A hard as Marcie wanted to ask Kaden to come back, Kaden wanted to ask Marcie again to join him. He wanted her here at his side, he wanted her to meet Lil T, who was technically more her brother than his. And he kept thinking about hugging her, about her voice when she told him that he was her kid, even though Kaden had spent the last eleven days feeling less like a kid than ever before in his whole entire life.
He wanted to tell her all this, but a rumble caught his attention. An engine of a car outside.
A car should not have seemed unusual. The carpark was a long stretch shared by the diner. There were always cars outside, but something about the engine of this one got into Kaden’s bones.
He stood up slowly and made his way to the window, one hand on Lil T’s back, and watched as the door of the black car opened, watched the driver climb out, his mind frantic in denial.
"Marcie-" he whispered, in horror. "Marcie I think he's-"
Kaden had seen Ares before, a couple of times over the last few years. Always from a distance, always when Ares was busy with something else. His brothers’ boss had never deigned to notice him, before.
Ares got out of the car and looked directly at his window - and Kaden had never felt more noticed in his life.
He yelped into the phone, bolting backward like the curtains had caught fire.