“WHERE IS SHE?!”I roared as my temples began to pound.
“Jesus Christ, KASH!”Oz shouted, grabbing my collar and jerking me back.
Bane’s entire body had gone rigid, but there wasn’t fury glinting in his eyes, like I’d expected, but sympathy.
What the fuck?!He didn’t get to feel fucking sorry for me!
“Where.IS.SHE?”I demanded, pulling free of Oz’s hold.
“She is safe.Provided for.I made sure she had all she needed.Including a good job.”Bane’s tone was reassuring, as if that was all I needed to hear.
“Tell me where!”I started at him again, and Oz’s hand clamped down on my shoulder, stopping me.
How the fuck was he so goddamn strong?
“Let go of me,” I sneered.
“This is why you can’t be around her, Kash.Listen to yourself.She makes you psycho,” Oz said.
“No.Her being taken away and hidden from me is making me psycho.This goddamn family I didn’t ask to be born into is making me psycho!Now tell me where she is!”
Bane blew out a heavy breath, and his gaze looked past me toward my brother, who was still holding on to me.
“Someone needs to start talking,” I warned them.“What if someone took Halo from you?”I asked Bane.“Or Winslet from you?”I asked my brother.“You’d both lose your goddamn mind.”
“Not the same,” Bane told me.“Halo is my world.My center.My calm.She is also my wife.”
“Who you get to keep protected.Safe.You don’t have to worry about anyone hurting her.That’s not a threat you face, but you can’t tell me if someone hurt her, you wouldn’t show your own version of crazy.She wasn’t always your wife, but before she took your last name, did you love her less?”
He shook his head.“No, but I don’t just love Halo.She saved me.Brought me back from the darkness that I didn’t think I’d ever return from after losing Crosby.She owns me.Without her, I have no soul.”
“I wanted to come home,” I snarled.“I thought being home meant Madison.My family.But I saw her again.Nothing had changed for me.”Stabbing my chest with my pointer finger, I leaned closer to Bane.“My home isn’t a fucking town, and it’s not family.Because the moment I looked into her eyes again was when I felt it.Home.SHE is my home.”
Bane was looking at my brother again, who had remained silent through it all.Not trying to convince me he loved Winslet more than I loved Cressida.
“I’m sorry,” Oz said behind me.“But right now, we need you focused.She doesn’t focus you.She distracts you.”
“Her being taken from me fucking distracts me!”I yelled and jerked free of his hold to turn and look at him.
What was his deal?Why did he look so goddamn torn up?Was this because he didn’t agree with them taking Cressida, but wasn’t going to admit it?
“Mom has stage four liver cancer.”Oz’s voice cracked as he said it.
The oxygen felt as if it had been sucked from the room.
“What?”I asked.
I hadn’t heard him right.I couldn’t have.
“She thought she was allergic to something she was eating.She was having abdominal pain.”His words came out hoarse.“It got better when she cut out her glass of wine in the evening, but that was short-lived.Then there was swelling, and she went in for testing.”
I shook my head.“No,” I said.“No.”
The emotion on his face, the pain in his expression, his silence—it all made sense now.
“What?”I asked.“What does the doctor say?I mean, what about treatments?How are they going to get rid of it?”
Oz glanced at Bane, and I didn’t like that.When his gaze came back to me, I saw the answers I did not want to hear.The sorrow was deep.
