Brooklyn Sinners 3 -A Sinner Born (9 page)

Kane stared at the man next to him, into his eyes and felt himself falling. Slowly. Surely. He didn’t know his name, not really. Until today he could’ve said he was attracted to a bad guy and used that as the excuse to hold Faro at arm’s length.

Except his name wasn’t Faro. According to him. Nothing was proven. All he had was what the man said.
The man.
Syren Rua or Marcos whatever.
“Where were you born?” he asked. Because damn if he didn’t need answers. Full disclosure. He needed something to start making sense.
Syren—call him Syren—swallowed. “São Paulo, Brazil. My father was the biggest drug dealer there in the eighties. He went by the name Manuel Rua.”
“I know that name.” Kane sat back in amazement. “He and his entire family were massacred. No one was arrested for it, but everyone thought…” He shook his head at the entire sad tale. “Everyone thought Delatorre did it.”
Syren nodded as he wiped his eyes. “He ordered it, but he wasn’t there. I don’t think he knew Luiz Salazar sold me.”
Kane eyed him. “But you blame Delatorre.”
“He put the wheels in motion.” Syren lifted his shoulder slightly. “Salazar was dealt with early on, but he got off easy if you ask me.”
“Is this all about revenge?” Kane asked. “You kill the men responsible for the death of your childhood and then what?” Was that all he lived for? If so, Kane needed to know now.
Syren let out a breath slowly, his mouth curved into a mockery of a smile. “There are worse things than death. I have never killed, nor do I plan on killing anyone anytime soon. All the men who took part in my family’s demise are in jail. All, except for Delatorre.” He broke eye contact for a second. “I admit when I first conceived this plan all I cared about was making Delatorre pay. I didn’t think beyond my hands around his neck.”
Despite himself Kane drifted closer to Syren on the banquette. He’d recognized the pain in those weird eyes, he’d noticed the darkness, but damn if he could’ve dreamed up something as fucked as what Syren confessed. To be destroyed, violated at such a young age and still remain standing. To still be sane—most of the time, because he did question Syren’s sanity a time or two—was a feat in itself. How had he managed to escape the hell he’d been sold into?
“Let’s go back.” He clasped Syren’s hand in his, squeezing as he asked softly, “How did you escape from whoever you’d been sold to?”
Syren laughed. Genuinely laughed. Life crept back into his eyes, banishing the shadows as the husky sound wrapped itself around Kane’s middle. “Dumb luck,” Syren said. “Dumb luck. In five years I’d been sold three times. I’d learned when to fight back, when to give in and when to hold out for as long as humanly possible.” His gaze drifted over Kane’s shoulder and out the window. “I’d been sold to a Saudi businessman in Paris. I was fifteen then and I didn’t know who he was until later, but he was richer than rich.” His teeth appeared briefly. “Had to be to get me. He also collected weapons—old guns, swords, bows and arrows. The kinda shit you and I couldn’t care less about, but those types of guys salivate over. Turns out a thief had his eye on his collection and, two weeks after I’d been bought, he broke in.”
Syren’s voice was soft, calm. He spoke as if recounting someone else’s life, as if the events he relived weren’t his own. As if they hadn’t happened to him and shaped him into who and what he was.
“I was naked,” Syren said. “Shackled in a small room somewhere in the bowels of his Paris mansion, punishment for refusing to simply lie back and have him fuck me.”
Kane swallowed the bile in his throat. How could that happen to anyone, let alone the man who sat beside him now? Beautiful and strong and vibrant, and yet broken, in ways Syren himself probably never realized. How did things like that happen?
“He wanted willing he said, and until I was willing, I was to remain naked and shackled. No food. No company. No nothing. He thought that was punishment.” Syren turned his gaze back to Kane, his eyes bright. “I was in fucking heaven down in that dark, cold room. I was alone, no one trying to make me do anything I didn’t want and I was going to finally, finally be with my parents and Fabio again.”
The last part of that took a while before registering with Kane and when it did, he gaped at Syren. “You were going to kill yourself?” The horror of that was too much to contemplate. “You tried—”
“No.” Syren shook his head. “The plan was to let nature take its course. It was winter in Paris. I would either die of the cold, dehydration or malnutrition. I felt it and I welcomed it. Any one was better,” Syren said fiercely. “Any one was better than the hell I was in.”
Kane blinked away the moisture Syren’s words brought to his eyes and swallowed. Syren’s eyes were dry, his words more controlled. He appeared much more in command of himself and his emotions.
“I was curled in a fetal position when I heard the first scrape in the lock,” Syren whispered. “I thought he’d given up waiting and come to take me. Come to finally get what he’d pay so highly for, but when the door did open it was to reveal a creature cloaked all in black, a mask covering his face. That didn’t hide his reaction at seeing me there.” Syren chuckled. “Can’t tell you who was more shocked to see whom.”
“I can imagine,” Kane murmured.
“I didn’t trust him and he didn’t care, he simply lifted me over his shoulder and bolted.” Memories had taken over and Syren’s face was lax with them, his mouth curved, his eyes dancing. “My rescuer’s name was Henri and he couldn’t very well take me to the cops, how would he explain how and why he’d found me? No, instead he brought me to his house and proceeded to feel my wrath as I took my anger and fear out on him.”
“You were a kid and scared, he had to understand.”
“Oh he did. He knew without being told why I was there and he treated me with kid gloves. I hated it. I was fifteen and I hated being treated like I was ten again.” Syren shook his head. “During the day I’d yell at him in Portuguese, tell him if he thought he’d have my ass in gratitude he better think again and by night I’d find myself in bed with him when the nightmares came.”
“He slept with you?” Kane wasn’t aware he’d shouted until Syren lifted an eyebrow. “He took advantage of you?” What kind of sick person was that?
“No.” Syren gripped his shoulder, holding him still when Kane would’ve leapt away. “He held me while I cried and yelled and screamed. He held me when thunderstorms drove me to hide under my bed and even when I didn’t want to be held. We never had any other kind of relationship.”
Kane closed his eyes, his chest expanding as he drew in a deep breath then let it out in a shaky rush. He hurt. For the boy Syren had been and the man he was. The burden was way too much for one man to bear.
“He brought me into his world and he gave up a lot, a hell of a lot for me. He even brought someone in to look after me when he had to run errands.” He smiled that sad smile. “She was a pickpocket, willing to do anything for a meal and he paid her to watch out for me. Somehow she never left us.”
Kane had to smile at that. “You’d formed a family, a band of misfits.”
Syren grinned. “Exactly right, and for a long time we were good, but it didn’t last.” His smile dropped away. “He loved me more than he loved her.”
“Why would you think that?” Kane frowned. “I’m sure—”
“I heard them when I was around nineteen. She’d seen the way he looked at me and she wanted him to look at her that way.”
Kane leaned forward. “What way?” But he knew, what other way could there be with someone who looked like Syren did?
“I’d seen it too, but I pretended not to.” He chuckled. “I’m good at that, pretending. He wanted me, Henri wanted me and I wasn’t angry or repulsed or anything. I was just sorry.”
Kane didn’t get it. “Why sorry?”
“He was lonely. He’d given up everything to be there for me and Isa and I wanted to see him smile all the time. I wished I could feel for him what he felt for me.” He locked eyes with Kane. “I’d have been happy to be with him, to make him happy, but I didn’t feel that way for him. I knew he was in love with me, but he never once brought it to me and I never once spoke of it to him or Isa.”
“Oh man. I can’t imagine this life you describe to me. I can’t imagine how you can sit here with me now and not be a raving madman.” He cupped Syren’s jaw and the other man laughed.
“Maybe I am a raving madman.” He winked. “You haven’t seen me first thing in the morning. I’m a bitch.”
Kane brushed the tip of his nose. “I bet you are.” He wanted to see that, Syren first thing in the morning. His heart raced at the implications of such an action. Simply thinking about it felt like a betrayal. To distract himself he searched for more answers in the hopes of unraveling the mystery of the man whose face he stroked.
“How did you get to Delatorre?”
“Actually.” Syren made a disapproving sound. “It was not that hard. Loyalty is what Delatorre likes in his men so I found a job as a gofer at one of his other businesses and when I saw the man skimming off the top, I let Delatorre know. I was in.” He snorted. “I brought him business, gave him extra ways to make money when all his other contacts were getting locked up or killed off.”
Syren’s doing, Kane would bet.
“I expected more truthfully, and on that principle alone I decided he had to be taken down. No one that clueless should be in his line of work.”
Kane chortled.
“I worked my way up. Henri and Isa hated it. They worry about me.”
“Where are they now?”
A cloak of sadness fell around Syren again. “In Paris, in the same house.” He waved a hand. “Except now Henri’s dying of pancreatic cancer. He’s on his last legs.”
“I’m so sorry.” Kane touched his shoulder. “He means a lot to you.” That much was obvious when Syren mentioned Henri’s name. “How old is he, your Henri?”
“He’s sixty-five, twenty years older than me.”
“And soon he’ll be leaving you.”
“Yes.”
Kane pulled Syren into his arms, smoothing his hair as he whispered in his ear. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could take away your pain. All of it.”
Syren hugged him tight and buried his face in Kane’s neck. They held each other as Syren sat in his lap, his legs around Kane’s waist. Their embrace felt real and raw and right. Kane got choked up inhaling Syren’s hair.
“Of all the things I imagined when my brother called you the other day,” he told Syren softly, “this so wasn’t it.”
Syren huffed out a breath against his neck. “He did the right thing, you know.” He leaned back and met Kane’s gaze. “I would’ve told you eventually, but not now. Not this soon.”
“Why not?”
Syren glanced away. “Because it’s so fucking heavy and it drives home how messed up I am, the baggage I carry and why this should never work.” He gestured between them. “I wanted to have a chance with you before you knew just how bad of an idea the two of us together really is.”
As if Kane didn’t already know. Only days ago he’d thought of Syren as the bad guy and that was reason enough, but this, his past. Did he want to get involved in any of it?
He pressed their foreheads together. “Gabe thinks you’ll hurt me,” he said softly.
“He’s right.” Syren’s breath heated Kane’s face when he spoke, whispering back, “Your brother knows this could never be anything but a bad idea.” His fingers crept up Kane’s left shoulder and delved into his hair, nails scraping his scalp.
Kane shivered.
“But you must want this,” Syren murmured, “if you discussed me with your brother.”
“I—” Syren’s knuckles grazed the shell of his ear and Kane lost his train of thought. He cleared his throat. “He asked about my date with Vince and I told him Vince wasn’t who I wanted.”
“Vince. Right.” Syren didn’t release Kane but instead pulled back a bit, meeting Kane’s gaze with eyes clouded with heat and something else. “How did the date go? Did you enjoy it?” He leaned forward and nosed Kane’s neck, his breath and lips skating over the exposed skin there.
Kane growled low in his throat and tightened his fingers on Syren’s left shoulder. “The date was…fine. He kissed me.”
Syren paused infinitesimally, but Kane felt it. “Of course he did.” Sharp teeth nipped his lobe. Kane slid his fingers into Syren’s hair and tugged.
“Syren.”
The man in his lap shuddered. A full-body shaking that echoed in Kane’s crotch.
“Don’t keep me in suspense, Marshal.” Syren’s tongue traced the curve of Kane’s ear and he groaned. “Did you like his kisses? Is he a better kisser than me?”
He wiggled and Kane gasped. “Damn, I— I don’t know.” He lifted his hips to press against Syren. “I don’t know.” Fuck. Heat licked his skin and he wasn’t looking to be cooled down anytime soon.
Syren stopped all movement. “Why is that, Marshal? Why don’t you know?”
What the fuck? Twenty questions at a time like this? Was he supposed to think? “Syren.”
Lips closed around his lobe. Syren sucked him into his mouth, warm and wet and God, so hot. Kane couldn’t stop shaking. “I—I’ve never kissed you so I don’t—”
Syren lifted his head and peered down at him. “Time to remedy that, don’t you think?”
Yes. Yes. “Fuck yes.” He lurched forward and sealed their lips together. They stayed like that, lips pressed to each other, just feeling, then Syren shifted, parted his lips and oh fuck.
Kane dived in, groaning as Syren latched on to his tongue and sucked. He twisted his fingers in Syren’s soft hair as his eyes rolled back. The taste of Syren, warm and sweet, carnal flavored with the untried, went straight to his head and groin.
His head spun, his entire body throbbed, but nowhere as intensely as his cock. Syren must’ve felt him there, nestled against his ass, because he rocked back.
Then forth.
Kane yanked on his hair, but Syren merely whimpered and sucked harder on his tongue. Oh fuck. Oh Jesus. Kane fought to breathe, to think. To remember why this, them, was such a bad idea, but he came up with a blank. He pulled Syren tighter against him and ground up, the evidence of Syren’s arousal heavy and trapped between their straining bodies.
He slid his hand down Syren’s back carefully, because he hadn’t forgotten the ugly scars there, and cupped his ass through his clothes.
“Hmm.” Syren moaned into his mouth.
Kane kneaded him and Syren trembled. God. The responses were heady. The way Syren reacted to his every touch. The sexiest thing ever. He tried slowing down the kiss, gentling it, but Syren was in control and having none of it. He chased after Kane with his mouth, capturing him, feasting on him like a man starved.
Kane wanted to hold back, be careful, but all he could do was go with the flow, get swept away with Syren’s kisses. Every swipe of Syren’s tongue was a welcomed touch, a much-needed salve, precious commodity he wanted to hold on to forever. Every grunt, every moan, every sigh was music and he’d been deprived of it so he gorged, tightening his hold on Syren’s hair and meeting him thrust for thrust.