Page 63 of Fool Me Twice
He didn’t really spend the money he’d accumulated, or wield the power he’d earned other than to keep people away from what was his. He just wanted. Endlessly. It was a black hole that wouldn’t fill up no matter what he did.
Hart shook his head after a moment. “That explains a lot about you.”
“Does it?” Cane asked nonchalantly, taking another swallow of vodka to drown the emotion in his chest. “I don’t know about that.”
“Our pasts don’t have to define us, but they definitely play a big part in shaping us. Even if we don’t want it to, or fight against it,” Hart said, before continuing quietly. “And I didn’t know that…about you.”
“You never asked, sweetheart.” Cane shrugged. “You’re the one with all the rules about what we can and can’t mention. You never asked about me.”
Hart froze when he said that, but Cane wasn’t sure exactly why.
Because of him bringing up the things he didn’t want to talk about? Because he’d drawn attention to how their arrangement worked? Hart was the one who’d said they didn’t know each other, so why was he acting surprised when Cane said the same?
He pushed it away.
Asking questions like that always closed Hart up like a clam. And it didn’t really matter anyway. Cane firmly believed that he didn’t need to know the details of Hart’s history to know him, or the other way around. He knew him on a level that superseded all of that. Something primal and undefined by whos and whys. Cane and Hart were connected by blood and tissue and sinew. Interwoven. Fundamental.
No matter how many times Hart denied it.
“Why’d you think I was lying to you?” Cane asked. “When you burst in here.”
Hart glanced at him from the corner of his eye before moving his gaze down to his glass, swirling the clear liquid. “Fix said…maybe you weren’t being completely honest.”
Cane laughed out loud. “Oh, Fix said.”
Hart scowled, but it faded into something a little shamefaced. “I was frustrated and I let it cloud my judgment.”
“I saw that. Hopefully you’re a little more relaxed now.”
Hart went back to scowling at the implication, but Cane didn’t have the wherewithal to tease him. Now he had niggled the loose tooth, he needed to yank it out.
“Even if I was in the habit of lying to you, what would hiding anything get me here?” Cane asked seriously. “My business is tanking. There’s no upside. No angle that helps me. I have people canceling fights, suppliers pulling out. I’m getting calls from the other crime bosses in the city questioning my place. Why the fuck would I lie to the only person who could help me figure it out?”
“I know,” Hart whispered.
“Do you?”
“Yes! I…” Hart swallowed and took a deep puff of his cigarette before sitting upright. “I haven’t been thinking straight and I apologize.”
There was something else in there. Something Hart refused to say. What else had been playing on Hart’s mind? What could have wound him up so much? Cane knew he wouldn’t be able to pry it out of him. He never could.
Hart took a deep breath, his eyes losing some of their guardedness as he continued. “Whoever made this curse must have a huge grudge against you. It moves like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’ve buried myself in cases, and there’s no precedent.”
“Well, isn’t that fucking peachy.” Cane closed his eyes and sighed out a plume of smoke.
He couldn’t find the anger in him right now. He was too tired, and too spent to be angry.
But he knew it was there. Underneath the more pressing things, just like before. When he’d been sitting in jail and survival was the most important thing, the anger had still been there, simmering under the surface and waiting for him to be ready to use it to his advantage.
A hand slipped over his unexpectedly, and Cane glanced across in shock, his heart thumping once. Loudly. Violently.
He knew how to handle being alone, and destroyed, and scrabbling for another chance at something. He knew how to fight for things.
He didn’t know how to handle this.
How to hold on to it.
How to get it to stay.