Page 259 of At the Edge of Surrender

Another cry tore out of me as I threw my arms around his neck. He curled his around my waist, his words a rough scrape as he murmured, “It’s over, Little Warrior. It’s over. You don’t have to fight any longer.”

Night had fallen two hours ago, and Maci had been asleep for about thirty minutes. The entire family left just before sundown, at the prompting of Kane telling them we needed rest, though Raven and Charleigh had a difficult time leaving.

Hugging us and hugging us as they whispered how thankful they were that we were okay.

Kane had insisted that Dr. Reynolds come to the house to check us out as well. I could barely see out my left eye, but that was the extent of my injuries, and Maci had little more than a scratch, though I knew what would really scar her would be the mental and emotional traumas that she had faced today.

Kane had told her over and over how brave she’d been. Running, then hiding herself away. He promised that she’d done exactly what she was supposed to do.

She was scared, but I didn’t think she really understood the full scope of what had happened.

Had no clue her mother’s killer had come here with the same intention for me.

A tremble rolled through me at the thought, and Kane tightenedthe blanket he had wrapped around me, but the real warmth was the way the man was curled around me from behind.

His big body a furnace that blazed into the frozen planes incited by the horrors of the day.

He sat against the headboard of his bed with me tucked between his legs, his chin resting on my shoulder as he looked down at the tablet I held in my hands.

“Are you sure you want to do this tonight?” he asked in that low, hypnotic voice.

“I need to try,” I told him.

I still couldn’t comprehend what happened to my sister. How to make it all fit. How to rearrange what I thought had become a disturbed obsession but now believed was something much bigger.

I clicked on the folder I had never been able to open. The one that had left me unsettled since the moment I found it.

And I remembered that one line in the letter she’d written me, her statement that Kane would know what to do, her faith that I would find him and discover who he was.

The clue she had left.

He’ll protect her and take her into his sanctum.

So this time when the box popped up for a password, I typed inSovereign Sanctum.

Moisture blurred my eyes when it granted me access, and Kane let go of a weighted exhalation.

“She knew,” he mumbled in quiet surrender.

I blinked through the blear of tears.

Go to him. Find him. Give him the chance to raise her. She deserves to have a father like him.

“Yeah,” I whispered, unsure where to start, but I clicked on another folder that contained a slew of reports.

Reports of missing women and children, the strange circumstances of their disappearances detailed. Their faces printed with pleas from the men I was sure had tormented them.

“You saved these women and children?”

His nod was slow against the side of my head, and I nodded, too, as I clicked into another folder.

My insides trembled when I saw this one contained news articles of a slew of unsolved murders across the US. Speculation that they were members of criminal organizations and that their assassinations had been delivered by rival associations.

Pictures of their vile, disgusting faces sat like mug shots across the pages.

“Do you recognize these men?” I could barely ask it.

A disturbance rolled through Kane. “Yeah, baby, I recognize them.”

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