Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
KANE
Heading home to take a quick shower, I check my phone for a response from Jessica.
Zilch. Nada.
I call her, but it goes straight to voicemail. Her phone is still off, which means I’ll have to hunt my little rabbit later. Not the worst idea I’ve had, to be honest.
I pull into the driveway and try her phone one more time to see if she’s come to her senses, but no such luck. How stubborn can one girl be? I know she likes me or she wouldn’t be coming on my dick and begging for more.
I enter the house. The lights are on, but that’s nothing unusual. They’re on a timer and always on at this time of the night.
I’m trying Jessica’s phone again on my way to the staircase when my father barks my name.
“A word in my office,” he says, then walks back the way he came.
“Hello to you too,” I grumble, pocketing my phone.
What does he want now? What could be so urgent?
He’s waiting for me in his office, standing by one of the display units, his hands in his pockets.
I shut the door and wait for him to speak. He likes to psych people out, leaving them sweating and questioning their innocence. Naturally, silence is his favorite weapon. I’ve been around long enough to learn his tricks.
“Come here,” he says after a long, heavy moment of tension.
What’s this about? My senses are always heightened around him, but anyone with a sliver of common sense can feel the hostility oozing from him now. It’s suffocating.
I join his side as he removes a rare, vintage cigar box from the cabinet and opens it to reveal a collection of cigars.
“It’s beautiful, don’t you think?”
“Sure,” I reply, shifting on my feet.
“The captain of the Titanic once owned this box. See this emblem?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the White Star Line’s emblem, and these are the captain’s initials.”
While that’s interesting, I don’t know what he wants me to say.
“I bought it at auction in Liverpool,” he continues. “Forty thousand dollars.”
Pocket money, in other words.
“Impressive,” I answer dutifully.
He takes one of the cigars from the box. “Designed to hold forty Havana cigars.”
I watch him run it beneath his nose, breathing in the rich tobacco scent.
“Nothing but the finest for the captain.”
What does he want? He didn’t call me in here to discuss an old cigar box.
“It also incorporates a cigar cutter.”
He returns the box to the cabinet and snips the cigar.
I fight a flinch.
“I noticed the most interesting thing today,” he says in a conversational tone, then blows on the tip and looks at me as he pats his breast pocket for the lighter.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to take the bait and ask him what he discovered, but that’s what he wants. He wants a reaction, so I stay silent as he strikes the metal wheel and lights the end.
“Something is missing.”
My body goes rigid as I snap my head toward the cabinet.
Something’s missing? What does he mean by that?
“After it was discovered that Kennie tried to steal The Founders’ Relic, it was brought here.”
Oh shit. They brought it here?
“And now it’s gone.”
It’s almost as if he thinks I’ve got it, but I don’t know what the hell happened to it.
Father puffs on his cigar. “I don’t have to tell you how important it is that it gets found.”
“What about the security footage?”
“That’s the funniest thing.”
Silvery smoke curls between us.
His stare sharpens. “It has been erased.”
“Erased?”
I’m going to be sick. I deleted the evidence of Jessica breaking in because I didn’t want my father to find out about her. At least not until I’d satisfied my curiosity.
“A whole week,” he says, lifting the cigar to his lips.
The tip flares faintly.
“Gone.”
Smoke spills from his mouth in a slow stream.
“You don’t happen to know anything about that, do you?”
I clear my throat. “No, nothing.”
He hums as he savors another long pull, then crosses to the desk. I follow, glancing at the security camera in the corner.
I deleted an entire week of footage to cover my tracks. When she dropped her bag that night, everything spilled across the floor. I would’ve seen the dagger if she’d managed to keep it.
It wasn’t her.
No, it can’t have been.
Right?
So who was it?
My mind stalls when my father grabs me by the shirt and slams me onto the desk. Fisting the expensive fabric, he holds the burning embers dangerously close to my left eye. The heat sears my lashes, and I go still.
“You’re going to find it and return it to me.”
I swallow hard, my heart pounding.
“Understood?” The ice in his tone chills me to the bone.
“Yes.”
“If you don’t,” he continues, “I’ll be forced to use this on your mother.”
“I’ll get it back.”
I’ll have to.
Somehow.
He lets go of my shirt, then straightens and smokes his cigar as if nothing happened. “Where’s your brother?”
“Out with friends.” I smooth down my shirt as best I can, but the fabric is creased where he scrunched it.
“You’re the responsible one,” he says, snuffing his cigar in the ashtray. “I see a lot of me in you.” His eyes pin me in place. “Don’t disappoint me, son.”
My jaw aches from how hard I’m tensing, and when he gestures for me to leave, I don’t wait around for another of his psychotic breaks.
I bolt.
Back in my room, I take a quick shower to wash off the day.
Everything is a mess. The dagger is missing, and Jessica’s brother is licking his wounds somewhere. He’ll retaliate. That’s for certain. He won’t just let this go.
On top of everything else, I still have to find that dagger before my father takes matters into his own hands and hurts the people I love. Because he will. He always controls Cash and me through others.
The only way out is retaliation. But for that to be possible, I need leverage. Something to use against him. Otherwise, I’ll always dance to his tune. But what?
I squeeze shampoo into my palm, set the bottle back on the shelf, and scrub my hair clean.
Everyone has secrets, including my father, and I need to uncover his. If I can dig up dirt on the old man, I can finally take the narrative back into my own hands. There has to be something.
I mull it over while rinsing my hair. The water is almost too hot. Just the way I like it.
When I step out of the shower and knot a towel around my waist, my skin is flushed, water droplets trailing down my chest.
I scrub my hair dry with a spare towel and leave the en-suite. It’s time to get dressed and go hunt for my little thief. She can’t hide from me forever.
I need to get my priorities straight. First things first: fuck the stubbornness out of her and make her fall in love with me. I can worry about the damn dagger later.
But what if she has it?
No. She didn’t get away with anything that night. I know because I saw the contents of her bag spill onto the floor. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t have been.
When I find that fucker, I’m going to skin him alive.
I toss the damp towel into the laundry hamper and cross to the dresser, spraying cologne across my chest. What can I say? I need to smell good for my girl.
I’m setting the bottle down when cold metal digs into my spine.
“Did you miss me, babe?” comes a feminine voice behind me that I’ve come to know intimately over the past few weeks.
Hell yeah, she’s here.
A satisfied smile curls on my lips, but I bite it back. It’s quickly dawning on me that there’s no drug quite like her. Just like that, I’m high on life.
“Sounds like you missed me, princess,” I answer, trying to look at her behind me, but she digs the metal into my spine, and I face forward because that’s what she wants. “I’m impressed,” I continue, clearing my throat. “How did you get past the guards?”
The metal slowly glides lower. “Your first mistake was to underestimate me, Ravencourt. You think you’re safe here in your little castle?” With a quick flick of her wrist, the towel falls from my hips, and cool air licks at my ass.
Damn, I want to look at her, to see the lust on her face. It goes without saying that I’m hard as fuck. She has that effect on me. I’m gone for her in a way I didn’t think was possible.
“I have news for you,” she says, making me tense and leak precum as she trails the gun over the globes of my ass. It dips between my cheeks, and my heart kicks harder.
“Yeah? What’s that?” My words are clipped. I’m all for playing these power games with her, but we both know who’s in charge, and it’s not her. If she lowers that gun any further, I’ll bend her over and fuck her until she can’t walk tomorrow.
“I’m not one of those privileged daddy’s girls you’re used to.”
My cock jerks against my abs when she taps my ringed muscle. The threat is enough to make me grunt and grit my teeth. Damn this brat of a girl. She really thinks she’s in charge. She’s in for a rude awakening.
“Try anything, little thief, and we’ll see who comes out on top, and it won’t be you, baby.”
“No?” She sounds amused as she glides the gun along my ass crack.
It’s humiliating to be dominated by her like this.
I can’t decide whether I like it or not.
But then I think about how satisfying it’ll be to overpower her and sink my cock into one of her holes while her eyes roll to the back of her head and she moans my name.
“How exactly did you break in?” I’m curious despite myself. My father has the best security in Bleakmoor, yet this girl breaks in like it’s nothing. I don’t know whether I should be impressed or offended.
“I seduced James at the front gate.”
What the hell? I stiffen, but she’s not done riling me up. The gun slides higher, tracing my spine.
“It didn’t take much to convince him to let me in, if you catch my drift.”
I like to think I have self-control. Emotions can get you killed in my world. But my little rabbit challenges all that.
Before I know it, I’ve spun around. My little rabbit is faster. The gun is cocked and aimed at my chest.