Page 29 of King of Ruin

“Outskirts, near the border. It’s a lot of Murphy ground you’ll need to go through to get to your side, and without the guards checking in on their half-hour time, it won’t take long for them to know. Hurry.”

I smirk. “My first day here you said I was your enemy. What happened to that?”

Kane’s face grows somber, his gaze falling to the gun in my hand then back at me. “No matter what I said in the heat of the moment, you were never my enemy.” He blows out a steady breath. “You were always going to be my end. Not the other way around.”

God dammit.

I grab his neck with my empty hand and yank him toward me, smashing my lips to his one last time. My heart squeezes when he lets me take control this time. His hands find my hips but the hold on them is loose.

My grip tightens on both his throat and the handle as I move my mouth against him, soaking in everything I’ll never get the chance to feel again.

How it’s possible to hate and want someone so much, I’ll never understand, but the gut-wrenching pull I feel in my soulissomething I never want to experience again.

A slow clap of hands rips us apart and toward the source of the sound. Five men are on either side of him, guns raised and trained at my temple.

“Believe me now, son?” Phineas drops his hand, shoving them in his pockets as he motions toward me. “I told you, you can feed her, take care of her, show her you care. But in the end, she’s still a wild animal and will bite your head off the first chance she gets.”

The five men move as one, fanning out on either side of me. I could kill Phineas right now. One shot to end it all. But the moment I do, Sam, the man responsible for executing my parents like animals in the street, walks free. My veins erupt into fire, the realization that I’m still so far from succeeding eating my insides like a thousand parasites.

I lift both my hands, letting Kane’s gun loop around and dangle from my finger. “Only time I think I’ll ever agree with you Phineas. You should listen to your old man, Kane.”

A guard that looks two seconds away from pissing himself moves forward and slips the weapon from my hand, passing it to a silent Kane. He accepts it before placing it behind him in his belt, his face almost somber as he avoids eye contact with me.

With guns still trained on me, he bends and grabs my chains, but Phineas stops him by tossing a pair of cuffs.

“We have to go. Seems as if this place might have been compromised and my lawyer isn’t done getting the meeting together.”

My eyes flash to Kane. He rolls his right sleeve up his arm seemingly unbothered, but I see the twitch in his jaw. “Where are we going?”

Phineas grants Kane and me a smile before turning around. “Home.”

“What did you do this time, Fi?” I massage the back of my neck as I look down at the same wide puppy dog eyes she gives me at least three times a week.

Honestly, I don’t know where the hell my sister got this tender bone in her body that puts her in all these damn situations, but it’s really begun to annoy me. She’s only eight for crying out loud, but every time she does shit, half of it’s against the law.

I mean, it was cute at first. She stole everyone’s trash cans on our street a few months ago and took out all the recyclables. But then a week or two later, she started stealing cans of cat food to feed stray kittens in the alley. The situation has only gotten worse, so when she randomly asked me to go to Petco, I should have known better. When she asked to go talk to the man about lizards, I should have seen the red flags.

Maybe I did, and my mind was busy. I didn’t take into full account what was happening. Or maybe I want her to continue to be good even when we’re surrounded by nothing but bad. Either way, when she pulls five small clear bags from behind her back bearing fish, I can’t help but smile.

“Really? And how do you think we can take care of these?”

She shakes her little head. “They’re saltwater fish. I figured we could go down to the docks and set them free.”

I sigh. “The ports are not the safest place in the world, Fi.”

“Pleeeeeease, Zeky.”

Pursing my lips, I stare down at her pouted ones. Her eyes are rounded with the tell-tale sheen of alligator tears ready and waiting for activation. So unnecessary.

“Fine.” I barely get the word out before she squeals, jumping up and down.

“Alright, alright. Calm down before you give them shaken fish syndrome or something. Haven’t you seen that part in Nemo?”

We turn in tandem, walking toward the bus stop when she laughs. “That’s a cartoon, silly.”

I shrug. “It’s still a thing.”

Her face pinches as she considers what I’m saying. In the end, though, she decides to play it safe and holds the bags to her chest while we wait for the next bus all the way to the ports.

---