Page 101 of King of Ruin

I laugh low and shake my head as I walk to the doorway. “Sure.”

My steps aren’t heavy when I travel back down the hall. My chest isn’t tight as I drop off the box at my door and walk down the stairs. And for the first time in entirely too long, screams don’t fill my head as I wander to the kitchen.

In no way do I think I am completely and miraculously null of my pain. Of my deep grief. But I know this is something new. It’s promise and hope blooming in a place I thought void of life.

And it’s beautiful.

Cat’s voice reaches me in the hall just before it opens to the kitchen. “Why must you be so insufferable? Give the man steak and eggs.”

“So he can die of a stroke? Fairly sure that’s more painful than what’s taking him right now.”

“Yes, that would hurt more,” Kane agrees with Russ.

Kane.

My heart flutters like a prepubescent teen, and I have to bite into my lip to keep from smiling.He’s still here.This man is the epitome of mad. And I absolutely love it.

“And who… are you?” Cat bites.

The low roll of Kane’s laughter sends goosebumps up my arm and pushes my feet forward. “Ezekiel Liam Kane. Don to the Murphy family.”

Cat’s eyes flash to me briefly before narrowing in on Kane. “So not the guard you claimed to be. Seems as though you’re a little lost, then,don to the Murphy family.”

He shrugs, pushing a plate across the bar to the empty seat on his right. “Perhaps. But the danger in staying here is worth the potential ending.”

A fierce burn radiates behind my ribcage as his words remind me of the remnants of something I was told so long ago, I thought it lost to memories.

“Anyone can fight for redemption, baby love.” My mother wipes away the lone tear streaking down my cheeks. “Only those that deserve it will face any obstacle, and if they never lose sight of what they’re fighting for, it’s always worth giving them a second chance.”

In my eyes–in my heart–Kane deserves the same courtesy he’s extended to me. He’s allowing me to prove that I am more than my parents’ deaths, more than revenge, just as he is more than a tool used to do the bidding of others.

We are one and the same, and it’s time I accept that as the fortunate miracle it is.

I steady my expression and move behind him. “Is that so?”

Russ chuckles, adding a cup of steaming coffee to the vacant spot, while Cat gives me a mischievous smirk.

Kane glances over his shoulder.“It is. Come to eat with me?”

“No. Simply delivering a message to Cat.”

He turns swiftly in his chair, rotating so quickly I barely have time to step back. He’s able to catch me around the waist and tug me between his legs. My heart leaps in my throat as I try to move against his tight hold. “Look at me when you lie to me, Boss.”

I don’t want to smile, to admit just how much of a liar I am when it comes to my feelings for this man. But I think I’m done pretending. At least for today.

I look at the full plate next to him and realize he was expecting me. It’s my usual. He hoped for the impossible, and he got just that.

“I guess. But only because I don’t want to insult Russ since he’s already made it, and my stomach is still rather empty.”

Kane’s dimple shows as he smirks and releases me to sit. “Yeah, of course that’s why.”

I bite on the inside of my cheek, and stay between his legs. “But you can be a good boy and feed it to me.”

A row of pearly white peek through his lips, as he draws a thumb down my jaw. “As you wish, do mhórgacht.”.

My heart sings the entire time we eat, laugh, and enjoy Russ and Cat’s banter. It isn’t until the kitchen is clean and Cat’s patching Kane’s shoulder, after I told her not to wake Antonio, that I realize it.

All along, I knew Kane was the key to my downfall. To my end. What I didn’t understand, but do now, is that through the destruction of what I once was, I am the woman my parents raised me to be.

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