Page 2 of Red Dreams

Cassie's voice drops to a whisper. “But here's what you don't know, Layla. While Daddy dearest was getting off to your little show, I was in the warehouse with him. Just a few feet away, hidden in the shadows. Close enough to smell his sweat, to hear those pathetic sounds he made when he came. Quite the family reunion, wouldn't you say?”

Cassie spins, unbothered by my trying not to puke, and walks to a nearby coffee table. “You know what's truly pathetic? The way he cared for that mangy cat and her kittens. The great Scythe, feared assassin, hand-feeding strays. Did you think that made him soft? Human?” She picks up something from the table—a rope of red licorice. “The same way he always has these on hand when he kills. You see, I used to love red licorice. He'd bring me a pack every Friday after his morning run.”

I say through trembling lips, “He never told me that.”

“Of course not.” Cassie takes a deliberate bite, chewing slowly. “Just like he never told you how he’d force his marks to gag and choke on this stuff until they died. Or how he’d revive them and do it some more, depending on his mood that day. But that's the thing about Daddy—he keeps the most important secrets to himself. Like how many times I've watched him break down at his surveillance monitors, torn by his obsession with you and giving zero shits about me.”

“He loves you,” I plead, my voice cracking. “Everything he did?—”

“Was for me?” Cassie cuts me off with a snarl. “No, Layla, baby. Everything he did was for himself. His selfishness. His denial. And you? You're just another failed attempt.”

The cold floor seeps into my throbbing, battered knees. The zip ties ate through the skin of my wrists a while ago, but it's nothing compared to how her words tear into me.

I taste copper. I've been biting my cheek to keep from screaming in terror, frustration … and defeat.

“Like father, like daughter,” I manage to retort. “You're just as obsessed with him as he is with me.”

Her hand whips out, cracking across my face. The sting brings fresh tears, but I refuse to look away.

“Did it hurt?” I ask, watching her face carefully. “Seeing him care for someone who isn’t you?”

Cassie’s composure slips for just a second—a crack in her professional veil of cruelty. But then she smiles, and it's worse than any slap across the face.

“Let's watch a movie, shall we?”

Cassie pivots, reaching for a remote on the table. Directing it to a wood-paneled wall, she clicks it. A large white screen unrolls from its hidden port in the ceiling, the buzz of its mechanics mimicking the grinding of my joints every time I shift.

The mounted screen flickers to life, to a drone view of Kaden and me at the top of the lighthouse widow’s walk, his knife at my throat as he pushes me against the railing and his fingers claim me. I remember the salt spray on my skin, the way his touch burned hotter than good sense.

“Look how easily you gave in to him,” she taunts. “The daughter of an absent father desperate for a big, strong man's approval.”

“You don't know anything about us,” I grit out, but my heart hammers against my ribs as she flips to more footage.

“I know a whole fucking lot,” she says, stopping on a video of Kaden in his warehouse, watching my staged performance in bed, the straps of my nightgown sliding down, my fingers...

“This was my favorite part,” Cassie muses. “The way you thought you were so clever, creating that loop to escape. But you weren't trying to run, were you? You wanted him to catch you. Needed it. Just like he needed to own you.”

“That’s not?—”

“True?” Cassie laughs. “Let's see what else I have.”

I close my eyes, remembering how powerful I felt that night, how in control. Now that arrogance turns to ash in my mouth.

Cassie grabs my chin, forcing my eyes open.

“Watch,” she commands, and I see myself cradling a bleeding Kaden, confessing my love. The video is crystal clear, my tears cutting tracks through his blood on my face, my fingers desperately trying to stem the flow from his wound. Even through the screen, I spot the exact moment his eyes started to glaze, when the poison began taking hold.

“I love you,” my recorded self whispers.

The raw devastation in his eyes haunts me now as it did then. After ten years of being the Scythe, of carving his emotions out alongside his victims' hearts, those three words from me shattered him.

I strain against the zip ties, needing to touch the screen, to somehow reach through time and hold him again.

“Did the antidote work?” I ask Cassie. My voice is unrecognizable, even to me. “Is he even alive?”

Cassie's closed-lipped smile tells me she won't answer, and that uncertainty is another form of torture.

The footage continues, showcasing how they dragged me away from him, his blood bright on my skin as I fought to stay by his side. His hand reaching for me, my name on his lips even as he collapsed.

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