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“Are you okay?” I break the silence, letting it shatter around us like fragile glass.
“No.”
Okay, I hadn’t been expecting him to admit that. Most men, when a woman asks, don’t admit when they’re not okay.
I’m so surprised, for a moment, I’m not sure how to respond.
I cover his hand with mine, curling my fingers around one of his in a way that has the corners of his lips twitching in a softly reluctant smile.
“Want to tell me why you’re not okay?”
“No.” He signals before speeding down another winding stretch of road. “But I will.”
“I’m listening.”
“He got to you when you were alone.”
“Kane,” I say, understanding a heavy weight in the pit of my belly. “You can’t always be with me.”
“But someone can.”
“No, they can’t.” I recall Antonio’s bruised and beaten face. Although I hadn’t seen his body, I’m sure that’s not exactly in good condition either, consideringthe hunched way he held himself and the slow way he moved. “I don’t think Antonio is going to be coming around anymore anyway.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He told me as much. Said he gets it, I’m married now.” Being cheeky, I flash him my sparkling diamonds. “I’m off the market. Officially.”
Kane only grunts.
I continue, “Besides, someone hurt him badly. Like, really bad. Maybe it was Uncle Miguel’s guys, because he called them gangsters.” I frown, recalling the conversation and the pleading way Antonio begged me to call off my dogs. “He also said the man wore a suit and Uncle Miguel doesn’t wear suits. But maybe one of his guys…”
I trail off because there’s a look on Kane’s face that I don’t recognize. Almost like—relief, maybe.
Hope? No, hope isn’t quite right, either.
I study him for a long minute. It’s a look of eased fear, I realize with a chill. The look a child gets when they believe with everything inside of them that there is a monster under their bed, but Dad is there and Dad can defeat that monster because not only can he do anything, defeat anything—but he’s truly the bigger, badder monster.
That’s the look I’m reading in those blue eyes. Kane looks at ease by the arrival of a bigger, baddermonster. Judging by the look of Antonio, he might very well be right.
“He likes to put his hands inside people.”I shiver as I recall Antonio’s fear infused words.
Then I call, “Kane?”
His eyes shift to me as he turns down our long drive. “Sunshine?”
“Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you know there’s a bigger, badder monster in the game?”
I hold my breath as he parks, Tav parking my new car beside us. Then he shifts in the seat to pin me with that frosted blue gaze. “Because a bigger, badder monster did just enter the game, Sunshine. And this monster has never lost, not once, in his life.”
twenty-eight
Kane
I don’t elaborate on who this new monster is, and Nevaeh doesn’t ask. But I saw the way fear singed the concern in those warm brown eyes. Saw the tremble in her hand as she reached for the door only to find Tav pulling it open, standing close. Saw the way she jumped, tensed, and forced her body to relax.
