I storm over to the drinks cabinet and slosh a few fingers of Benjamin’s good scotch into a tumbler. I don’t bother with ice and tip the amber liquid down my throat. Maybe the burn will help eradicate the sick feeling in my mouth.
Panic. That’s what I’m experiencing—a simple combination of events and responses that my body isn’t processing. My logical head tells me that’s true, but my heartbeat doesn’t slow. My palms remain sweaty, and every time I picture Benjamin, the next vision I see is him standing over my bloody body. It makes my heart ache that he might kill me.
Somewhere along the line, I’ve fallen for him. He isn’t just a means to my goal and hasn’t been for a while. I might still hope to bring down the Cane empire and give those two spoilt brats a taste of what their father delivered to me, but not at the cost of the man I love. Surely that earns me some credence in Benjamin’s eyes?
I pour another double of scotch and wander around the apartment—my home—waiting for Benjamin and sipping at the alcohol. Dutch courage. That’s what I need. The only way I can see out of this mess is to confess now, before anyone can tell Benjamin what I’ve done. A scenario forms in my mind where he accepts what I tell him—that I’m the secret half sister to the Canes—and he confesses his own feelings for me, promises that we’ll bring them down together and go on to rule New York together, my own version of a fairy tale. It’s just as unrealistic. Love like that doesn’t happen in the real world. It resides between the pages of love stories or on the screens of epic movies. Real life is much, much darker. Mine is anyway. His, too, and I still wear the bruises to prove that particular point.
The click of the door breaks my wallow, and I listen for signs of his mood. I peer out cautiously into the living room from my position slumped against the wall of our bedroom. The view is obstructed by furniture, but I know those footsteps, know the rhythm of them.
Benjamin is home.
I jump up and brush myself down. I’m in the running clothes I went out to visit Andreas in again, nothing like the attire I normally keep on for Benjamin.
He stalks through the room but comes to an abrupt halt when he sees me. His eyes take me in, and I mirror his actions but find a horror scene as I scan his body. His hands are stained a rusty colour. Scarlet splatters his chest and face, and his suit looks ominously black. He’s almost soaked through with blood. My body quivers as I stand motionless. He doesn’t say a word, but his eyes scream at me. I don’t move a hair, like prey hiding in the grass, perhaps hoping that he’ll just walk past. He needs to calm down. Whatever happened tonight, it must have been bad. I’ve never seen him come home in such a state. He’s always been careful, precise before now, only ever getting his hands dirty in extreme circumstances.
The wait is painful, and the need to run and check that it’s not his blood is almost overpowering. He finally gives in, as if accepting something, and heads to the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
The sigh I breathe is from relief. Relief that he’s alive, but I don’t know if I’m ready to do this. I can’t confront him and tell him the truth. Not like this. He’ll explode if I do.
I wait on the chair for Benjamin to come back to me. The soft sound of the silence does nothing to calm my frayed and worn out nerves. A flash of anger runs through me towards the Cane brothers. This is their doing. All of this lies at their feet, including the years of pain I’ve suffered. Bitterness coils in my stomach again, warring to let loose and see this through.
Noise starts coming from the bedroom, grumbling and swearing, and with it, my heartbeat kicks up into a stampede. Benjamin has the ability to read people, an internal lie detector that is terrifyingly accurate. My whole demeanour at the moment is off. He’ll be able to tell something is wrong. The scotch does nothing to calm me, more the opposite. It amps up my internal war of worry and concern.
He appears in the doorway, his shirt missing as if he’s ripped it off his back. The red and purple bruising is faint over the breadth of his tattoos, with a particularly nasty mark on his rib.
“Are you okay?” I leap up and rush to run my hands over his marred skin.
“Don’t. Yes. Why are you dressed like that?” His snarl is a warning, but my hands don’t cease their inspection.
“Fuck, Hope, stop.” He grabs my wrists and holds me out in front of him. Tears threaten behind my eyes, and I will them not to drop with everything in me.
“What happened? I’m concerned, that’s all. You don’t always come home like this. That’s my job, right?” I snatch my hands back, and he brushes past me to sit on the opposing couch.
“No, your job is to do as I ask. Why are you ready to go for a run? Have you been out?”
“No, working out. What happened tonight? Are Quinn and Nathan okay?” I force the question out and a part of me thinks, just for a moment, that maybe if they aren’t it would solve all my problems. His eyes land on me and I see the scrutiny behind them. I need to tread carefully, but with my heart racing a mile a minute my head is all over the place. “Will you let me look at you properly? The cut on your face needs to be seen to, at least.” I approach and busy myself with the myriad of scrapes and bruises over his skin, smelling the faint trace of gun smoke in his hair. The bruises are nothing more than he’s delivered to me in the past, but somehow, I can look past that.
My fingers trail over his shoulder, down his chest, and my lips drop tender kisses in all the places I see bruises forming.
“Hope, stop.”
But I don’t. I continue and straddle his lap, gently pushing him back onto the softness behind him, perhaps hoping that he’ll soften his tone with it. He doesn’t resist, and I move to kiss his split lip, my hands roaming his skin. I'm desperate for him, worried for us and terrified of what’s to come. “Hope, back the fuck off me,” he growls. His hands grab me and push me away. In fact, they toss me like I'm nothing to him at all.
Nineteen
“The hell is the matter with you?” I spit out, detaching her from me completely.
She’s been all over me since I came in, not even letting me get a fucking drink. I push her further onto the couch and then cross the room, fingers reaching for a lighter as I grab a pack of cigarettes from the side. I’m tired, wound up, covered in fucking blood, and ready to annihilate anything that comes within a foot of me.
The last thing I need is whatever this shit is.
“What have you been doing?” she snaps, bitterness in her tone. Fucking bitterness? I spin back to her and light a smoke, eyes like slits at her feral attitude. She stares at my hands and stands as I pull the smoke from my mouth, her fingers pointing at them. “The blood. Why?”
“The hell’s it got to do with you?”
“I want to know.” She edges to the sofa, her ass hovering between sitting down again or remaining upright. I take another pull on the smoke, trying to work out what goddamn planet she’s on at the moment, and go pour myself a drink. She’s been like this for a while, like she’s changed. Not herself. “I need to know, Benjamin,” she stutters. I blow out into the room, looking at her through the haze of smoke. She seems edgy about something, fidgety. She was the same when I walked in. If there are two things my Hope isn’t, it’s those.
“Why the questions?” Her eyes blanch away from me towards the floor for a second, arms wrapping around herself.
