The Mafia Boss’s Innocent Prisoner Chapter 09
BASTIAN
Tamsin returned every gift.
The first was a diamond necklace.
It came back unopened with one line written across the delivery slip.
You cannot decorate a scar away.
The apartment I bought for her came back too.
So did the car, the bank card, and my offer to pay every
dollar of her tuition.
She accepted only the corrected records.
She won a new scholarship without my help.
That mattered to her.
It took me too long to understand why.
For years, Theo and I had used power as the answer to every problem.
If a door closed, we bought the building. If a man
refused, we found his weakness. If someone
threatened the family, we removed them.
Tamsin did not want my power.
She wanted a life in which no Kane could reach into her
future and change it.
I cleared her name anyway.
Every capo, club owner, hospital board member, and
lawyer who had heard she was a rat received the truth with my signature under it.
Theo lost his crew, his accounts, and his place in the
family business. I did not do it for Tamsin. She had asked for no revenge.
I did it because a man who used the family name to
punish a woman could not be trusted with it.
Vivienne survived the shot to her arm. She lost the
protection her father had purchased for her. The family court gave her to the state with enough
evidence to keep her behind bars for years.
None of it brought Tamsin back.
Ten months after she left the hospital, she graduated.
I went to the ceremony.
Six black sedans stopped outside the school. Men stepped out first and secured the sidewalk.
It was how I entered every place.
Tamsin came down the front steps in a blue graduation
gown. Her friends surrounded her. She was laughing.
Then she saw my cars.
The laugh disappeared.
I understood my mistake before she reached me.
Even my apology had arrived like a raid.
“I told you not to follow me,” she said.
“I came to congratulate you.”
“You brought twelve armed men.”
I looked at Malcolm.
“Clear the street.”
He gave the order. Doors closed. Engines started. One by one, the cars moved away until only mine remained.
I removed the Kane ring from my hand and put it in my pocket.
“No boss,” I said. “No family. Just me.”
Tamsin held her diploma against her chest.
“You don’t know how to be just you.”
“I’m trying to learn.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
She looked sad.
That was worse than anger.
“I believe you,” she said.
Hope hit me before I could stop it.
“But every time I see you, I remember the knife. I remember the locked door. I remember waking in your
bed and believing I was safe.”
My shoulder ached where Vivienne’s bullet had passed through.
It was nothing compared to the damage I had done to her.
“Is there any future in which you forgive me?”
“Maybe I already have.”
“Then why can’t we try?”
“Because forgiveness doesn’t rebuild trust.”
She stepped closer.
The scar I made was pale now, but it remained beneath
her right cheekbone.
“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life helping you forgive yourself, Bastian.”
I had faced loaded guns without fear.
Letting her walk away took more strength than pulling any trigger.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Stop watching me. Stop sending things. Let me build a life that doesn’t have your shadow over it.”
Every part of me wanted to refuse.
I was Bastian Kane. I took what I wanted. I held it until no one dared reach for it.
That man had already destroyed her once.
“All right,” I said.
Tamsin searched my face.
Then she nodded and returned to her friends.
I watched her leave.
I did not follow.