Chapter Twelve
Upon our entry into the apartment, the first thing I notice is Kit and Jay acting like idiots.
They’re sitting side by side on the chairs opposite the couch where Roberto is sitting, just watching the kingpin drink Kane’s booze in excess.
I can feel their panic their uncertainty about how to stop the impending disaster, but neither moves a hair to take the damn bottle.
I’m not sure anyone but me can get away with letting that man down Kane’s prized whiskey, but here we are, doing it anyway.
Me and Kane step behind the chairs and Kit and Jay scramble to the far side of either of us.
A glance at the coffee table and bottle tell me that Roberto has indeed proven himself a hearty and foolish drinker, having downed an impressive amount of that expensive liquid.
His father really does want to die tonight.
Or maybe he assumes it’s already done. He’s a dead man where he sits.
Kane’s eyes lock with his father’s stare and I have no idea what silently ticks between them.
In the meantime, Kit is glaring at Roberto from the right side of the couch, a willing supporter of Kane over his father. I like Kit more every day, even if he does eat too many of my donuts, and bitch like a chick. But where his actions please me they do not please Kane.
“Kit,” Kane warns, the words a tight band. “Take Jay and wait on me in the hallway.”
Kit grunts but complies, and he and Jay walk toward the door.
Silence ticks by until the two men have left us alone with Roberto but still no words are spoken. The air crackles with Kane’s dark energy, his power, and I wonder if Kane himself realizes how much he overshadows his father at this stage of their lives. If he doesn’t, I believe he soon will.
I do not belong in the middle of what must transpire between father and son.
I’ve done my part. I’ve set this stage. “I’ll leave you two to talk,” I say, speaking to Kane, but watching Roberto and when my dear ol’ father-in-law looks at me, my lips quirk, as I add, “I won’t expect you any time soon. ”
Roberto’s flinch is barely perceivable but it’s there, right along with his dread and fear.
I wonder how many people would love to see such things in this monster and I pause one extra moment to revel in the joy it would bring to many a victim’s family.
And he has victims, too many to count I would gamble.
Another beat, and I say nothing else. Roberto at this point, respects my ability to kill and I feel a moment of remorse.
I can never surprise him with my true self again.
I leave them there then, two of the same blood, but not of the same heart, but Kane’s father would be foolish to underestimate the brutality in Kane.
There is darkness in my husband that he has long grappled with, long hungered to destroy, but in moments like these I suspect, he allows it to consume him.
Almost.
And I know from personal experience that “almost” consumed by darkness is not “almost” dangerous.
It’s downright destructive. But I trust Kane to control himself, to check himself, just as he checks me when needed.
I cut away from Kane, and he lets me walk away.
In fact, I can almost sense relief in him.
No matter how I hold my own, Kane has seen his father at his most brutal, and he doesn’t want me near him.
I’ll be shocked if he allows him to live, but at his core, Kane is an intelligent, strategic person who can see beyond his emotions.
His father would use him for the betterment of his agenda.
Kane will see the value of doing the same with his father.
Once I’m upstairs in our bedroom, I shut the door, and waste no time changing out of my dress and into a pair of leggings, a sweater, and sneakers, an outfit that isn’t perfect, but it’s battle ready.
I settle onto the bed, and place my blade on the nightstand, within close reach.
To say I’m feeling a bit stabby is an understatement.
It’s impossible to believe I have this many crappy men standing in my path and I won’t end up stabbing at least one of them in some sensitive part of his body sometime soon.
Because they made me, of course.
It's late, close to two in the morning, and I need my sleep, to be my best bitch tomorrow but my mind is racing. Ghost is a pain in my butt, but I believe, right now, a problem that can wait. Junior is likely the same. But Roberto is another story.
Why did he come back?
I grab a stack of notecards from the nightstand and write: He was running from someone who’s gone now. My brows dip. But why now? I think. Why wouldn’t Roberto get rid of that person a long time ago? I actually write that on the card. And the only answer I can think of. He couldn’t.
Tapping the pen on the card, I ponder the possible answers.
He must see this person as untouchable. Was it Kane, who he needed to carry on his name and there is something there I don’t know?
No, I think right away. There were secrets between me and Kane but we’ve rid ourselves of those.
Unless he just hasn’t told me yet. He had no reason.
He thought his dad was dead. I’d say Pocher, especially after all he said about the Society, but Pocher’s still alive and well.
I write down a few other options. An enemy we don’t know about, a gambling debt though I doubt a kingpin would worry about that, and lastly, the mafia. Each premise is assigned its own card.
An hour later, the house is quiet and I creep from our bed to the hallway, easing to the railing overlooking the living room. And just as I suspect, Kane and his father are gone.