I’d looked over to the other side of the SUV, and he’d been standing there.
I’d sucked in my breath.
Everything had paused for a second—it was like the world felt a full glitch.
I had not been prepared for Kai Bennett.
Then again, how could I? It’s not normal. He’s not normal.
In photos, his pull was excessive, but in person? It was astronomical.
He’d looked up and sought his sister first. Brooke had stilled, as if feeling his gaze, and then his eyes had moved to me.
I’d felt a punch in the sternum, along with a full blast of ice.
He was cold. He was calculating. And he was ruthless. I felt it all at once.
The air had sizzled around him, power coming off of him in waves as he’d rounded the car to stand beside their father.
I’d felt a tug in my gut toward the elder Bennett. He was dangerous too. I couldn’t have explained how I knew, but I felt it. I could taste it. Brooke’s father wasn’t the more dangerous of the two. Kai was. I couldn’t take my eyes from his face. And he knew it—and how I felt that too, I had no idea.
He’d known the effect he had on me, and it wasn’t normal, but he didn’t care. A wave of embarrassment washed over me, heating my neck and cheeks, and it was only then that I tore my gaze away to bring Brooke closer to me. I wasn’t sure if I was comforting her or myself.
“Papa,” she’d rasped out, her body stiff in my arms.
“My daughter.”
My skin had crawled when I heard his voice.
I’d tried to check my reaction, but when I looked away, my gaze skimmed over Kai, and his nostrils flared. He knew what I felt in response to their father; I couldn’t hide it. Instead, I lowered my head and held still. I was a statue, the way I’d been when my father paced the house, in the moments his anger left their bedroom.
“Dude!” A hand waved in front of my face.
I crashed back to reality. It left a sour taste in my mouth.
I was here in the cabin, not at the school. Not on those steps. Here, Cowtown. Calgary. I wasn’t there anymore, but man, I felt trapped in the past.
“Riley.” Carol’s head turned as she spoke to someone. “She’s out, like out out. It’s weird.”
Carol stepped backward as Blade came forward.
I pulled myself out of my memories and gazed at them, standing together as they regarded me, their arms crossed over their chests.
“I’m fine. Sorry.” My insides trembled. I coughed and tried to steady my voice. “I mean it. I just got…shaken for a bit.”
Blade grunted. “I’ll say.” He went back to his computer and turned off the news a second later.
They stared at me.
“You know the Bennett mafia family?” Carol asked, speaking almost as gently as Mrs. Patricia had all those years ago.
That was the crux of it all. Even all those years ago, I’d known who they were.
There’d been another time, one I didn’t piece together until later when I’d heard my father speak of them, and he’d been scared. He’d been on the phone in his study, and I’d been passing by the door. I’d heard him and stopped.
I’d never heard my father scared, and he was terrified that day.
I’d pressed my ear to the door, and I hadn’t moved until he’d ended his phone call. I didn’t know who the Bennett mafia were at that point. I just knew the name Bennett made my dad nervous, and I’d figured that was a good thing to know. A very good thing to know.
Maybe I should’ve put two and two together the first day I met Brooke, but it hadn’t been like that.
Brooke was bubbly. She was one of those girls who could’ve had anything or anyone, even at that age, and she was still nice. That amount of power corrupted a person, but not her.
Even though she was an extrovert and lively and opinionated and loud, she was warm and mostly down-to-earth. Okay, maybe not down-to-earth, but she was kind. That overrode everything.
She was humble. She was extra, but she was humble.
That had said so much to me, even back then, and as I looked at the black screen where her brother’s image had been not long ago, I wondered if she