“How long?” Caden’s voice came out flat. Stripped of everything.
My father tilted his head. “Since the moment you walked back through my gates.” He said it the way you admit something obvious. Something not worth hiding anymore. “Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize Kane’s eyes in his son’s face?”
I felt Caden’s hand tighten on my shoulder—not leaning now, gripping and I understood suddenly that the poison wasn’t the thing keeping him upright anymore.
Rage was.
“You kept me close,” Caden said.
“You were useful.” My father shrugged. “A man who wants to kill you is far more predictable than one who doesn’t. I always knew where you were and what you were planning.”
His eyes moved to me again, briefly, the way they always had, like he was assessing value and then finding it lacking.
