LOGINKane’s POV
Olivia’s eyes pinned intently on the mask. Hovering on it like she was a detective or something.
“Are you okay?” I asked, closing the gap between us.
I could sense the rage emanating from Cynthia as I went on one knee, an inch away from the woman I loved and betrayed.
“What are you doing?” Cynthia asked from behind, her anger surfing through her words.
Still Olivia held on to father’s mask, staring at it like she’d seen a ghost.
I took the mask gently from Olivia’s hand. And stretched it up for the servant to retrieve it from me and place it back into the box.
“I’m sorry boss.. I’m sorry ma’am.” The worker said nervously, as he stood glued to a spot.
Earlier when Olivia came over to the manor, she wouldn’t let me get close to her. But for some reasons, here I was an inch to her and she wasn’t repulsive.
But when I removed the mask from her grasp, our hands brushed and I felt that tingling sensation she always made me feel.
Olivia Benson was a lot of things, and that made me sway to her.
There was something quite unsettling today about her. That much I could tell, but what exactly?
And why did she come to the manor all of a sudden after I’d been trying to reach her for weeks?
“Does the mask seem familiar or something?” I asked, trying to start a conversation with her.
“No.” She said sharply, finding her feet as she dusted her hands on her knees.
Olivia towers over me, looking down at me as her hair fell to a side. She looked miraculously beautiful, and it made me bite down on my lower lip.
I’d cheated on her with Cynthia, and I knew I’d ruined things between us.
But she came here today. Surely there was a reason. But what was it?
She would have said something if it weren’t for Cynthia and her bad mouth. I curse the day I fell into her trap.
“Is there something you wanted to tell me?” I asked, finding my feet.
“It’s….nothing actually.” Olivia stutters, turning around quickly without so much as a glance my way.
I stared at her continuously, my heart aching with each step she took.
What have I done?
She walked up to the truck and it’s workers, each greeting her before she swept past them and forward on her way.
“What was that about?” Cynthia stormed the question at me, pointing a finger directly toward me.
I sighed, and moved away from her. But Cynthia moves forward, hindering my path. “I’m talking to you. Don’t you dare ignore me.”
“Please, I really don’t have the energy for this.”
“Why? Because of her right? Does she mean so much to you?”
“Yes!” The words came out of my mouth fluently.
Cynthia stared at me with so much disbelief. “She’s that important huh? More than your unborn child. Is that it?”
At the mention of my unborn child, my heart melted completely. I couldn’t bear to be a bad father. I already had issues with mine already and there was no reason to repeat it with my child.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what was all that about? You were practically frolicking around her like you wanted to die for her.” She said. “Do you miss her so much that you want to miss out on your own child?”
“No.”
She raises my head by my chin. “That’s good. You don’t need her, trust me. You really don’t.”
If only that were true.
Olivia has been the thought of my existence ever since I knew her. And it got worst even after the whole incident with Cynthia.
“Don’t give me that face.” Cynthia said, pulling me out of my thoughts. “You only need me… and your child.”
My heart skipped, torn between believing her and wanting to believe in something more. And that something was definitely getting back Olivia.
As if reading my thoughts, she frowned, pushing me by the jaw. "Embarrassing," she spat, "how can you even call yourself a man? And what was she doing here? Did you call her to come?"
I stared at her in cold silence.
When I didn’t answer, she attempted to escalate things forward. But Stanley quickly intervened, stepping in at just the right moment.
“Miss, Cynthia. Might I schedule a cold bath for you? It’ll be most refreshing for you and the baby.” He suggested.
Cynthia froze, contemplating what my family’s butler had suggested. I knew she loved luxury, and that was what Stanley was offering.
A twisted smile painted her lips, she laughs, blinking at the thought of her in the cold jacuzzi bath. “Hmm, that doesn’t seem so bad after all.” She said as she beamed a smile at him, before turning to glare at me.
“Atleast someone here knows how to treat a lady. Take note.” She says, glaring at me as she turns away. Slowly, she quicken her steps after Stanley.
At the door she stops, turns to take a quick glance at me before exiting into the house.
Once I’d been left in front of my families manor, I turned around to search for Olivia. But she was gone, there was not a single trace of her.
“Olivia…” I muttered to myself. My heart beating fast as I thought of her.
Olivia had come here to see me. Surely, there was something important. Could it be about the stranger rumored to be seen with her?
I called for one of the workers, she rushed over immediately.
“That mask,” I tell her, “make sure to take it out from the rest. I want to know everything about it.”
“Yes, master Kane.” She rushes back to the rest.
I could see her search through the box thoroughly.
“Master Kane.” Stanley’s voice called to me.
I turned to face him. “What is it?”
He hesistates. “Lady Cynthia wants you to join her. She’s already in the jacuzzi waiting for you.”
I sighed. She clearly doesn’t want me going after Olivia.
“I’d be with her shortly.” I tell him, before turning to stare at our gate far away.
Olivia was gone. And couldn’t chase after her.
Kane's POVCeleste didn't try to talk me out of going alone. She just pressed a kiss to my jaw at the door, her hand lingering on my chest a beat longer than usual, and said, "Bishop. If anything feels wrong.""Bishop," I agreed.The park behind the old courthouse was empty at midnight, streetlamps throwing pools of orange light across wet pavement, the city's noise reduced to a distant hum beyond the trees. I found the bench exactly where he said it would be, and the man sitting on it looked smaller than I remembered him — shoulders curved inward, hands loosely folded, none of the polished confidence I'd known my entire life."You came alone," he said, not looking up."I said I would.""Your father used to say that too. And mean it about half the time." A faint, humorless smile crossed his face. "I suppose you're better than him already, in that respect."I sat down at the far end of the bench, leaving space between us that felt necessary, though I couldn't have said exactly why. "Te
Kane's POV"Say that again." My voice came out flat, disbelieving, like I'd misheard the message entirely. "Marcus is Edmund Cole. Not a look-alike. Not a decoy. Marcus."Celeste took the phone from my hand, reading it herself, her face going through the same slow, sickening realization I could feel settling over my own."That's not possible," she said. "Kane, Marcus called you the night everything started. He gave you the address upstate. He's the one who sent us straight into that trap.""Which means he's been playing every side of this since the beginning." My mind raced backward through every interaction I'd ever had with the man — every dinner, every quiet word of advice, every time he'd sat across from me in a meeting with that same steady, trustworthy calm. Thirty years of it. My father's most loyal confidant. My own most trusted advisor. "He's been in my life since before I could walk, Celeste. He held me as a baby. He was at my father's funeral standing next to me the entire
Kane's POVForty-eight hours felt like a fucking freaking while lifetime.I threw myself into damage control instead of sitting still with it board calls, statements, three separate meetings with outside counsel about the fallout from the leak. The company's stock had dropped eleven percent and was still sliding, but for the first time since my father died, I didn't feel like I was drowning in his mess. I felt like I was finally cleaning it up on my own terms.Celeste stayed close the whole two days, working from my penthouse instead of her apartment, the press crews still camped outside her building even after the story had moved on to other headlines. I liked having her there more than I probably should have admitted out loud. Liked waking up and finding her already at the kitchen counter with coffee and her sketchbook, like the last two days hadn't happened at all.It was the third morning when Jim knocked on the bedroom door before I'd even finished getting dressed."Boss. It's h
Kane's POVNobody spoke on the drive home.My mother sat in the back beside Celeste, staring out at the passing dark with the particular stillness of someone who'd just watched thirty-four years of careful silence collapse in under ten minutes. Julian rode up front again, jaw tight, eyes fixed somewhere past the windshield that had nothing to do with the road.It was Celeste who finally broke it, her hand finding mine across the seat."How are you really feeling," she asked quietly. Not are you okay. She knew better than that by now."I don't know yet." My voice came out rougher than I meant it to. "Ask me again once I actually know whose son I am.""You're your mother's son," she said, firm enough that my mother's eyes lifted to meet hers in the rearview mirror. "Whatever the test says, that part was never in question."My mother's face crumpled, just slightly, and she reached across the seat to grip Celeste's other hand, the two women who'd spent this entire nightmare as strangers s
Kane's POVThe room tilted around me."What are you talking about." My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else, thin and strange in my own ears. "Mother. What about the night I was born."She wouldn't look at me. Her eyes stayed fixed on her own hands, twisting together in her lap, and for the first time in my entire life I watched my mother — poised, controlled, endlessly composed — come apart at the seams in front of a room full of strangers."Your father wasn't in the city when you were born," she said finally. "He was supposed to be. He'd promised me he would be. But there was a deal closing that week, the mill deal, the one that made his first real fortune, and he chose it over being in that delivery room." Her voice cracked. "I was alone, Kane. Terrified, twenty-four years old, and completely alone, and there was someone else there instead. Someone who happened to be at the hospital that night, who sat with me for six hours because your father couldn't be bothered to leav
Kane's POVThe room went absolutely silent."You're the one who killed him." My voice came out low, shaking with something that wasn't quite rage and wasn't quite grief, but sat somewhere dangerous in between. "You're the one who ran Robert Hale's car off Route 9.""I didn't run anyone off any road, Kane." The man's tone stayed maddeningly even, like we were discussing weather instead of murder. "I've never needed to get my hands that dirty. I simply made a phone call, all those years ago, to a very frightened young man who'd just discovered his business partner was about to destroy everything he'd built. I told him what men in his position always want to hear — that problems like Robert Hale tend to solve themselves, given the right encouragement.""That's a confession.""It's context." He spread his hands, unbothered. "Your father made his own choices after that call, same as you're making yours right now. I only ever provide the door. What people do once they walk through it has ne







