Page 118 of Tragic (Lark Cove 3)

“He was supposed to get five years,” he gritted into the phone.

My heart dropped. This was about his brother.

Suzanne’s voice grew louder on the phone, her pleas coming through loud enough for me to hear. “Kaine, please. Don’t get angry.”

“He deserves to be punished!” Kaine roared. “But I see nothing has changed. You’re still taking his side.”

Thea scooped up Camila and grabbed Collin’s hand, nodding for Charlie to follow her out of the dining room and down the hallway to the other side of the house. Logan watched them go, then refocused on Kaine as he inched closer to my side.

“No,” Kaine snapped. “He earned two more years for what he did. And to hell with you both if you’re going to defend him. I’m done with all this. You. Him. And if the justice system isn’t going to teach him a lesson, if his own mother won’t hold him responsible, then maybe I’ll teach him that lesson myself. He killed my daughter!”

My heart raced frantically at his words. Kaine had never threatened anyone before, and he’d never talked about revenge or retribution. Rage rolled over his shoulders, filling the kitchen like a dark fog. His hatred infected the air, chilling it to ice.

This was the side of Kaine he’d been trying to hide. The man out of control and so full of anger he was blind to the world around him.

Maybe if I touched him, I’d be able to bring him back.

I stepped closer, lifting a hand to Kaine’s forearm, but with one long stride, he paced out of my reach. Before I could take another, Logan gripped my elbow and held me back.

And then the phone went flying acro

ss the room. It crashed into the thick, wooden door and fell with a loud clang.

“Kaine,” I gasped. “What happened?”

He didn’t say a word. The look in his eyes was feral as he swiped his truck keys from the dish on the counter and went right for the door. He stepped on his phone with a boot heel and destroyed it completely.

“Kaine!” I wanted to rush after him, but I wasn’t wearing shoes and the floor was covered in glass from the broken soda bottle. If I could just touch him, if I could just get him to look at me, he’d calm down. He’d take a breath and snap back to reality.

But he was on a mission, striding out the door and into the cold without a backward glance.

“Kaine!” Logan called after him too, but it did no good.

Kaine’s truck engine rumbled to life. Then he was gone.

I sidestepped a piece of glass, only to step on a smaller one. “Damn it!”

“Where’s he going?” Logan asked.

“I don’t know.” I picked the glass off my foot and backed away. I ran my hands through my hair. “I don’t know. Maybe to drive around and blow off some steam. Or . . .” My stomach fell. “Or he’s going to confront his brother.”

I might not have heard the entire conversation, but it didn’t take much to piece it together. Isaiah had been released from prison. Or he was being released. Suzanne wasn’t coming to Christmas here because she’d be spending it with her other son.

I went to my phone and pulled up Suzanne’s number. It rang immediately to voicemail. I tried it again, only with the same result.

If Kaine was going to find Isaiah, I had to get there first. I had to stop him. But I had no idea where Suzanne lived or where I could find them.

“I need your help,” I told Logan.

“Anything.”

“I need to find out where Kaine’s mother lives. I need to know when his brother, Isaiah Reynolds, was released from prison. What time. Where. Any information you can get me.”

“I’ll call Sean.” Logan whipped out his phone, dialing his personal assistant’s number. Sean had been a systems hacker in his former life before Logan had hired him. He’d get answers to my questions and then some in a matter of minutes.

While Logan talked on the phone, I rushed to the hall closet, pulling on some shoes and a coat. Just as I was zipping it over my belly, Thea came rushing to my side.

“What’s happening? Are you okay?”