Cain

by Lane Hart

  Ivan shrugs. “Why would you want to know? That would make you an accomplice.”

  “We’re not gonna let you go kill someone on your own,” I tell him. “I may have to get the fuck out of dodge soon with Gabby; but if you need my help, I’ll come back.”

  “Ditto,” Knox agrees.

  “Well, I’m still looking for him. I don’t have a name or shit on him even after six years. All I remember is that he has a huge, crescent-shaped scar on the right side of his face.”

  “Damn, that sucks he killed your mom, man. I’m sorry,” I mutter, handing the gun back to him.

  “Do you want to keep it? Take it with you?” he asks.

  “First, I have to convince Gabby to leave,” I reply. “I don’t think she’s gonna make that easy because of her fucking brother, and time’s not on my side. I’ve only got two weeks.”

  “Two weeks? But you just had a fight,” Knox says. “Why is Mario setting another one up so soon?”

  “No fucking idea except he wants me to lose, the sooner the better,” I answer.

  “That son of a bitch is up to no good,” Ivan responds. “Between fixing fights and now this shit, who knows what he’s thinking...”

  “I know what he’s thinking,” I tell them. “The same thing every other mob boss thinks about — nothing but evil fucking shit. I’ve got to either get Gabby out of town or figure out a way to win.”

  “Hmm. Which way do you think Vaughan swings between you and Robbie?” Knox asks.

  “No idea,” I answer. “Why?”

  Grinning, Knox says, “I was just wondering if he would be opposed to helping you cheat.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Gabby

  Cain comes into the bedroom quietly about an hour after dinner. The sun is still up outside, so the room is filled with light; but I’m in my pajamas, curled up in bed.

  “You still awake?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  I watch as he undresses silently while trying to decide if what my brother told me earlier could be true.

  Did Cain really set a fire that ended someone’s life?

  When he climbs underneath the covers in nothing but his tattoos and black boxer briefs, he reaches for my face, then kisses me sweetly, and I know that notion is ludicrous. Cain may act like a tough bad ass, but he’s a sweet guy on the inside. There’s no way he would hurt someone on purpose.

  As our lips and tongues meet, everything else disappears. All the worries and lies surrounding my brother are pushed far away as I cling to Cain’s thick biceps.

  “Want me to make you feel good?” he whispers while kissing down my neck.

  “Yes,” I answer breathlessly with a nod.

  A second later, Cain’s hand is slipping into my panties and finding that magical spot only he’s ever touched.

  “Oh God,” I moan.

  “You like that, angel?” Cain asks, prodding my opening with the tip of his finger.

  “Yes.”

  “Leave with me,” he whispers softly.

  “Cain –” I start to complain about his timing on bringing this up when his mouth slants over mine. I get lost in the erotic rhythm of his tongue thrusts and fingers.

  The pressure between my legs builds as I get closer and closer to a release.

  Pulling back, Cain says, “We could finally be together if we left town. Just you and me, doing whatever we want in bed…”

  “Cain,” I moan, both from the pleasure and because of his words. I grip him by his shoulders, holding him to me tighter as my inner walls clench.

  “Let go, angel,” Cain whispers into my ear, and I splinter apart on his command.

  When I float back down, his lips are peppering kisses on my cheek until he reaches my mouth again.

  “You know I would do anything for you, right?” he asks, making my heart skip a beat.

  “Yes,” I reply.

  “It’s too dangerous to stay here, Gabby. We’ll be better off taking our chances somewhere else. Anywhere else. Please come with me.”

  “No,” I tell him without hesitation. “You’ve risked enough for me. We’ll just have to figure something else out.”

  “What would that be?” Cain asks, his voice rising. “There are no other options! Mario owns us.”

  Reaching for his scruffy jaw, I tell him, “I’m not gonna dance on some stupid pole, okay? If it comes to that, we’ll leave, but I don’t think it will.”

  “You’re underestimating that asshole.”

  “If he tries to make me do that, I’ll tell you. Until then, stop worrying and concentrate on fighting.”

  “Easier said than done,” Cain grumbles.

  “Who are you fighting next?” I ask, running my fingers through the sides of his hair and playing with the curl that almost falls into his eyes.

  “Nobody you know,” he grunts. “Don’t worry about me fighting. You just watch your back at Escapades, all right?”

  “Yeah,” I agree, giving him a peck on the lips. “I’m sure everything will be fine.”

  …

  Cain

  Since I’m not willing to throw Gabby over my shoulder and carry her ass out of this town, the next day at the gym I try to focus on nothing but my training and figuring out a way to win.

  Too bad that, on the way home, everything goes to shit.

  I’m walking back with Ivan and Knox when I spot the black and white cruiser sitting right in front of our fucking apartment door. The words on the side of the vehicle label them as Raleigh PD.

  “Oh, fuck,” Knox mutters my sentiments as the three of us slow our pace. “What did you do, Ivan?”

  “Nothing,” he replies.

  It only takes a second for me to put it all together — Robbie’s making good on his promise. I told Gabby he sold her, and so the asshole went and fucking turned me in.

  “I think they’re here for me,” I whisper to the guys when two uniformed police officers climb out of the car. The pig closest to us on the passenger side even unsnaps his gun holster.

  Shit.

  “Are one of you boys Cain Knight?” the officer coming around the front of the car from the driver side asks.

  “That’s me,” I say with an exhale since there’s no point in denying it. If I try to run, I could get shot; and then I’ll still end up in jail for even longer when they tack on the resisting charge.

  “We need you to come with us to the station,” the cop states the obvious.

  “What’s this about?” Knox asks him.

  “We’ll discuss that with your buddy,” he answers.

  Goddamn Robbie.

  “Fine. Let’s go,” I reply. They can discuss whatever the fuck they want to discuss, but I sure as shit won’t be answering any of their questions. I know enough from the streets that my ass better remain silent until I have an attorney with me.

  “Bro, are you sure about this?” Knox asks.

  “Yeah, go on inside. Just, when Gabby gets home, don’t tell her yet,” I add. When I don’t come home for days, someone will have to eventually break the news to her that I’m locked up, but right now, it’s too hard to even think about how upset she’ll be.

  “Everything okay?” Ivan puts his back to the cops and murmurs so they won’t overhear.

  “Oh yeah. Absolutely,” I lie, slipping my hands casually into the front pocket of my jeans to look calm even if I’m a goddamn mess on the inside. The truth is that I don’t know what will happen once I get to the police station.

  Do they have enough evidence to charge me, or are they just on a fishing expedition?

  I hope it’s the latter, since the case had been cold for several years until Robbie ran his mouth.

  “Keep your hands out and where we can see them unless you want them cuffed behind your back,” one of the dickhead officers says when he opens the door to the backseat for me to get inside.

  The fact that they’re not cuffing me has to be a good sign, right? Unless they’re just trying to get me to the statio
n without spooking me. Once I’m inside, I may not be leaving for twenty to life except for when I’m transferred from the local jail to the state prison.

  Either way, I don’t seem to have a choice, so I pull my hands from my pockets and keep them in plain view before climbing into the back seat.

  On the way to the station, the two cops are quiet, listening to the police radio and not giving anything away. And fuck, I’m so damn nervous my heart is racing and my knee won’t stop bouncing up and down. I’ve got to get myself under control, look calm and innocent rather than anxious and guilty.

  At the police station, I follow the two uniformed fuckers inside, and they come to a stop in front of a desk where a woman sits, her head bowed reading a file. The officers stand silently waiting until she looks up through her long and wavy auburn hair. That’s when I notice just how young and pretty she is.

  “Detective, this is the kid,” one of the cops informs her. Damn, she’s a detective? And I barely refrain from commenting on the “kid” label.

  “Cain Knight?” the woman asks while giving me a careful once-over from head to toe. When I don’t respond, she holds out her hand, palm up. “Hand over your wallet.”

  I arch one of my eyebrows before asking her, “Do you have a warrant for it?”

  A small smirk pulls up her lips before she responds. “Fine. Go find an empty room for him and make sure he stays put,” she orders the two officers.

  “Let’s go,” one says, staying close but thankfully not putting his hands on me. He leads me into a small room with a little wooden table and two mismatching chairs on either side. “Sit and wait. Detective Horton will talk to you in a few.”

  Nothing else to be done at this point, I pull out a chair and spin it around to sit down in it backward. I’m trying to portray that I’m not the least bit concerned about why I’m here when the truth is I’ve been having nightmares about when this moment would happen for almost four goddamn years.

  I should’ve kept running, but that’s not easy when you’re fourteen without a penny to your name. Scarfone took me in, gave me food, shelter and a home. He promised I would be safe there as long as I stayed put and fought for him when I turned eighteen, and I was. Now I sort of regret taking that easy way out. But at the same time, if I hadn’t stayed around here, I never would have met Gabby a few months later…

  The long wait, unfortunately, gives me plenty of time to second-guess every decision I’ve ever made in life. It feels like hours pass before the female detective finally comes into the room, her black pants suit prim and proper, her heels click-clacking on the tile floor.

  “Mr. Knight,” she says when she takes a seat across from me and places a manila folder down on the table. “I’m Detective Horton, homicide division. Do you know what a homicide is?”

  I just stare at her because that question is damn insulting.

  “Since you dropped out of high school your freshman year, I wasn’t sure how intelligent you would be. I didn’t want to assume anything.”

  Another fucking insult and her way of telling me that they’ve done their homework.

  The bitch is trying to get a rise out of me, so I slouch further in my backward chair and rest my head in my palm to wait her out.

  “I bet you can guess why you’re here today,” Detective Horton says. Opening up the file, she flips through the sheets of typed documents inside. “For the first few days after the fire, the investigators thought you were dead too, burned to ash like poor Donald Moore, but then the fire inspector determined the cause of the fire.” She pauses to build up the suspense before she starts to read from one of the reports. “It was determined that the fire originated in the living room. The source was pinpointed to an overturned kerosene heater. However, the fire spread rapidly; and based on burn patterns, investigators are certain that some type of accelerant must have been used. Therefore, they conclude that the fire was intentionally set and are categorizing the damage as the result of arson.” Looking up again at me, the detective says, “See, that’s when the experts figured out that someone must have poured the accelerant. Seems very unlikely that Mr. Moore would commit suicide by lighting himself on fire.”

  I keep staring at her without saying a word, even if I am surprised that they were able to figure out that many details.

  “You knew Mr. Moore, correct? In fact, based on the address listed on your school records, you and your mother lived with him in his mobile home for four years. You don’t need to respond to any of that; I’m simply stating facts,” she explains with a wave of her hand. “Another fact is that your mother died on August 5, 2011, due to complications from a bad case of pneumonia.”

  My jaw ticks at that memory, one I’ve tried for years to suppress of my mother’s unmoving body lying in the hospital bed hooked up to all the ventilators and shit…

  “I’m sorry that happened to her,” Detective Horton says softly. “It must have been hard dealing with her loss and not having anywhere else to go. Since there are no records of any other relatives, you, unfortunately, had no choice but to remain in the custody of her boyfriend, Mr. Moore after she passed.”

  I lower my eyes to the floor as all the shitty, broken pieces of my childhood come flooding back.

  “Did you blame him for her death?” the detective asks me.

  Fuck yes, I blamed that asshole! My mom was sick and needed help. The bastard didn’t want to spend the money for her to go to the doctor, so every day for two weeks she got worse until I found her one day after school. She had stopped breathing. I called for help, but by the time the ambulance arrived it was too late. Without any oxygen for so long, she was alive but brain dead. They eventually pulled the plug on her life support when it became obvious that they couldn’t save her.

  If only I hadn’t fucked off after school with my friends, maybe I could’ve saved her...

  But no, that’s not why I killed him.

  “Did he treat you badly?” the detective asks, causing my eyes to lift to hers in disbelief because what the fuck? Is she a goddamn mind reader?

  “After you went missing, your teachers told officers that you had recently started showing up to school with bruises, black eyes, and busted lips,” she explains. “Did Donald Moore do that to you?”

  I yawn in response, refusing to admit to anything, because they’ll only use it as a motive.

  Leaning on her forearms to get closer, Detective Horton says, “You know, if he was abusing you, with the teachers’ statements backing that up and your age at the time of the fire, we could probably get you off on a misdemeanor. You’ve just got to tell us what happened that night, so we can close the case.”

  Yeah right.

  When I still refuse to say a word, she finally sits back in her chair with a heavy exhale. “Why don’t I give you a few minutes to try and refresh your memory. I’ll check back with you soon.”

  That’s when she stands up and leaves me alone in the stuffy room with the file. And no, I can’t resist spinning it around to me and reading through the reports or looking at the gruesome photos. All that was left of the bastard was charred remains.

  Do I regret what I did that night?

  Fuck yes.

  I was an angry, abused teenager who snapped.

  After six months of beatings, starvation, and mourning my mother while watching that asshole nearly drink himself to death but refuse to feed me a breadcrumb, I couldn’t take it any longer. If there had been someplace else for me to go, I would’ve left sooner. That’s the only thing that kept me in that hellhole for months. Finally, I just lost it.

  After my mom died, I hated going to school. I was constantly made fun of for wearing dirty clothes and smelling awful because all I had to wash with was the hand soap in the boy’s bathroom and the fucker wouldn’t buy laundry detergent. I also hated Moore and blamed him for not taking care of my mother or me. So in a fit of rage that night when he was beating, I did something I couldn’t ever take back. And then instead of calling for help to
put out the fire, I ran and left his drunken ass there to die.

  By the next morning, I had made it on foot to the other side of Raleigh, several miles away from the destruction I left behind. Scarfone himself found me hiding in the alley behind one of his bars and took me to the house. After that, I remember Mrs. Engle cooking for me and eating so much food I nearly made myself sick. But more than that, my bruises and body aches healed; and I felt safe for the first time since I lost my mom.

  The guilt of what I did ate away at me a little more each day. It was almost too much to bear before Gabby walked through the door. She was a beautiful, blonde angel who needed me to take care of her. By doing so, I felt a little bit less like a monster and a little more human again.

  I owe Gabby for pulling me out of that darkness. It never went away, but I could pretend it was buried so deep it couldn’t reach me.

  Now, with my secret uncovered, I’ll have to hope they don’t have enough evidence to charge me. If they do, I’ll have no choice but to deal with the consequences of my actions.

  Robbie Kelly better hope they arrest me and never let me leave here again; because if they do, he’s dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Gabby

  “Cain should be home by now,” I say to Knox and Ivan, who have been sitting in the living room way too silent ever since I came in from school. It’s almost nine o’clock, and Cain didn’t come home for dinner, which is very unusual.

  “He’s training hard. His next fight is coming up fast,” Knox replies. The fact that he won’t meet my eyes and he’s not making a joke cause me to worry even more.

  “Maybe I should go check on him,” I suggest again.

  “No!” They both yell, getting to their feet as if they’re going to try and prevent me from leaving. “You need to get ready for bed,” Knox says.

  “How can I sleep when I don’t know where Cain is?” I shout back at him.

  “Cain’s a big boy,” Ivan mumbles. “Don’t worry about him.”