Kane watched the blade as it grazed her neck. He wanted to hold her, to cover her up in the face of Noel’s smirk, but first things first. He had to end this. Finally. “Just because you helped me once,” Kane said. “It doesn’t give you the right to take everything from me.”
Noel laughed loudly, as he pushed the blade deeper into her neck. Angeline seemed to hold her breath, as Kane groaned at the sight of her naked and enslaved, but he knew that he had to keep his rage in check if Angeline was going to make her way back into his arms and hold Theo again.
“This is done.” Ben aimed his gun, and Noel smirked, as he pressed Angeline’s body closer to his.
“What skin do you have in the game besides Gina’s?” Noel asked.
Kane watched carefully, as Ben pointed his gun to Noel’s eyes. He wasn’t sure what had gone down after he left, but Ben was here now, and he was trying to make something right.
“You’re out of control,” Ben said. “Too hopped up on the product to see the harm. But I see you for what you are.” Ben took another step closer and managed to get the butt of is gun close to Noel’s temple.
Kane saw her eyes full of questions as death surrounded her. “Theo?” Angeline asked.
Kane nodded. Once he was fully recovered, he took the boy from Waldo’s arms and said that he would bring him back to his mother. Riding with such a little guy at Ben’s back should have been plagued with problems, but Theo was calm as they followed Noel’s trail. They disembarked as soon as they saw Noel’s chopper in the lot. Kane wanted to kill Noel, and Ben wanted a piece of the action. So, it fell to Waldo to guard the boy as they stepped into the breach.
“You’re just leaving me here with this?” Waldo had asked.
“You look good,” Kane had said. “Just hold him tight. No matter what happens.”
Waldo had obliged, and now Kane’s eyes rested on Angeline’s as he nodded. “He’s fine,” Kane said. “It’s all about you now.”
Noel dragged her closer to his body and pushed the blade deeper.
“It is all about her,” Noel said, as he licked her ear and glared at Kane.
“You were supposed to stay loyal to me!” Noel said. “Do what I want! Why do you think I picked you out of the trash in the first place?”
Kane was ready to kill him when Angeline seemed to summon an unseen strength. Reaching behind her back, she grabbed his at his crotch and tugged. Noel was in enough pain to fall, and as soon as the edge of his knife left her flesh, Kane started to take her back into arms, but even as her arms shook, Angeline held him back and said softly, “Stop this. Make it so he won’t come back anymore.”
Kane pushed her aside and went in for the kill as his hands surrounded his throat. He was no longer the little boy searching for scraps. He was his own man with a family, and no one was going to hurt them.
“I only answer to her,” Kane said, as he pressed his fingers closer to Noel’s skin.
Angeline cowered in a corner as Kane’s hold tightened. Kane felt that he had paid his debt and then some. This was not his friend. This was the man who had taken every chance to rape his girl. He had taken her child, their child, and for all of that, he deserved to die.
“Not so fast,” Noel said, as he recovered enough of his senses to fight. He smashed his fist into Kane’s enraged face and jumped up, bringing Kane to his back. He smiled, as though he had the upper hand. Kane saw nothing but Noel’s glare until Angeline started to crawl forward to help him again. He saw her bare body shaking with each move, and as Ben tried to pull her back, Noel caught a hunk of her hair in his hand and forced her close for an unwanted kiss.
“Get the fuck way from her!” Kane screamed.
Ben struggled to help her as Kane writhed beneath his enemy. She was nearly gone when Noel pulled the soft flesh of her breast. In response, she kicked him hard, as Ben finally dragged her back to the corner and assumed a protective pose before her fallen body, his gun aimed at Noel’s head.
“You gonna do it?” Noel hissed. Then, he turned his head back to Kane and asked, “Or you, kid? Think you do me and it ends?”
Angeline’s wish for him to be torn from their lives, forever, echoed in his ears. And it would end. No more lies or threats. And he wouldn’t touch her…
Now, he had seen it with his own eyes. How he could make her quiver and shake with his touch and turn her from his bright Angel into a mass of tears. She wasn’t’ supposed to cry—not while he had life in his body.
Only while there was life in Noel’s.
Kane bolted forward and drove Noel’s body into the far wall. Wrapping his hands around his throat, Noel kept laughing, even as he fought for what Kane hoped would be his last breath.
“My debt is paid!” Kane said. “You will never put your hands on me or one of mine ever!”
“You don’t have the stones,” Noel sputtered. “You’re my bitch. You’re hers. You worthless piece of—”
Kane did not allow him to finish his thought. He felt the bones of Noel’s neck cracking around his fingers, his eyes frozen with a look of scorn. While Kane wished that he would have died in a state of horror, begging for the mercy that Kane would never show, at least it was done. Kane kept his hands on Noel’s throat for longer than he needed to and even took some pleasure in the feel him dead under his hands. However, he only relished the moment until Angeline’s soft crying hit his ears. Then, he dropped Noel to the ground like the trash that he was, gestured for Ben to take care of it, and quickly made his way back to her.
“Angel?” She was trying to hide her body from his view, something that she would never do if it were just the two of them. Kane took her hands in his and gently eased her eyes back to his. “Look at me,” he implored.
Angeline followed his orders. As their eyes locked, he stroked her reddened face, wiping the tears and the sweat from her cheeks, as he kissed her curls and gathered her into his arms. “I got you,” he swore. “No more pain. No more tears.”
He let her rest her head to his shoulder and cradled her close, covering her nakedness with his arms. When she finally was able to meet his eyes again, his soul lifted when he saw a faint smile pass across her lips.
“I should have known that you would come for me,” she whispered. “You always do.”
He nodded and kissed her lightly before looking over his shoulder. He silently thanked Ben for covering Noel’s corpse with a sheet from the bed before leaning down to hand Angeline her skirt. “Here,” Ben said.
Kane tenderly brought her to her feet, and as he helped her slip back into the garment, he was relieved to feel her legs shaking less. However, when Ben tried to give her back her blouse, it was tattered beyond all use, and Kane folded her back to his chest. “I still have you,” Kane whispered. “It’s all good. It’s—”
“Take this then.” They were both stunned to see Ben offer her his leather. Kane wished that it could have been his jacket to carry her out of the room, but he slapped Ben’s shoulder and thanked him aloud for helping her. “Get her out,” Ben said. “Bet Waldo’s ready to snap.”
“Waldo?” Angeline asked.
“He’s not exactly made out to be a babysitter.”
Angeline came back to total life and raced from the room. Kane had to hurry to keep pace as she took the steps two at a time. When she turned the corner for the lobby, she stopped short and Kane caught her in his hands.
“Whoa,” Kane muttered.
Waldo Geyer was on the floor with Theo. The big guy was showing off his tats and explaining what each mark meant. Theo seemed hypnotized by the lecture, and when Waldo reached his own club insignia, the teeth of a snake dripping with blood, Waldo just grinned as Theo touched his arm.
“I know,” Waldo said. “Kind of looks scary. But it means that your friends come through for you in the end. And that’s all that counts.”
Kane had to smile as Waldo pinched his cheek.
“Mommy!” Theo squealed.
Just that one word was like a balm washing over Kane, and the shadows completely left his heart when he saw Angeline hugging Theo tight and kissing his head before she finally looked to Waldo and whispered, “Thank you. For looking after him.”
Waldo shuffled his feet and looked like an oversized schoolboy as he pressed his hands into his pockets. “He’s a good kid,” he said. “Kind of liked hanging out with him.”
Kane couldn’t fight the urge to hold them, and Angeline offered no resistance as he kissed her hair and patted Theo’s smiling face. “He’ll forget this day,” Kane said.
Angeline gazed into his eyes and said slowly, “But I won’t.”
Was she lost to him again? Was it too much for her to think about, and would she think that the danger might always be there if she stayed with him?
“Angel…”
She silenced him with a soft kiss nuzzled his face. “This is the day when you loved us enough to slay the dragon,” she said. “And I’m never going to lose sight of that.”
Kane felt as if the burden of two years, longer, was suddenly lifted from his back. Ben appeared in the corner of his eye and whistled for Waldo to join him upstairs. Waldo shook Theo’s tiny hand and moved to answer the call of duty as Ben summoned the desk clerk to join them in the room. He felt her shake again, but there was no way that he was losing her or Theo now when the threat to their joy was gone.
Sitting at her side, Theo played with his face. There was no trace of everything that he had endured, that they had suffered in the last few hours. Angeline laughed with her son when he tugged at Kane’s stubble, and when he settled into her chest, she touched his face with a tender hand. “It really is okay,” she said. “Just holding him… holding you… I know that.”
He reveled in the feel of the two bodies against him, but Kane came back to attention when Ben appeared and beckoned him forward.
“Hold up,” Kane whispered to Angeline. “Be right back.”
Ben drew him off to the side and spoke fast.
“We made a deal with the man behind the desk,” Ben started. “He’ll make it so that Noel was never here.”
“Amen to that,” Kane said.
Ben’s next words seemed hard to come by, and Kane gripped his arm, forcing him to speak.
“So we’ll head back,” Ben said. “You go where you want—even back to Frisco if you like so you can be close to your brother.”
What would Jem say or do when Kane assured him that the danger was gone and they could just be a family? No doubt it would take some time to prove his case, and Ellen was something else altogether. But now that Noel was dead, they could all go home and try to just lead normal lives.
“And the club?” Kane asks.
“Oh, you are out, man,” Ben said with a heavy sigh.
That went without saying.
“But know this,” Ben continued. “The pills stop. We’re… I’m going to get our house in order.”
Kane pondered the idea of Ben in charge. He wouldn’t have been Noel’s first choice because, like Kane, Noel would have seen him as soft because he put the well-being of a woman before the crew.
And that was exactly why Kane thought that he was just the man for the job. Kane was glad to hand back Noel’s inheritance since it had only led to misery for those that he loved.
“Blood Brothers are in good hands,” Kane said, as he slapped his back. “See to it.”
Ben looked to Angeline and Theo and smiled as the boy waved at him.
“Take her to her father,” he said, as he tossed him keys. “That’s… that’s where you should be now.”
He rushed off to take out the real trash, and Kane collected Angeline and Theo into his arms and kissed them both as they left the place where everything could have gone so wrong.
“Let’s get your dad and go home,” Kane said, as he lifted her on the bike. “I’ll go slow so that he’ll stay safe.” Kane pushed his foot to the gas and leaned back to kiss her again. “You trust me, Angel?”
Angeline hugged him as close as Theo and nodded. “Always, Kane,” she said. “Always.”
And as they sped away from the horror, Kane didn’t need to hear anything else.