Chapter 31 #2
What does he want? And why was he so rough with me? It’s almost like he’s angry. But why? Kane is the one who cheated.
Of course, now all I can think about is them with that woman, together. All three.
A blush creeps into my cheeks, and I look through the window, clutching the leather seat, so he won’t see.
What’s wrong with me? That’s not hot, is it? The two of them, sharing a woman. It makes me wonder what it would be like.
But then he pulls down a side street and cuts the engine, silence creeping in as the seconds tick by. My cheeks are still burning when he scratches his stubbled cheek, the rasp settling like a flame between my thighs.
“My brother loves you.” His words strike the soft, wounded spot inside me and make it ache.
“It doesn’t matter. He slept with—”
“Shut up. Just fucking shut up for once and listen to what I have to say before you throw away something good because of your wounded pride.”
“My pride?” Anger surges through my chest. “How the fuck dare you, Cash!” I say as he opens the glovebox and grabs a roll of duct tape. “You fucked her together. You fucked her and then he—”
My words are cut off when he rips off a piece and smacks it over my mouth.
What the fuck?
I try to rip it away, but he snatches my wrists, secures them with tape, and tears it off.
“Now,” Cash says as he flops back in his seat and throws the duct tape aside. He runs a hand through his hair, ignoring me when I glare at him.
Fuming, I try to rip off the tape. That’s what he gets for strapping my wrists together while leaving my hands free. I can still use my fingers.
Ha!
Cash grabs my jaw, reflexes like a lightning strike. “Don’t even fucking try.”
Since I can’t speak, I settle for glaring at his stupidly handsome face and keeping my hands in my lap.
His gaze drops to the tape over my mouth, and my heart stumbles. Why is he looking at me like that? What does he want? This would be so much fucking easier if he didn’t look like his twin, but he does, and my body reacts like a starved thing in winter when he flares his nostrils.
Then he shoves me away and sits back, chewing his thumbnail, watching me as if he’s still deciding whether to throttle me or toss me out of the car.
“You want the truth?”
I frown, confused. What truth?
He sighs, man-spreading in his seat as much as the small space allows. “We had no choice but to fuck the senator’s wife. The Society has blackmail material on us all. The kind that could send us away for a lifetime.”
A haunted look flashes in his eyes as he turns to look at me.
“That’s how they imprison us to keep us in line. They force us to commit heinous acts, often at gunpoint, and record it. With Kane, they would kill our mom if he didn’t do as they asked.”
He seems to struggle with himself, weighing the pros and cons of revealing more information. Then he says “fuck it,” and sighs deeply and painfully.
“Kane had to kill our aunt. They had her tied to a chair and told him they’d murder his mom next if he didn’t go through with it. We were teenagers.”
My eyes round as I stare at him. The Society made them kill people? Their own family?
“I know it’s fucked up,” he says, noticing my expression. “I shouldn’t even tell you this.”
Cash looks out at the small alley, which is overflowing with dumpsters, walls tagged with graffiti, and a sleeping bag in the corner.
Welcome to the Falls. It’s a shithole.
“Our mom and aunt were very close, and losing her sister broke her. It was the final straw, so to speak. Mom never really recovered from that, and Kane blames himself, even though he had no choice.”
Cash blurs through my tears. I can’t even imagine how much it must have hurt Kane to go through something like that.
“The senator and our father go way back. A few years ago, he married Beverly in a lavish ceremony, and since then….”
He drifts off. Whatever he’s about to say seems to stick in his throat. Then he shakes his head regretfully.
“Since then we’ve been forced into servicing his wife. It was both of us at first, until she started taking a liking to Kane.”
Suddenly, he punches the wheel, and I flinch and shrink back.
Cash takes a few deep breaths to steady himself before speaking. “Then he met you, and he finally fucking smiled again.”
My chest burns with the strain of holding it all in. Why did Kane never tell me any of this? I would have listened, would have understood. Or would I? He’s killed people.
Cash continues. “I needed you to hear the truth before you make him into a villain.”
He looks at me with his jaw clenched.
“Everything he’s done and sacrificed since he met you was to protect you.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you feel sorry for yourself for another fucking minute.
You have no idea how broken he was when he returned from that bitch’s bed, and you have no idea what threats she made…
about you, his family, the people he cares about.
Kane is nothing if not loyal, and he will sacrifice himself again and again to keep us safe. ”
With that, he rips off the tape, frees my wrists, and orders me out of the car. I stumble into the drizzle that started when we were parked in the alley, and I watch him speed away.
The alley drowns out the sound of his engine, leaving me alone with the rain and the wreckage of everything I thought I knew.