Kayne looked at her from the corner of his golden eyes. “Is something wrong?”
Fuck, why are my cheeks getting hot?
“No.” She cleared her throat and adjusted her crossed legs. “Sorry for staring, but did you hurt your finger?”
“A long time ago.” Flaring out his fingers on the steering wheel, he looked down at it while also showing her how it was just ever so bent inwards. The crook of his knuckle went out, making it look like his pinky was at an acute angle. “Like I had said, I used to get into a lot of fights.”
Fuck. She must have it bad to have noticed it subconsciously and given him the same pinky in her dream.
“You never got it fixed?”
Shaking his head, he laughed and returned his hold back on the steering wheel. “Just wrapped it up myself and, knowing me, I probably just moved on to the next fight. None of us kids from Blue Park really had any money to go to the hospital. Our parents told us to dust it off. I strangely like it now. It reminds me of who I used to be.”
“You were that bad?” she asked, still in disbelief, even with the proof right in front of her face.
“I was. I got pretty close to spending the rest of my life behind bars, like my father and brother.”
Maria had to lick her bottom lip that was becoming dry. “How close is pretty close?”
“Pretty fucking close,” he assured her, dropping his teacher façade for a moment. “I got myself into juvey a couple of times, but the last time, I thought I might’ve been there for good. And since it wasn’t my first offense, they were threatening to charge me as an adult. I got lucky when my teacher bailed me out, vowed to put me on the straight and narrow, and gave me one chance.” He stressed the importance of those final words.
“What do you think changed in you?” Maria wanted to hear what he thought as she wondered if he realized he hadn’t really changed at all if she could see what was underneath.
“Discipline. The one thing that I lacked in my life.”
Sad with that answer, she truly felt that he was just so good at masking his old self that he believed it. Kayne seemed to think that part of him died, yet Maria could see that part of him still lived dormant, waiting for the day it would be resurrected. And I have every intention of waking him up.
The curve of her lip turning upward made her have to look out the side window.
“What about you? Any lasting effects from having a father like Dante and a brother like Lucca?” he asked, taking his eye off the road to look over at her.
Hearing about the troubles of his father and brother had her dropping her guard and answering honestly. “Nope. I guess, fortunately for me, I was born a woman, so I was never given the chance to possibly fuck up my life.”
Confusion had him repeatedly turning his head between the road and her face. “How so?”
Trying to think of how to politely put it without giving too much away, it took her a second before she spoke. “Women can be easy targets in my family’s … line of work. My mother died for my father’s sins, and since that day, I have been put on a shelf, so to speak, forced to put up with decisions made for me.”
The pressure Kayne used to hold on to the steering wheel seemed to lighten. “Nothing is stopping you from making your own choices, Maria.”
At the cautionary tone in his low voice, she turned her head toward him. She thought she saw Kayne turn his head to smile, but she might have imagined it.
“It’s not that easy.”
“It never is.” Kayne lifted his hand from the steering wheel to show off his pinky. “Usually, it takes a lot of pain and soul searching.”
Maria decided to lighten the mood, knowing what it would take for her to be able to walk away from her family and her so-called life. It wasn’t what she wanted, per say, but she was still Maria-fucking-Caruso. “Breaking that little pinky couldn’t have hurt that bad.”
Kayne almost roared with laughter, turning his face back to the road. “It hurt like a motherfucker, and it still does when it rains.”
“Mr. Evans”—Maria playfully dropped her jaw—“I’m truly shocked that coarse language keeps escaping your mouth in my presence.”
“I’ve got news for you, Maria”—Kayne shot her the most sinister smile she had seen from him yet —“I didn’t say I left all my childhood behind me. There’s still a lot about me you have yet to find out.”
Oh, I plan on it. That smile took her out, giving two thuds in her chest that had her missing the warning shot he gave her with his eyes.