Chapter 28 Kane
KANE
Kane stood in his office, palms braced on his desk, head throbbing hard enough to rival the pain in his ribs.
Zaria’s mention of the nonlethal revolver had him thinking about the alchemological dart gun again. The one Cleland had somehow ended up with. The one he’d used to shoot Kane. A terrible suspicion had swelled within him, and he’d raced back to his office, a confused Fletcher on his heels.
“Kane, what’s going on?”
Kane had shouldered the door open with enough force to cause a breeze. “Where do you think Cleland got that dart gun? No way would he have been able to afford it himself. And he couldn’t have been working for Vaughan long enough to be entrusted with an alchemological weapon.”
Fletcher didn’t have an answer. He’d only watched silently as Kane rounded his desk, heart pounding, and wrenched open the top drawer. Just as he’d anticipated, the dart gun wasn’t there.
Jaw tight, he slammed the drawer closed with a bang. “He stole it from me.”
“How is that possible?” Fletcher had asked.
“I’m not sure.” Kane ground his teeth together. “Do you know where Adam and Elijah are?”
“I saw them downstairs earlier.”
“Bring them to me. Please.”
And that was how he had ended up here, facing the three of them as he told Adam and Elijah the events of the previous night. They listened, rapt with shock, as Kane relayed what had happened to the men who’d turned against him.
“Well, I’m glad Cleland’s out of the picture,” Adam said once he was up to speed, and Elijah nodded in agreement. “He was an idiot. More balls than brains.”
“Why didn’t we know about this Vaughan fellow until now?” Elijah asked, his expression stern as always. “You’re telling me he emerged from nowhere, dead set on becoming a kingpin? It doesn’t make any sense.”
He wasn’t wrong. Kane hadn’t so much as heard Vaughan’s name until the man commissioned Zaria, and his aspirations had only become clear in the wake of the Exhibition heist. Certainly Ward had never mentioned him.
How had he managed to keep such a low profile while putting together a crew of his own?
“We’re missing something,” Fletcher declared, echoing Kane’s thoughts. He stood beside the desk with his hands in his pockets, the impending twilight shadowing his face in a way that made him look more intimidating than usual. “Elijah’s right. It doesn’t make sense.”
Kane massaged his temples. “You think Vaughan’s bluffing?”
Adam was quick to chime in, voice low. “He has to be, at least when it comes to the dark market. Everyone knows the Devil’s Acre kingpin oversees the market. It’s been that way for years.”
Yes, Kane thought. That was true. However, it was becoming clear Vaughan had more audacity than he’d realized.
White-hot fury licked through his veins.
Were it not for all the nonsense with Vaughan and the Curator, things would be running smoothly.
Much of Kane’s spare time over the past week had been spent receiving reports from men he’d instructed to collect dues or debts from shopkeepers and dark market buyers, which meant they’d brought in a fair bit of money.
Kane had divvied out their shares, then put the rest in his coffers to count later.
He was establishing a new routine in Ward’s stead, and he didn’t need anyone tampering with it.
But while Vaughan was certainly a problem, the most pressing issue was the loyalty of his own men.
“Keep an ear to the ground,” Kane told Adam and Elijah, trying to force the snarl out of his voice.
He rolled his shoulders back. “Let me know if any of the other guys show signs of being disgruntled.” God, he should have paid more attention.
He’d let his plans with Zaria take over his life and thoughts once more, and it had almost gotten them all killed.
“We should have seen that coming,” Adam said, regret saturating the words. “Cleland, I mean. Everyone could tell he was in a mood, but he and his supporters kept to themselves. I never heard a thing about their plans to come after you directly.”
Elijah crossed his arms, looking at Adam rather than Kane when he spoke. “We couldn’t possibly have known. Cleland never trusted us enough to let down his guard.”
“I don’t blame either of you,” Kane reassured them. “But I’d appreciate if you could help me nail down who can be trusted and who can’t. I’m grateful to have men like you I can rely on. Men I don’t need to question. It doesn’t go unnoticed.”
Elijah blinked, while Adam simply appeared dumbstruck.
It dawned on Kane that this was what he’d been missing.
Ward had inspired fear, but he had also made you feel important, appreciated, even if that appreciation held the hint of a threat.
By handing out tiny bits of praise, he made you want to appease him.
He made you feel like the tasks you carried out on his behalf meant something.
Kane was a natural at wielding fear; it was the predominant emotion he recalled feeling in Ward’s presence. But if he wanted to retain any sort of loyalty, he needed to give his men something in return. And maybe, in his case, the gratitude could be real.
“Spread what happened to Cleland, too,” Fletcher suggested, wrenching Kane from his epiphany. “I’ll do the same. Once people find out what happened to him and Ferrington, I don’t think they’ll be quick to attempt anything similar.”
“Maybe leave out the part where I got shot,” Kane said wryly. “Which brings me to the reason I summoned you here in the first place: Was anyone else charged with guarding my office over the past couple of weeks?”
The job was primarily Adam’s, but he was allowed to leave as long as he found someone to take his place. Adam’s brow furrowed. “If it wasn’t me, then it was Harvey Solomon. He was keen to volunteer. Said he wanted more responsibility around here, to prove to you that he could be trusted.”
Unfortunate. Harvey was only sixteen or so—he’d been the one to raise his hand during that initial meeting in which Kane had shot Yardley and Davies.
The boy tended to keep a low profile, and Kane had admittedly never given much thought to where his allegiances lay.
Harvey could well have been manipulated by someone like Cleland.
“Bring Harvey to me.” Kane settled back into his chair, hands folded on his chest. Each beat of his heart felt like someone was taking a hammer to his ribs. “Immediately.”
Adam ducked his head and slipped into the hall, Elijah on his heels. A beat of silence followed their departure before Fletcher spoke. “Do you really think it was Solomon? He’s hardly more than a kid.”
“I don’t know who else it could have been.”
Fletcher scrutinized Kane. “You going to kill him?”
“Of course not.” Kane snorted. “But I’m interested to hear his explanation.”
No sooner had he spoken then did Adam and Elijah reappear, dragging Harvey Solomon between them. They wore twin deadpan expressions, and the gangly, pale-haired youth looked small and resentful in comparison. Only his large blue eyes betrayed his fear.
“Thank you,” Kane told Adam and Elijah, never dragging his gaze from Harvey’s. “You can leave him.”
The moment they were gone, Kane interlaced his fingers on the desk.
Fletcher cocked his head, donning his intimidating persona as he watched Harvey like a hungry animal.
The boy was struggling to present as unruffled—this was obvious to Kane, who had been in the same position many times.
Still, it looked as though a gentle push might send him toppling over.
“Harvey Solomon,” Kane said, drawing out the boy’s name. “Good to see you again. I hear you had a nice chat with Adam Cromwell the other day. One where you asked for more responsibility. I believe he gave you the job of guarding this very office, did he not?”
Harvey’s gaze darted from side to side; he seemed to be trying to look anywhere but at Kane or Fletcher. “Yes. That’s true.”
“I’ve always been rather amenable where you’re concerned, have I not? I’ve always been willing to give you a chance to prove yourself as a member of this crew.”
“I am grateful for that,” the boy muttered.
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
Kane made his voice even more saccharine. “Would you say you’ve been loyal to me, Harvey?”
Sweat had begun to bead on Harvey’s upper lip, and he sucked it into his mouth before answering. “I believe that I have.”
“Tell me: Do you take me for an idiot?”
The abrupt shift in Kane’s tone made Harvey flinch. The boy glanced to Fletcher and then away just as quickly, finding no support there. He was a cornered animal who had only now realized he was trapped. “I do not.”
“Then why”—Kane stood, leaning across the desk to fix the boy with the full weight of his stare—“would you think it prudent to lie to my face?”
That was enough to quash Harvey’s last shred of resolve. He visibly crumpled, that sullen expression giving way to one of consternation.
“I didn’t want to do it, okay? I wanted to gain your respect!
But then Cleland and Ferrington showed up, and…
They made me second-guess everything. Said you weren’t going to be kingpin much longer, and if I wanted to stay alive once you were gone, I was better off aligning my loyalties with them.
What was I supposed to do? It was me against the two of them.
I didn’t have much of a choice. They were only in your office for all of five minutes, I swear it. ”
None of this surprised Kane. He had long ago pinned Harvey Solomon as a coward. The boy had no doubt caved to Cleland even more easily than he’d described. “I need you to listen to this question very carefully, and be honest when you answer: Did they take anything else?”
“I didn’t know they took anything at all.” Harvey gave a rapid shake of his head, his breathing somewhat labored. “I mean, I suspected they had, but I don’t recall them carrying anything when they left.”
“Did they say anything else to you?”
“No! Jesus Christ.”
To Kane’s left, Fletcher pushed away from the wall, pulling his gun. “Try again,” he growled. “This time with respect.”
Harvey balked. “I’m sorry! No, they didn’t say anything else. Not to me, at least. I shouldn’t have let them pass, but I believed them when they said you weren’t going to be around much longer, and I didn’t want to get hurt. They would have killed me.”
“I understand that,” Kane said calmly. “Had you been truly loyal, however, you would have reported that interaction to me immediately. Did you do that?”
Harvey didn’t respond. It was no matter; they both knew the question was a rhetorical one.
“Do you know what happened to Cleland and his pals, Solomon?”
Slowly, apprehensively, the boy shook his head.
“I take it you haven’t seen them lately, though.”
Another headshake.
“Then you can guess what happened, can’t you?”
Now Harvey began to panic. His narrow face turned deathly pale, all the color leaching from his cheeks and lips. “Please. I—”
“Relax,” Kane snapped. “I’m not going to kill you. Neither is Fletcher,” he added when Harvey’s attention flicked to the edge of the room. “Cleland is dead. His cronies are dead. They’re all piles of ash in Roberts’s factory furnaces. You’ll do better next time, won’t you?”
“Yes,” Harvey said, little more than a hoarse whisper.
“Come here.”
The boy obliged, approaching the desk with a hesitant, unsteady gait.
Kane bent to withdraw an item from one of the drawers, then turned it over in his hands with no small measure of disgust. He thought of the agony he’d endured.
The barrel of a gun pressed to Zaria’s head.
The shot that had narrowly missed hitting Fletcher.
Harvey gave a jagged intake of breath. “What is that?”
Kane studied the item’s tiny whirring gears, its needle-sharp tip.
He could be gentle. Could keep his hand steady the way Ward had never bothered to.
Instead, though, he shoved it back into the desk drawer.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” The words sounded tinny, faraway.
“This is a warning, and you won’t get another. Do I make myself clear?”
Harvey tried to glare, but the sheen in his eyes subdued the effect. “Yes.”
“Good. Let it not be said that I am not merciful.” Kane heard the final sentence in a voice that wasn’t his own. A voice that had haunted his childhood and his dreams. He gripped the edge of the desk. “Fletcher? Take Solomon back downstairs, would you?”
His friend nodded, analyzing Kane with something like concern. When Kane refused to meet his eyes, Fletcher gave Harvey a light shove. “Come on,” he grunted.
They disappeared into the hallway, and Kane went to latch the door behind them. A cold sweat had broken out across his skin. Nausea lurked in the back of his throat. He rested his forehead against the cool wood of the door, squeezing his eyes shut, and took a deep breath. Then another.
It was no use.
He collapsed to his knees and dry heaved, his body trying desperately to expel the emptiness inside of him.