Chapter 13
Kael
I left Bria sleeping.
She'd finally stopped shaking. The nightmares that had plagued her for weeks had faded to occasional twitches—soft whimpers that didn't wake her. I stood in the doorway of her room for a long moment, watching her chest rise and fall beneath the white sheets. Her face was peaceful. Healing.
I closed the door softly and walked out.
The drive to Caine's house took twenty minutes. The roads were empty, the sky a bruised purple as the sun began to set. I drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the gun in my waistband.
I knew what was waiting for me.
Zia had been calling for two days. I'd ignored every call. But this morning, Caine had sent a message: Come to the house. We need to talk about Lena. Now.
I didn't want to go.
But Caine was my cousin. My partner. The only family I had left besides Raziel. And if I was going to keep Bria safe, I needed to keep the people around me from becoming threats—even if they were threatening me.
The gate opened automatically when I pulled up. I drove through, killed the engine, and sat in the driveway for a moment, watching the house.
It was a sprawling estate, bigger than mine. White columns. Wide windows. The kind of house that screamed money and power and don't fucking touch what's mine.
Caine's house.
I stepped out, slammed the door, and walked up the front steps.
Zia opened the door before I could knock. She was in a silk robe, her hair loose around her shoulders, her face tight with barely contained fury. Behind her, I could see Caine standing in the living room, arms crossed, jaw tight.
"Kael." Zia's voice was ice. "So nice of you to finally show up."
I stepped past her, walking into the house like I owned it. "You said we needed to talk."
"We do." She closed the door, her heels clicking sharply on the marble floor. "About Lena."
I turned to face her. "What about her?"
Zia's eyes narrowed. "What about her? What about the fact that you choked her? Slapped her? Threatened to cut off her face and send it to her mother?"
I didn't flinch. "She put her hands on Bria. She called her names. She made her feel worthless. I dealt with it."
"By torturing her?"
"By warning her." I met Zia's eyes. "Ask her yourself. How do I usually warn anyone? I was magnanimous after what she did."
Caine stepped forward, his voice low. "We asked her. She told us a different story."
I laughed—a cold, humorless sound. "Of course she did. She's a snake. I saw that when you sent her over that first night. She didn't want to help Bria. She wanted to get close to me. She told Bria that herself."
Zia stared at me. "You're lying."
"I don't lie," I said quietly. "I kill. I threaten. I do terrible things. But I don't lie."
Zia's breath caught.
"Zia," Caine's voice held a warning. "Step back."
He could tell I was getting annoyed with her, and I had a quick temper.
She didn't move. "You kill. You threaten. That's why I don't believe Lena is lying. She had bruises on her throat, Kael. I saw them. Your handprints."
I didn't deny it. "Yes. I choked her. She needed to understand that I wasn't playing. She needed to understand that touching Bria meant consequences. I let her go. I slapped her. I told her to leave. I didn't kill her, even though I wanted to."
Zia's face twisted. "You think that makes you the good guy?"
"I think it makes me the guy who protects what's his."
"What's his?" Zia's voice cracked. "She's a person, Kael. A human being. You kidnapped her. You locked her in your house. You have her sleeping in a room with a barred window like she's some kind of—"
"She's dying, Zia." My voice was sharp, cutting. "She was dying on the streets. Overdosing. Selling her body for drugs. Her parents gave up. Her ex is getting out of prison, and he'll use her until she's dead. I'm the only thing standing between her and a grave."
Zia opened her mouth, then closed it.
"You don't know what it's like," I continued, my voice dropping to something quieter.
"To watch someone you love fall apart. To see them turn into a ghost of who they were.
To know that if you don't do something—anything—they'll be gone forever.
I didn't lock her up to punish her. I locked her up to save her. And it's working."
Zia looked at Caine. He was watching me with an expression I couldn't read.
"Zia?" A voice came from behind us.
We all turned.
Lena was standing at the top of the stairs, wrapped in a silk robe, her hair loose. Her throat was still bruised—faint purple marks that looked like fingerprints. Her lip was still slightly swollen.
But it wasn't her face that made my blood run cold. It was her eyes. She was looking at me like I was the last glass of water in the desert.
"Kael," she breathed. "You came."
"Lena, I thought you were asleep," Zia said.
"I couldn't sleep. I heard voices." Lena started walking down the stairs, her movements slow, deliberate. "I heard his voice."
She reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped a few feet away from me. Close enough to touch. Too close.
"You came," she repeated. "I knew you would. I knew you couldn't stay away."
I took a step back. "Don't."
Lena's face fell. "Don't what?"
"Don't look at me like that. Don't talk to me like that. Don't pretend there's anything between us."
Her eyes filled with tears. "But there is. There could be. I've been waiting—"
"For what?"
Lena flinched like I'd slapped her.
I continued. "Why did you lie to Caine and Zia about what transpired?"
"I didn't mean to cause trouble," she whispered. "I just wanted you to see me. The real me. The one who could be good for you. The one who isn't broken. Who isn't a junkie. Who could stand beside you without falling apart."
Zia stepped forward, her voice sharp. "Lena, stop. This isn't—"
"Stay out of this." Lena's voice was cold. "This doesn't concern you."
Zia froze, watching the transformation happen. The sweet, scared woman was gone.
Lena's eyes flashed with something ugly. "Why her, Kael? She's not special. She's just... broken in a way that makes you feel useful. But you could have me. Someone who doesn't need to be fixed. Someone who could actually give you something."
"I don't want you."
Lena's face went white.
"I don't want you," I repeated. "You are invisible to me, Lena. And you'll always be invisible to me."
She stared at me, trembling. "That's not true," she whispered. "You just don't know me yet."
I took a step closer to her, close enough to see the desperation in her eyes. "I know everything I need to know about you. You're pathetic."
Lena's eyes filled with tears. "I just—"
"I don't care what you want," I cut her off.
Lena stared at me, broken. Then something shifted in her eyes.
"You'll regret this," she whispered. "One day, you'll see. She'll fall apart again. She'll run. She'll break your heart. And when she does, I'll still be here. Waiting."
She turned and walked up the stairs.
We all watched her go. When her door slammed shut, Zia let out a shaky breath.
"Jesus," she whispered. "I didn't—I thought she was just—"
"You thought," I spat, the words tasting like venom. "Even your fucking thoughts are self-righteous, Zia. That's why you didn't believe me."
Caine's jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked beneath his skin. He shoved Zia gently behind him, stepping into my space. His hand dropped toward his waistband, his fingers hovering over the grip of his weapon.
"You think you can talk to my wife like that?" he growled.
I met his glare dead-on, refusing to give an inch. My pulse was steady, a cold, familiar adrenaline settling into my veins.
"Why shouldn't I? Because you simp over her, I'm supposed to?"
Caine's hand moved, clearing his leather holster.
"Don't do that, Caine." My voice dropped to a dangerous, flat whisper. My fingers locked around the grip of my own piece. "I don't want to hurt you."
"You think I won't shoot you over my wife?"
"I think you would, because you're a henpecked pussy."
In a fraction of a second, the room vanished. Caine drew his weapon, the barrel leveling straight at my chest.
My reflex was pure instinct. My gun snapped up, iron sights lining up right between his eyes before his finger could even tighten on his trigger.
We stood there, frozen in a lethal deadlock.
The air between us felt heavy, suffocating, crackling with the kind of tension that only exists between two predators.
The same blood ran through our veins. The same brutal training.
The same dark instinct to kill. My finger rested on the trigger, calculating the split second it would take to drop him if his shoulder twitched.
But neither of us was going to shoot. We were just posturing—him for his wife, me because even blood-related, I wouldn’t let a man pull a gun on me.
"Kael!" Zia's voice broke the silence, high and panicked. She clutched at Caine's arm, her fingers digging into his shirt. "Stop. Both of you, stop! You're family."
"You started this, Zia," I said, not shifting my focus from Caine's locked eyes for even a millisecond. "We weren't family when you took that bitch's side over mine."
Zia swallowed hard, her chest heaving. She looked at the barrel of my gun, then at her husband's. "I apologize," she gritted out, the words sounding like they tore her throat on the way out.
A floorboard creaked above us.
Neither of us dropped our guard, but our eyes flicked toward the staircase.
Lena was standing at the top, a duffel bag clutched in her white-knuckled grip, her face streaked with fresh tears.
"I'm leaving," she said quietly, her voice trembling with an obvious, pathetic play for pity. "I can see I'm not wanted here."
She didn't move an inch down the steps. She just stood there, staring down at me, her eyes begging me to say something—to tell her to stay. The sheer delusion of it made my stomach turn. This bitch was completely out of her mind.
Disgust overrode my anger. I slowly lowered my weapon, letting the tension drain out of my shoulders, utterly unafraid that Caine would actually shoot me in the back. He wasn't that stupid.
"Keep this bitch away from me," I warned, my voice cutting through the quiet house. "And mind your own fucking business."
I turned on my heel and walked out, slamming the heavy front door behind me until the glass rattled in its frame.
When I got home, I climbed the stairs silently.
Bria's door was open a crack. I pushed it open slowly.
She was still asleep, curled on her side, her hand resting on the pillow where I'd slept last night. She looked peaceful. Safe.
I sat in the chair by the window and watched her breathe.
She woke a few minutes later, blinking in the dim light. "Kael?" Her voice was soft. Sleepy.
"I'm here."
She reached out a hand toward me.
I crossed the room and took it.
"Did you talk to them?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah," I said quietly. "I'm okay."
"They don't blame you, do they? I shouldn't have hit her."
"You should have, and it's fine."
She smiled—a small smile that made my chest ache.
"Good," she whispered. "Stay?"
I didn't answer with words.
I just peeled off my clothes and climbed onto the bed beside her, pulled her against my chest, and held her until she fell back asleep