Chapter Five #2
"Because I know them, Kins," Marcy said gently.
"I grew up with them. They aren't psychopaths. They aren't evil men who enjoy torturing innocent people just for the thrill of it. If they know the truth, if they know Gabriela lied... they’re feeling guilty. They have to be. They’re probably drowning in it. "
Kade let out a ragged, trembling exhale, the glass of whiskey shaking violently in his grip. He was drowning. He had been drowning for thirty days.
"Then why haven't they shown their perfectly sculpted faces?" Kinsley challenged, the protective anger flaring in her voice. "If they are so consumed with guilt, Marce, why haven't they knocked on our door to beg for forgiveness?"
"Because they’re terrified," Marcy answered. The quiet certainty in her voice was devastating. "They know what they did to us. They know what they allowed everyone else to do to us. The guilt is paralyzing them. They are too terrified to face us and see what they broke."
Cruz turned away from the window, staring blindly into the dark office. She was completely, flawlessly accurate. She was reading their souls from miles away.
"So what?" Kinsley asked, her voice softening at the edges. "Are you waiting for them? Do you want them to come?"
"No," Marcy said.
The single syllable dropped into the executive office like a physical bomb. Kade felt the air leave his lungs in a violent rush.
"No," Marcy repeated, the sound of a box being shoved across the floor accompanying her words.
"I am angry, Kinsley. I am so deeply, profoundly angry at what the Lancasters and the Tates did to us.
I will carry the scars of how they looked at me for the rest of my life.
But... I don't want to waste whatever time I have left holding a grudge against them. "
"You're just going to forgive them?" Kinsley asked, incredulous.
"I didn't say that," Marcy clarified softly.
"I just don't care anymore. What difference would an apology make now? If Kade had come to me two years ago, if he had just looked at me and asked for the truth... it would have made all the difference in the world. Even a year ago, an apology might have saved us. But now? It’s just too late.
The damage is done, the foundation is gone, and an apology is just empty words.
I want to let it go, Kins. I just want to move on. "
In the dark corner of the office, Kade Lancaster finally shattered. He pressed his palms against his eyes, a broken, silent sob wracking his broad shoulders.
She didn't hate him. It would have been easier if she hated him.
Hatred was an active emotion; it was a connection.
But Marcy had moved past hatred. She had reached a place of chilling apathy.
She was indifferent to him. The realization that he had extinguished the love of the only woman who truly mattered was a torment worse than death.
Through the blue glow of the receiver, Kinsley let out a long, sigh.
"You are a better person than I am, Marce," Kinsley admitted softly. "Because if Cruz Tate walked through that door right now, I would hit him over the head with this cast."
A small, genuine laugh bubbled up from Marcy. "I know you would."
The light atmosphere returned to the apartment for a brief second, but the weight of the past two years still hovered in the air.
"You know what I really don't understand, Marce?" Kinsley asked, the chaotic energy fading into something deeply vulnerable and achingly sad.
"What?"
"How easy it was for them," Kinsley whispered.
Her voice carried the bruised, confused tone of a child who had been betrayed by the world.
"How easy it was for everyone to just immediately believe you were the culprit.
We were practically raised on those estates.
Didn't we all grow up together? We played in the same gardens.
We ate at the same tables. They watched us grow up.
So why... why didn't anyone even pause? Why didn't a single person give us the benefit of the doubt? "
The question hung in the air, transmitting through the microscopic wire, crossing the miles of city blocks, and landing like a brutal physical blow in the fifteenth-floor office.
Cruz felt his throat close up. He remembered the day Kinsley had stood in the foyer, pleading with him to look at the CCTV footage. He remembered looking at her like she was dirt on his shoe. Why hadn't he listened? Why hadn't he just taken the tablet from her hands and looked?
Over the speaker, Marcy was quiet for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was laced with a deep, tragic wisdom.
"It’s because we weren't from legacy families, Kinsley," Marcy said sadly.
"We were orphans. We were the charity cases.
They loved us when it was convenient, when we were playing the roles of the grateful, quiet sidekicks to their perfect golden girl.
But the moment something went wrong... the moment perfection was threatened...
the illusion shattered. In their world, the Monroe name, the Lancaster name, the Tate name—those are untouchable.
So, they needed a scapegoat. And we were the easiest targets in the room. "
The silence in the executive office was deafening.
The sheer, ugly truth of Marcy’s words stripped away every layer of rationalization the men had ever built.
She had diagnosed the very disease of their high-society upbringing in a single, devastating sentence.
They had chosen bloodlines and optics over loyalty and truth.
"Well," Kinsley said, her voice suddenly ringing with a fierce, unapologetic clarity. "If being in a legacy family makes you that stupid and that blind... then it’s a damn good thing we aren't in one."
Through the audio feed, Marcy’s soft, genuine smile was practically audible. "Yes. It is a very good thing."
"Pass the packing tape," Kinsley demanded cheerfully. "I’m going to wrap the blender. If we’re moving to a forest, I need to know my smoothie machine will survive the transit."
The audio feed returned to the mundane, rhythmic sounds of packing.
In the fifteenth-floor office, Connor reached out with a trembling hand and turned the dial, cutting the feed.
The sudden silence in the room was broken only by the ragged, shallow breathing of the four men.
They were devastated. The conversation had systematically dismantled whatever fragile hopes they had harbored in the dark corners of their minds.
Kade stared at the floor, the whiskey glass forgotten on his knee.
It’s just too late. Marcy’s words echoed relentlessly in his skull.
She didn't want his apology. She didn't want his groveling.
She wanted nothing to do with him. He had spent his life commanding boardrooms, conquering markets, and fixing the unfixable.
But he couldn't fix this. He couldn't repair a foundation that had been pulverized to dust.
Cruz Tate stood paralyzed by the window. His striking, sculpted face was a mask of sheer agony. Didn't we all grow up together? Kinsley’s broken, confused question tore at the very fabric of his soul.
He had shattered the wrist of the woman who had loved him, the woman who had simply been begging him to see the truth. He had chosen the lie of Gabriela Monroe over the fierce, beautiful loyalty of Kinsley Bennet.
He needed to go to her. The urge was a screaming, feral instinct in Cruz’s blood.
He needed to drive to that small house, fall to his knees on the front porch, and beg until his voice gave out.
He needed to grovel, to bleed, to offer her every cent he possessed and every breath in his lungs just for a fraction of a second of her time.
But as he looked at Kade, and as he looked at the younger brothers, the paralyzing terror held them all firmly in its grip.
If they went to that house... if they knocked on that door... Marcy and Kinsley would look at them. And in their eyes, the titans of industry wouldn't see anger. They wouldn't see passion.
They would only see nothing.
And that was a reality none of the men were strong enough to survive.