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“Let me go,” I whispered. “I won’t say anything. I’ll just go back inside. Pretend I never came out here.”

Cain’s expression softened a bit. “We both know you’re not capable of lying. Your face would give you away the moment you stepped back into that room.”

He was right. I was many things including strategic, determined, ruthless in business, but an accomplished liar wasn’t one of them. Definitely not about something like this.

“What are you going to do to me?” I asked, the question slipping from my lips before I could stop it.

He shook his head slightly. “Nothing. I would never hurt you, Sutton.”

The absurdity of his statement almost made me laugh hysterically. Instead, I swallowed hard and tried to think clearly despite the terror clouding my mind. “Then let me go,” I said again.

“I can’t do that.” His grip remained firm. “Not until you understand what happens next.”

A weak sound from behind Cain drew both our attention. Bradley was still alive, though barely. His eyes were fixed on us and I’m convinced he would have pleaded if he could speak.

“He’s suffering,” I said. “At least call someone to help him.”

“Bradley made his choice when he decided to disrespect you. When he implied you earned your position on your back rather than through your intelligence and skill.”

My stomach lurched and I thought I was going to throw up. In any other context, I would have been furious at Bradley’s suggestion, but now it seemed trivial compared to what was happening.

“That doesn’t justify this,” I whispered.

“It does to me. No one threatens what’s mine.”

The possessive statement pissed me off. “I’m not fucking yours.”

Cain’s gaze hardened and I knew it was due to my defiance. “That’s where you’re wrong. You became mine the moment I acquired Prescott Vantage.”

I tried to pull away, but his grip tightened. My mind raced through options—scream, fight, reason—each seeming more futile than the last.

“Let me explain something,” Cain continued as he stepped closer until I could feel his breath on my face. “There are two paths forward from this moment. One where you understand what happened here and why, and one where you don’t.”

“You’re threatening me,” I managed to say.

“I’m offering clarity. He threatened something I value. I eliminated the threat.”

“People don’t just kill each other over insults.”

Cain’s eyes narrowed and I swear I saw something snap inside of them before he spoke again. “I don’t care what ‘people’ do. I care about protecting what matters to me.”

His fingers dug deeper into my wrist as he pulled me closer to him and then moved to back me against the brick wall. The rough surface against my exposed skin should have caused a reaction in me, but I barely registered any of this. All I could focus on was Cain’s face and those cold eyes that somehow burned with intensity.

“Listen carefully. I’ve spent my entire career watching men like Bradley destroy what others have built through their incompetence and entitlement. They take what isn’t theirs, they disrespect what they don’t understand, and they break what they can’t possess.”

“Isn’t that what you do as well? Pot meet kettle?”

Cain’s hand slid from my wrist to my chin. Not rough, but not gentle either. His fingers pressed, tilting my head up so I was forced to look him in the eyes. He pressed closer until his chest brushed mine. “You’re so fascinating to me.”

I wanted to spit in his face, knee him, bite him, anything to get away from him, but something kept me rooted in place. “You’re fucking insane.”

Cain bent his head, his lips grazing my ear. “Insanity is just another word for clarity that frightens ordinary people,” he said. The weight of him, the violence of what had just happened, it should have been enough to turn me numb. Instead, I was aware of every hair that was sticking up on the nape of my neck.

I should have been terrified. Hell, I was terrified, but the feeling that overrode everything else was the pull between us that only seemed to be growing stronger by the second. The juxtaposition regarding the scene that was unfolding was obscene. Between the tenderness in his thumb, the knife in his other hand, the dying man at his feet, there was no way anyone would say that I didn’t make this up if I ever spoke a word.

Not that I was going to.

What happened next was that I stopped thinking. My brain, the part of me that I trust wholeheartedly, always pivoted and was able to clock everything no matter what meeting or negotiation I was involved in. And when I needed it most, it just turned off. When I tried to recover, Cain decided to make his move.