Page 202 of Corrupting Camille
“You know,” Marisol starts again, her voice softer now, more serious, “we used to think Kane was broken.”
Reina nods slowly, eyes far away. “Not in a sad way, really. Just…not built for softness. He was always the sharp one. The shadow.”
My pulse quickens, recognizing their words like truths I’d felt but never spoken. “And now?”
“Still sharp.” Marisol shrugs. “Still dangerous. But with you, it’s different. You make the shadow feel warmer.”
The words slip into me, quiet but devastating, a promise and a warning rolled into one. My hands tighten around the glass, heart thudding heavily beneath my ribs.
“We’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you,” Reina murmurs, leaning in closer. Her voice is low now, private. “It’s not possession. It’s something else. Older. Hungrier.”
Marisol’s eyes gleam knowingly as she tips her glass toward me. “And a lot more dangerous.”
I swallow hard, feeling suddenly exposed. Because they’re right. Kane’s brand of love isn’t soft, it’s brutal, uncompromising. It’s the type of love that penetrates, that breaks, that consumes.
“I know exactly what he is,” I whisper, the words tasting heavy and raw, a truth I’ve already swallowed whole. But even as I say it, doubt creeps in, bitter and silent.
Reina leans forward, her voice quiet but firm, eyes locked on mine. “No, Camille. You only know what he’s shown you.” I turn toward her slowly, her words sliding beneath my skin like a razor, gentle, precise, cutting deep.
Marisol picks up seamlessly, her tone edged with caution, a secret unfolding in each careful syllable. “Did he ever tell you about Colombia?”
My muscles tighten, a sharp ache spreading down my spine. “I know about his father.”
She shakes her head slowly, a quiet sympathy darkening her eyes. “That’s not what we mean.”
The twins glance at each other, and suddenly Reina’s leaning closer, voice low, nearly a whisper. “After his father died, Kane didn’t just get revenge, Camille. He vanished. Almost five years, completely off the grid. He traveled deep into the heart of Bogotá, and then even deeper south. Places no one names. Places boys go to become monsters.”
Marisol’s eyes glint softly in the fading twilight, full of dangerous understanding. “Cartel country. No rules. No borders. Just endless dark. He learned how to disappear there, Camille. Learned how to kill without making a sound, how to move money like it was air. Invisible. Deadly.”
My throat burns, pulse fluttering wildly, the truth of their words wrapping tightly around my lungs. “When he came back,” Reina continues, voice lower now, edged with something close to reverence, “he was different. Harder. Colder. Quietly ruthless. Diego’s men…they fear him because he doesn’t just hide in the shadows. Kane became the shadows.”
The silence stretches taut between us, thick as smoke, heavy as steel. I swallow hard, throat raw with fear, with need, with something dangerously close to fascination.
“And now?” I ask softly, unsure if I want to hear the answer. Marisol’s gaze holds mine, steady and unwavering.
“Now he’s quiet. Controlled. Wealthier than half this continent. But you know what makes him truly dangerous now, Camille?” I stare, breath lodged painfully in my chest, andmanage a shaky nod. Her voice is quiet, steady. “He finally has something to lose.”
Heat flashes through me, searing and sharp. Reina shifts closer, her voice soft as silk, heavy as steel. “It changes a man. Makes him brutal. Makes him lethal. Because if someone touches what’s his…”
“They don’t just die,” Marisol finishes quietly, eyes locked on mine. “They disappear. Entire bloodlines wiped clean.”
My breath catches sharply, a painful knot tightening in my chest as my mind instantly plunges backward, pulled helplessly to Douglas, his name a shadow I refuse to voice, a memory carved deep enough to bleed. Kane hadn’t just punished him. He hadn’t simply delivered justice.
He had brutalized him. Destroyed him. Stripped him of dignity, humanity, everything. And then erased him entirely, like he had never even existed.
Douglas hadn’t just paid for his sins. Kane had obliterated the sinner and every trace of his evil. Even the air seemed clearer afterward, the poison purged from existence by Kane’s merciless vengeance. The message had been clear, ruthless: to touch Camille Sinclair was to invite annihilation.
And yet, here I am, standing at the heart of his darkness, knowing the monster he can become, knowing the lengths he would go to avenge me, and I’m not running. I’m rooted, bound, drawn closer by chains forged in fire, welded by a promise whispered in blood.
My pulse flutters violently beneath my skin, throat thickening around the truth.
Reina’s voice breaks softly through the heavy silence, gentle but unyielding. “Camille, you need to understand what it means to be chosen by a man like him.”
“I…think I do.” My gaze drifts slowly back toward Kane and his eyes find me instantly. Dark, watchful, burning with possession. “And it terrifies me…” I whisper honestly.
Neither of them flinches, neither one offers an apology, because apologies belong to people who believe they have a choice. Marisol and Reina have spent their lives living within the boundaries of dangerous love, raised beneath the shadow of ruthless men and silent wars. They know exactly the price their mother paid in sleepless nights and hidden tears. They know the weight their father carries, the blood that will never wash clean from his hands.
And if I’m choosing Kane, they know I have to understand it too. Completely. Without reservation.
