Page 72 of Things We Burn

But I would not make that mistake again. Not in my restaurant.

Or that’s what I’d told myself.

Until I’d frozen, like a deer in headlights, letting him corner me. Inmyrestaurant.

Acid churned in my belly at the memory.

“He touched you,” Kane bit out, jerking me out of my trance. He brushed his hand over my cheek with a featherlight touch, but somehow, there was force behind it.

My hand lifted to my cheek.

“He, um … slapped me. When I told him I wouldn’t be letting him rape me.” It wasn’t quite that simple, in my brain I knew that, but I couldn’t pin down the subtleties of the conversation, how it had gotten to that point … again. It was like my mind was shielding it from me already.

I quite obviously didn’t have my wits about me when I’d said that, because if I had, I would’ve worded it differently. Or I would’ve waited until Kane wasn’t in the same vicinity—or country—as Gerald before I told him.

As it was, I wasn’t thinking. And it ruined everything.

There was a pause after I uttered those words. A split second. One I would think of often afterward, after everything fell apart.

The pause was a knife cutting through the life I’d been living up until that point, a clean slice where I’d be able to pinpoint the last moment Kane was mine and I was his.

Kane’s face contorted, turning him into someone—something I didn’t recognize.

“Stay here,” he growled, sounding barely human before he let me go and ran into the restaurant.

My ear was still ringing from the slap, from the shock of the encounter and then from Kane’s transformation, so I hesitated, standing in that side alley holding my cheek and staring at Kane’s bike.

I couldn’t say for how long. But it couldn’t have been more than a minute. Surely not.

It was a crash that mingled against the faraway city sounds at the mouth of the alley. The crash and what sounded like a roar coming from the kitchen. The sounds that wrenched me out of my trance.

I ran, my heart trying to escape my chest and my cheek smarting as I rushed back into the restaurant, looking for the cause of the clamor. It was coming from my kitchen. My solace. My domain. My sanctuary.

Where, once again, Gerald had tried to victimize me.

Where Kane had Gerald on the ground, hitting him. The sounds of knuckles against flesh were a dull, wet thud.

And he didn’t stop hitting him.

Not for a long time.

Thirteen

Kane was arrested.

Once the police got there, that was.

Right before that, Kane had been staring at Gerald’s battered face. Then up at me.

When our gazes locked, I flinched. The burning in my cheek was nothing compared to the agony in my soul caused by that look.

Kane was no longer a rage-filled animal. There was no fight left in him. No, there was only love, naked, wretched love on his face. It wasn’t that tender, playful love I’d grown accustomed to. No, this was something ugly. It was spattered with blood and resignation over what had happened here.

Kane had beaten a man because of me. He’d let go of the control he’d held on to so tightly since the last time he’d been locked up. And he was sober now, you could see it in his face. He saw his fate ahead of him. Police. A young, fit man covered in blood. An older, paunchy man battered from his fists.

There was a knife, one I’d used for herbs, lying on the ground. Kane was bleeding—I hadn’t realized that at first, sincehe was covered in Gerald’s blood. A flesh wound on the meaty part of his bicep, but it horrified me.

Gerald, at some point had tried to stab him. The police kept asking whether it was before or after the beating started; that was an important detail.

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