Chapter 23 Kane
KANE
THE BEGINNINGS OF A COMMOTION GREETED KANE AS HE MADE his way back downstairs. It was coming from outside—a series of muffled yells followed by a curse growled in a voice that he recognized as Fletcher’s.
Panic speared through him, white-hot and urgent.
It shattered the complicated haze of emotion his conversation with Zaria had unearthed.
He lunged for the door, not bothering to don his coat or shoes.
Cool wind buffeted his face as he swung his head from one side to the other, eyes slitted against the night, desperately seeking some sign of his friend.
A figure appeared around the side of the building, dragging a second, smaller one along behind it.
Kane would have known Fletcher’s outline anywhere.
Relief and worry tangled in his chest as he sprinted toward the duo—Fletcher was upright, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t injured—and the latter dissipated as his friend shot him a wry grin.
There was a bruise high on his cheek, bisected by the old scar there, but otherwise he appeared unharmed.
“Caught one of our Peeping Toms. You’re not gonna believe this.”
Kane frowned, and only then did his attention slide to the man Fletcher had hold of. Broad shoulders, light brown skin, and a handsome face in spite of the clearly broken nose and bloodied lip. Recognition shot through him, but he couldn’t make the pieces fit together. “Anil?”
Anil Sahni gave an apprehensive twist of his mouth. Another of Ward’s men, he had always been someone Kane had rather liked, if only because he could be counted on to say very little. True to form, the man uttered not a word as Kane’s gaze flicked back to Fletcher. “What is this?”
Fletcher’s hair was sweaty, his cheek already beginning to swell, but he looked pleased with himself. “Caught him a couple of streets over, still wearing that stupid mask. We had a bit of a skirmish. Nothing serious. I told him he could answer to you.”
“You’re sure he was the one outside the window?”
“Positive. He wasn’t alone either, but the other guy got away.”
Kane tracked a semicircle around Anil and Fletcher, head spinning. As far as he knew, Anil’s loyalty was exclusively to Ward. He might have thought the man’s spying unrelated to the attempts on Zaria’s life, except that he’d seen Anil there, he realized with a jolt of certainty.
“You were in the church,” Kane said, adopting the voice he used when he wanted someone to fear him. “You were the one I shot. I’m guessing that’s why you didn’t put up much of a fight tonight.”
Understanding lit Fletcher’s face, but he said nothing. Neither did Anil. Kane sighed, toeing the ground with his shoeless foot. “Who’re you working for, Sahni?”
Anil tried to twist away from Fletcher, pain contorting his features. A moment later he wilted, going still. His dark eyes were guarded when they met Kane’s. “You already know the answer to that.”
“I sure as hell don’t. You’re supposed to be Ward’s man. Are you working for a buyer who goes by the name Vaughan, or is it someone else entirely?”
“Am I supposed to know what the fuck that means?” Anil said. “I am Ward’s man. His alone.”
“Then what the hell are you playing at, trying to kill Zaria Mendoza?”
There was a beat during which Anil only stared at Kane, his brows lifted as if waiting for him to understand. And then abruptly, Kane did. His mouth went bone-dry.
“Ward is the one who wants her dead.”
Anil mimed a round of applause. “I don’t know what you’re doing with her, Durante, but he doesn’t like it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Kane ground out. Ward wanted the necklace. Zaria was helping Kane to steal the necklace. Sure, Ward had instructed him to tell no one but Fletcher about the assignment, but the kingpin had to see why Zaria was an asset. She certainly wasn’t a threat.
Anil shrugged, the motion made awkward due to Fletcher’s grip on his left arm. “I just do what I’m told.”
“Which was what, exactly?”
“Get rid of the Mendoza girl and not say a word to you. Problem is, you keep getting in the way.”
Fletcher tightened his grip on Anil, not seeming to notice the man’s wince. “There’s no reason for Ward to want Zaria dead.”
Kane didn’t doubt he and Fletcher were shuffling through the same questions in their minds.
None of this made sense. Why hadn’t Ward said anything?
How many others knew about it? Kane was sure it was what the rest of the men always dreamed of—that someday Ward’s favorite boy, the one they both loathed and feared, would fall out of favor with the kingpin.
“Who else is in on this?” he demanded of Anil.
“Abe was spearheading it, but you killed him. Charlie Horowitz. Joey Egelton.”
Kane couldn’t conceal his surprise. Abe Walker was a nasty piece of work.
Now that he looked back on it, the man he’d shot had sounded like Abe.
It had been dark, the man’s face mostly covered, but Kane ought to have recognized his voice.
A pity he’d killed Abe without getting to enjoy it.
Charlie, though, was a strange choice for the job.
The guy was unerringly clever but not one for violence.
And Joey Egelton was all of thirteen. “You truly have no idea why Ward gave you this assignment?”
Anil gave a rapid shake of his head. “You think I’m dumb enough to question him? He’s annoyed with me as it is. That woman in the church wasn’t supposed to be the one to die.”
“So you were the one who pulled the trigger.”
“I wasn’t aiming for her. She got in the way.”
As if that were somehow better. Kane pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, casting about for control.
Zaria had nearly been killed by this man.
She’d been forced to watch Cecile’s life drain out of her and had blamed him for it.
Fury licked through his veins and pooled in the back of his throat until he thought he might spew poison instead of words.
When he spoke again, his voice was like metal on glass.
“I ought to fucking shoot you right here, Sahni.”
“I’m sorry!” Anil said, eyes wide as saucers. “I didn’t know the girl was important to you. I figured you were running some kind of con on her.”
That struck Kane like a physical blow. Both things were true: Kane was running a con on Zaria. But also, no matter how he tried to convince himself otherwise, she was important to him.
Not just for the heist, though that should have been the only reason.
He shouldn’t be thinking about the way she’d looked standing in his bedroom, golden-brown hair coming loose from its intricate knot, expression so perfectly obstinate.
He shouldn’t like the way her dark eyes became a weapon when she was angry at him.
He shouldn’t be jealous of her friendship with Julian Zhao and how the boy interacted with her in an affectionate yet effortless way that Kane would never be able to achieve.
The idea of Anil Sahni shooting Zaria dead in the crypt of St. John’s shouldn’t make him want to rip the man’s head off.
“This was my last chance,” Anil continued when Kane said nothing, a note of pleading in his voice. “Ward was furious I let the Mendoza girl get away, and the only way to redeem myself was to kill her tonight. If I fail, he’ll kill me.”
Yes, that sounded like Ward. “He said that?”
“He didn’t need to.”
Fletcher shot Kane a look as if to say, Fair enough.
“Well then,” Kane told Anil coolly. “You’d best leave town entirely. Because it sounds like Ward will murder you if you don’t kill Zaria, and I’ll murder you if you do. You can pass that along to your associates.”
Fletcher’s gaze burned into the side of his face, but Kane refused to meet it, opting instead to stare Anil down until the other man looked away.
“Fine,” he grunted. “I’ll leave before first light.”
“See to it that you do.”
The aftermath of Anil’s confession was the quiet following an explosion.
They’d released the man into the night, and Kane had no doubts he would be gone by morning.
Unlike most of Ward’s crew, Anil had a family, though he’d never mentioned as much to Kane directly.
He didn’t need to. Ward had made reference to it once, but even if he hadn’t, Kane could tell Anil was the type of man with something to fight for.
He would pack up his loved ones and get the hell out.
Kane and Fletcher sat at the dining table, staring at each other without speaking. Fletcher’s fingers drummed an uneven rhythm on the wood, and Kane’s thoughts slammed into one another like bugs hitting a glass window.
“What do you think it means?” he said finally.
Fletcher swiped a hand along his jaw, which was sprouting a thin layer of barely visible scruff. “That Ward wants her dead?”
Kane gave a slow nod. He felt like a length of rope that had unraveled and been pulled too taut.
“Dunno. It means he’s keeping an eye on us, for one, which I don’t love.”
“Then he has to know what Zaria’s contributing to the heist. It doesn’t make any sense that he wants to get rid of her, unless he wants me to fail, which I know he doesn’t.” That had been made abundantly clear to Kane.
“Maybe he’s angry that you told her about the necklace?” Fletcher suggested. “You said you were supposed to keep it confidential.”
“Then why not punish me? Why say nothing at all and quietly go after her?”
“He doesn’t like to punish you.”
Kane’s laugh was a bitter, choking thing. “It hasn’t stopped him before.”
Fletcher crossed his arms. His light hair was in disarray, and the bruising on his face was beginning to deepen in color.
Though he looked nothing like he had as a child, Kane was abruptly reminded of the first day they’d met.
The defiant, determined look in his friend’s blue eyes…
it was too familiar. Kane knew Fletcher didn’t like his relationship with Ward.
He rarely said it, but it was evident in the way he stiffened whenever Kane relayed his interactions with the kingpin.
If it came right down to it, Fletcher would get himself killed trying to protect Kane from Ward, and Kane couldn’t have that.
Especially when he knew he’d never been the one truly in danger.
“Are we going to tell her?” Fletcher said, and Kane lifted his head.
“Beg pardon?”
“Zaria. Are we going to tell her Ward’s the one who put a target on her back?”
Kane thought of Zaria upstairs in his bed, undoubtedly still awake.
She never looked well rested. He imagined confusion and fear contorting her delicate features, and how her jaw would solder tight when she realized the very person trying to kill her was inextricably connected to Kane.
She’d been right, hadn’t she? Cecile’s death was his fault.
He hated himself for what he said next.
“I’m not sure we should.”
Fletcher’s face contorted. “Why not?”
“She knows we work for Ward. If she finds out he’s behind this, she’ll be even more hesitant to trust us. There’s the threat of her pulling out of the deal entirely.”
“It’s her life,” Fletcher objected, lowering his voice. “Don’t you think she has the right to know?”
Kane tried not to flinch. “The Exhibition’s in six days. If she backs out, we’re fucked.”
“Yeah.” Fletcher pressed his index fingers into his temples. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. It just feels wrong.”
Kane clenched his teeth against the guilt that threatened to overwhelm him. If Fletcher understood why keeping Zaria in the dark was the better option, would the same apply when he learned what Kane had been keeping from him? Or would he look back on this conversation and feel even more betrayed?
He should come clean to Fletcher now. There might not be a better opportunity. If something went horribly wrong, and if all their planning amounted to nothing, then Fletcher needed to know he was in danger.
“Fletch?” Kane broke the silence, the single syllable quivering in space. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Fletcher tilted his head, eyes wide and clear. It was evident in that look how much he trusted Kane. How he waited, expectant and unconcerned, no part of him anticipating the bomb that was about to drop. “Okay.”
It was the okay that undid him—as if Fletcher were expecting Kane to unravel, not the other way around.
All at once, Kane’s conviction evaded him.
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t say the words.
They were going to get this necklace one way or another, and Fletcher would never have to know.
That was what Kane had been counting on from the start, wasn’t it?
God, he was one sick son of a bitch.
“I need to sleep in your room tonight,” Kane said, scrambling for something to say. “I didn’t want Zaria going out, so she’s in my bed.”
Fletcher snorted. “Hell, Kane. You made it sound like you were going to confess a sin. I don’t think you need to be embarrassed about having a girl in your bed if you’re not in there with her.”
The guilt was suddenly too much. Kane lurched to his feet, fully aware of how erratic he must look, and grabbed his coat where it hung beside the door. “I’m going to take a walk.”
Fletcher stood. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“No,” Kane said too quickly. “No,” he repeated, steadier the second time. “I just need to clear my head. Don’t wait up, okay?”
Fletcher followed him to the door anyway, his step light, still skeptical. “You’re not going to visit Ward, are you?”
“Hell no.”
“You sure?”
“I promise.”
One side of Fletcher’s mouth slipped up in a wry grin. “Yeah, but it’s easy for you to lie.”
It was clearly a joke, but Kane couldn’t bring himself to return the smile. It felt like someone was sawing his insides apart with a rusty blade, and he immersed himself in the sensation, knowing he deserved it.
“Not to you, Fletch,” he said quietly. “Not to you.”