Page 76 of Fool Me Twice
“But—”
“ASH!” Cyrus snapped, making the room flinch. “Be happy I’m not pushing for the entire team to be sanctioned. Because I could. Very easily.”
Ash slumped back in his seat, face pinched in a worried expression as he exchanged looks with Hart and the rest of the team.
“If anyone here needs to be sanctioned, it’s me,” Hart said quietly, feeling guilt eat him up from the inside out. “This is my case, and it was my idea for Ash to get involved.”
“Hart…” Ash tried but Cyrus waved them off.
“Maybe so, but Ash was the one exchanging punches with the owner of the ring,” Cyrus said. “Your presence and Fix’s can be attributed to working the case and as such, fly under the radar. Ash was caught in the act. And something tells me it’s not the first time he was there.”
“You can’t prove that,” Ash said quickly, proving Cyrus’s suspicions more than anything else.
Cyrus shook his head, looking tired as hell. He picked up his file and stood up. “I’m not pursuing it, so you’ll most likely get away with a record, a warning, and a slap on the wrist from Nexus. I suggest you take it as a win.”
He really was letting them off.
Hart knew Cyrus had more than enough to push further. To push harder. Maybe someone else from PUMA would have. Hart didn’t really understand why Cyrus was letting it go, but he was undeniably grateful.
Cyrus looked them all in the eye one by one, the corner of his lip twitching slightly at the maniacal wave Black delivered, before he walked out of the room, picking up a call on his phone as he went.
“YOU RELEASED HIM?” came the bellow from down the hallway a few seconds later, and everything inside Hart froze. “You’ve barely had him for six hours! I thought you had him dead to rights?”
Cane.
He knew they were talking about Cane.
Hart didn’t waste a second before he tore out of his chair and bolted to the door. He could hear them all calling his name, but he didn’t care. He needed to see him. Hours of pent-up anxiety and tension were crawling under his skin and only one person could cure it.
Hart ran.
Chapter 16
Cane
He’d never minded being dirty. Never minded the grit stuck to his skin. It was when it got under it that he started to feel it like he had a foreign body lodged within him.
His fingers shook as he lit up another cigarette, crumpling the empty box and throwing it on the floor behind him.
He was sitting in his apartment in the dark, his phone smashed to pieces against the wall in front of him. It wouldn’t fucking stop ringing ever since he got it back from holding. Texts and calls and voicemails and anger and hatred all aimed at him. There were a few from Raph and Soph, worried and confused. A single apology from Ares. But they were drowned by the tidal wave of darkness.
Threats.
Accusations of it being a setup.
Promises that that fight was going to be his last.
Money had been pulled from every leftover venture he had been involved with that the curse hadn’t already taken. His partners swore up and down nobody even knew his name. They’d all fled the sinking ship like fucking mice. They’d left the captain to sink with it.
And those that were silent, the ones waiting in the shadows were the worst. Hyenas ready to feast on his bloody carcass.
Cane had never expected loyalty. He’d been taught not to trust.
But he’d always thought there was something about the world they were living in that formed ties between them.
Honor among thieves, Hart would probably tell him.
Hart.