I felt my fingers close instinctively around the grip of my pistol.
My father stepped in front of me without a word. Protective. Steady.
Cain tilted his head slightly, like a lion studying an antelope. “Still playing the hero, are you, boy?”
His voice dripped with mockery.
I could feel Dad’s jaw lock, but he didn’t rise to it.
Cain chuckled, slow and sharp. “You always were weak. Soft like your mother. A disgrace to the bloodline.”
I couldn’t stop staring. I didn’t want to believe it—but I did. I felt it. The resemblance was undeniable. A shadow version of the man who raised me, twisted with rot.
Cain’s gaze flicked to me then, icy and assessing.
“And this,” he sneered, “is what you raised? This trembling little w***e who throws herself at the wolves like a b***h in heat?”
My lung
