Page 76 of Cannon

“Because I see you,” I said simply. “The real you. Not just the boss bitch who runs the club. The woman who bandages myknuckles and worries about her daughter and doesn’t let anyone see how scared she is.”

Something shifted in her eyes then, a vulnerability I hadn’t seen before. It matched the strange exposure I felt, like we were both standing there with our souls bare, all our ugliness and damage laid out between us.

It scared the shit out of me, this feeling. More than Smoke, more than prison, more than anything I’d faced before. Because I’d spent my whole life building walls, keeping people at a distance, never letting anyone close enough to hurt me. And somehow, in the span of a few days, this woman had slipped past every defense.

“We’re a fucked-up pair, aren’t we?” she said with a soft laugh.

I nodded, my thumb tracing the line of her jaw. “The most fucked-up.”

But even as I said it, I knew there was something else happening here. Something beyond the sex, beyond the shared trauma. Something that felt dangerously like belonging.

And for a man like me, belonging was the most dangerous thing of all.

She held my gaze for a moment, then looked away. There was something else lurking behind her eyes, something darker than the pain she’d already shared. I’d interrogated enough people to recognize when someone was holding back.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice low. “There’s something else.”

Queen shook her head, pushing away from the sink like she was ready to end this conversation. “I should check on ZaZa.”

I caught her wrist before she could leave, gentle but firm. “Don’t do that. Don’t run from me.”

“I’m not running,” she said, but wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Look at me,” I demanded, and when she finally did, I saw it, raw guilt swimming in those dark gorgeous eyes. “Tell me.”

She exhaled slowly, her shoulders slumping. “There are some things you can’t come back from, Cannon. Things that change who you are forever.”

“Try me.”

Queen leaned back against the sink, gripping its edge like she needed the support. “I killed someone when I was eleven.”

The confession hung between us, but I didn’t flinch. I’d been expecting something dark, we all carried our demons. But the pain in her eyes told me this was worse than I’d imagined. I’d killed someone at fourteen too. The nigga that killed my father.

“It was in North Carolina,” she continued, her voice distant. “One of our longer cons had paid off big. For once, my mother had splurged on two hotel rooms, said I deserved my own space.”

I nodded, encouraging her to continue.

“In the middle of the night, I heard screaming from her room. Terrified screaming. I grabbed the gun she always had me keep and ran next door.”

I could picture it…a tween Queen, terrified, holding a weapon too heavy for her small hands.

“When I burst in, I saw a man on top of her. She was fighting, crying…” Her voice cracked. “She saw me and screamed, ‘Kill him, Queen! He’s trying to rape me!’ So I did. I shot him in the head.”

“Fuck,” I whispered, understanding washing over me.

“His name was Alfred Dixon. He owned that hotel.” She closed her eyes, like she could still see his face. “After he was dead, my mother just… changed. Started rifling through his pockets, took his keys. She cleaned out the hotel safe, stole cash from the registers. It wasn’t until I saw her stealing that I realized?—”

“She set him up,” I finished for her. “Set you both up.”

Queen nodded, a single tear escaping down her cheek. “She used me to murder an innocent man so she could rob the place. We were three states away before I even processed what happened.”

I reached for her, pulling her against my chest. She resisted at first, then melted into me, her body trembling.

“I’ve carried that with me every day since then,” she whispered against my chest. “Every single day, I see his face when I close my eyes. I killed an innocent man because I trusted my mother’s word without question.”

I held her tighter, feeling her tears dampen my shirt. Something twisted in my gut, a memory trying to surface. Gage’s face as I cornered him in that parking garage, the way he’d pleaded, swearing he’d never hit Reese, that she was lying about the abuse. The bruise had looked real enough, but what if…?

I pushed the thought away hard. No. Reese wouldn’t lie about something like that. Not to me. Not to get someone killed.