy about it as he grabs them by their throats. “Out of the way, troublemaker. Your sister won’t be happy if you get hurt.”
“Is he flirting with her?” Asher asks.
I ignore him because I trust my wife.
He drags his in-laws through the house while I watch Delilah as she slowly walks to her childhood bedroom.
The bargaining voices of her parents get further away.
She opens the door, pausing at the threshold to watch a room stuck in time as she flicks the light on.
Wrapping my arms around her from behind, I kiss her shoulder. “Are you sad, pretty girl?”
“No. I don’t know who I was here.” She strokes across my forearms, her touch gentler on my left arm as she stops below my elbow. “It’s like I know the information, but I’m detached from it, like it wasn’t me.”
“Take what you need. Everything’s burning tonight.”
Leaning up on her toes with a soft smile on her face, she kisses my jaw, repeating, “Everything burns tonight.” Another tender kiss. “Apart from us.”
“We’ve burnt enough.” My dick twitches. Years of feeling nothing and now, at the most inopportune fucking time, it comes back to life.
I bite the side of her neck as I grind into her ass.
“Hurry up, koukla mou. I miss having my wife to myself. Get what you need, make them hurt, then it’s on to the rest of our lives.
I’m going to fuck you while you’re covered in their blood and your heart is racing from slaying your demons. ”
Her smile is even wider, crazed as she rushes forward, dragging me with her. I have to let her go when she drops to her knees in front of her bed. I step back, sparing a look at the open door as Lizbeth’s screams travel through the house.
“Not now,” I whisper. “Your brother-in-law is downstairs.”