Page 93 of Devious Eyes
Compensated? What a fucking thought. How do you compensate someone for the loss of a life? I look down at my bare legs, the bandage wrapped around my thigh proving my fault in this. It’s all my fault. I can’t even blame Quinn this time, have his conscience take the damn toll. I organised this, not him.
I sigh and look at the floor, not knowing what to say in the aftermath short of fuck you and thank you for backing me up when my plan didn’t work. Stupid Yakuza honour. Why the hell the woman didn’t just give me Gabby and take her money back I don’t know. “I’ve always hated what you do. You know that, right?”
He nods slowly, giving me nothing more than that.
“The violence of it—you never hid it from us. I’ve resented that my whole damn life. You drew me in, Quinn.” He smiles slightly. I don’t know what at. Perhaps it’s that he never really drew me in to anything and he knows it, no matter how I want to blame him. I was young, ready to give it all for Cane and follow his lead. I tried the moral high ground, tried to leave the violence to him, but I saw it all the damn time, was part of it, short of the killing. “I just wanted us to be a success.” My feet give the floor another go. “I didn’t want any of this shit.”
There’s silence for a minute or so, old feelings haunting the air between us as I look at him. He doesn’t back down or speak. He can’t, can he? Wouldn’t even if he could. I don’t even know what I’m expecting him to say in return. We’d probably be dead if it weren’t for him—either from what’s just happened or past encounters he protected us from. I hate that, though, hate what it’s turned him into. He was a cool big brother a long time ago, a decent one.
Still is, I guess. In his own way.
“And now?” he asks, his lips tipping up into a smirk.
“I still fucking hate it.”
“Of course, you do.” He stands and walks across to me, scooping his dice from the bed and sliding them into his pocket. “But you don’t get to be a Cane without getting your hands dirty, Nate.” He turns and grabs a wheelchair, pushing it in front of me before wrapping an arm around my back to help me to it. “Thought you knew that.” He shuffles me sideways, finally letting go as I land in the chair. “Our world will never be free of what we are, whether you like that fucking thought or not.”
He pushes me from the room without another word on the matter, and regardless of the fact I want a goddamn argument about it, I’ve got nothing to argue with. He’s right, probably always damn well has been. We might have manoeuvred our way out a little, stayed clean, but this shit is gonna follow us our whole lives, isn’t it? Maybe the next generation can have some peace, but not us. We’re still living it, morals or not.
“I’m not doing it again, Quinn,” I snap out as he opens the main door and rolls me into a corridor. It’s all clinical and streamlined, nothing like the luxury we’ve just been in. “I just want out. I want what I had in Bora again. And I want Gabby. Where the hell is she?” He chuckles and keeps me rolling, heading towards an elevator.
“You don’t get to get out, brother,” he says, pushing me in and hitting the buttons. The lift descends as I glare the reasoning away, doors finally pinging open to give me some fucking air. “Especially since you just stole a hundred and twenty-five mil from them.”
“Where is she?” That’s all I damn well care about.
“Tenacious much?”
“You’re damn right. What have you done with her?” He carries on pushing me through a large foyer without another word. If I could get out of this fucking chair I would because Iamseeing Gabby again. I’m not doing what I’ve done and then not getting the reason I did it all back in my arms. “She’s been fucking raped, Quinn. What the fuck have you done with her?”
“Alright. Calm down. What makes you think I could do anything with a mouthy bitch like that anyway?” He spills his retort as he rolls me around a corner. A small courtyard of gardens comes into view through a wall of glass beside me, greenery replacing the tepid clinical outlook of the corridors around us. “She’s worse than Emily.”
“You said you’d made her go?”
“Tried,” he huffs, reversing me as he pushes on some doors with his back. I look over my shoulder at him. “Fucking woman.” He drops a blanket on my knee as he turns me into the fresh air and smirks. “You’re welcome to her snide little ass.”
More mutters come from his mouth as he rolls me forward along a path. I don’t know what about. I’m too busy searching the garden for the woman I’ve done everything for and smiling at whatever her mouth must have delivered to the great Quinn Cane.
“They’re not worth it, you know?” he mumbles.
Yes, they are, and he wouldn’t be half the man he is without Emily calming him down lately, regardless of the man he was in that warehouse.
“You don’t mean that anymore,” I reply, smiling weakly at the thought. “We should double date or some shit.”
“Fuck that.”
It makes me laugh a little as he stops the wheelchair and parks himself on a bench, hauling me backwards towards the side of him. He chuckles and looks me over, nodding at himself about something and then frowns with a sigh.
“You know we’ve got to deal with Yakuza, right?”
I turn to look back out at the garden, infuriated with the thought of more death and carnage, but knowing he’s right. I just stole a hundred and twenty-five mil from them. That shit isn’t going away anytime soon.
“Yeah, I know,” I eventually reply.
“I’ve been keeping them at bay for months now. Trying to keep us away from what’s coming.” My eyes widen, head swinging back to him.
“What?”
He sighs.
