Innocent Eyes

by Charlotte E Hart

  I catch them, grinding them as I stare.

  “I don’t understand why Joe’s being so serious. I was drunk. I didn’t know what the fuck I was saying. He should never have—”

  “What? Taken you seriously?” I stand at that, looking him over like the pain in my ass that he is. “You think Joe wouldn’t take a shot at having Cane goods if he had a chance?” I wander over to him, just holding back the need to blacken the other eye. “The fuck were you thinking? You offered my property on a game of cards, Josh. Mine.” The last of it roars from me, my hand fisting the dice and wondering if I should just throw the fucking things anyway, family be damned. Perhaps fate will deliver an answer for this screw up.

  “I just wanted to prove—”

  “That you’re a waste of space.” I finish the sentence for him, annoyed that he’s even fucking speaking. Three fucking days that cunt’s been on my back, asking when I’ll have the keys for him. It’s three days I’ve counted the loss of money we’ll make because of a damn card game that should never have taken place. “How many times have I covered your ass now?”

  I back away before I do something stupid, like strangle the shit.

  “Calm down, Quinn. Just let Joe have it. We’ll cover it with next years launder.” I spin on Nate, scowling at his level approach. My patience is about done here. I’ve no intention of giving Joe anything. I shouldn’t have to, regardless of the honour in debt.

  My dice crush again, reminding me that I’m in control of our future, not Josh. I need him gone, safe from my anger if nothing else. Nate smiles, knowing exactly what’s pissing me off more than anything to do with Josh’s screw up.

  That fact pisses me off further.

  I snarl at him and round back to my desk, shouting for Rody as I sign some papers. He comes in, a stern expression on his face as he glances at Josh.

  “Get this dick out of my sight and on a plane to the old family home.”

  This time Josh doesn’t protest. He stays silent, giving me a chance to think about how the hell I outmanoeuvre Joe. Maybe if I just raise the amount they’ll fuck off, until then, I don’t want Josh anywhere near harm.

  “Come on, son,” Rody says, a softening in his tone as he opens the door and waves Josh to him. Son—the term irritates me, but not as much as the fact that Rody was the last person to see Emily.

  I scowl at him, too, and scrawl another paper, too wound up to ask the fucking question I want to. She’s the real reason I’m confused. I can’t concentrate. Everything is overblown and exaggerated. This thing with Joe should be easy, manageable. In fact, I should be enjoying it and playing the fucking game like I always do. I’m not.

  “And don’t fucking come back until I call for you, Josh. I’m warning you.” His feet stop midway across my office, the hesitation proving his disdain for my thoughts. I look up at him, my last thread of patience drilling into his eyes. “You get back on a plane before you’re told and I swear, Cane or not, I’ll pull the fucking trigger myself.”

  He nods slowly, capitulation apparent, but his eyes tell me a different story. They always do. They did when we were young, and they still fucking do now.

  Deceitful, entitled little shit.

  “Quinn?” Nate says, his body rising in the other corner, nerves in his tone. I stand immediately, scattering papers from my desk and slamming my fist on the top of it. Josh stumbles back, sucking in breath and all but tripping over the rug.

  “This all fucking ends now. Do you understand, Josh?” Nothing happens. No movement. No nod from either of them. I walk around the other side again, ready to rip his useless tongue out of his skull, but Nate moves closer. I halt and sneer at his brotherly show of affection, unsure if Josh deserves that from either of us anymore. “This is your last fucking chance, Josh. Get out before I regret that thought.” He does, his body backing along the wall until it slides through the open doorway and Rody follows him through it.

  A long sigh comes from me as I stare at the opening, my body trying to calm down. What a fucking mess. Gambling my casino away on a drunken flip of a card? He doesn’t deserve anything Cane. If he wasn’t one he’d be dead by now, my own hands throttling the life out of him.

  “You could just call her,” Nate says.

  I turn and grab my phone, tucking it into my pocket as I slam the laptop closed and head from the room. Call her my ass. She’s nothing to me. I told her the dice landed on seven, even though they didn’t, and gave her a choice. Perhaps I hoped she’d choose to stay. She didn’t. She chose to fucking leave me. Her call.

  He catches up with me, his stride falling into step with mine as I turn through the back doors and out onto the road.

  “What are you going to do?” he asks as we wander on past my car.

  “Walk.” He keeps walking with me, pulling his coat higher as we weave the crowds and aim forward. Christ knows where to. I just need to walk, get some of this energy out. “Then go see Joe personally. See if I can smooth this fucking thing over before he sends his dogs in.” Nate doesn’t speak as I keep forging on. He’s clever like that. Gives me space to think. Unlike Josh who just keeps pushing me.

  “I meant about Emily.”

  I stop, my body hovering around the pavement like a fourteen-year-old who got his dick touched.

  “What?”

  “Emily.”

  I stare at him, fucking annoyed at his self-righteous attitude and longing to beat the ever-loving crap out of something.

  “She’s gone, Nate. Debt paid.” As it should be. Fucked with and released. “Finished.”

  “Is she fuck. Look at yourself,” he snaps, his hand waving over my suit. “The Quinn I know wouldn’t have been concerned about old Joe stripping a casino. He would have thrown it at him and then won it back the next week. The fuck’s going on with you?” I glower at him and walk on again, hitching my dick back into place and refusing to enter a conversation about her. There’s nothing to talk about. She’s gone. That’s all there is to say. “And what the hell are we walking for?”

  I don’t know. I just need to walk.

  By the time I look up from my walking I realise Nate isn’t with me anymore. I tuned him out after fifteen minutes of continued attempts at talking to me about Emily, and kept my head focused on how to organise Josh instead. Nothing has clarified itself.

  I need a fucking drink.

  Three turns around city blocks and I walk into Candy’s whore house, not sure why I’m here. Perhaps I need to fuck something. Something dirty. Something that’ll remind me of the filthy high-end whores I fuck, not the innocent eyes I can’t stop imagining.

  My own eyes draw around the interior, checking out the clientele who frequent these joints nowadays. It’s the same as it’s always been. Scum.

  “Well, well, well. Cane. What you doin’ here? You lowering yourself to walking the whore’s boards?” Hardly.

  I sneer at Tony as he walks over to me, his hand already fisting the inside of his jacket for a gun. Fuck knows why. Just because I don’t come in here doesn’t mean I don’t pay him money on occasion.

  “Put it away, Tony. It’s as much use as your dick.” He cools his grip on it, relaxing his hand back down and turning us both into a waiting area.

  “What can I do for ya?”

  “Drink.”

  One of the girls comes waltzing in almost instantly, a bottle of scotch in her fingers and a glass in the other set. I look her over, watching the way she oozes everything a good whore should. Perfect figure. Lean body. High tits, and legs that go all the way up. She’s a stunner alright. Hair perfected in a chignon, and glistening lips that beg to have something rammed inside them.

  I’m not the slightest bit fucking interested.

  It pisses me off further than I already was.

  I snatch the drink she pours and down it, holding it up for her to fill again. Then down another one, hoping my dick remembers what the hell it should be thinking of. It doesn’t, so I take the damn bottle, throw a wad of dollars at T
ony, and leave.

  I end up walking circles around Chicago, no clear route for anything, until I eventually arrive back at the car. The last of the liquor sinks down my neck and I toss the bottle towards the trash, aiming my keys for the car. I’m going to see Joe. Sort this mess out. Who the fuck does he think he is? He should have known Josh was drunk. He did know Josh was drunk. Fucking wasted I should think. Honour amongst debt? I choke on the thoughts as I pull the door open then slam my fist onto the steering wheel. It’s no way to do business. He’ll have a fucking chance at me rolling my dice before he gets a fucking thing from Cane wealth. I don’t care who his family is, or how much he took from us before. He’s not fucking taking it again.

  The car screeches onto the highway, my foot flat on the accelerator as the engine roars and revs the roads. It’s all a blur. I can barely see the lights, let alone think of stopping for them. Sirens blare somewhere, making me pump the gas for more power. There’s nothing left, causing me to slam the brakes on, heave the wheel, and rocket the fucking thing down into dirty back lanes. It gives me time to think some more, analyse shit without the continued scream of sirens. I don’t give a fuck who tries to catch me. I’ve got everyone in my pocket. If they managed I’d smile and flick them off, more cash tossed out at them. No one says no to Cane. No one can touch me. No one scares me. And no one fucks with me.

  Apart from the old cunt I’m heading to.

  And her.

  I slide my gun out, laying it in my lap as I slow down into the groves. More prosperity passes me by, the huge houses reminiscent of those of movie stars and their happy families. I sneer at it all. Nothing is happy around here. We’ve forgotten happy. Left it behind us so we don’t have to remember what it was like. If some of us ever even knew what it was.

  Her song comes into my head as I gaze at Joe Mortoni’s gates, the lilt of it at odds with the carnage that could be coming. It might be melancholy in some ways, might even be sad, but it’s full of light, and breezy, too, its summer days in this winter gloom descending. Light for my dark.

  I lean out of the window to press the buzzer to the house, but the gates swing open without a hitch, my number-plate already recognised as I drove up to them. Such is this computerized life we live. No men with guns stand here now arming the gateway. Not like they did when I first entered this world. No, they’ll be waiting up there for me, their weapons unclipped and ready for use should I try anything. They’re right to be concerned, the mood I’m in, who the fuck knows what’s about to happen?

  My tongue rolls over my teeth as I drive the incline, watching the house come into view. Four men wait, two of them talking into ear pieces. I snort, wishing Josh was here to earn his keep for ten minutes. Perhaps he should see this sometime, understand this gritty side of business that I’ve tried to pull us all from. It might help him understand why I keep him out of it. Why, even after his fuck ups, I still want him safe and out of this fucking life I hover over.

  Marco wanders out, his tailored suit framing him and his eyes trained on my arm like a goddamn pit bull. I’m not surprised. He knows as well as I do how these situations can play out, especially given our conversations over the last few years.

  I slide my slice of heaven back in it’s holster and get out, hands slow to move as I aim for sober and walk towards him.

  “Quinn,” he says.

  It’s not a greeting like our last meeting at the casino, more a fucking warning. It’s one I pay no heed to as I keep going past him to get to Joe. Marco doesn’t pull enough damn ropes yet, irrespective of him suggesting he did. He won’t until his father ends up like mine, unable to leave his room for lack of oxygen. Or dead. It’s a damn shame because this whole fucking situation wouldn’t have happened if he was in control.

  He falls into step with me as I stare around, our bodies turning in unison through the house, suits depicting the image of decency. We’re not, not as much as we portray. We’re fucking lingering, that’s what we are. Neither in nor out of this damned world we were forced into. Guns still ready should they be necessary and yet no real desire from either of us to use them anymore.

  A chuckle comes from me as I see the card table and remember the last game here a year or so ago.

  “You ever get any better at poker, Marco?” I won a half a million that night. And two nights with his girlfriend. She was hot. Sucked dick like a pro.

  “Fuck you, Cane.”

  Obviously not.

  “Ah, Quinton Junior.” My hackles shiver in repulsion, fingers gripping my dice for fear I might shoot the old man before he gets another chance at talking. “That gun holstered?” I nod, scanning his face and barely pushing away the thought of him holding Mother down. “Brought my keys?”

  “No.”

  He leans back in his plush chair, slowly lifting his crystal glass of liquor and sipping it just as Marco moves behind him. Joe smiles as I keep watching, noting another guy that’s come in from a side room.

  “Won it fair and square, Quinton. Your father was more honourable with his debts.” I crick my neck, remembering the look of my mother only a few days ago, her hands holding the book out in defence.

  “Josh was drunk, Joe.”

  “You should learn to control him better.” I sneer at that and move to the seat opposite him, unbuttoning my jacket. “Like I do my boys.” He chuckles and pours me a drink.

  I flick my gaze to Marco, knowing damn well the crap he’s had to go through to be controlled. It’s the same heavy-handed guidance I took from my own father for years.

  I take the drink offered, brushing my trousers off, and glance over my shoulder at the other guy who’s moving in my peripheral. It makes me smile, blood rushing through my veins at the potential of this gun doing damage to this fucking family.

  “You and I both know my casino wasn’t his to gamble with.” I look into the fire, rolling my shoulder to ease the tension building there. “It wasn’t a fair game, Joe.”

  “Everything’s a fair game, Quinton. Your family knows that as well as mine.” My brow lifts, annoyance rising at the thought but acknowledging that fact.

  For some reason, Emily’s fiery little eyes come back at me from the flames, her sweet tune humming out notes that don’t belong in this room. Fair game. He’s right. It’s all fair game. Just like it was when I took what I wanted from her.

  The tune keeps coming, amusing me as my fingers roll the dice and I look back at Joe. Fair game. Just like these fuckers standing here now. I never have asked Marco if he was there when this old cunt fucked my mother, if he had a go himself. He would have only been thirteen at the time. Old enough to get his dick up.

  “You fuck her?” I ask, lifting my eyes from Joe and up to Marco hovering behind. He frowns and tilts his head, confusion written all over his face. “My mother? Did you get your dick inside her?” He looks at Joe, no intention of answering me.

  “Quinton, that’s a long time ago,” Joe says, clacking the crystal against his teeth as he takes another drink. The fuck it is. It happened yesterday as far as she’s concerned, and it happens every damn time I visit her.

  I stand up, rounding the furniture to get in front of Marco’s face. I know Joe did. Know his brothers did, too, and his cousins, but this ass? This one pisses me off the most. Years the two of us have played cards, gambled our nights away in some pretence of working together, but the fury still lies underneath my skin. It waits like a fucking storm, ready to destroy the thing that ruined my mother’s life and hinders progression away from this old school shit we both deal with.

  I stare at him, snarling at his lack of answer and wishing he had the fucking balls to get on with changing this family. We both know what needs to happen here so business can move the fuck on. Both know that a trigger needs to be pulled, signalling the demise of some more archaic tradition. He’s just not brave enough to do what needs doing.

  I am.

  “You fucking enjoy it, huh?” He just looks at me, still waiting for Joe to approve his answe
r. That thought alone makes me smile wider, knowing that he’s not allowed to answer for himself. Standing here with a gun in his coat, waiting for papa to tell him what to do with it? He should grow the fuck up. Do what needs doing rather than fucking around with the half thought. “Still daddy’s little kid, huh?” He glowers at me, his frame moving a step towards me. I laugh, hearing the safety being released on the gun from the other cunt in the room.

  “Quinton. This isn’t revenge. She paid your family’s debt. That’s all it was.” I snap a mocking glare at Joe, as he finishes his self-righteous speech, then flick my gaze back to Marco. “Stow whatever thought you’re having, son.” Stow it?

  I laugh again, fever fuelling my blood to where it needs to be. This fucking thought’s been rattling my head for years. It’s time all this old school debt handling was removed from our lives so we can move the fuck on with real business. We’ve done it their way for too long. Years of doing as all the old men say. Not anymore.

  The room goes quiet apart from a crackling fire, and I continue staring at Marco, waiting for him to man up or leave so I can organise the next generation of Mortonis for him. It’s gone on long enough. Some fucking sham of honour making us do shit to women that has no damn room in our world any longer. My dirty girl’s proved that to me. That and the memories my mother shows me every fucking time I enter her room.

  “You done with this shit?” I ask, eyes still levelled at Marco and waiting for him to answer me.

  He frowns, then nods once, reaching for his gun. I don’t look at him any longer. I smile instead and put some fucking trust in the hope he’ll counter the gun that’s covering my back. Either fucking way, it’s time for the old man to die. Time for all this shit to be buried. If he can’t do what needs doing, I will.

  I stare past him out the window, feet backing me away to get in front of Joe again, and remembering Emily’s words about protecting the people I care for, wanting more. She spoke so softly about it, creating some image of smiles and love that’s never been a part of my life. It was as distracting as she was, still is.