“I’m still working on it.” Kane shook his head once, a curt gesture that sent lightning through his skull. “This isn’t a regular job. You asked me to steal something priceless. Something of international acclaim. It’s taking longer than usual because I’m trying to be careful, okay?”
“I need you to be careful andefficient.”
Kane forced his next question out—if he didn’t ask it now, he knew he never would. “Do you still have those alchemological explosives? The ones that create the smoke? I was thinking I could…” He trailed off. Ward waslaughing, though not a single sound left his mouth.
“You mean to ask me for further assistance?” the kingpin said, his smile fading with alarming quickness.
“If you want the necklace so badly, then surely—”
“Your audacity”—Ward cut him off—“is astounding as always. No, I will not help you, Canziano. Not with this.”
“Don’t.”Kane’s reply was the crack of a whip. “Don’t ever call me that.”
The name struck a painful chord within him, and it sounded all wrong on Ward’s lips. After his parents died, Kane had left Canziano Durante behind—the first name for a saint, the second for his father—and became Kane Hunt. The perfect identity for a boy trying to pass as British. He’d slowly started using his true surname again, and now went by Durante unless pulling a con, but he never wanted to be calledCanzianoagain.
Canziano had died alongside his parents.
Kane remembered only flashes of his previous life. Ten years had faded into clouded memories of soft hands and lyrical Italian. Of brightly colored art in a tiny dark house. Maria and Cristian Durante had been traveling statuette makers, but Kane couldn’t remember how they’d ended up in London. He’d stopped trying to recall his parents’ faces, perhaps due to unconscious self-preservation. All of it—the hands and colors and faces—had been replaced by Ward.
Ward fixed Kane with a glare that turned his insides to ice. When the kingpin spoke, his voice was dangerously soft. It was the voice he reserved for telling people they’d disappointed him. The voice that was, more often than not, the last thing they heard.
“I can call you whatever I wish. Iownyou. Or have you forgotten?”
Kane had not forgotten. He clenched his jaw so tightly that it was a wonder the bones stayed intact. “I’m… sorry.”
“Ah, don’t sell me a dog.” Ward snorted, pushing himself to stand. His movements as he rounded the desk were agile, almost feline. “You’re not sorry. But you should be.”
Kane stiffened in his chair as Ward’s hand snapped out to encircle his wrist. He could feel blood pumping through the veins there as the kingpin withdrew something from his pocket. It was a tiny device, custom-made by some long-dead alchemologist, no doubt. One end was marked by tiny whirring gears—the other boasted a horribly sharp point.
“I’ll get it,” Kane said breathlessly. “I swear. You don’t have to do this.”
“Okay.” Ward shrugged, releasing him. “Send Master Collins along instead then, would you?”
The moment stretched taut between them. Kane glared, hoping the heat of his gaze was palpable. This was how it always went—how it would always go. Ward knew his weak spot, and he would poke and prod at it until Kane snapped or Fletcher died.
A sound like a growl built in the back of his throat as Kane shoved his right sleeve all the way up. “We both know that’s not happening.”
Ward leaned close, taking Kane’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You are lucky,” he crooned. “Lucky I love you like a son. Lucky I give you so many chances.”
A familiar sharp pain bloomed on Kane’s arm. He refused to flinch as Ward drew thexwithout looking, those amber eyes unwavering.
I don’t want you to forget, Ward had said the first time, back when Kane was twelve,the number of mistakes you make. The number of chances I give you. The rest of my men are not so lucky. And so, you see, I want you to remember each and every time I could have punished you but didn’t. Let it not be said that I am not merciful.
Ward stowed the device back in his pocket as Kane’s eyes flicked down to his arm. The black ink had a glittering quality to it, and after a moment, the crudely drawn shape began to burn with excruciating vigor. It would continue to do so, Kane knew, spreading throughout his body for the next several hours. It was no normal ink, and Ward did not deal normal punishments. The alchemological substance in the needle moved through one’s system like a poison, doing no real damage but making one seriously reconsider whatever they’d done to piss off the kingpin.
Kane shoved his sleeve back down. What a foolish thing. He didn’t need ink in his skin to know he was lucky not to be dead.
Of course, Ward marked his disappointment on the rest of the men, too—more than once Kane had seen them trying to carve away the top layer of skin, desperate for the pain to stop—but most only received a handful ofx’s before Ward disposed of them. No one had as many as Kane, and yet here he was. Still.
Always.
He flexed his hand, trying to ignore the lingering agony.
“This necklace is more important than you know,” Ward hissed in Kane’s ear. “I even let you bring Collins along, hoping a second pair of hands might compensate for your idiocy. Do youhearthe words I say? Do I need to be right beside you at all times, feeding you commands to ensure you get things done properly?”
“I told you, I’ll get it.”
“You’d better. I am accustomed to getting what I want, Canziano. Keep me waiting too long, and Master Collins might find your next job to be far, far worse. Please me, and I’ll consider letting him go.”
