Chapter 3
KATE
“One week,” Cole says. He’s accepting the terms of the deal. He’ll work for the feckin’ bratva. He’ll betray clients—Da and the Canton Crew—losing everything so Mask won’t hand me over to the feds.
Hot shame twists my belly. I built the Red Cap Raiders. I found Mask online. I let him join my team. And now I know that every raid we took financed my archenemy, the Tarasov bratva. How much of the Raiders’ take has been used directly against my clan?
Having won Cole’s agreement, Tarasov pauses in the doorway.
“Welcome to the game, Wolf,” he says with a vicious smile.
The gobshite whistles as he strides down the hall to the still-open front door.
His voice sounds very far away when he calls back, “Ready to sell your soul for a fortune made of light?”
He giggles as he slams the door closed behind him.
Cole staggers to the fireplace and jams his shoulder against the underside of the mantel.
In less than a minute, the front door flies open, crashing against the wall behind it.
Lars Nilsson swings into the hallway like a one-man tactical assault team, bulletproof vest strapped across his chest, automatic rifle braced and ready.
“Dammit, Nilsson,” Cole snaps. “You’re supposed to wait for reinforcements.”
Nilsson sights down his rifle. “When and where did you go on your favorite school field trip?” he asks. The words make no sense, but Nilsson’s voice is hard, focused like a laser.
Cole sighs, but he says, “Second grade. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing. And no. No one is lurking anywhere else in the house.”
Nilsson lowers his weapon.
“You remember security-question protocol, but you don’t remember to wait for back-up?” Cole asks.
“Sir,” Nilsson says, like a soldier being dressed down by a general.
“Get us out of these things,” Cole orders, turning enough to display his plastic ziptie.
It only takes a moment for Nilsson to retrieve sturdy shears from the kitchen. Cole is freed first, then me, Megan last of all. She’s still rubbing her wrists when Cole whirls on her. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
I’ve never heard that tone in his voice before. When Cole orders me to do things in his dungeon, he sounds icy, his heart completely frozen. When we fought in his office, when I discovered he’d been hiding his ownership of Winter Reckoning, he boiled over with rage.
But now, speaking to Megan, his voice is loaded with something far more complicated. Disgust. Loathing. Disappointment and scorn and despair.
Pure hatred.
“Cocoa P—”
“If you’re still here when the cops arrive, I’m turning you in.” The words should sound matter-of-fact. They’re a simple promise, a statement of what he means to do. But they’re twisted by revulsion.
Megan tries again. “You think I wanted this to happen? He tied me up too!”
“For Christ’s sake,” Cole says. “You think I’ve never heard of an inside man? You played the shill for Shannon before you turned five.”
“And you worked with Mom before I did!”
He shakes his head, one single, sharp movement, like a predator snapping the spine of its prey.
“I’ll have you arrested for trespass,” Cole says. “Assault. Battery. Conspiracy to commit a crime. Felony theft.”
“No one stole a thing!” Megan sounds outraged.
Cole snatches his watch from his wrist and hands it to Nilsson. “I’ll tell the police your co-conspirator left with my Patek Philippe.” Nilsson deftly stashes the timepiece into a pocket.
Megan huffs with disbelief. “He wasn’t my—”
“You’re wasting time, Megan. Time you want to spend getting very far away from here. Building an alibi. Figuring out how the hell you’ll support yourself for the rest of your life, because you’re never getting a single penny from me, ever again.”
“I’m your sister!”
Her cry shreds something inside me, because I’m a sister too. I’ve done terrible things, cruel things, illegal things, but I’ve always known Breagha would forgive me. Breagha loves me, no matter what I’ve said or done.
And today’s disaster isn’t just Megan’s fault.
She brought Pyotr Tarasov to the gate, but I’m the one who let them in.
Me. I opened the feckin’ gate, breaching Cole’s wall.
He protected his kingdom. He had a system, a plan, rules, and I destroyed everything.
Whatever punishment he’s meting out to Megan, I deserve the same. More.
But Cole answers her plaintive cry with perfect calm. “My sister?” he asks. “The one who ran a Big Store scam in this very room, pulling in half a million bucks with a fake casino?”
“That was a long ti—”
“The sister who conned three different people out of earnest money when she worked with a fake realtor to sell this place while I was out of the country?”
“I waited until you were gone so you couldn’t be—”
“The sister who hung bogus paintings throughout this house, planning to sell them off as originals without one single thought about what that would do to the value of my actual collection?”
“Those counterfeits were top of the line! They cost me—”
She hears it before I do, a siren rapidly growing closer. The blood drains from her face, making the bruises on her throat stand out like coal dust on snow. “Cocoa Puff,” she pleads.
“Megan,” he says evenly.
“Mom always said—”
“Shannon was a liar and a thief and a top ten finalist for Worst Mother of the Year.”
“Cole…” she whispers.
The siren is closer now, rising and falling like the waves of nausea deep in my belly. I can make out the honking of horns too, as if traffic isn’t clearing some intersection quickly enough.
Megan pulls herself up to her full height, which barely clears my chin. Biting her lip, she tosses her purple hair. She plants her hands on her hips. “I know secrets about you too,” she says to Cole.
“Nothing you can prove.”
“I know names. Places.”
“And what do you know about statutes of limitation?”
“You’re my fucking brother!” she shouts.
“Not anymore.”
Snip.
Rip.
Tear.
He severs their relationship as completely as Nilsson cut our zipties.
Megan ducks out the nearest French doors as a police car pulls through the iron gate at the front of the house.
I shouldn’t care. I saw the woman for exactly five minutes the day of my wedding. She brought the Bad Man here. She’s the reason my brain is overflowing with memories—onions and the ice of Larissa’s body and trying to protect Breagha and all the years of the Dogfight, after.
But if Cole can cut off his own flesh and blood so completely, what can he do to me? What will he do, once he thinks things through? Once he remembers I’m the one who let Megan and Tarasov through the gate?
I clench my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering.
Nilsson has the good sense to stash his rifle and bulletproof vest in the dining room on his way to the front door. Even so, the police come in with weapons drawn, shouting orders as they invade the house.
The last of the fog leaves my head as Cole tells what happened, or at least some version of that story.
He opened the gate to collect a wallet someone had dropped on the pavement.
A man stepped up behind him, pressing a gun into the hollow beneath his ear.
Cole had no choice but to hand over the wallet—obvious bait, in hindsight—and his very valuable watch.
The assailant fled. Cole came inside and hit the panic button to get the fastest possible response.
The police make him repeat his story. A lieutenant arrives, and Cole goes over it all again, looking straight into the man’s eyes before he tells his lies.
I’m not as polished a storyteller. I start by giving my name as Kate Wolf, figuring the longer I can put off bringing the Lynch name and the Canton Crew into this, the better.
I’m distracted by the sudden flare in Cole’s eyes, by his tiny satisfied smile as I claim his name in public for the very first time.
I tell the police I was upstairs when everything happened. I was just coming down to get a cuppa when Cole came in, shouting for Nilsson and heading for the panic button in the parlor.
I’m shaking by the time I get through my story a second time. Cole sets one hand on my shoulder as the police demand a third retelling. “Lieutenant,” he says. “My wife is clearly upset.”
I take his cue. “It’s just… When I think of what could have happened… That tosser had a gun!” My voice trembles as my body gives in to the adrenaline aftermath of what actually happened.
Cole makes a soothing sound before he catches the lieutenant’s eye. “Can we continue this later?”
“Of course, Mr. Wolf,” the policeman says because Cole and I are the victims here. We haven’t done anything wrong. We have no reason to be detained.
The police ask for security footage from the cameras installed on the gate, and Cole promises to send it over directly. I have no doubt that whatever video he provides will be doctored.
The police ask about documentation for the watch. Cole promises to produce that as well.
The police ask about our plans for the upcoming weekend. Cole promises to be available to answer any additional questions.
Finally, the police leave.
“With your permission, sir,” Nilsson says. “I’ll go across the street and tell Anna and Mrs. Lynch that all is well.”
Granny! Did she see Nilsson outfitted like a commando? What did she think when the sirens stopped at Cole’s house?
“Go,” Cole says.
I need to see my grandmother for myself. “I should—”
“You should eat something before you collapse,” Cole says.
I start to protest, but my chattering teeth give me away. Cole’s lips twist into a frown as he slips one hand beneath my elbow. “Come on,” he says, walking me toward the kitchen.
My first instinct is to fight. I don’t want food. I want to visit my grandmother.
But I feel hollow inside. Even when I concentrate, I can’t still the tremors that shudder down my arms. I can’t stop the clacking of my teeth.
I let Cole walk me down the hall.
He guides me to one of the stools at the high counter opposite the fridge, eyeing me like a raptor as I take a shaky seat. Only when my palms are spread on the marble worktop, steadying me, anchoring me, does he turn to the pantry.
Frowning, he retrieves a small jar of rosemary-dusted marcona almonds. “Start with these,” he says, twisting off the lid.
“I don’t like—”
“Eat.”
I fish out one nut and settle it on my tongue. The salt twists something deep inside me. I moan as my teeth shatter the buttery richness.
Cole only takes a moment to gloat. He turns to the refrigerator and lays out a feast. There are bright red strawberries and a pot of paté.
A brick of white cheddar cheese and smoked gouda wrapped in red wax.
He finds some of the tiny clementines Granny calls Christmas oranges, and apples, and slices of white-flecked red sausage layered between sheets of wax paper.
A loaf of Anna’s sourdough waits in the bread box on the counter.
Cole slips four thick slices into the Breville toaster before he makes me a cup of strong black tea.
At first I eat because it’s not worth fighting with Cole. But after the first few bites, I eat because I’m hungry. No. I’m ravenous.
There’s a gulf inside me that can never be filled. Toast, fruit, meat—I need it all. It drags me away from the confrontation in the parlor. It carries me back from the Bad Men.
But no food on earth can make me forget that I’m the reason Pyotr Tarasov got into the house. I opened the gate. I broke the rules. I deserve to be punished as much as Megan was.
More.
The bread knife lies on the counter, sunlight glinting off the ripples of its serrated edge. A paring knife gleams beside the apples. A short, sharp blade is half-buried in the cheddar.
The edges of those knives sing to me—Tarasov, gate, rules. I need the honed metal more than I need food, more than I need tea, more than I need Cole’s forgiveness.
The ladders of scars on my thighs start to itch. No. They burn. Tarasov, gate, rules.
I need to cut.
The sharp pain is the only way to stop my brain’s spiral—Tarasov, gate, rules. The magical flow of blood is the only way I can earn redemption. If I cut, I can make things right.
I can’t cut.
I promised Cole I would never cut again. Not after I lost control last time and let the scalpel go too deep. Not after he needed to call a doctor to save me.
But the knives are so, so bright. Tarasov, gate, rules. And my need is so, so strong. Tarasov, gate, rules. Cutting can win me a moment of feckin’ silence. Tarasov, gate, rules.
Cole can’t hear the knives singing from the counter. He doesn’t know. He picks up my mug and turns back to the kettle.
“Cole,” I whisper.
I thought my voice would be too soft for him to hear, but he whirls like I’ve screamed his name. Immediately, he’s on full alert, as if he needs to save me—from the police or from Tarasov or from my wicked past.
The knives are so perfect in the sunbeam.
“Help me,” I beg my husband. “Don’t let me cut.” And then I realize the one thing that can drown out the knives’ song. My voice reduces to wind shear and gravel. “Please,” I say. “Take me downstairs to the dungeon.”