Page 145 of Caution to the Wind

He grinned. “I thrived. When I got out ten years later, I had enough of a reputation to mean something in the province, but it was too late. Kasper wasn’t using Kate the same way anymore. He thought her having my kid was a betrayal, and he shunned her until someone told him she was doing real estate. He figured he could blackmail her into doing deals for the triad, laundering money through the sales with cash purchases.”

I swore viciously. “Why the fuck wouldn’t she’ve told me?”

“He threatened Cleo.”

Despair strangled my throat so hard, I struggled to get air into my lungs for a full minute.

“When I got out,” he continued, “I went to her immediately, but she was already married to you. She was…happy and safe except for this deal with Kasper. I should’ve been enough, but I wanted to help her. If I couldn’t have her, I could make her safer…I offered to get Kasper off her back.”

“And he found out,” I deadpanned.

He nodded. “He found out. The triad system doesn’t allow for disloyalty. When you take the oath, you agree that the price for betrayal is to be killed by the five thunderbolts; death by metal, wood, water, heat, or burial. Weapons, beating, drowning, burning, or being buried alive. They chose the first, obviously for Kate, withlingchi.”

“Kate wouldn’t have been sworn into the triad, though.”

“No, but she was working for them as a Blue Lantern. The uninitiated but affiliated are still held to the same standards.”

“So, it was Kasper who ordered the hit,” I surmised in that same voice I didn’t recognize. Honestly, at that moment, I didn’t recognize myself. A mystery that had haunted me for thirteen years was finally solved, yet I felt no relief. “But it was ’cause of you.”

Maxwell lifted his chin. “It was.”

“I should fuckin’ end you for lettin’ her swing out there alone. She’d already been through so fuckin’ much, and for her to die like that…” I swallowed the thick tangle of rancid emotions chokin’ the back of my throat. “You deserve to die for this even though you didn’t call the hit.”

“Maybe,” he agreed with surprisin’ calm. “I’ve often wondered the same.”

I stared at his fingers caught between the metal teeth of the pliers and imagined all the ways I could disassemble him. Carve him up and parse him out under the earth, never to be found.

Oh, I wanted to end him. For touchin’ Kate, for lurin’ her into that fucked-up situation and then for bein’ stupid enough to leave her unprotected and at the mercy of a man like Kuan.

But he was Cleo’sfather.

Who was I to take that away from her when my girl had already lost so much?

It had to be her choice, not mine.

And the girl she was, the girlI’draised, would never condemn someone to death.

So, I raised my head and declared, “Not gonna kill my girl’s sperm donor. I’ll leave it up to her how she wants to deal with you. But tell me, why the fuck haven’t you tried to contact her if you’ve been watchin’ her all these years?”

“I got her mother killed. And, until The Prophet, she was happy and thriving without me. I disturbed the life of someone I loved once before to tragic ends. I wasn’t about to do it again.”

“Only you have,” Mei said from behind me, her voice a whip through the air crackin’ against Maxwell’s cheek so hard he flinched again. “This war with the Seven Song, it’s because Kasper hates you, still. And he’s coming to Entrance to threaten The Fallen MC because he knows Cleo is your daughter. Will he come after her directly?”

Rage burned through me so cleanly, it erased any understandin’ I might have harboured for the man tied to the chair in front of me. I reared up and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, wrenchin’ him into the air.

“Is she in danger?” I roared in his face, the pliers split over my fist like makeshift bronze knuckles. When I brought it down on his face, I felt the crack of bone under the impact. Blood poured from his nose down his fancy-ass dress shirt and tie. It wasn’t nearly enough, so I grabbed my axe from its holster and pressed its edge against the thin skin of his neck. “If you put her in danger, I’ll skip the fingers and toes and go straight for your fuckin’ head.”

“She’s not,” he assured me quickly, but there was fear in the tight lines of his face. “I’ve been watching, and Kasper hasn’t made any moves toward her. Why would he when I’ve shown no interest?”

“I watched that motherfucker put a bullet through the skull of his own brother’s lover without hesitation. Now, I know he ordered men to slice up Kate for the transgression of what? Talkin’ to you? Movin’ on without him? If you think he isn’t searchin’ for a way to take the both of us out at the knees, you’re a fuckin’ dumb fuck who doesn’t deserve to live.”

My breath steamed through the billows of my chest, and my heart thundered so hard it threatened to crack a rib.

“I could end this right now by killin’ you and deliverin’ you like a mid-spring festival present to Kasper. Then, he’d know not to fuck with us, and he wouldn’t care as much to try with you outta the picture.”

“You wouldn’t do that to Cleo.”

“She doesn’t even know you exist, and she doesn’t have to,” I barked, but he was right, and it cut through me like a hot blade.