Marcus Kane - The Street Rat husband : An Hidden God

Chapter 3

"Truly, Quinn. An outstanding husband. Grandfather must be so proud…..”

The slap came before anyone saw it move.

Marcus's open palm connected with Alexander's cheek so hard it snapped the younger man's head sideways, sending him stumbling into the stone railing of the courtyard. The sound cracked across the silence like a gunshot.

Quinn flinched.

Alexander caught himself on the railing, his fingers scraping against cold stone. He touched his face. His fingers came away clean, but the skin was already swelling, already turning a deep, angry red that spread from his jaw to his ear.

He stared at Marcus with his mouth open. Like a man who had just been bitten by something he thought was dead.

"You." Alexander's voice shook. Not with fear. With the kind of rage that belongs to people who have never been hit in their lives. "You filthy, worthless, street crawling piece of garbage. You actually put your hands on me?"

He lunged.

His fist came fast, aimed at Marcus's jaw, thrown with the sloppy confidence of a man who had never been in a real fight. Marcus caught Alexander's wrist in midair. His fingers closed around it like a vice. He twisted.

The snap was small and clean, like a dry branch breaking underfoot.

Alexander screamed. The sound tore out of him high and raw, bouncing off the courtyard walls, and his knees buckled. Marcus held the broken wrist for one more second, just long enough to make sure Alexander felt every degree of the angle, then let go.

Alexander crumpled against the railing, cradling his wrist against his chest, his perfect face twisted into something ugly and wet.

Marcus looked down at him. His breathing hadn't changed. His pulse hadn't moved. He could have been looking at a crack in the pavement.

"She's my wife." His voice was low. Flat. The kind of quiet that is worse than shouting. "Nobody talks to her like that. Not you… Not even your father… Not anyone in your family."

He turned to Quinn. She was standing three feet away, frozen, her lips parted, her eyes wide. The cold indifference she had worn all night was gone. In its place was something raw, something she couldn't hide fast enough.

Marcus held out his hand.

"Let's go."

Quinn stared at his hand.. at the bruised knuckles. Then, at the calm on his face that didn't match anything that had just happened.

She took it.

Marcus walked her out of the courtyard without looking back. His grip was firm but not rough, and he moved with the kind of purpose that made people step out of the way without being asked. Quinn's heels clicked on the stone path as she matched his pace, too stunned to speak, too confused to pull away.

Behind them, Alexander's howling faded into the walls of the hotel.

Alexander made it to his feet using the railing. His right wrist hung at a wrong angle, swelling fast, the pain so sharp it turned everything white at the edges of his vision. He stumbled through the side entrance and down the corridor toward the private dining room, leaving a trail of gasped profanity behind him.

Victor was inside, sitting with Sebastian over brandy, reviewing the evening's guest list like men tallying receipts after a successful sale.

The door crashed open.

"Father." Alexander's voice was cracked and breathless. He held up his broken wrist. "That animal broke my wrist. That lunatic street rat you brought in here, he attacked me."

Victor stood so fast his chair scraped across the floor. He crossed the room in three steps and took Alexander's arm, turning it gently, examining the damage with the clinical focus of a man who had seen injuries before but never on his own son.

"What happened. Tell me exactly."

"I was talking to Quinn in the courtyard. Just talking. And her new husband, that homeless freak, he slapped me. Then when I tried to defend myself, he grabbed my wrist and snapped it like it was nothing." Alexander's eyes were red and leaking. "Like I was nothing, Father. In front of Quinn. He looked at me like I was dirt on his shoe."

Sebastian set down his brandy. "The boy has violent tendencies. I told you about the hereditary condition. Bouts of insanity, unprovoked aggression. This is exactly what the file described."

Victor's jaw worked. His mind was already moving past the injury, past the insult, past the image of his son crumpled on the ground. He was calculating.

"We should throw her out tonight," Alexander hissed through his teeth. "Her and her crippled father and her loudmouth mother and that rabid dog she's married to. Toss the whole lot of them onto the street where they belong."

"No." Victor released Alexander's arm and straightened his cuffs. "Not yet."

"What do you mean, not yet? He broke my wrist!"

"And I will deal with that. But Quinn is managing the Langford Industries contract. The deal closes in eleven days. If we remove her now, the project collapses. Langford's people trust her. They won't work with anyone else on our side."

Alexander's mouth curled. "So we let her win?"

"We let her finish." Victor returned to his chair and sat down like a man settling into a plan he had already built in his head. "She does all the work. She brings the contract home. And the moment the ink is dry, we take the credit. The project goes under my division. The commission goes into our accounts. And Quinn and her little family of leeches get exactly what they deserve."

Sebastian smiled into his brandy glass. "Your father is right, Alexander. Patience is a weapon. Let the girl labour like the mule she is. When the harvest is done, the farmer doesn't thank the mule. He puts it out to pasture."

Alexander clenched his jaw, but the logic was clean and cold and impossible to argue with. He nodded once.

"Fine. But when this is over, I want that man destroyed. Not embarrassed. Not expelled. Destroyed."

Victor looked at his son with something close to pride. "You have my word."

Across town, Marcus pulled the borrowed car into the driveway of a small apartment building in the eastern district. Nothing fancy. Three floors, chipped paint, a buzzing light above the front entrance.

Quinn hadn't spoken since the courtyard. She sat in the passenger seat with her hands in her lap, staring through the windshield at nothing. Her jaw was still locked, her posture still rigid, but something underneath all that armour had come loose.

Marcus turned off the engine. The silence filled the car like water.

"This is the apartment," he told her. "It's not much."

Quinn didn't move.

He waited. A minute passed. Then another. He didn't push. He didn't fill the quiet with small talk or reassurance. He just sat beside her and let her take whatever time she needed.

Finally, she spoke. Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Why did you do that?"

Marcus looked at her. "Do what?"

"Hit him. Break his wrist." She turned her head slowly, and her eyes were different now. Still guarded, still careful, but there was a crack running through the ice, thin as a hair, and something warm was leaking through it. "Nobody has ever done anything like that for me. Nobody has ever stood between me and them."

Marcus held her gaze for a long moment. Then he opened his car door.

"You're my wife. That's reason enough."

He got out and walked toward the building entrance. Quinn watched him through the windshield, this strange man in a wrinkled shirt who had just broken the wrist of a Sterling heir without blinking, and something shifted in her chest. Small. Fragile. Dangerous.

She got out of the car and followed him inside.

The apartment was small and clean and smelled like fresh paint. Quinn stood in the living room and looked around at the bare walls, the secondhand furniture, the kitchen counter with a single set of documents sitting by the sink.

Her phone buzzed in her clutch. She pulled it out.

Thirteen missed calls from her mother. Four from numbers she didn't recognize. One text from a number saved as "Alexander S."

She opened it.

"Your mad dog broke my wrist. Enjoy your freedom while it lasts, cousin. When the Langford deal closes, you and your entire worthless family will be sleeping in a ditch. I promise you that."

Quinn's fingers tightened around the phone. The crack in her armour sealed itself shut, and the ice came flooding back, harder than before.

She looked toward the hallway where Marcus had disappeared.

What had he done? What had he started?