Page 44 of Fool Me Twice

He rushed out, eyes wild as he took the stairs down, searching for his security staff. He dodged people slamming into him, gripping someone’s collar to stop them from tumbling down and causing an even bigger issue as they ran away.

Where the fuck were his men?

As if summoned, Ares intercepted him, looking just as out of it as Cane felt.

“What the fuck is happening?” Cane growled.

Ares shook his head, grimacing. “We’re looking into it, Boss.”

Cane forced himself into Ares’s personal space, bumping their chests together and looming over him threateningly. His vision was turning black in the corners.

“Look into it faster,” Cane said, deceptively calm.

“I’ll gather the bouncers as soon as they see the mass out,” Ares said, nodding vigorously, trying to assuage Cane’s boiling anger. “We don’t want any more casualties.”

“How did this even happen? I don’t fucking allow weapons in here except my own,” Cane growled.

“We’re gonna get to the bottom of it,” Ares said, looking around as the warehouse got emptier by the second.

Cane’s skin crawled at the sight of it—the mess and the chaos left behind, the kind that did nothing for him.

“Make sure you do,” he told Ares.

“Yes, Boss.” Ares nodded, not backing down despite the obvious discomfort at having his personal space invaded. “And you should know…”

“What?” Cane snapped.

“The police and an ambulance are on their way,” Ares said in a hurry, as if saying it faster would make it sound better. “Someone must have called it in. They’ll be here any second.”

Cane clenched his fists, the phantom feeling of metal cuffs closing around his wrists making his stomach turn. He tensed to stop himself from pummeling the first person he saw into the ground. There was an unwritten code. You don’t call the cops. Things were handled in house. Now he had another fuck-up to add to the list.

There was a voice in the back of his head telling him he knew who, or more accurately what, was to blame for this. The mess, the panic, the loss of reputation, and the fact that the fucking police would soon be breathing down his neck, asking questions he didn’t want to answer.

The curse.

Cane grasped Ares’s collar and hauled him in until they were nose to nose. “Handle. It.”

Cane shoved him away and Ares rushed to do as asked, leaving Cane to head toward the middle of the room, fighting against the stampede of the last remaining people rushing to get out.

He reached the cage in a few dozen steps, the stabbed fighter still on the floor. There were people around him applying pressure to the wound, and he seemed to be awake and aware of what was going on.

Cane hoped that meant nobody died on his fucking premises.

He looked into the opposite corner, finding his fighter curled up in a ball, his eyes wide as he stared at the unmoving fighter on the ground.

He was rocking back and forth, horror written clear on his face. It was pitiful, but all Cane could feel was rage.

He stormed toward the fighter, dragging him up with a fist in his sweat-damp hair until they were eye to eye.

“Talk!” he barked at him, ignoring the look of pain in his eyes and the confusion on his face.

“C-Cane…” the fighter whispered, shaking his head and opening and closing his mouth like a fish on dry land. Cane wanted to smash his skull in.

“I know my fucking name,” he said, shaking the guy’s head harshly. “Now talk before I make it impossible for you to.”

“I didn’t mean to,” the fighter said. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even have a knife on me. Why…why would I…”

“Stab a man?” Cane finished for him, condescension dripping from his tongue like poison. “You fucking tell me, asshole!”

---