Page 179 of Theirs to Ruin

Silas was on his back now, and every time Kage whipped the blade across Silas’s face, a fresh scream tore from Silas’s throat. In seconds, Silas’s face was a canvas of torn flesh and bright red blood.

"Dante! Ty!" My voice came out shrill and desperate. "Silas killed Ava!" I choked out, tears streaming down my face. I felt my knees give way but before I could hit the ground, Dante and Ty were at my sides, holding me up.

"Silas. It was him. Stop Kage!” I pleaded as I watched Kage rest the dagger against Silas’s throat.

Instead of doing as I said, Dante and Ty both held me and watched.

Gasping for breath, I focused on Kage. "Kage! Don't do this. You're better than him!” It wasn’t that I didn’t think Silas deserved to die, it was the memory of what Kage said to me that drove me on.

I inflict pain because it’s deserved, because I need to. Every time I do, it stains my soul. I can only hope that by the time I leave this earth, there’s some part of me that’s still clean.

I didn’t want Kage’s soul stained any more than it already was.

Kage slowly turned his head and looked at me. Blood spatters covered his face. I saw the flash of regret in his eyes—a regretlike what I had seen in Ava's eyes that fateful night she left our apartment. In that moment, it was as if Kage wished he could be anyone but who he was, doing anything but what he was about to do. And I knew, more than anything, he wished he didn’t have to do it in front of me.

But the very essence of Kage's world was written in blood, and as quickly as I had seen that flicker of regret, it vanished, replaced by the steely determination that had kept him alive and in power, even at his young age, in a ruthless underworld. He tightened his grip on the blade.

Beneath Kage, Silas whimpered. “Kage, please. Listen to Ca?—”

In one swift, brutal motion, Kage swept the blade across Silas's throat before he could say my name. The sharp metal easily sliced through skin. Silas's eyes went wide with shock and pain. A choked gasp escaped his lips as blood bubbled up, spilling over the sides of his mouth like a crimson smile onto his neck. His body convulsed once, twice, and then fell still.

In the silence that followed, all I heard was the ragged sound of my own breathing. I stared at Kage, my lover, the heir to the Irish mob. A man forever bound by duty and blood.

He shoved Silas away and slowly stood. He made his way to me. To most, his expression would look blank, but I saw the look in his eyes, the dread. I heard the gears turning in his head:Does she see me as a monster now?

I could've recoiled, let the horror of the moment push me away, condemned him for his actions. But I pulled away from Dante and Ty, and my feet carried me toward Kage. I collided with his blood-soaked front, wrapping my arms around him as tightly as I could.

His arms remained by his side. "I couldn’t let him live, Camille.”

"I know," I breathed out, my voice tinged with tears. "I know. Thank you for saving me.” I looked at Dante and Ty. “Thank you.”

Finally, Kage wound his arms around me and buried his face in my neck.

Dante strode to the man he’d thrown into the tree and yanked off his mask. I blinked. They weren’t twins, but the guy looked too much like Silas not to be a relative.

I searched the ground for the third guy, the one that Ty had taken down.

“Where’s—” I began.

“Shit,” Ty said, realizing the guy was gone at the same time I did. He immediately tensed, about to give chase. But panic bubbled up inside me, and I blurted out, "No! Please, Ty. Stay with me. All three of you. I can't... I can't bear to lose sight of any of you right now."

Ty hesitated before they all closed in around me, a circle of protection. Kage never let me go, but Dante and Ty were close enough that I felt their heat, their bodies forming a shield around us.

Chapter 76

Camille

In a whirlwind of sirens and lights, an ambulance and police cars arrived. As the EMTs looked me over, Officers Conroy and Davis took statements from Kage, Dante, and Ty. Then it was my turn. When I told them I’d scratched one of my attackers, they had the EMTs collect samples from under my fake nails, many of which were broken. Then they’d made me tell them what happened several times.

When we returned to the chateau hours later, Kage carried me to his room. My body was listless, my brain shut down as he showered me, dried me off, put me in one of his t-shirts, then got me in bed. I woke hours later, vaguely aware that I was cocooned between Kage and Dante. Somehow my broken acrylic nails had been removed and my own nails were trimmed. When I’d stared at them in confusion, Kage said, “I looked up how to take them off.”

For the rest of the night and the next day, Dante, Ty, and Kage maintained their positions around me, ensuring I was never alone. While Kage and Dante slept beside me, it was Kage who wrapped me in his arms, holding me even tighter when thenightmares started. Ty stayed in his own room, his door open. Sometimes I’d catch him looking at the three of us on the bed, and I imagined him longing to join us. But he’d always go back to his own room.

Ty and I didn’t speak about what happened between us before the attack, not even about my mother’s locket. We never spoke at all but I knew that something had shifted between us, and that Ty was my protector now just as much as Kage and Dante were.

The haze of the morning sun seeped through the curtains. Kage was wrapped around me, his steady breathing warming the back of my neck. The other side of the bed was empty, however, the sheets cool to the touch.

Scooting around in Kage’s arms, I met his intense gaze. He had been awake, watching over me, but now something dark passed over his face. He reached out slowly, like he wasn’t sure I was really there. His thumb lightly brushed my cheek. “I dreamed we didn’t get to you in time. That you were gone.”

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