Chapter 5 Kane #2
Casting a sidelong glance at the dart gun on the kingpin’s desk, Kane sidled over and sat.
He was familiar with the weapon; it was similar to a regular alchemological gun, though far less likely to be lethal.
Rather, the magic-infused darts lodged beneath the skin and hurt like absolute hell.
Kane had been hit with one only once, and he thought death might have been preferable to the extraction.
Wariness overtook him, but he took extra care to keep his expression cool, letting a smirk play at the corners of his mouth.
Ward leaned back in his own chair. His expression mirrored Kane’s, as if he knew exactly what he was doing. “I hope you’re here to deliver good news. And yet, something tells me otherwise.”
“The address you sent me to was empty.” Kane’s voice was steady. That was one good thing about the education Ward had given him: No matter what turmoil plagued him on the inside, he knew how to con a man. How to speak in way that made people believe you. That made them want to believe you.
But this was Ward, and he might as well have invented conning.
The kingpin tapped his index finger against his chin, a contemplative action. Kane knew Ward was letting him stew. Giving him time to explain why he’d come unannounced. But Kane held his silence, because although Ward was many things, patient wasn’t one of them.
Sure enough, Ward gave a huff through his nose. A small victory.
“You know, I sent Dickens to follow up,” he said silkily as Kane froze. “The family was indeed gone. And only just recently, by the looks of things. Isn’t that interesting? Convenient, one might say.”
Kane swallowed. It took considerable effort. “They must have known I was coming.”
“The only way they could have known you were coming, Kane, is if you told them.” Ward leaned back in his chair, eyes flashing darkly. “And we both know you didn’t do that.”
It was a test, and Kane’s stomach clenched even as he said with confidence, “Of course I didn’t.”
Technically, it wasn’t a lie. The family hadn’t known he was coming. Ward stared at him, hard, and Kane stared back, refusing to be cowed.
“What happened to your face?”
Ah. That. Kane gave a self-conscious tug on the collar of his overcoat. By now the bruising at his jaw had begun to purple, and there had been no hope of Ward’s not noticing. “Got into it with a beggar on the street.”
“What street?” Ward murmured, pulling a piece of parchment across the desk toward himself. “I’ll send someone to take care of the vermin. Unless you already did.”
“I did.”
“Is there a body?”
“I didn’t kill him. Just won the fight.”
“Ah.” Ward’s tone was laced with skepticism. “You know I have several constables on my payroll.”
Kane bit the inside of his cheek. “It would have been an inconvenience.”
And the lies were already piling up. He should have taken a finger when that man in the slum couldn’t pay his dues. Damn his wife. Damn his little girl. Why had Kane bothered telling them to leave? He wasn’t nice. He didn’t shy away from bloodshed. He wasn’t supposed to care about things like that.
“I see.” Ward crossed his arms, tapping a finger against his bicep as he studied Kane’s face. “You know, I’m glad you came to see me. I was about to send for you.”
“Why is that?”
“You’ve got bigger problems than a missing slum family. Did you know the exhibit from Waterhouse and Co. arrived in London yesterday? That it’s already been unloaded and set up in the Crystal Palace?”
Of course. Of course Ward already knew. Sweat beaded on Kane’s brow as he digested the questions. How was he to respond? Ward never asked a question he didn’t already know the answer to.
Ward wasn’t looking at Kane anymore, but was examining his fingernails, frowning as he slid the tip of his knife beneath one dirt-free crescent. “Silence won’t help you, Kane. Not with me. You know that.”
It struck Kane as a nonsensical thing to say. What would help him where Ward was concerned? There were no right answers here. Once Ward had decided to be angry with you, nothing you said or didn’t say was going to make any difference.
“Yes,” Kane said eventually, a low growl. “Yes, I knew. I was going to tell you.”
Ward’s brows ascended his forehead. “You were? Well. You’ll forgive me if I find that hard to believe.
” He leaned across the desk so that he and Kane were eye to eye.
“Your plan didn’t work, you incompetent bastard.
Thought you could charm Saville, did you?
Learn everything you needed from his men?
I gave you free rein. I can see now that this was a mistake. ”
Kane could sense the coming storm. He swallowed, hands fisted in his lap.
Ward’s lip curled back from his teeth as he went on. “When I suggested Saville as a resource, I didn’t mean for you to waste time acting as his errand boy. This wasn’t to be a simple con job. Sometimes I forget you need constant, specific instruction in order to be useful.”
“I’m still working on it.” Kane shook his head once, a curt gesture that sent lightning through his skull. “This isn’t a regular job. You asked me to steal something priceless. Something of international acclaim. It’s taking longer than usual because I’m trying to be careful, okay?”
“I need you to be careful and efficient.”
Kane forced his next question out—if he didn’t ask it now, he knew he never would. “Do you still have those alchemological explosives? The ones that create the smoke? I was thinking I could…” He trailed off. Ward was laughing, though not a single sound left his mouth.
“You mean to ask me for further assistance?” the kingpin said, his smile fading with alarming quickness.
“If you want the necklace so badly, then surely—”
“Your audacity”—Ward cut him off—“is astounding as always. No, I will not help you, Canziano. Not with this.”
“Don’t.” Kane’s reply was the crack of a whip. “Don’t ever call me that.”
The name struck a painful chord within him, and it sounded all wrong on Ward’s lips.
After his parents died, Kane had left Canziano Durante behind—the first name for a saint, the second for his father—and became Kane Hunt.
The perfect identity for a boy trying to pass as British.
He’d slowly started using his true surname again, and now went by Durante unless pulling a con, but he never wanted to be called Canziano again.
Canziano had died alongside his parents.
Kane remembered only flashes of his previous life.
Ten years had faded into clouded memories of soft hands and lyrical Italian.
Of brightly colored art in a tiny dark house.
Maria and Cristian Durante had been traveling statuette makers, but Kane couldn’t remember how they’d ended up in London.
He’d stopped trying to recall his parents’ faces, perhaps due to unconscious self-preservation.
All of it—the hands and colors and faces—had been replaced by Ward.
Ward fixed Kane with a glare that turned his insides to ice. When the kingpin spoke, his voice was dangerously soft. It was the voice he reserved for telling people they’d disappointed him. The voice that was, more often than not, the last thing they heard.
“I can call you whatever I wish. I own you. Or have you forgotten?”
Kane had not forgotten. He clenched his jaw so tightly that it was a wonder the bones stayed intact. “I’m… sorry.”
“Ah, don’t sell me a dog.” Ward snorted, pushing himself to stand. His movements as he rounded the desk were agile, almost feline. “You’re not sorry. But you should be.”
Kane stiffened in his chair as Ward’s hand snapped out to encircle his wrist. He could feel blood pumping through the veins there as the kingpin withdrew something from his pocket.
It was a tiny device, custom-made by some long-dead alchemologist, no doubt.
One end was marked by tiny whirring gears—the other boasted a horribly sharp point.
“I’ll get it,” Kane said breathlessly. “I swear. You don’t have to do this.”
“Okay.” Ward shrugged, releasing him. “Send Master Collins along instead then, would you?”
The moment stretched taut between them. Kane glared, hoping the heat of his gaze was palpable. This was how it always went—how it would always go. Ward knew his weak spot, and he would poke and prod at it until Kane snapped or Fletcher died.
A sound like a growl built in the back of his throat as Kane shoved his right sleeve all the way up. “We both know that’s not happening.”
Ward leaned close, taking Kane’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You are lucky,” he crooned. “Lucky I love you like a son. Lucky I give you so many chances.”
A familiar sharp pain bloomed on Kane’s arm. He refused to flinch as Ward drew the x without looking, those amber eyes unwavering.
I don’t want you to forget, Ward had said the first time, back when Kane was twelve, the number of mistakes you make.
The number of chances I give you. The rest of my men are not so lucky.
And so, you see, I want you to remember each and every time I could have punished you but didn’t.
Let it not be said that I am not merciful.
Ward stowed the device back in his pocket as Kane’s eyes flicked down to his arm.
The black ink had a glittering quality to it, and after a moment, the crudely drawn shape began to burn with excruciating vigor.
It would continue to do so, Kane knew, spreading throughout his body for the next several hours.
It was no normal ink, and Ward did not deal normal punishments.
The alchemological substance in the needle moved through one’s system like a poison, doing no real damage but making one seriously reconsider whatever they’d done to piss off the kingpin.
Kane shoved his sleeve back down. What a foolish thing. He didn’t need ink in his skin to know he was lucky not to be dead.
Of course, Ward marked his disappointment on the rest of the men, too—more than once Kane had seen them trying to carve away the top layer of skin, desperate for the pain to stop—but most only received a handful of x’s before Ward disposed of them.
No one had as many as Kane, and yet here he was. Still.
Always.
He flexed his hand, trying to ignore the lingering agony.
“This necklace is more important than you know,” Ward hissed in Kane’s ear.
“I even let you bring Collins along, hoping a second pair of hands might compensate for your idiocy. Do you hear the words I say? Do I need to be right beside you at all times, feeding you commands to ensure you get things done properly?”
“I told you, I’ll get it.”
“You’d better. I am accustomed to getting what I want, Canziano. Keep me waiting too long, and Master Collins might find your next job to be far, far worse. Please me, and I’ll consider letting him go.”
This dragged Kane from his haze. Hope settled in the rhythm of his rapid heartbeats. “You’d let him leave your employ?”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Ward’s gaze was sly.
Kane had never told Ward that. Didn’t realize he’d so much as implied it. And yet he wasn’t surprised to discover Ward knew precisely what cards to play to guarantee Kane would do as he wanted. “Do you mean it?”
Ward’s teeth flashed. “You know I never make a deal I won’t uphold.” He let the words hang in the air before snapping, “Now go.”
It was true. Ward was terrifying, and he lied with ease, but he kept his promises. He paid his debts.
Kane couldn’t leave fast enough. He shoved wordlessly past Tom before hurtling into the descending night, gulping breaths of cool air. The pain had crept up to his shoulder, and his head was beginning to throb. What the hell was he going to do now?
He knew the answer, of course. He was going to have to steal the necklace from the Great Exhibition, and it was going to be impossible.
But as Kane passed through Smith Square, a short distance from Horseferry Road, he remembered Mendoza.
The alchemologist with the keen gaze and an edge to her voice.
The way she’d pointed that impossible revolver at the wall, sending a streak of dark magic into the wood.
How she’d scowled and said, You must be new to dark market paraphernalia.
That was what Kane needed. Someone who knew how to create the things Ward wouldn’t give him. A diversion was only the start—if he could align himself with a skilled alchemologist, every problem he encountered in his bid to steal the necklace could be solved.
Perhaps he ought to pay Mendoza another visit.