Page 48 of Fool Me Twice

By the time Cane had finished, he was a volcano about to erupt.

Fighters were pulling out. Suppliers were canceling his orders. There were even some thinly veiled threats about the presence of the police from some of the crime bosses who frequented the warehouse. The ends of all the ropes he’d been clutching for so long were slipping through his fingers and he could see everything around him crumbling to dust.

Someone needed to die. It had helped the last time the same thing had happened. One trembling final breath and his life had been back on track again.

Cane stormed upstairs, refusing to take another call from anyone and shouldering past the police who called after him.

He wanted fucking answers, and he wanted them instantly.

“Your man here says Hart’s still working,” Cyrus said, pitched up against the wall lazily with Ares staring him down. “You shouldn’t interrupt a cursebreaker mid-flow.”

Cane ignored him completely. He didn’t have to tell Ares to move, he simply stepped aside to allow Cane to enter.

He found the fighter settled into a chair at the corner of his desk, Hart’s supplies spread all over. The mirror had replaced the pile of paperwork Ares had probably already shredded. His entire office stank of the stupid oils Hart used and that annoying music was thrumming around him, making his skin crawl.

Hart was standing behind the fighter, hands on his shoulders as he guided him to find the answers, and once again Cane felt that primal urge to maim.

“Nothing,” Hart whispered, not noticing him in the room.

Cane stared at him for a split second before the word finally registered in his head.

“Excuse me?” he growled.

Hart snapped his head around to find him in the room and grimaced visibly before he could school the expression into something calmer. He swallowed, then leaned down to whisper something into the fighter’s ear.

The man got up and tried to scurry out of the room, avoiding even looking at Cane. Cane grabbed him by the arm but kept looking at Hart. “Explain.”

Hart crossed his arms over his chest. “Let him go or I won’t. You said.”

“Hart.” His voice was barely more than a rumble in his chest. An animal sound.

Hart didn’t flinch. “Now.”

Cane shoved the fighter toward the door, hearing him crash into it before fumbling for the handle and exiting.

“Ah, just the person I wanted to talk to,” Cyrus said before the door closed. “Step over here please.”

And then they were alone again, the air between them charged and weighted.

Cane didn’t let it sit. He locked the door, the sound reverberating in the silent room, then stalked toward Hart, backing him up against the desk. “I know you don’t have bad news to tell me, sweetheart.”

Hart licked his lips, finding it hard to hold his gaze. “He’s not cursed.”

Cane had reached behind Hart and thrown Hart’s mirror before he’d even really registered the action. It shattered against the wall, the pieces scattering and tinkling to the ground.

Hart turned his head to stare at it incredulously before fury, raw and righteous rose up inside him.

“You…you…fucking asshole!” Hart yelled, losing all composure.

“Say it again,” Cane said.

“Why?” Hart continued to yell, shoving at his chest. “So you can break something else of mine because you can’t handle your own emotions, you unhinged brute?!”

Cane stared at him. The angry red on his cheeks and neck, the wildness in his eyes, the mask nowhere to be seen as he lost control. He was gorgeous. And maybe this was what Cane had been after all along. What he’d been seeking. A storm to match his own. Two hurricanes meeting and colliding.

“I can’t believe you just did that!” Hart continued to rant now he’d been unleashed, hitting him in the chest some more, touching him. Being there. Solid and present. Real where everything else was burning to ashes. “That was my favo—”

Cane smashed their mouths together to end the rant, swallowing the words that didn’t get the chance to tumble past his lips. He felt Hart stiffen in his arms for a split second before the man Cane knew was back and biting down on Cane’s bottom lip. Hard.

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