“This is the third time you’ve tried to kill me and my men,” Kai said calmly.
What? Shivers went up my spine. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“The first time, you went to prison. I let the police handle you.”
Kai’s hand fit around that gun like his own glove, like he’d been holding guns since he was three, like it was second nature to him.
“The second time, you went to a psychiatric hospital,” he continued.
The guy began crying, shaking his head, moaning. He crouched down, covering his head with his hands the way the flight attendant had been moments earlier. He rocked back and forth on his heels.
“No. No. Please, no,” he repeated. “Don’t do this.”
Kai crouched down close to him. “You lost your family to a drug deal. You blame me for those drugs. I took pity on you. I understand how grief can make you do bad things. I gave you mercy the first time, and the second time my sister pleaded on your behalf. She knew your wife, said you were a good man. You were a janitor at a hospital where she volunteered. My brother remembered you too, said you were a good worker there. That was the last time.”
I sat back, no longer cowering behind the seat.
“No, no, please no. Don’t do this. No, no, please no.” He spoke faster, the words running into each other until he looked up and saw me. He stopped speaking.
Kai looked.
His eyes darkened.
He was mad at me. I didn’t care.
I couldn’t look away from this man. He was skinny, his face gaunt as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Seeing me changed something in him. The crying stopped. He sat up. He no longer cowered.
Kai stepped back to give him space, stepping back again as the man stood.
The man never looked away from me.
Kai stepped to block me, but the man yelled, “No! No. I am about to die. I want to stare into the eyes of a woman.”
A savage growl ripped from Kai. “Get her out of here!” he barked at his men.
“No! She’s your woman, yes?”
There was no response. Two of the guards moved toward me, but I held them off. Shaking my head, I stood too. My legs were weak, but I wanted to see this. I didn’t know why. Maybe I didn’t want to be the one cowering in the back? Maybe I didn’t want to put my head in the sand, knowing what was going to happen but letting Kai shield me from it?
I stepped out, putting a hand up as another of the guards tried to block me. “No. I want to give the man what he wants. We all know what’s going to happen anyway.”
He wouldn’t hurt me. He couldn’t. Kai wouldn’t let that happen.
Something whispered to me in the back of my mind. I should stop this. I should try to help him. He was sick—that was obvious—but I remembered waking up to his screams. I remembered the flight attendant. I remembered the other two times Kai had spoken about.
Even Jonah, even Brooke. They wouldn’t have fought for this man again.
They were Bennetts, like Tanner said. It blazed inside of me now.
Kai was a Bennett. Kai was the leader of the Bennetts. He would not let this happen again, and because of that, I said, “Let him see me. Please, Kai.”
The last guard moved aside, so I stood a few feet behind Kai. The man shifted to the side to see me around him.
I was a ball of writhing nerves.
There’s a feeling in the air when you’re about to see someone die. Your gut clenches, and what’s about to happen, you know is wrong. But thinking about it in that brief moment, I couldn’t think of a time when someone’s death had felt right. Maybe if life has been lived to its fullest or the person is crippled in pain with no hope…but I’d never seen that happen.
However, in this moment, I knew the wrong feeling wasn’t about him dying. The wrong was about how he had lived, the pain and anger that must’ve been with him.
I was guessing because as I stared into that man’s eyes, I only saw death. Whether it was his, his wife’s, his child’s, I didn’t know. But I saw blackness, and I felt a cold emptiness