Maybe it is. Oh God, I don't know what to think or feel. He's infuriating.
A soft knock at the door is almost immediate. “Carter, leave me alone. I thought me walking out was clear.”
“It’s not Carter, Fia.” Auntie Emily enters the room and comes to sit at the side of my bed. “I heard voices and wanted to check on you.” Her hand brushes the hair from my face as I cuddle up on the bed.
“How’s Uncle Quinn?” I croak.
“He’ll be okay. I had thought the days of bullet wounds were behind him now, but what can I say. Quinn is Quinn.”
“I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”
“No, it isn’t, young lady. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“My dad shot him. He came here because of me. I think your logic here is flawed.”
“You are not responsible for the actions of others. I’ve had to learn that over the years. It’s hard. Guilt has a way of eating you up and poisoning your view on things. But I know you’re a strong girl, just like your mother.” Even in the gloom of the room, Emily exudes calm.
“I don’t know what to do.” My words come out as a plea for help, and I suppose they are.
“What does your heart tell you?”
“My heart?”
“Yes. Another word of wisdom. The heart will often lead you in a different direction than your head. But it’s your heart that will take you to happiness. You're such a clever girl, but if you try to over think this, it’s not going to help you find your place in the world. Not now.” Her hand wraps around mine and squeezes it before she stands. “You are welcome here for as long as you like, Fia. You are family.”
“What about Carter?” I ask, watching her walk to the door.
“What about him? He is our family, too. What’s going on between you two doesn’t change how we feel about either of you." She opens the door and smiles, her hand resting on the edge of it. "Just remember he's not like you, Fia. He's a different kind of man than you'll have met before. He's had to be because Quinn taught him everything he knows. And believe it or not, your uncle was not a nice man once upon a time. In fact, he was an arsehole of the highest order. Still is occasionally.” I giggle lightly, watching as she keeps smiling. "Doesn't mean I love him any less, just that I choose to accept his faults. All of them."
With that, the door closes, and I'm left alone to think some more, no real direction in mind.
Thirty-One
For three days I’ve done nothing but work. Here at six, finishing at nine in the evening each day, all the time trying to do everything Quinn normally does as well as all my own shit. Nate’s helping. Even Logan is managing to up his game and stay on top of the things I’d normally contend with, but I hadn't realised how much Quinn still controlled until I accessed his documents and began working through them. I thought I knew everything; thought I could see the exact future the Cane brothers had mapped out in front of them. I didn’t.
Certainly not from Quinn’s point of view.
Which is completely opposed to Nathan Cane’s ideals.
Drugs are still rife in the business, as are the cartels, and Fia and her developments are tagged into his system, as and when she produces something good enough to contend with real world narcotics. It's a loose tag, but it's there written in code, like he's had it in his mind for as long as he's known about the possibility that what she’s working on will change the game.
“So, the New York deal will have to be put on hold for now. What the hell Quinn was doing over there on Vico’s turf, I don’t know, but we sure as fuck aren’t getting involved in it now,” Nate says, pacing by the window in my office. He pinches the bridge of his nose and puts down the folder he was leafing through. “I’m too old for this crap. I’ve got a mind to shoot him in the other leg when he gets here. Dick. Not that it matters now.”
I smile and lean back, about ready to move this Saturday afternoon to relaxing rather than working. My ribs still hurt like a bitch, I’m tired as fuck, and like it or not, diabetes is kicking my ass into remembering I’ve got it. “He’s coming in?” I ask, closing my laptop and standing.
“Yeah. We need to discuss things. Logan, too. Where is he?”
“In your servers. Said he was trying to interpret code for the forecasting now we can see Quinn’s own ideas of growth.”
“When the hell did he grow up?”
I laugh and crick my neck around, nodding at the sentiment. He has grown up in the last week or so. He’s proved himself at home with a gun in his palm, and now seems to be using all that Cane intelligence to prove himself here, too.
“Have you sorted things out with Fia yet?”
The smile drops from my face instantly.
No.
Not that I know what the fuck I’m supposed to be sorting out. I made it pretty clear I’m interested in her, more than fucking interested in her, and yet I’ve barely seen her over the last week, and when I have, she’s been nothing but polite and chaste. I even tried to corner her into talking to me, hunted her down and tried to force a conversation without just forcing getting inside her instead. But she closed that down with a Vico glare that was enough to end a fucking war.
“No,” I eventually reply. It’s all I’ve got. What the hell else is there when the woman who drives you crazy won’t even speak, let alone fuck?
“She’s just like her mother. Stubborn. You’ll need to learn how to handle that shit. Show her some emotion. You think you can find some?”
Unlikely. Still, the fact that my scar tightens every time her name is mentioned, almost like it’s restricting blood flow to my heart, should make me try harder than I am. Give more than I am. Never had to try before her, though. Not even sure how the hell I do that.
“You're as stubborn as a goddam mule, too. It's tough when it means something, Carter. Hard work.”
Logan suddenly appears in the doorway, T-shirt and jeans in place, and crosses to my desk to dump a raft of paperwork.
“Did you know he’s been buying up South American land?” he says, tossing the comment like a fucking grenade.
“What?” Nate spits.
“Yeah. Look,” he replies, waving his hand at the desk. “He’d buried it in metadata, created a new arm of the company, but it's all there. A lot of it. Seems to be mainly based around Columbia, Venezuela, some of Brazil.”
“What the fuck have we got to do with South America?” Nate asks, picking up the documents.
My mind flits back to those files I've been poring through since Quinn’s been recuperating, drugs firmly in the front of my thoughts again. Not that he knows I've been in his personal files, but what does he expect when all the decisions land on me rather than him. And then I remember Anchov Chelico's words.
“And you know how much damage my family will do to Cane in South America if you do that."
“What the hell has he been playing at down there?” I mutter.
“He’s been playing at making us stronger than we are.”
Quinn.
We all look back at the door to find him standing there, shoulder resting on the frame. He smiles and pulls in a long breath, shaking his head as he looks over at Nate. “I honestly thought you’d catch me siphoning money quicker than this, brother. You’re getting slow. Seems like my son is more like me than I thought.” He looks at Logan, pride in his eyes, and then flicks his gaze to me. “And you shouldn’t trust anyone. Me included. Why weren't you looking into me before three days ago? The files were easy enough for you to get into when I created them two years ago. Remember that going forward.”
What the fuck?
“The time is still right, though,” he says, pushing off the frame. “Meeting in my office, ten minutes. Carter, eat. You look pale.”
He walks away from us after that, limping, and leaves us wondering what the hell he’s talking about. Time’s right for what? All three sets of eyes in the room look at each other, trying to gage what the others might know. Both Logan and I shrug, no clue
what the meeting is about, and then Nate picks up his folder and storms out of the room, probably with one intent in mind: arguing with his brother.
“Well, shit. I’m not heading into that battle,” Logan says, making himself comfortable in the chair by the window. “He did hide it well, though. Took me a while to see it in the coding.”
It's not that information Quinn's talking about. Not with me anyway. He's talking about the personal ones I've been looking at, the ones involving things no one should be looking at. Cartels. Violence. A life everyone thought was behind them. Nate must know something, though. Even if I didn't. Surely.
“Why were you looking for something that wasn’t there, Logan?”
“He’s pops. There’s always something hidden somewhere. Guess I think more like him than you do.” The thought pisses me off instantly because it isn’t true, but the fact is my head’s been so messed up with Fia these last few weeks that I’ve concentrated less on business and more on her. “What do you have in here to eat?” Logan asks.
I cross to the fridge and pull out some drinks and food, dumping it on the small coffee table between the chairs and sitting with him to stare out the window. Fia Vico. She’s always in there, screwing around with my thoughts. Whimpers, moans. Christ, even the sound of her talking and laughing seems to keep rattling around my brain, forcing me to acknowledge a love I thought I’d never feel for anyone. And now what? After all this, she doesn’t want me?
“What do you think Pops wants?” I bring my blank gaze back to Logan, part of me not wanting to even find out. I should be back at home, hounding her until she damn well talks to me.
Or slaps me again. Or fucks me.
That’d be nice.
“Don’t know. Maybe he wants to talk about New York and how we deal with that now.” I open a bottle of water and guzzle some down, then pull at my tie until it’s gone from my neck so I can rub at my scar. Damn thing’s tighter than hell. “We had a lot linked up with Vico. We’ll need to consolidate and minimise the losses. Vico isn’t going to let business continue as was.” Especially given all the reading material I've been looking through lately.
“Because of you and your dick," he says. What the fuck?
My mouth opens to shut his down, but his grin as he bites into a sandwich makes me chuckle rather than explode at him. It’s true. All this has been because of me and my dick. Now here we are, a fucking mess of objectives and problems, and I’m not even sure if Fia and I are something anyway.
I look out the window again and sigh, glugging down some more water. “She’s alright, you know,” he says, wiping his hands. “Stuck up, but alright. Good catch for an asshole like you.” I snort and look back at him, wondering what’s changed his attitude this last week or so. Maybe we’ve all changed in some way because of her. “You can talk if you want, Carter. I’m here if you need to… you know, talk.” My eyes narrow at that, a slight curve of my mouth conveying disbelief. We’ve never been like that. I’ve never wanted to be either. He might be a Cane, but to me he’s still a kid. Maybe he’s not, though. Not now he’s held a gun and showed himself as worthy.
“Come on, we’ve got a meeting to get to,” I say, standing. “All this shit isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“Thanks, Logan. You’re welcome, Carter,” he chortles out, walking by me towards the door. “Great brotherly chat.”
Brothers. That’s new.
I watch him go, unsure how I feel about that and still too messed up with Fia in my head to give it the time it probably deserves. He is like one in a way, always has been even if I haven’t admitted it. He took his first steps with me in the room, got his dick in something for the first time after I took him out. I run my hands through my hair, fussing it to clear my mind of thoughts that have nothing to do with business. Later.
I’ll deal with it all later.
I grab at the protein bar and head out after him, striding down the hall to Quinn’s office. They’re all in there chatting when I turn into the room, three sets of documents out on the table behind them.
“Ah, good. Grab a pen,” Quinn says to me.
I look at him and reach into my pocket, no thought for why, as I watch Nate pull one out, too. “Get over here and sign this.”
Alright.
I walk over, protein bar still in my mouth, and lean over the document to flip the pages to signatory lines and get on with it. Nate comes up beside me, his own pen starting to scrawl lines. It's like a fucking production line. I sign, he signs. Over and over.
“Did you not hear my comment in your office?” Quinn says.
I look back at him over my shoulder and finish the last of my signatures, chewing until I’ve swallowed. “I am fucking eating.”
“No, before that. About trust?”
I back off the paperwork and stand upright, not having the first goddamn clue what he’s going on about. He leans back on his desk, arms crossed, and shakes his head. “What the fuck is going on in that head of yours?" Fia is. "You could be giving your life away, signing off Cane to someone else without questioning it. Smarter, Carter. All. The. Goddamn. Time.”
I look back and watch Nate still flipping pages, another signature going below Quinn’s already on the sheets. “What are you talking about, Quinn?”
“Read it first.”
I sigh and pick up the sheets, all fuck knows many of them, and head over to the window for some light. I couldn’t give a damn what I’m signing if he’s signed it first, certainly not if Nate’s happy to sign it, too. Whatever it is, it’ll be in the best interest of this company. Neither of them sign anything if it isn’t, but as I keep flicking the papers and read, I begin to understand what it is that I’m signing.
Executive board. Cane Enterprises.
CEO.
Carter Wade.
As directed by Quinton Cane and Nathan Cane.
My head shoots up from the sheets to look at them both, eyes flicking between them.
“The fuck?”
“We’re restructuring,” Quinn says, smiling. “Because we’re old.”
“You are. I’m not. I’m just tired,” Nate cuts in, finishing his last signature and stretching his back. "Plus, my wife is a witch if she doesn't get enough sun in the year." He heads over to the drinks cabinet, pulling out a bottle of tequila and four shot glasses. “This sits you at the top, Carter, Logan beneath you until he hits thirty. You can argue that point then.”
“But I…” I don’t know what to say.
I look over to Logan, wondering how he feels about this. It’s not like he’s ready yet, but fuck. Cane features stare back at me, neither smiling nor scowling at what’s happening around him. He takes a shot glass from Nate, and before I get a chance to ask any more, Quinn is at my side with another one for me. “You’re welcome.”
“What?” I’m in shock. Can’t think.
“I was saying you’re welcome. For the thanks you should be giving me.”
“I don’t understand.”
He clinks my untouched drink and backs away from me, heading for his desk.
“Well, better start getting up to speed. I’m going on vacation. Tomorrow.”
“You cannot give me all this, Quinn. I'm not even blood.”
He snorts and downs his shot. “Firstly, I’m not. I’m just putting you in charge of it so I can get old without being shot anymore. Emily would prefer it was you if anyone’s getting killed. Not me.”
My eyes widen, my drink still balanced in my hand until I start putting it the fuck down to talk some sense into everyone.
“And secondly, before you talk any more shit at me, you've always been blood, Carter. Always." He holds his finger up, stopping me from interrupting. "I just let you make your own choices. You chose to keep it distant. To me, you're as much mine as Logan. Always have been. Deal with it. And try not to get shot.”
"But…"
“It’s done, Carter. You’ve signed,” Nate says, picking up his things and heading over to me. He clinks his
glass on mine, too, downs it, and then snatches the documents from my grasp. “Thank fuck. I’m done. Enjoy Cane life.” He looks at Quinn. “Shall we go?”
Quinn nods.
What the actual fuck is happening here?
“Apparently, Logan knows everything I’ve been up to in South America,” Quinn chuckles, tugging the tie from his neck and chucking it on the floor. “Diamond mining. I’ll leave you to work the rest of it out. Not like you don’t know everything already, and Colombia’s always useful for other ventures if that clean product doesn't come to market soon.” He winks at me, smirking. And then he dumps his dice on his desk, a half hover as he looks at them and tips them to a certain number. “You might need those. I don’t anymore. Or this office.”
They’re both to the door without a second glance backwards, chuckling with each other about something. “Oh, and Fia’s in the boardroom. Waiting,” he calls back. She is? “Get your priorities in order. Can’t run a business with a fucked-up head.”
Shit.
And then they’re gone, leaving me both speechless and astounded. I stare at the empty doorway they’ve walked through, not knowing what the hell to do or say, and then look across at the dice there on his desk.
My desk.
“New generation, I guess,” Logan says quietly.
I slowly turn back to him, still all over the goddamn place, and take a good look at that face of his. It’s impassive, pokerfaced, as if everything here was either expected or condoned. I’m not sure which, though, and him extending his hand to me in congratulations doesn’t feel congratulatory in the slightest. “I’ll see you on Monday, Carter.”
I grip his hand tighter, waiting to feel something coming back at me that I don’t like. Nothing does, and his eventual smile calms the distrust I normally have in him down to nothing.
Besides… Fia.
He turns and heads for the desk, his hand swiping the dice from it before he walks out in the same direction as Quinn and Nate. I snort, thinking of those dice. Guess Logan deserves them. Not like they mean anything to me, anyway. Might have been nice to keep them, or not. Whatever, I've got this instead. I'm alone in a big-ass office. My office. Jesus. My lips twitch, a slow smile coming. Not bad for a kid out of the streets. Whore for a mother. Asshole for a father. Druggy as a brother. All dead now. Not me, though. Little Tyler Mazarono might not have stood much of a chance in life, but Carter Wade certainly does, all thanks to these men around me.
Forbidden Eyes: A Cane Novel 4 Page 32
