Chapter 21 Kane
KANE
The first person Kane saw when he returned to the manor—because his life was a compilation of painful ironies—was Zaria. Of course she would appear when he was trying so very hard not to think of her.
She stood just inside the door, almost as if she’d been waiting for him. Half of her hair was pinned up in a complicated-looking twist while the rest flowed in waves down her back. Elijah hovered a few steps behind her, looking uncannily like a parent weary of trying to corral a young child.
“Kane.” The emphatic way Zaria said his name put him on edge. “Where’s—”
“Jules?” he bit, anticipating the rest of the question. “He went back to Petrov’s. Said he needed to get something.” In reality, however, Kane suspected the boy had wanted to escape the confines of the stagecoach at the earliest opportunity.
Zaria scrunched up her face. “I was going to say, Where’s a good place to talk. I need to tell you something. In private,” she added, tossing a pointed look over her shoulder at Elijah.
“She saw you arriving from her window,” Elijah was quick to add. “Demanded she be brought to see you at once.”
Kane quirked a brow. “And you comply with her every demand now, is that it?”
“I figured…” The other boy’s gaze flicked to the door, then back. “I mean, I told Adam I’d come with him to do a job, so—”
“I wasn’t being serious. You can go.”
Elijah didn’t wait to be told twice. He was out the door between one second and the next, slamming it behind him.
“What exactly are you doing to him?” Kane asked Zaria. He’d been aiming for lightness, but she didn’t so much as roll her eyes.
“Can we talk, or not?”
“Yes,” he grunted, peering past her and into the drawing room, where several crew members seemed to be arguing in earnest. A couple men nearest the door were craning their necks to get a better view of Kane and Zaria, and Kane glared back in return, putting a hand on Zaria’s upper arm to guide her in the direction of the stairs.
She tensed under his touch but didn’t pull away.
A testament to how preoccupied she was, he supposed.
He refused to consider the possibility that perhaps—just perhaps—she no longer recoiled from his closeness.
“I got a letter,” Zaria said the moment they were alone in Kane’s office, positioning herself directly in front of him. With his back to the closed door, he had the odd sensation he was trapped between two immovable forces, but he gave himself a mental shake and walked around her to his desk.
“You got a letter,” he repeated, settling into his chair.
There—this was better: the desk between them, and with it, some distance.
The distance between a kingpin and his subordinate.
The distance between two people who could not, would not, trust each other to be anything more than that.
“I didn’t realize you were accepting correspondence here. ”
“God, you’re so—” Zaria broke off, pressing two fingers to the space between her eyebrows. “It’s from Vaughan.”
Kane sat upright so fast, something twinged in his lower back. “How did he know where you were? Have you been writing to him?”
“How would I have done that?” she snapped. “I don’t have a clue where he is. Besides, I was being honest when I said I was on your side, not his.”
“Right.”
“I can’t keep trying to convince you, Kane.”
“I don’t expect you to,” he said curtly, and he meant it. “What did the letter say?”
Zaria handed over a folded piece of paper. “Vaughan wants another meeting,” she said as Kane scanned it, gleaning precisely that. “And he expects me not to come empty-handed.”
“Which means he’s telling you to bring the ledger.” Kane lifted his gaze to hers. “I thought you said he gave you until next week.”
“He did. I have no idea why he’s changed his mind.”
“You’re certain don’t come empty-handed refers to the ledger? He hasn’t asked you for anything else?”
Zaria shook her head. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Nothing. Vaughan wants you to meet his people—when, tomorrow night?” Kane checked the letter again, confirming. “You simply don’t go. Problem solved. As long as you and Julian stay here, none of the Seven Dials crew are going to come after you. Not unless they’re looking for a suicide mission.”
“You’re forgetting the part where Vaughan threatened to report us to the coppers if I disappoint or double-cross him.
” Panic edged Zaria’s voice, but she kept it mostly in check.
“Is that not the very thing we’re trying to avoid?
I have to show up to that meeting, Kane, or Jules and I are screwed.
Which means you and Fletcher are screwed, because there is a zero percent chance I don’t incriminate you both. ”
Kane had little doubt she meant it. At the same time, though, he was sure it wouldn’t come to that. “But you have another suggestion,” he said. “Don’t you?”
Zaria’s indignation seemed to falter. “What makes you say that?”
“Give me some credit. It’s one of the most common manipulation tactics: Outline a hypothetical scenario you know the other person would do anything to avoid, then follow up with whatever you’re actually proposing.
Works every time. Well,” he amended, tilting his head to one side and then the other, “seventy percent of the time.”
Zaria looked as though she might argue, then evidently thought better of it. “Fine. You’re right. I do have another plan.”
“And as long as it doesn’t involve anyone going to prison, I would love to hear it.”
“You let me go to that meeting. Hear me out,” she added, probably in response to whatever Kane’s face was doing.
“You and Fletcher come along. I always meet with the same two crew members—a man and a young woman. They’ll be easy enough to overpower.
You two watch from a distance, then do just that.
We get them to lead us to wherever Vaughan is, or else tell us where he can be found. Then you can go there and kill him.”
Kane digested this, vaguely bemused. “Just like that?”
Zaria shrugged. “Well, you can decide what to do with the information once you have it.”
“And what if—as I suspect will be the case—this man and young woman aren’t interested in revealing Vaughan’s location? Will you be content to let me coax it out of them?”
Her tone was wry. “I assume by coax, you mean torture?”
“That depends.”
“I don’t care what you do,” Zaria said. “I want Vaughan out of my life. You want him out of yours.” She was leaning across the desk now, her hands splayed atop it. She never looked away, and all at once, Kane wasn’t certain who had the power in this negotiation.
He did know one thing, though: He liked that she didn’t shy away. Liked that—this time, at least—she hadn’t balked from the reminder of what he was capable of. What did it say about him, that he coveted the sheen of violence in her eyes?
“Okay,” he decided. “It’s not a half-bad plan. We’ll see it through.”
“Really?” Zaria faltered, as if she’d braced for an argument and wasn’t quite sure how to respond. “I mean, good. I think it makes sense.”
“You’re right. It does.”
“What’s the catch?”
He glanced up from where he was rummaging through a drawer. “What?”
“The catch, Kane.” Zaria watched him from beneath dark lashes, rounding the side of the desk. “You never agree with me this easily.”
“This might come as a surprise, Miss Mendoza, but I am capable of acknowledging when someone else is right.”
“Are you?”
Kane lifted his chin. They were mere inches apart—Zaria could have reached out and taken him by it. She smelled like gunpowder and something vaguely floral. Even seated, Kane wasn’t much below her eye level, but her presence was suffocating.
“Yes,” he said. “It doesn’t happen often, though, so I’d commit this moment to memory.”
She ignored that, focusing instead on the documents he had in hand. “What’s that?”
“The real ledger. And this is a fake one.” Kane set both stacks of parchment on the desk. “Since forgeries seem to be the theme as of late. I drew it up in case you needed something to show for all your hard work deceiving me.”
“If everything goes according to plan, I’m not going to need it.”
“But if it doesn’t, you should probably have it. Just in case.”
Zaria went quiet for long enough that he wasn’t sure she would respond at all. Finally, she said, “Are you concerned about me, Kane?”
He gave a placating smile. “It wouldn’t make much sense if I wasn’t.” When she was silent again, he added, “You want to see something interesting?”
“Sure.”
Kane shoved the true ledger toward her. “Ward showed me this ages ago. Flip to the twenty-second page.” He watched Zaria comply, then said, “Do you see number ninety-seven?”
She nodded.
“Check the key for the corresponding client.”
Her gaze flicked up and down the list, then narrowed. “Buckingham Palace? I don’t… That can’t be right.”
Kane shrugged. His reaction had been similar when he’d first seen it. “It’s from years ago, obviously. Not too long after the queen took the throne. Ward told me the dark market kingpin before him fulfilled a huge commission for the crown and was sworn to secrecy.”
“What happened to that kingpin?”
“No idea. He disappeared. Some think he offed himself—he became increasingly strange as he got older. Ward, however, thought the crown had him killed to preserve their secret once the queen took a public stance on alchemology.”
Zaria’s brows drew together. She passed the sheet of parchment between her fingers as if she might be able to wring out more information. “That’s quite the conspiracy. I mean, anybody could have written anything on a ledger. It’s not exactly airtight evidence.”
“I’m not trying to build a case. I simply thought you might find it intriguing.”
“Well, thanks. It is—I do.” She worked at her lower lip with her teeth; a habit Kane was beginning to understand meant she didn’t know how to react. “What if Vaughan ends up with the fake ledger, though, and realizes it’s not the real thing?”
Kane leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “Don’t worry about that. I plan to have done away with him before anything can happen to you. Write him back—agree to the meeting. One way or another, we’ll see who the better kingpin is.”
He could hear the maniacal edge to his own voice, and it didn’t escape Zaria, either. She studied his face as she folded the fake ledger with care. When she eventually spoke, the single syllable was quiet. “Kane?”
“Zaria.”
Her gaze was cutting, her expression austere. “You told me to stop trying to humanize you. That you’re not redeemable. But I don’t think that’s true—I think you’re so absolutely, excruciatingly human, you can’t bear to admit it even to yourself.”
And then she was gone, leaving Kane awash in the terrible sensation that something vital had been punctured in the raw hollow of his chest.