Page 22 of Kael

"I don't care what you want," I cut her off.

Lena stared at me, broken. Then something shifted in her eyes.

"You'll regret this," she whispered. "One day, you'll see. She'll fall apart again. She'll run. She'll break your heart. And when she does, I'll still be here. Waiting."

She turned and walked up the stairs.

We all watched her go. When her door slammed shut, Zia let out a shaky breath.

"Jesus," she whispered. "I didn't—I thought she was just—"

"You thought," I spat, the words tasting like venom. "Even your fucking thoughts are self-righteous, Zia. That's why you didn't believe me."

Caine's jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked beneath his skin. He shoved Zia gently behind him, stepping into my space. His hand dropped toward his waistband, his fingers hovering over the grip of his weapon.

"You think you can talk to my wife like that?" he growled.

I met his glare dead-on, refusing to give an inch. My pulse was steady, a cold, familiar adrenaline settling into my veins.

"Why shouldn't I? Because you simp over her, I'm supposed to?"

Caine's hand moved, clearing his leather holster.

"Don't do that, Caine." My voice dropped to a dangerous, flat whisper. My fingers locked around the grip of my own piece. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You think I won't shoot you over my wife?"

"I think you would, because you're a henpecked pussy."

In a fraction of a second, the room vanished. Caine drew his weapon, the barrel leveling straight at my chest.

My reflex was pure instinct. My gun snapped up, iron sights lining up right between his eyes before his finger could even tighten on his trigger.

We stood there, frozen in a lethal deadlock. The air between us felt heavy, suffocating, crackling with the kind of tension that only exists between two predators. The same blood ran through our veins. The same brutal training. The same dark instinct to kill. My finger rested on the trigger, calculating the split second it would take to drop him if his shoulder twitched. But neither of us was going to shoot. We were just posturing—him for his wife, me because even blood-related, I wouldn’t let a man pull a gun on me.

"Kael!" Zia's voice broke the silence, high and panicked. She clutched at Caine's arm, her fingers digging into his shirt. "Stop. Both of you, stop! You're family."

"You started this, Zia," I said, not shifting my focus from Caine's locked eyes for even a millisecond. "We weren't family when you took that bitch's side over mine."

Zia swallowed hard, her chest heaving. She looked at the barrel of my gun, then at her husband's. "I apologize," she gritted out, the words sounding like they tore her throat on the way out.

A floorboard creaked above us.

Neither of us dropped our guard, but our eyes flicked toward the staircase.

Lena was standing at the top, a duffel bag clutched in her white-knuckled grip, her face streaked with fresh tears.

"I'm leaving," she said quietly, her voice trembling with an obvious, pathetic play for pity. "I can see I'm not wanted here."

She didn't move an inch down the steps. She just stood there, staring down at me, her eyes begging me to say something—to tell her to stay. The sheer delusion of it made my stomach turn. This bitch was completely out of her mind.

Disgust overrode my anger. I slowly lowered my weapon, letting the tension drain out of my shoulders, utterly unafraid that Caine would actually shoot me in the back. He wasn't that stupid.

"Keep this bitch away from me," I warned, my voice cutting through the quiet house. "And mind your own fucking business."

I turned on my heel and walked out, slamming the heavy front door behind me until the glass rattled in its frame.

When I got home, I climbed the stairs silently.