But not with me.
With me, he’s stripped of them all. I know him better than his family ever will. Even better than he knows himself. And that thought alone stirs something jagged inside me.
Somehow, he managed to create a family. But I can’t shake off the question that always lingers in the back of my head.
Does he even love them? Do they love him?
Not the illusion, not the mask, but therealhim.
No. They don’t.
Not in the wayIdo.
I accept him for what he is—a bastard who’ll do whatever it takes to survive. But unlike them, I don’t lie to myself about it. I don’t demand redemption. I don’t play at moral boundaries and pretend he’s something better.
We are all villains here. Some of us hide it better, draping ourselves in the illusion of virtue, crafting the appearance of doing good—fragile, fleeting, and entirely artificial.
Cane pulls out a stack of cash, his usual silent offer, but my attention is fixed on that damn ring still. The gold gleam mocks me, bright and hollow.
I don’t want that. I don’t want the pretending, the masks, the suffocating normalcy. I don’t want to wake up next to someone who only loves the version of me they’ve built in their head. I don’t want a cage made of family photos and lies.
Cane wears his ring because it makes him appear human, respectable—a man who fits neatly into the world.
But I don’t want tofit in.
I don’t want to appear normal. I want to be seen, loved, and accepted exactly for what I am.
I snatch the cash from his hand before he can say another word. The smooth paper slides beneath my fingers, crisp and new, a tactile whisper of power. I bring the stack closer to myface and inhale deeply, the scent of freshly printed bills curling through my senses like the best perfume. A slow, satisfied smile spreads across my lips as flashes of indulgence spark behind my eyes—endless possibilities, vivid and consuming.
I fucking love my job.
“Don’t spend it all at once,” Cane says, his voice laced with dry amusement as he reads my mind once again. “They were hesitant, you know. I had to convince them those were accidents.”
I roll my eyes, exhaling sharply. I don’t need him to clarify who he’s talking about. “You’re seriously going to lecture me about those two idiots? Owen was insulting me,” I say, letting my gaze wander toward the ceiling as the memory floods back. “And that Emmett guy—he grabbed a baseball bat. To hit me.”
Cane’s eyes snap wide, pupils dilating in shock, and then a laugh tears from his throat. It crashes through the tension like glass exploding against stone. My brow furrows, and my jaw slackens, disbelief rooting me to the spot.
“You think I’m lying?”
He raises both brows, still smiling like the bastard he is. “No, I believe you. For some reason, I reallydo. They weren’t that important, thankfully,” he adds with a dismissive wave, as if I need reassurance.
“It was all Dante’s doing, you know,” I say, pride seeping into my tone, sharper than fire under skin. “He was a savage.”
His jaw clenches, lines hardening as his expression sharpens into something colder, more calculating. “He’s doing a good job so far?”
I nod, my attention flicking to the cash I’m still toying with between my fingers. The bills whisper as they move, soft and weightless. “Yep. But he still needs me to control him. You know… toguidehim.”
“I didn’t say he’s going to work alone,” he says, suspicion creeping into his voice.
“I know,” I answer quickly. “I’m just saying.”
A faint tension begins to coil in my gut, invisible but insistent. I swallow, the air thickening as a sheen of sweat forms at my temple. “I mean, I just don’t want him to kill himself by accident. He’s got potential.”
The silence that follows feels heavier than it should. Cane studies me, and the longer he looks, the tighter my muscles pull.
I can only pray he doesn’t catch the truth dancing behind my carefully constructed mask: the heat coiling in my chest, the restless unease clawing at me, and the nameless thing I refuse to acknowledge.
“You? Thinking someonebesidesyou has potential?” Cane repeats, each word stark with disbelief. “Something must’ve shifted in the universe.”
