Forty-Four
Aspen
Two days have passed since I confronted Kaiden at Prospect House.
Despite everything I said, I really thought he’d come back. For Kai, if not for me.
Looks like I was wrong about that, too. Seems Kai was just another way to get close to me so he could do Mika’s bidding. Now that conversation’s been had, the pretense is over.
Never mind my own broken heart; what Kaiden’s done to my son goes way beyond cruel.
My son, not our son. He doesn’t deserve that distinction. Kai’s been asking for his dad constantly, his little face falling every time I have to make another excuse.
I can’t keep doing this. Won’t keep doing this.
I just need to work out what the hell I’m going to tell him.
Because how do you tell a child that his father has abandoned him?
I should be in my studio, but I’ve already spent too many hours staring at a blank canvas, so when my doorbell rings, it’s a welcome distraction.
Normally, I wouldn’t answer if I’m not expecting anyone, but my phone sports a number of missed calls from unknown numbers, and while I’ve made enough of a name in the art world to be comfortable, I can’t afford for my commissions to dry up.
However, when I’m confronted with the woman on the other side of the door, I wish I hadn’t bothered.
“Aspen…” Kitty jams her foot in the doorway as I move to close it, and I’m not so much of a bitch that I’d deliberately hurt her. More’s the pity.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” I try instead.
“Tough, because I need to speak to you, and you haven’t been answering the phone.”
“Ever consider there might be a reason for that?” I snark.
“Well, your reasons don’t count. Not when Kaiden’s injured and not responding to treatment because he thinks he’s lost you and his life isn’t worth living anymore.”
The words hit me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs.
“What?” My voice comes out barely above a whisper.
“He was shot,” Kitty says, her expression tight with worry and something that might be accusation. “Protecting one of my girls. Two Russian mobsters broke in, tried to finish what they started with Tina. Kaiden took a bullet to the shoulder, getting them first.”
My hand finds the door frame, needing something solid to anchor me as the world tilts. “When?”
“Two days ago. Right after you left.” She pushes past me into my house, and I’m too stunned to stop her.
“He’s been at the compound’s medical facility since then.
The wound itself isn’t life-threatening, but he’s developed an infection, and he won’t...
he’s giving up, Aspen. The doctors say it’s like he’s lost the will to fight it. ”
“That’s not my fault.” The words sound hollow even to my own ears. “He’s the one who…”
“Who what? Followed orders from his boss to contact you about a business proposition?” Kitty whirls on me, and I see tears tracking down her cheeks. “You think he wanted to deceive you? You think any of this was part of some master plan?”
I open my mouth to respond, but she doesn’t let me.
“Kaiden Brooks has been in love with you since he was fourteen years old. Everything he’s done, every choice he’s made, has been to protect you, even to his own detriment.”
“What, like his relationship with you?” I spit, reigning in the need to go find Kaiden and see him for myself.
Kitty’s expression shifts to something raw and pained. “There is no ‘relationship’ between us, not the way you mean. But you want to know what happened? Fine. I’ll tell you everything, because clearly your imagination has filled in blanks that should never have been left empty.”
She moves to my couch and sits without invitation, and I find myself following, my legs carrying me forward even as my mind screams at me to throw her out.
“I was trafficked from Eastern Europe when I was nineteen,” she begins, her voice flat in that way people use when talking about trauma they’ve compartmentalized.
“The Viper bought me. Put me to work in one of his brothels. I tried to fight at first, but...” She shakes her head.
“You learn quickly that resistance only brings worse punishment.”
My stomach churns, but I force myself to listen.
“I’d been there a week when a boy came in. Fourteen years old and eyes that already held more pain than any child should carry. I’d heard about Kaiden. The other women tried to mother him, but even at that age, he was more adult than boy. Forced to grow up in the worst possible way.”
She swallows and looks away.
“The Viper arrived shortly after to continue my ‘training’. Said the boy needed to be ‘broken in,’ made into a man.” Kitty’s hands clench in her lap. “There was no choice for either of us. Resistance would only have made things worse for us both.”
I feel bile rising in my throat. The image she’s painting is horrific, but I force myself to stay seated, to hear what she’s saying.
“So yes, I was Kaiden’s first. But it wasn’t anything more than survival. For both of us.” Kitty wipes at her eyes roughly.
My chest feels tight, like someone’s squeezing my lungs. “Why didn’t he just tell me?”
“Because he was ashamed!” Kitty’s voice rises, then breaks.
“Because you were everything to him, even then. As young as he was, he wanted you to be his first, and instead, he was abused against his will. He thought you’d see him as damaged, as dirty.
Because the Viper spent years convincing him he was nothing but a tool, a weapon, something to be used.
And he didn’t want you to be disappointed that anyone had come before you, even if it wasn’t what he wanted. ”
“And what about after?” I insist. “Because he did more than imply that the two of you had sex in the past ten years.”
“When he married you, when he had those six months of pure happiness, I was overjoyed for him. I thought he’d finally managed to get away. We were nothing but friends until the Viper forced him to return. But yes, we were friends. Good friends.”
I want to say he never mentioned her, but it seems petty, so I stay quiet.
“And I was the one who patched him up after the Viper felt it necessary to ‘teach him a lesson’ for having the temerity to try to leave.”
Mamma had told me Kaiden was injured. Do I really want to know? I swallow hard. “What did he do to him?”
Kitty’s expression darkens. “Broke three ribs. Broke his collarbone and his arm. Set his goons on him until he was a mess. There were internal injuries too. The Viper made sure Kaiden understood leaving wasn’t an option.
That you weren’t an option. Then the bastard refused him medical treatment beyond getting the doctor to confirm Kaiden’s condition wasn’t life-threatening.
Fortunately, I’d been training as a nurse before I ended up in the Viper’s nest, so I patched him up. ”
My hands are shaking. I clasp them together to hide it, but the tremor moves through my entire body.
“It was the lowest point of his life. He was devastated, and he was lonely. He lost his best friend as well as his wife, and he lived with the constant fear that you might be hurt.”
Kitty leans forward, her eyes boring into mine.
“Everything he did, he did for you, and yeah, occasionally he’d come to me.
For companionship. For sex, though not very often.
Only because he sometimes craved a little human connection.
But believe me, I was nothing more than a poor substitute when he couldn’t go another moment without someone touching him gently.
A reminder that he was more than just an instrument in someone else’s band, always dancing to someone else’s tune. A weapon that was expendable.”
She stares at me. “And I know that’s hard to hear, but sometimes, in the nightmare world we were forced to inhabit, all any of us had was the smallest hope that a caring human touch could anchor you back to yourself.”
Kitty’s voice wavers but does not break. “Occasionally, he just needed someone to remind him he wasn’t only good for hurting people. Sometimes, when things got really bad, he’d let me hold him. Not for sex - just to not be alone.”
The words slice me open in new ways. I am furious for her, for him, for every time I doubted Kaiden’s love because I thought he’d given it to someone else.
The truth is so much darker, so much sadder.
I try to picture my husband at fourteen, brutalized and desperate, learning to be a man from the violence of men who wanted only to break him.
I try to imagine what it was to exist in a world where love was a liability, a weapon turned against you.
“And you survived,” I say, because I don’t know what else to offer. “Both of you did.”
Kitty looks at me, hollow but resolute. “We did. But survival isn’t the same as living.
That was all you. You brought him life, Aspen, even when you didn’t know it.
You were the reason he kept himself from turning into the monster the Viper wanted him to be.
And that’s why he never told you any of this.
Because he didn’t want you breathing in all that rot. He wanted to keep you clean.”
My vision blurs. I remember the way Kaiden’s hands trembled on our wedding night, how gentle he was, how reverent with every touch. I thought it was love, and it was, but I didn’t know it was also fear - fear of tainting me, of letting the past poison what he treasured most.
Kitty’s words paint a poignant picture. One I can finally see. They strip away the last of my illusions, and I understand why he was so careful with me, always treating our intimacy as something sacred, precious, untouchable by the filth of his past.
Kitty’s hands are balled into fists, white-knuckled, and she says, “But there was no romance. No love. Just two broken people trying to survive and occasionally reaching out for a sliver of human kindness, so we didn’t turn into the animals Vito Rossi wanted us to be.”
She blinks rapidly. “Even if I’d wanted it, Kaiden could never have loved me, Aspen. Because he loved you. He was always yours, and that’s why I’m here. Because I refuse to lose another friend to the Viper’s bastard legacy.”
I can’t speak. I can’t move. My heart beats so loud it drowns out the rest of the world.
The words hang in the air between us, and I can’t process them.
Can’t reconcile the man she’s describing with the one I’ve built up in my mind these past few days - the villain who used me and abandoned our son.
Because the truth is, the truth I’ve always known deep down, the truth I’ve tried to bury beneath my hurt; Kaiden always put me first.
Even before himself.
And now it’s time for me to put him first. To put him before the emotions that are making me act irrationally.
Because, despite everything, I love that man, and I can’t imagine a world without him in it.