The Cage (Book 2) ✔️

Blood in the Rearview

Blood in the Rearview

The van shuddered as it hit a pothole, jostling us for a moment, but neither of us moved away. Schneider stayed close beside me in the back seat, shoulder brushing mine, our knees occasionally nudging with the rhythm of the road. The silence between us wasn't void—it was layered, dense, like a riverbed packed with silt and stone, slow-moving but impossibly deep.

Cade had taken another vehicle to try and throw off our trail in case we were being followed.

Outside, twilight rolled past in slats of trees and fading sky, the pale violet hue above bleeding into shadows. Every mile we put behind us was another stitched seam on a trail of blood—one body cooling in a barn, another in a kitchen, both left behind in the dust.

Up front, Aiden sat quietly, one hand resting on Schneizel's thigh in a gesture that was too intimate to ignore, though neither of them said a word. Schneizel's jaw was tight, his fingers gripping the wheel with a familiar sort of tension, like he'd been driving toward war his entire life and had just been given the green light.

I drew in a long breath and let the rumble of the road settle something restless in me. Then I turned to Schneider, his face half-lit by the low, flickering glow from the dash. "I know why they took you," I said, my voice pitched low, "They wanted your elder brother, Kasian."

He didn't meet my eyes, but I felt the way his body tensed as if on instinct, like the name alone drew iron up through his spine. And when he remembered it was me asking, the tension in his body melted away and his hand shifted slightly beside mine, fingers curling inward.

"I just don't know who took you," I continued. "Or how they were so sure he'd come for you. What's the history there?"

The pause that followed wasn't empty—it felt like the moment before something old breached the surface. He looked ahead, jaw working quietly, before finally speaking.

"Nathan Drakos," Schneider said, and the name carried a chill. "His family's been at war with ours for decades. Something that started in our grandfathers' time, and festered with each generation after."

Nathan Drakos. A name for the monster that had haunted us without a face.

From the front seat, Aiden stirred. "Please tell me this isn't one of your brother's scorned lovers back for revenge," he muttered, with a glance toward Schneizel that lingered—long enough for me to notice, though not long enough for me to understand what I was seeing.

Schneizel didn't answer, but the line of his mouth thinned.

From beside me, I heard a snort.

It was Schneider who answered. "No. His younger brother died by Kasian's hand. I was just the bait to lure him out of hiding." His voice didn't carry anger, just something flatter, like resignation.

I turned more fully to face him. "What is it your brother does exactly?"

"He's the branch of the family tree that doesn't have a face and barely has a name," he said. "The one who does the things none of us want to admit need doing. If our father built the empire, Kasian keeps the rot from spreading. You won't find a picture of him anywhere in our house, but his fingerprints are everywhere."

Despite being the reason for his imprisonment, I detected no resentment toward his eldest brother. What I did hear was quiet respect.

I absorbed that slowly. Kasian Cross was the kind of man who made himself disappear on purpose. The kind of man who didn't need to be seen to hold control. A man to be reckoned with.

I barely remembered seeing him the night we rescued Schneider—just a blur of motion, a presence more than a person. There'd been blood in the air, mine, gun firelight flickering across the chaos, and someone moving through it like a shadow before I took a bullet. That was it. Barely a face and a voice to go with the name. Nothing solid enough to build a profile with.

"And this Nathan asshole?" I asked. "What's his grudge?"

"He used to run guns through the Baltics. That was his family's business. Until Kasian's people cut them off. His brother tried to retaliate, went after a shipment that wasn't his to touch. He died for it. Clean on our end. Bloody on theirs."

"So this is revenge," I said, more to myself than to him. But Schneider nodded.

"The motherfucker has been holding a grudge ever since. Waiting for a weak spot." A pause. "When I broke out of prison, apparently he'd been watching. He finally saw an opportunity. A way to draw Kasian out, who up until then had managed to stay off the radar. My brother's a veritable ghost when he wants to be. Not even we can find him if he doesn't want to be found."

I frowned. "How did he know Kasian would take the bait?"

"Because the one thing Kasian cares about the most is family."

There was no pride in his tone, but there was certainty. It settled over the space between us.

For a while, we didn't speak. The tires hummed against the road, and the darkness pressed in thicker now, like the world itself was listening.

"So he grabbed you," I said quietly.

Schneider didn't answer right away. When he finally did, his voice was flat, sounding detached like he was retelling something from years ago. "Hmm. Kept me strung up and half-alive, long enough to make sure Kasian noticed I was gone."
He paused, and something flickered in his eyes. Not exactly pain, but just the memory of it. Like a shadow that never quite faded, no matter how many lights you turned on.

"And when the manhunt failed," he added, "he started sending messages."

A shiver worked its way down my spine and my blood ran cold as arctic ice.

"What kind of messages?" I asked, already fearing the answer.

He looked at me then, eyes shadowed but sharp, as if he hadn't meant to tell me that. "Doesn't matter," he said tightly.

I didn't need the details spelled out. Footage. Pain dressed in digital frames and delivered like bait on a hook. Torture sessions captured on video in high defition.

I swallowed hard, the taste of metal rising in my throat.

"But it worked," I said. "The asshole Nathan got what he wanted. He lured your brother out of hiding."

"Not exactly. He still didn't catch him. Which is why none of us can ever get caught."

I turned my face toward the window, watching the trees flicker past in blurs and black lines. My fingers were cold, despite the warmth of Schneider's body beside mine.

The future was barreling toward us. And behind us, a trail of blood stretched out like a warning.

"Your brother sounds like someone who can take care of himself. So why is he running and hiding?" It was a reasonable enough question.

"He's got his reasons." Was all I got.

"What do we do now?"

"We do what we've always done." Schneider reached for my hand and took it in his, squeezing reassuringly. Our eyes collided and I felt a marvelous thing as I gazed into his gray eyes: the fear melting away like ice in a hot skillet, as if it was never there.

"What's that?" I whispered, close enough to steal a kiss.

"We fight back."

We kissed and Aiden and Schneizel did us a great courtesy by pretending not to notice. 

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

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