Marcus Kane - The Street Rat husband : An Hidden God

Chapter 1

Six men in black suits cut through the Eastmere International Airport like a blade through cloth.

Travellers pulled their luggage aside. A woman scooped her child off the floor. Security guards at the checkpoint reached for their radios, then looked at each other and decided against it.

The leader of the squad, a tall man with a scar running from his left ear to his jaw, stopped at the information desk and flashed a photograph. The girl behind the counter pointed toward the east exit with a trembling finger.

He found Marcus Kane sitting on a metal bench outside the terminal, one leg crossed over the other, a cigarette burning between his fingers. No luggage. No phone in his hand. Just a man in a wrinkled shirt watching the smoke curl into the evening sky like he had nowhere in the world to be.

"Young Master Kane."

Marcus didn't look up.

"Young Master, your father sent us. He wants you home. He misses you."

Marcus took a long drag and let the smoke leak from his nose. His eyes stayed on the runway, on the planes taxiing in the distance, on anything that wasn't the man standing in front of him.

"Which father are we talking about?" His voice was quiet. Almost bored. "The one who threw me out at fifteen, or the one who married his mistress three days after my mother's funeral?"

The squad leader swallowed. "Sir, Master Kane's health is failing. He regrets what happened. He wants to make amends before it's too late."

"Too late." Marcus turned the words over like he was tasting something rotten. He finally looked up, and the squad leader took a half step back without meaning to.

Those eyes. Cold and flat and absolutely empty of anything that could be called mercy.

"I was fifteen years old. Sleeping in the back of a fish market because the shelters were full. Eating from garbage bins because no one in the great Kane family of Thornwall remembered I existed." He crushed the cigarette under his heel. "And now his health is failing, so he sends dogs to fetch me."

"Young Master, please."

"You know what they call me in the East?"

The squad leader knew. Every man in the squad knew. That was why none of them had drawn their weapons, why their hands hung loose at their sides, why the one at the back had sweat running down his temple even though the evening was cool.

Marcus stood. He was taller than the squad leader by two inches, leaner, with the kind of stillness that belonged to men who had stopped being afraid of anything a long time ago. He had earned the title of the supreme war lord East at eighteen. He was twenty seven now. Nine years of building a reputation that made grown men flinch when his name came up in conversation.

"Tell my father something for me." Marcus stepped closer. Close enough that the squad leader could see the thin scar on his neck, the one that ran just above the collar. "If they send another team after me, I won't send them back."

He let the sentence sit.

"I'll bury them."

The squad leader's jaw tightened. He gave a sharp nod, turned on his heel, and walked back toward the terminal. His men followed in a tight line. Not one of them looked back.

Marcus watched them go. The tension left his shoulders slowly, like water draining from a cracked glass. He pulled his phone from his back pocket and dialed.

Two rings.

"It's done?" The voice on the other end was clipped and efficient.

"Callum. Everything in place?"

"Apartment's ready. Car's in the garage. New identity documents are in the drawer by the kitchen sink. You're Marcus Cole now, if anyone asks."

"Good."

"You sure about this? Eastmere's a long way from Thornwall. If your father finds out you're here instead of halfway across the continent, he'll send more than six men next time."

"Let him."

A pause on the line. "What exactly are you looking for in Eastmere, Marcus?"

Marcus reached into his pocket with his free hand. His fingers found the small square of cellophane, crinkled and faded and soft at the edges from years of being held. A sweet wrapper. Strawberry flavoured, the kind that cost two coins at a corner shop. The kind a child would buy with the only money she had.

He could still see her face. Small and round and dirty, with a gap between her front teeth. Standing in front of him in that alley behind the noodle shop, holding out the sweet in both hands like it was something precious.

He had been sixteen. Starving. Shaking from the cold. Three days without food and his ribs showing through his skin like piano keys.

She couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve. Barefoot, in a dress that was too big for her, with bruises on her arms that made his chest hurt worse than the hunger.

"Here. You can have it. It's my only one, but you look more hungry than me."

He had tried to refuse. She had pushed it into his hands and run away before he could give it back, her laughter bouncing off the walls of the alley like a bell.

That was fifteen years ago.

"Someone I need to find," Marcus told Callum, and ended the call.

He slipped the wrapper back into his pocket, careful as a man handling something made of glass, and started walking toward the parking lot.

Somewhere across town, in the grand ballroom of the Millennial Hotel, a different kind of war was being fought.

Quinn Sterling sat in a high backed chair at the centre of a long table, her spine straight, her face carved from stone. Twenty three years old, dressed in a white gown that cost more than most people made in a year, with her dark hair pinned up and a string of pearls at her throat.

She looked like a queen.

She felt like livestock at an auction.

Twelve men sat across the room in a curved row of chairs, each one holding a numbered card. Suitors. Hand picked by her grandfather, Sebastian Sterling, patriarch of the Sterling family, a man who believed daughters were currency and granddaughters were investments.

Her mother Diane stood near the door, arms crossed, her face tight with the kind of fury that lives right under the surface of a polished smile. Her father Edwin sat at the far end of the table with his hands folded in his lap, looking at the tablecloth like it held the answer to a question nobody had asked him.

"This is disgusting." Diane's voice was low, meant only for Edwin. "You're going to sit there and let your father auction off our daughter like she's a piece of furniture?"

Edwin didn't look up. "It's not an auction. It's a selection. Father knows what's best for the family."

"What's best for the family." Diane's laugh was short and ugly. "Your father thinks Quinn is a bargaining chip. A tool to secure alliances with families richer than ours. And you, you spineless, gutless excuse for a man, you're going to let him do it because you've never once in your miserable life told that old man no."

"Keep your voice down."

"Why? So the suitors won't hear? So they won't know they're bidding on a girl whose own father doesn't have the backbone to protect her?"

Quinn's fingers curled around the arms of her chair. She didn't look at her parents. She looked straight ahead, at the row of men who were studying her like she was a horse they were considering buying. Some of them smiled. One of them winked.

Something hot crawled up the back of her throat.

Sebastian Sterling entered through the side door, leaning on a cane he didn't need, flanked by two assistants. Seventy eight years old, with a full head of white hair and the kind of smile that never quite reached his eyes. He looked at the room, at his granddaughter, at the row of suitors, and nodded like a man surveying a deal that was already closed.

"Gentleman," he announced, spreading his arms. "Thank you for coming. You're here because you represent the finest families in the state. Wealth. Influence. Bloodline. Everything the Sterling name deserves to be paired with."

He turned to Quinn. "And this is what I'm offering. My granddaughter. Top of her class. Saintess rank. Beautiful, obedient, and from the most respected family in Eastmere."

Quinn's jaw locked. Her teeth pressed together so hard her temples ached.

Obedient.

He had called her obedient in front of twelve strangers like it was a selling point. Like it was a feature listed on the side of a box.

"Grandfather." Her voice came out flat. Controlled. Ice over a bonfire. "I'd like a word. In private."

Sebastian waved a hand without looking at her. "After the selection, dear."

"Now."

The room went still. Sebastian turned, and for a moment, something sharp flickered behind those watery blue eyes. Then the smile came back, wider than before, the kind of smile you give a dog that just growled at you.

"Gentlemen, please excuse us for a moment. Help yourselves to the refreshments."

He walked toward the private function room at the back. Quinn rose from her chair, smoothed her gown, and followed him. Diane grabbed Edwin's arm and dragged him along.

The door closed behind them.

"You will not embarrass me in front of important guests," Sebastian spoke first, pointing his cane at Quinn.

"Embarrass you?" Quinn's voice stayed level, but her hands shook at her sides. "You lined up twelve men like I'm a prize to be won at a carnival, and I'm embarrassing you?"

"You are a Sterling. Your marriage is not your decision. It belongs to this family."

"My marriage belongs to me."

Sebastian laughed. The sound was dry and hollow. "You sound like your mother. Full of opinions, empty of understanding." He glanced at Diane. "I see where she gets it. Like a stray dog that keeps barking no matter how many times you kick it."

Diane's face went white. Edwin looked at the floor.

"Don't talk about my mother like that." Quinn stepped forward.

"I'll talk about whoever I please, however I please, in my own hotel, at my own event." Sebastian leaned on his cane and looked at Quinn the way you look at something stuck to the bottom of your shoe. "You think you matter because you have a Saintess title? Without this family's name, you're nothing. A leech with a pretty face. I built this empire while your father sat in corners collecting dust, and your mother filled this house with noise and complaints like a broken radio."

Edwin flinched but said nothing.

Diane's eyes burned. "You old bastard."

"See? Barking again." Sebastian turned his back on her. "Quinn, you will go back into that room. You will smile. You will be gracious. And you will accept whichever man I choose for you. This is not a request."

Quinn stared at her grandfather's back, at the pressed line of his suit, at the liver spots on his hand wrapped around that cane.

Her throat burned. Her eyes stung. But she would die before she let him see it.

"And if I refuse?"

Sebastian looked over his shoulder. "Then I cut you off. Your parents too. Every account, every property, every connection. You'll be out on the street by morning, all three of you, with nothing but the clothes on your backs." He paused, letting it sink in. "Your mother can bark all she wants from a gutter. Let's see how loud she is then."

He walked out of the room.

The door clicked shut behind him, and Diane turned on Edwin with tears streaming down her face.

"Say something. For once in your life, say something."

Edwin opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at the wall.

Quinn sank back into her chair, her fingers gripping her knees, her knuckles white against the fabric of her gown.