Page 26 of Tortured Eyes
Eleven
Blood. It’s everywhere in my thoughts. I can’t think straight until he’s home. Can’t fucking look at that bitch a minute longer without doing what I should have done in that goddamned building. I swing open the door for Carter, just about fucking tolerating the stench of him in my space and point him to the back of my old apartment.
“You don’t touch it until I’m back. Not a fucking finger on it,” I snarl, beginning to walk away. “I called you to babysit until I’ve seen my father and got Nate home, not to kill it. If you even know how the fuck to do that anymore.”
The animosity laden stare that comes back at me can get a check of itself for now, as can the screwed up brotherly dynamic between us. For what it’s worth, he’s one of the only ones I do trust with her for the time being. Cane business. No one else but us.
“Is he locked in?” he grumbles, turning his back on me and pulling his gun.
“No, she isn’t.”
His head swings back, shock etched in.
“She?”
“Detective Bryce McCarthy. Emilio is elsewhere.”
If there’s any surprise to her name being spoken, he doesn’t show it. He sits in my old apartment lounge, instead, a glare focused on the rooms at the back of the place. I look him over, noting the cold calm of his demeanour and the casual clothes. Maybe he’s up for fucking shit up. Who knows with this asshole. "I'm serious. You don't touch-"
“What's she doing here if it was Emilio?"
"She was the catalyst. At fault, as much as Mortoni is as far as I'm concerned."
He looks back at me, questioning the clarity I have in my own mind about what this bitch is going to get, and then turns away again.
"Get Nate home, Logan. Talk to Quinn. We’ll deal with it when you’re back,” he says, still scowling at the doors. “I’m less likely to do shit than you are. And get your head straight while you’re gone. You look a goddamned mess.”
Straight? Fuck him.
I walk out and slam the door, making my way to the elevators and barely containing the venom in my blood. There will be no straight here, no easy. This will be twisted, endless, and only finished when I know she’s suffered all kinds of hell for what she’s caused. I stop and look back at the entrance to my apartment, wondering if I should have set him loose with his blade, given him the opportunity to vent some frustration. No. Not yet. We’ll do it together if we have to; play with her. Show her what the hell she’s wandered into.
By the time I’m out on the road, blacked-out windows still shielding a dead Cane corpse from the rest of the world, everything in me is beginning to calm down, ready for my father. I flick my gaze to the rearview mirror and tilt it with my hand so I can look at Nate’s body under the blanket. It quivers and jolts as we travel onwards, a hand falling out of the cover. A fucking wedding band glints back at me. Gabby. A long sigh falls from me, head shaking at the thought of what state she’s going to be in, if my father’s told her at all.
Roads blur as I speed along them, not giving a fuck for cops, but then my foot eases off. Most of the time, they’re manageable, easy to coerce or pay off, but with a dead Cane in the car and a beaten detective in my apartment, I can’t afford that shit creeping up on me and trying to bust my ass for speeding. My mind reels back to the feeling of her under me earlier, the feeling of her shivering in fear. Felt good. In some fucked-up version of reality, her fear and terror at what might come was soothing. I chuckled as she struggled in my grip. I teased and taunted, letting her hear words that got her terror all fired up, and then I backed off and called Carter to cool myself down. Carrying on in those minutes would have seen her fucked up, half-dead, and bleeding for her sins.
It’s not time yet.
Half an hour more of me letting all that angst find a home deep inside, rather than the surface it wants to break through, and I turn into the main gates. Gravel crunches slowly under the wheels as I ease the corners, part of me hoping to delay the pained looks on their faces when we carry him out of the backseat. I snarl and ease to a halt, biding my time until the inevitability. There’s no point, though. My father’s already in the doorway, his frame and glare visible from here. I speed up again and then pull to a stop, cutting the engine. Here it is, the moment we’re all going to stand together and witness a dead Cane, pretending we’re a family that we’re not.
I look into his eyes the second I get out, moving my body towards the back door, and nod. What the hell else is there to say at the moment? We’ll carry him. Clean him. Rest him. And then organise another damn funeral so we can wallow in that when the time comes. But that time isn’t for me yet.
He walks over, a frown on his face, and then watches as I open the door. He buckles to the floor immediately, a shout of undiluted rage following. Tears well in the backs of my eyes. I can’t stop them, don’t fucking want to. I stare up at the house rather than get in his way or try comforting him. Neither of us wants that from the other, but if he needs to kneel on the floor, his hand holding his dead brother in his grasp, and fucking sob, he can have that privacy. In this, we agree, and because of it, I'll guard him for as long as he needs.
My mother walks into the doorway, both her hands at her mouth and tears streaming down her face, and then Gabby comes rushing past her. I blanch and catch her before she manages to get to father, wrapping her into my hold so she doesn’t have to see him like this. Both her fists pummel me, pushing and battering, nails trying to scratch her way out of my hold, but I don’t let go. Won’t.
“NO!” she bellows into me, still struggling.
I wrap my fingers around her head, pulling her tighter. I don’t know what for, but my own fucking throat tightening and the sound of the word no being bawled makes me cling on. “No,” she sobs again. “No, no, no.”
I nod, one loan tear chasing down my own face. No. She’s goddamn right. No is the only answer here. He didn’t deserve it and shouldn’t have ever been anywhere near this kind of death.
My gaze goes to my mother, waving her over to take Gabby away from here. The last thing she needs to see is the massacre of blood we’re about to haul out of this car. She shifts from the doorway, hurrying until she clamps her arms around Gabby and starts walking them back to the house. More cries and howls of pain echo as they go, both of them whimpering and trying to hold themselves together. I glance back towards the car, watching my father’s head leaning on Nate’s, words grumbling from him beneath his breath, and wonder how long this will go on for. Hours? Weeks? Do we rot in this moment, or avenge it without concern for our own feelings?
My own stomach reels inside, his reaction making this harder than it was before. I expected rage, hatred. Maybe a part of me hoped he would strap me for this, tan my hide like I was fifteen and show me what Cane has always been, but this? This is killing any amount of hatred I own for him.
My hand reaches forward of its own accord, gripping my father’s shoulder to back him off. “Let’s get him in the house.”
He spins and pushes me, all his own weight sending both of us off balance. Dust scatters in my sights, my ass landing in the grit as I watch him scramble back to Nate’s body and start weeping again. I get it. I do. It can’t go on, though. No wailing is gonna bring him back or change the facts. Nate Cane is dead, and I need his permission to deal with the aftermath. Or at least his agreement.
