Undressed By His Arrogance-Chapter 305: Are You Fucking Kidding Me?

The police escorted him down the long driveway. He kept his head down, jaw clenched, refusing to give the press the satisfaction of eye contact. He reached his car, keys already in hand. He got into it quietly.

"Mr. Kane?" one officer said sharply.

"What?" Tom snapped, temper flaring back to life. He was tired. Sore. Humiliated. This day needed to end.

The officer’s hand went to his holster in one smooth motion. The gun came out, pointed firmly. Professionally. "Please step out of the car, Mr. Kane."

Tom stared at him in disbelief. "Are you fucking kidding me?" he shouted. "Will you people make up your goddamn mind? First you ask me to leave, now you ask me to stay."

"Step out of the car!" the officer barked, louder now.

Tom huffed in exasperation, throwing his hands up theatrically as he pushed the door open. "Fine. Fine. Jesus Christ." He stepped out slowly, wincing as his ankle protested. "What now?"

"Mr. Kane, is there any reason why you have blood dripping out of your trunk?"

Tom was certain he’d misheard.

"What the hell?!" Tom snapped, limping closer despite the officer’s raised hand. He bent slightly, peering at the rear of the car. There it was. A thin, unmistakable trail seeping from the seam of the trunk, dark against the pristine driveway.

His stomach dropped.

The cops exchanged looks—quick, wordless, efficient. One of them nodded. The other stepped forward, hand steady as he reached for the trunk latch. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

The trunk popped open.

Sharona lay inside, her body twisted unnaturally, blood staining the lining of the trunk in chaotic patterns. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing. The woman who had once demanded more money, more power was silent now.

Dead.

"What... what... how is this..." Tom stammered. His knees felt weak. He hadn’t touched her. He hadn’t seen her in weeks.

"Mr. Kane, please put your hands behind your back," the officer said.

"No—no, this isn’t—this isn’t..." Tom protested weakly. Cold metal snapped around his wrists as the officer read him his rights.

After that, it became a circus.

In less than twenty-four hours, his stepson had dismantled his carefully curated image on national television, dragging decades of rot into the light. His wife had aimed a gun at him, shot up their bedroom, evicted him. And now this—now he was being framed for murder.

As they shoved him into the back of the cruiser, Tom finally understood what had been clawing at the back of his mind all day.

He was under attack.

Winn.

"Well played," he muttered to no one, to everyone.

*****

While Tom sat in holding, stripped of his dignity, everything else in his life came apart.

One by one, his business partners began dissolving their associations with him. Contracts suspended. Men who had once laughed too loudly at his jokes suddenly couldn’t be reached. Phones went unanswered.

By late afternoon, the headlines had shifted.

Not just Sharona Kane found dead under suspicious circumstances—but Tom Kane under investigation for financial misconduct. Someone had leaked. Or rather, several someones. Files had been sent anonymously, meticulously compiled, to the fraud department. The SEC had opened an inquiry. Years of quiet corruption he had believed buried under money and influence were now being dragged into the light.

Tom sat back, his lawyer’s voice echoing in the background of his mind as he argued about lack of evidence or witnesses, alibis. Tom barely listened.

Because he knew.

Winn.

He had to give it to the boy—no, the man now. This was brilliant. Ruthless. Patient. Tom had always wondered if Winn had learnt anything useful from him. Apparently, he had. Winn had dismantled him from the outside in.

The irony stung. He’d taught Winn how to survive sharks, how to read people, how to exploit weaknesses. And now, those lessons were being used to drown him.

When the interrogation finally ended, when the lawyer ran out of breath and optimism, Tom was escorted back to holding for the night. The heavy door slammed shut behind him.

He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He needed this, whether he wanted to admit it or not. He needed the quiet. He needed to think. To plan.

Because one way or another, Winn had drawn blood and he was going to lose his head.

*****

Winn had his mother settled in Orchard Ville for the night.

The Kane Estate was officially a crime scene.

Yellow tape cordoned off the gates. Forensic vans lined the long driveway. Uniforms moved through the property, cataloguing evidence, photographing rooms Winn had grown up in.

Anna didn’t even wait for the door to close behind them. "I need a drink."

Winn kicked the door shut and leaned against it for a moment, watching her cross the living room. "You need food and sleep," he said gently, pushing away from the door and heading toward the bar.

"Sleep?" She dropped onto the sofa, rubbing her temples with trembling fingers. "How do you sleep after something like this? How did I let it get to this, Winn? How did I let my life turn into... this?"

He’d asked himself the same question too many times. "I don’t know, Mum," he said quietly. "You refused to see it. Or maybe you saw it and told yourself it wasn’t that bad. People are very good at lying to themselves when the truth is unbearable." He poured her a modest finger of brandy and carried it over.

She accepted the glass. "Ugh..." She took a sip and exhaled slowly, shoulders sagging. "I still can’t believe he killed Sharona. I mean, I’m not saying she didn’t deserve whatever hell she ended up in, but Tom?" She shook her head. "I didn’t think he was capable of something like that."

Winn sat across from her, one ankle resting over his knee. Oh, Mum, he thought, Tom is capable of worse than that. He’d seen it. Lived it. Survived it. "Kane men tend to surprise you, don’t we, Mum?"

(@Missy, thank you for the gift.)