They did so, Zaria’s every muscle tensing as the door slammed shut, sealing them in a house that—she now saw—was indeed occupied by other crew members. In the adjacent drawing room, a couple of them sat facing one another, flipping cards while onlookers howled in either triumph or dismay. One of the men glanced up as she walked past, and he leaned down to mutter something in his nearest companion’s ear.
A hand closed around Zaria’s forearm, making her jump. She turned to scowl at Fletcher. “What the hell?”
“Keep your gaze straight ahead,” he said. “Pretend you don’t see them.”
“They don’t frighten me.”
“Then you’re foolish.”
“Do you know them?” she asked, more quietly this time.
“Most of them. It’s not uncommon for guys to hang around wherever the kingpin’s staying.”
The stairwell was lined with portraits of people Zaria didn’t recognize. The property’s true owners, perhaps? She wondered what had happened to them. As they reached the top of the stairs, Tom indicated the door at the end of the hall with a jerk of his head. “He asked to meet with you privately, so…” The doorman’s gaze slid to Zaria, then back to Fletcher. “He’s not in a good mood, Collins.”
Fletcher’s response was dry. “So you’ve said. Really, though, is he ever? Thanks, Tommy. We’ll take it from here.”
Tom scurried back down the stairs, obviously keen to be nowhere nearby when they entered Ward’s—Kane’s—office. Zaria watched him go, brow furrowed.
“He’s an unusual bloke,” Fletcher said, correctly interpreting her expression. “Too cowardly to be of much real use, but nicer than most of the others. Ward kept him around for the menial tasks. Someone has to do them.”
Zaria nodded without really digesting his words. She felt rather cowardly herself at present. She’d been so focused on finding Kane, she hadn’t given much thought to what she would say when she saw him again. Her stomach was in knots. But she pushed the trepidation aside, letting anger embolden her. Kane hadkidnappedJules. Blackmailed him. This time he’d gone too damned far, and he would pay for it.
First, though, Zaria had to strike a deal—the type of which made her feel rather weak in the knees just considering it.
“You ready?” Fletcher asked. They were directly outside the office now, and Zaria nodded again.
“I suppose. You?”
“Hell no.”
“Thanks again for doing this.”
“Don’t mention it,” he muttered, echoing her words from earlier.Then he rapped his knuckles smartly against the wood, chin high, expression as icy as she had ever seen it.
Kane’s short response emanated from within. “Come in.”
Zaria hadn’t expected the sound of his voice to have such an effect. She hadn’t even faced him yet, for God’s sake, and she was already tense in a way she couldn’t explain. If she was going to get what she needed from Kane, she would have to be civil, which was easier said than done. Especially when what she wanted more than anything was to punch him in his smug face.
Fletcher opened the door, and Zaria fell into step behind him. She didn’t know what she’d expected from the office, but it was a fairly pleasant space, light streaming in from the large window overlooking the street. A curiosities cabinet occupied the wall across from it—the first she had ever seen in real life. She recognized some of the stoppered vials as containing alchemological substances, but the rest appeared to house bits of animals or preserved plant matter. In the center of the room facing the door was a large mahogany desk. Zaria could imagine how Ward might have looked sitting behind it, his hands folded and his fox-like eyes trapping whomever dared enter the room.
Ward wasn’t here now, though. It was Kane who sat behind the desk.
She’d already known he was alive, of course, but that didn’t stop a stab of disbelief from jolting through her. After all, she’d last glimpsed him in the burning pawnshop, surrounded by flames and the crushing realization that he’d just lost everything. At the time, it had been far too easy to imagine him succumbing to the smoke.
It would have been easier if he’d died. Safer. But Kane Durante, she had come to learn, was not so easily destroyed.
Worse still, a tightness Zaria hadn’t realized existed in her chest seemed to slacken.
Kane’s hair wasn’t quite as smooth as she was accustomed to, and he hadn’t taken any care to disguise the tattoo on his neck. He looked paler, thinner, the map of veins at his throat more striated in the five days since Zaria had seen him last. It was his eyes, though, that stole her breath. Their hazel depths appeared haunted. Shadowed. As if he’d navigated hell and returned an empty, brutal version of himself. When their gazes locked, she thought unbidden of the way he’d kissed her in the workshop. Angrily. Hungrily. As if pressing his mouth to hers was an act of self-betrayal. She remembered thinking that was what Kane must look like when he came undone.
Now, however, she knew it couldn’t have been further from the truth.Thiswas what he looked like when those tethers snapped. When he looked at her with a different kind of hunger entirely. And yet she couldn’t bring herself to feel guilty. Why should she? One of them was always going to betray the other. No matter how much she hated the way things had turned out, she wouldn’t go back and do it differently. She was far too selfish for that.
“Kane,” she whispered, not meaning to speak aloud.
His lips curled up. Not in a smile, but in a cold mockery of the real thing. He settled back in his chair and twirled a fountain pen between his fingers, giving a slow, disarming chuckle. “I’ll admit, Fletch, it isn’t often you manage to catch me off guard.”
Fletcher was a man carved from stone. Whether his reaction was due to Kane’s unhinged appearance or just being in his presence, Zaria couldn’t be sure. He didn’t appear to know what to say. For a fraction of a second, she regretted encouraging him to bring her here.
