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I turned and Caden appeared in the kitchen doorway. He wore a black t-shirt and fatigues, his boots a little scuffed. His motorcycle helmet hung from his fingers and an unlit cigarette was stuck in the corner of his mouth.
He reached up slowly and pushed his sunglasses down just enough to look over them.
“How’s it going, mum?” he drawled, smirking.
Oh no, fuck that. It hadn’t even occurred to me that marrying Merrick would technically make me Caden’s stepmother. Horror flooded my chest and I whirled around, grabbing the dish towel.
“Don’t you dare,” I hissed.
He laughed softly and strode past me, kicking open the back door and pushing the doorstop in place. He fumbled in his pocket for a moment and came up with a lighter, flicking it. His heavy lids flickered as he breathed in.
“I’m just pushing your buttons,” he said. “Merrick let me know he told you.”
I joined him on the porch. It was hot and the sprinklers were on in the yard. Whirring softly around us.
“Want a cigarette?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Is this weird for you?”
He shook his head, smoke drifting from his lips. “Not really. But we’re not a usual kind of father and son. Maybe if I was living with him it would bother me. And no one knows.”
“Why is that?”
He put a hand on his hip, staring down at me. Knowing that he was Merrick’s son now, I wondered how I’d never seen it before. They were about the same height, but Caden had a lankier build. The tousled, wavy hair was the same.
Maybe the neck tattoos and the massive attitude had thrown me off.
“I’m my own man,” Caden said. “I don’t want to be Brenin.”
“It’s not passed down from father to son.”
“I know, but there’ll be pressure for me to step up and fight in the arena when Merrick retires. I’m too fucking good of a soldier to waste my time running things anyway. I just want to be left in fucking peace to do what I do best.”
“Which is…killing people?”
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, fixing him with a pointed stare. “You’re a pretty honest person.”
A crease appeared between his brows. “I have no reason to lie to anyone. Either you like me or you don’t.”
My heart fluttered. “What happened that night?”
Caden froze, the cigarette halfway to his lips. “Do you mean the night when Merrick killed Osian?”
I nodded, my mouth dry. “I just…I want to know.”
He took a deep breath and released it slowly, a thin stream of smoke coming from his nose. Absently, he dug the heel of his motorcycle boot into the deck.
“I’ve never seen him like that,” he said quietly, eyes down. “I put my hand on his arm at one point to stop him and he turned on me…it was intense.”
“He hurt you?”
“No, no, he just had this look in his fucking eyes. I knew right then there was no stopping him. So we just took Osian and brought him to the warehouse basement.”
My stomach flipped uneasily. “And then?”
