Oh,hell.
It was a little girl. She couldn’t be more than three. Those large eyes found Kane’s hand on her father’s neck, and her lips parted as someone reached for her from the other side of the wall.
“Lizzie,no.”
The child pulled away, and a woman appeared. Despite the child hovering between them, she was scarcely older than Kane himself. Everything about her was still distinctly girlish. Her expression was pinched as she took in the scene before her, attempting once more to drag the child back.
“Please forgive us.”
Kane’s heartbeats collided with one another. The man had stilled in his grasp.Please forgive us, she’d said, when he was the one who had barged into their home. The one strangling her husband right in front of her.
God, hewasa monster, wasn’t he?
He loosened his grip. The man slid down the wall, slumping against it. His hand went to his neck, and his face was wild, terror mingled with confusion.
Kane’s face was nothing at all.
There was a long moment during which no one moved an inch. Or perhaps it only felt like an eternity to Kane. His mind whirled aimlessly, and he regretted the drink. What did they see, these people, when they looked at him? He must be their nightmares realized.Their fears in the form of a wild-eyed, knife-wielding boy. But he couldn’t hurt the man further; not like this. Not in front of a wife who would shut her eyes when the blade came down and a daughter who wouldn’t know to do the same.
And yet he couldn’t return to Ward empty-handed.
“If you can’t pay,” Kane said, his voice an unrecognizable hiss, “then be gone within the hour. Or I assure you someone worse than me will come to collect, and they won’t just be looking for money.”
“But—” the man began, and his wife shushed him with a breathless shriek.
Kane knew what he’d been about to say:Where will we go?It was a fair question. But homelessness was better than death, at least for now.
The man still looked as though he might argue. That was a problem; Kane needed them to agree. Because if he returned without the money, weaving tales of a family who’d fled, and Ward discovered he was lying…
The room was impossibly quiet as Kane knelt, lips at the man’s ear. “This is a gift,” he breathed. “This ismercy. I assure you, you will not get it twice.”
Finally, blessedly, the man nodded.
Kane’s muscles relaxed. He straightened, readjusting his collar. “Be out by dusk. Don’t return.”
The little girl’s eyes locked with his, just for a moment, and he imagined the alcohol in the pit of his stomach burning anew.
When he left, he did not look back.
“Fletch!”
Kane called his friend’s name, ducking his chin to avoid theputrid spray of the river. Fletcher stood at the edge of the docks, surrounded on three sides by shipping containers. Workers scuttled past with hats drawn low over their faces and vests soaked through. Their hollers and thech-chk,ch-chkof their carts over stone were all but swallowed by the wind. It was crowded despite the weather, but Fletcher, being taller than Kane—who was quite tall—veritably towered over everyone else.
He raised an eyebrow as Kane approached. “Had some trouble, I take it?”
Kane ran a hand over his swollen jaw, wincing. “This is going to sound mad, but people aren’t keen on debt collection.”
“That does sound mad. I’m sure you were ever so charming.”
Kane made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. He’d forced a family into homelessness today. Achild.
Fletcher’s brows knit together. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Look—a few ships are docked up ahead.”
It wasn’t as though he’d just noticed; they were, after all, fairly large. Stares from the dockworkers held a tangible heat as they navigated the throngs, but Kane didn’t care. It was Fletcher’s gaze he felt the most, dissecting his expression as if any moment he might say,Wait. What are you hiding?
A bird screeched somewhere overhead. It sounded like a warning. Kane skirted two men arguing over some kind of cargo marked with the wordsSAVILLE SHIPPING CO., lifting his chin as they neared a ship bearing the matching logo. He tried not to dwell on the time they’d spent working for Saville—time they’dwasted—only to learn nothing of import.
