“Kane,” I said, uneasy. “If you fucking die, I’ll pray every night for Thorne to whack you in hell for being an idiot.”
A dark chuckle left him before it died on his tongue, his lips never quite making it to a smile. “You’ve nothing to worry about. Didn’t you know? I’m the unkillable man.” He reached for the door handle but I caught his hand.
“I mean it,” I whispered hoarsely. “Please. If you can’t win, then run. Promise me you won’t sacrifice yourself to the evil on the other side of those doors.”
His jaw ticked before he firmly pulled his hand out of mine. “I’m sorry, Arden. I don’t make promises I can’t keep anymore.”
“Then stay the fuck alive to protect me,” I asserted. “You promised Rafe.”
“Yeah.” He blinked a few times and then nodded. “Okay.”
I tugged free my gun and flicked the safety off. “When you smell the smoke, that means the kids are out. That meansyouget the hell out.”
“Step to the side, sweetheart.” He pushed my shoulder, forcing me into the shadows before he took hold of the door handles, a wild, blood-thirsty expression overtaking his features. “I owe sixty-seven ghosts a debt.”
Kane wrenched the doors open hard, the sudden wash of music and laughter spilling out into the night, chandeliers glittering overhead and bodies turning in surprise as the threshold was breached. The first man closest to the entrance barely had time to register what he was seeing before Kane was on him, a massive hand fisting into the lapel of his tailored jacket and hauling him forward with cold-blooded force. Kane’s other fist came up in a short, efficient arc and connected with the man’s face, bone cracking wetly beneath his knuckles. The Buyer went slack, collapsing in a heap.
Chaos followed immediately.
Screams tore through the room, glasses shattering, and people stumbled backward, chairs scraping, bodies colliding in panic as Kane stepped fully inside, leaving the doors yawning open behind him like an invitation to hell. He moved through them with terrifying precision, every strike placed to incapacitate and dominate. There was a reason he was Rafe Creed’s number two, why he was sent to the London fight scene by the Ravens. Kids had been terrified of him growing up, rightfully so. Even I stood in shock, having to shake myself out of my trance, completely captivated my brother in arms. He’d been the most brutal fighter I’d ever seen before prison. If anything, those eight years had made him a thousand times worse. A second man rushed Kane, drunk and indignant, and Kane caught him by the throat, lifted him clear off the floor, and slammed him back-first into a column before dropping him like discarded trash.
Buyers scattered, shouting for security, for Viktor, for someone to make sense of what was happening, but Kane didn’t give them time to regroup. He seized a champagne bottle from a nearby table and brought it down across a man’s skull, glass exploding, liquid raining down, then drove his knee into another’s gut so hard the man folded in on himself with a strangled cry. Kane was so beautifully violent, and I knew hislittle brother was cheering somewhere, screaming his head off in joy. Kane moved toward the heart of the estate, drawing eyes and bodies and fear with him exactly as planned.
I slipped inside unseen, heart pounding. I turned toward the staircase and ran up it. Less than eight minutes and forty-three seconds. That’s what my bomb had been set to at Halden’s compound.That’sall it took to kill Thorne. I would never underestimate time again. I shouldered open one door after another, breathless when I mercifully found most rooms empty. Whatever party this was, it wasn’t about sampling the product. I stumbled toward the end of the hall, seeing my old door, my mind whirring with discomfort as I wrenched it open. It was…exactly the same. The ropes on the bed. The cracks in the floor, and the writing carved into the headboard.
To the great escape.
My throat worked. I scanned the space quickly, seeing nothing and backtracking to the door. Screams were filling downstairs, and I knew Viktor was more than likely already gone. He would’ve seen Creed and bolted, the coward. I was one step out of my old room before I caught sound of a muffled cry coming from the closet. I froze, my eyes widening. I hurried across the creaky floor and crouched, gently sliding the pocket door open. “Hey,” I whispered as I found a little boy curled in its back corner, hugging himself. I forced what I hoped was a sweet smile and extended a hand. “It’s okay. I promise I’m not going to hurt you.” He shifted, sniffing, but he didn’t take my hand, his body visibly shaking. He was so young, and I realized faintly that I recognized him. “Henry?” I asked. His picture had been on his Missing Kid posters. “Is that your name?”
He peered at me, confused.
“I’m Arden,” I said. I hesitated before pointing to the bed. “This used to be my room. I lived here before you.”
His tight grip on himself loosened subtly. He shifted some more, some of the moonlight piercing the bedroom window glowing over him. My breath caught, my heart breaking at the sight of his throat. It was terribly scarred, the wound obviously recent. It was haphazardly stitched, the skin an angry mix of mottled colors.
“Can…can you hear me?” I asked, my eyes tracing his face.
He nodded a little before he froze, his face scrunching in pain, the movement tugging at his wound.
“Here,” I whispered, my voice cracking. I gently took one of his hands and tapped it once. “This means no, okay? And this—” I tapped him twice. “Means yes.”
He tapped me twice, and I couldn’t help my unsteady breath.
“Good,” I told him and grinned. “Henry, I want to save you. I want to take you from this place so you can meet my friend. He doesn’t talk either, but he can with his hands. He can teach you how. Would you like that?”
He scooted forward a little. Then he tapped me twice again.
“Okay.” I extended my arms. “Can I carry you? We need to move fast.”
He didn’t bother tapping me. He just ducked forward, crashing into my chest and wrapping his thin arms around my neck. I stiffened at first, my heart fucking imploding, before I scooped him up and held him with one arm, tugging my lighter out with my free hand. The smalltinksounded, and Henry looked down, the blue of his eyes glistening at the sight of the dancing flame.
Gently, I held the lighter out toward him, and he took it in his grasp as I walked us toward the bed. I crouched low enough that he could reach, and I bit my tongue against a cry. He set it aflame without any direction, tears sliding down his cheeks. I carefully took the lighter from him and stepped back when the bed caught.
I rocked him instinctively, my arm firm around his back, my other hand cradling his head as the fire consumed the last physical proof that pain had once owned that space. The crackle of it filled the room, and I stood there with Viktor's next billion dollar asset in my arms, breathing through the heat, through the weight lifting inch by inch from my chest. I watched the flames climb higher, licking along the footboard where my ankles had once been tied, the wood blackening where both Alex and I had carved tally marks into the frame with shaking fingers. Each line we’d scratched there had been a quiet promise to survive, that time would keep moving even when it felt like the world had stopped inside that room, and now the fire erased them one by one, swallowing the proof of how long we’d endured, taking the pain with it.
I thought I heard Alex sob then behind the grave, and I sobbed too, letting my chin tuck against Henry’s shoulder.
The curtains caught next, the same thin fabric that had once fluttered beside the window where I used to press my forehead against the glass and watch Thorne ride past on his motorcycle, the first person who ever made me realize there was more to a body than being abused. All the places I’d hide stolen treasures in the corners of the room, bits of ribbon, smooth stones, or anything really that made me feel like a normal kid for just a second—the fire devoured those places too.
