The Wrath of Cain(37)

“I love you,” my mother’s voice serenely whispers in my ear as I hear her kneel down on the floor with us. She puts her hand on my back. I don’t want to look at her right now, either.

“I know, Mom.”

“For the record, I’m sorry too, Calla,” Manny says.

I don’t move a muscle until I hear the door close behind them all. It’s after I know they are all gone that I break down once more in my husband’s arms.

The two of us stay in this position until my tears have all dried up. I have so many questions left to ask him. I need to pull my thoughts together.

Cain’s phone vibrates in his pocket. I unlock my grip from his shirt and go to stand, but he holds me in place with one hand while digging into his pocket with the other.

“Stay,” he simply states.

I do. If I could stay cocooned in his arms forever, right here on the floor, I would. I feel safe, untouched by the evil world outside of this house. The moment I walk out of these doors I will become someone I’m not. Someone I will hate.

“Just leave them on the porch,” I hear him say before turning to me.

“That was Priscilla. She has all your stuff.”

His voice is low, unsure even, when he speaks next.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I give a slight shake of my head.

“Not right now.”

My eyes are still closed. I know they’re swollen from all the crying I’ve done. My breathing is delicate and light. My ears keep hearing over and over again the things my loved ones said. There’s an unpleasant taste in my mouth. All of my senses are screaming at me.

“All right then. Will you at least look at me?”

Rough fingertips start to stroke my cheek. A flash runs through my mind of him using these hands that feel so good across my skin to steal, hand over guns to people who use them to kill. I shiver.

“Calla. Look at me.”

It’s more of a demand than a statement. He thinks I’m fragile. In a way I am, but not in the way he thinks, though. My heart has been stomped on and bled dry. But here’s the thing; it’s what terrifies me the most. I am a lot more like my father than any of us can begin to comprehend.

When I do look at Cain, it’s as if these past six years never existed and we were never apart. But we were. How can you feel a pull so strongly towards someone when in reality you never knew them at all? How can you love someone so much after being separated for as long as we have, and at the same time want to gouge their eyes out? It’s a riddle I will never be able to solve. A puzzle that will always be missing the last piece no matter how hard I try to find it.

“We have a lot more things to talk about, you and I. You tell me when. If it’s too much for you to handle and you don’t want to know any more, then we can leave it at that until I find Kryder. The one thing I do want to tell you is, I f*cking love you so much it hurts. I’ve hurt every day since you walked out of my life. It’s killing me that you found any of this out and that it’s been shoved in your face all at once. You seem so fragile and yet so strong at the same time. Your dad speaks the truth, you know?”

“I know.”

Cain pushes the hair away from my face. The way he looks at me as if trying to define whether I’m real or not sends an indescribable tingle to the one place that shouldn’t be tingling at all. The place that is still sore from our reconnection. I keep telling myself over and over that I don’t know him anymore, but does it really matter if I do or not? Not to me, it doesn’t. I’ve never been one to give a damn what other people think of me. I’m sure a lot of people around here think I’m crazier than a lady with a hundred cats. I don’t care.

“It’s just a shock, a blow right to the center of my gut knowing he kills people,” I say, picking up our conversation again.

“He loves you, Calla. So does your mom. They never wanted you to know. At least, not this way.”

“Well, I know now, don’t I? What I don’t know is how this Kryder guy fits into all of this. Or Manny. Dad said he didn’t have a choice, either.”

Cain lets a whoosh out of his lungs.

“You sure you want to know?” he asks, speaking as if what he has to say could break me more than what I’ve already heard.

“If it’s the last of the big, gut-punching hits, then yes.”

“Like I told you, Kryder deals drugs. I don’t do drugs. I despise them. The * wouldn’t listen, so he’s gone. We kicked him out.”

“And he knows about the weapons and the mob?”

His sexy lips curve up in a smile.

“He does now. He didn’t before.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sweetheart. What I mean is, he put a hit out on my wife. The niece of Salvatore Diamond. The daughter of a man who can silence you without the person sleeping next to you realizing he’s there.”

My spine goes ramrod straight.

“Holy shit. So my dad put a hit on him? That’s why he’s in hiding. He’s scared. He knows he screwed up.”

“Now she’s getting the picture!” he says, lifting his face to the ceiling for a moment. “That’s why we have Manny on you. To keep you safe. We’ve been trying to find him before he finds you.”

“This is like a nightmare. Worse, even. This is a war,” I whisper.