Page 109 of Corrupting Camille
He brushes my tears gently, voice steady, darkly certain.
“Tell me, “He says, voice a deadly whisper, eyes drilling into mine like bullets lodging in flesh. “Give me his name. Tell me Douglas Everhart is the one who broke you and I swear…I swear on my fucking soul, Camille, I’ll rip him apart.”
My chest cracks wide open, spilling every ugly truth I’ve kept locked behind my ribs for years.
“Yes,” I choke out, my voice shredded, barely human. “It was Douglas Everhart.”
The look Kane gives me is primal, savage, utterly unhinged.
“Good girl,” he breathes, pressing a kiss to my forehead that feels more like a brand, burning, possessive, and terrifyingly final. “Now go back inside. Smile. Lie if you have to.”
He pulls away just enough that his eyes blaze into mine, a promise wrapped in blood and vengeance. “And leave the rest to me.”
My hand shoots out before I can stop it, gripping his forearm like a lifeline as terror floods my veins. “Kane, don’t. Don’t do anything stupid. Please, just leave it alone.”
The words tear from my throat, shredded and desperate, costing me more pride, more strength, than I have left to give. My voice hangs between us, ragged and raw, fragile like shattered glass on concrete.
His arm goes rigid beneath my fingers, rage pulsing violently just beneath the surface. He stares down at my trembling hand, something lethal sparking behind his darkened eyes. Not sanity. Not reason. Something colder, crueler, an animal ready to tear apart the cage.
His voice slides out, quiet, like frost creeping across skin.
“Don’t ever ask me to leave this alone.”
“I am asking,” I whisper, fingers digging desperately into his jacket sleeve. “Not for him. Not for them. For me, Kane.”
Something twists in his face, agony, maybe, but it’s devoured by darkness instantly, crushed under the weight of his fury.
He steps closer, forcing me back against the cold stone wall. I'm caged by his body, his rage, his brutal determination.
“For you?” he repeats softly, his voice like barbed wire shredding and soothing at once. “Camille, he threw you off a fucking boat and left you to die. Do you even grasp that? Do you remember how it felt? Because I do.” His voice plunges lower, sharper, merciless. “I saw you at Haven House. I heard your voice break when you told that little girl your secret. I watched you relive it, trembling, trapped. I see the way you flinch every goddamn time someone brushes your back, still drowning after all these fucking years…”
“Stop,” I sob, voice cracking, eyes burning hot with shameful tears. My fists curls into his jacket, holding him tighter, needing the contact as much as I hate it. “You think I don’t know? You think I don’t carry it every day? Every fucking breath is me remembering. You don’t get to storm in and rip me open like this.”
His jaw clenches. His breath rushes out harshly, fanning across my face as he presses impossibly closer, forehead touching mine in a twisted mockery of comfort.
“You think this is me hurting you?” he hisses, eyes blazing with raw, violent protectiveness. “Watching that bastard smile, shake hands, laugh in your fucking face while you swallow your trauma like poison, smiling like a pretty, perfect little doll?”
I flinch.
And he sees it. He always sees it.
“Kane…” I choke on his name, voice splintering into fragments I’ll never piece back together.
His hand slides up my throat, fingers locking gently yet mercilessly around the nape of my neck, grounding me even as he breaks me apart.
“You can hate me,” he whispers harshly, his voice rough with barely restrained pain. “You can scream and curse and fight until your voice gives out. But this?” He pulls me even closer, voice shaking with brutal honesty. “This is mine. This isn’t a line, Camille, it’s a fucking grave. And I will bury anyone who crosses it.”
“He has power,” I whisper desperately, terror bleeding into every word. “Protection. Influence.”
His eyes flare with something feral, brutal. “So do I.”
His stare is merciless, stripping away every safe, comforting lie I’ve ever hidden behind. I can feel it, I understand with devastating clarity: this isn’t hollow anger or arrogant posturing. This is a man who’s already walked through hell, who has spilled blood and hasn’t blinked. Who will spill more, if it means revenge.
“You’re not God,” I whisper, voice fracturing beneath new tears, softer, broken. “You can’t fix this.”
“I don’t want to fix it,” he rasps fiercely, eyes burning black with barely restrained violence. “I want to rip his fucking world apart. Slowly. I want him living every day with my shadow hovering over him. I want him afraid. I want every breath he takes to feel like borrowed fucking time.”
I shake my head weakly, but his grip tightens, unyielding, possessive, furious.
