“She wanted to schedule a sit-down meeting with you. I told her that you had moved locations, and she said she didn’t mind having to travel. I know there was a lot that went on with Miss Hugo, so I told her I would get to you when I could.”
“I don’t want to see her if Kelly will be with her.”
“She insisted that Kelly won’t be.”
I ran my fingers through my hair then planted a hand on my hip. “What the hell could she possibly want?” I muttered, not directly at Cora, but more so to myself. “I know this is about Kelly’s trial. She’s probably trying to get me to vouch for her, but fuck that.”
“What would you like me to tell her, sir?”
“Tell her I will see her tomorrow afternoon in my office at 4:00 p.m. sharp and no later.”
She bobbed her head, sitting down right away and writing it on a notepad. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. Cancel my call with Tribble. His event sounds like a complete waste of my time. He’s not even considering donating to a charity.”
“Will do, sir. And can I suggest something?” Cora called after me as I headed to the elevator again.
“What?”
“There’s this thing called relaxing. It’s a nice thing many people do when they need to relieve some stress.” She grinned. “Perhaps you should try it one day.”
I chuckled. “I think you’re just hinting at a day off. You want it, just ask for it.”
She laughed. “Not at all, sir. Just thought it might help boost your spirits. Have a great afternoon.”
The elevator doors opened. “Later, Cora.”
When the doors closed, my smile collapsed. I headed for the parking deck and drove home. Cora had no idea how much I wanted to relax, but with Kelly’s case still lingering in the background and Lora not answering the goddamn phone, it was impossible. Ever since Kandy told me she needed some space from me, I haven’t been able to chill. I’ve been on edge for weeks, all because I needed my fix of her. At this point, I’d have taken anything.
Her smile.
Her laugh.
The feeling of her chest pressed against mine.
Her soft skin beneath my palm.
Anything.
I got home, jumped into the shower, and changed into gray sweats. As I dried my hair with a towel, I heard a car door slam shut. Walking to the window, I peered out of it, spotting Lora’s car in the driveway. I jogged down the stairs before she could get to the door.
“Why didn’t you answer your fucking phone?” I snapped when the door was open, just as she’d walked up the stoop.
Lora looked me in the eyes, and for once they weren’t playful and she didn’t look like she was ready to spew some of her sarcastic jeers. I looked around her, but only saw Mama at the trunk, taking out her bags.
“Where is she?” I asked, voice hoarse.
Lora sighed. “I waited two more hours. She didn’t show. I’m sorry, Q.”
I worked hard to swallow, fighting the wave of emotion threatening to take over me. “No, it’s fine. Not your fault.” I stepped around her, going out to help Mama carry her bags inside.
“This place is beautiful,” Mama breathed, taking in the decor once she’d stepped inside.
“Thanks, Mama. How about you go choose which room you want. I’ll bring your bags.”
Mama smiled and went straight to it. When she was out of the picture, I walked outside, meeting Lora at the trunk.
“Did you say something to her that would make her not want to come?” I demanded.
“What?” The skin around her nose scrunched up as she took out a tote bag. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“Because I know you, and you always try to scare people off.”
“Well, newsflash, asshole. Kandy isn’t afraid of me. I did what you said and delivered your fucking letter. I told her to call me if she needed anything, and that was it.”
“Are you sure that was it? Did she ask any questions?”
“She asked if she had to decide by today. I told her no.”
I breathed hard through my nostrils, pinching the bridge of my nose. “For fuck’s sake.”
“Q, chill the fuck out, all right? I can relate to Kandy a lot. She has to think about it, but when it’s clear to her, she’ll let you know what she decides to do, whether she comes or not. She’ll need that closure.” She slapped me on the shoulder. “She won’t leave your dick hanging. So pull your shit together and get me some fucking food. I’m starving.”
She went inside, slugging her backpack over her shoulder. Huffing, I took the rest of the bags out and slammed the trunk, going inside too.
I should have known she wouldn’t come. I don’t even know what I was thinking. She was safer back at home than she was with me, honestly. I just wanted her so damn much that I was blinded by my own selfishness.
Maybe she realized I didn’t deserve her after all.
Chapter Eleven
KANDY
It was seven in the morning, the earliest I had been up in a while. Cane’s letter was on my desk, and my heart was beating heavily in my chest.
A suitcase was on my bed, packed with enough clothes to last me for a month. I stared at it, contemplating, for a really long time. I didn’t realize how much time had passed as I paced my room, eyeing the letter, eyeing the suitcase, until a knock sounded.
I looked back, and Dad came inside. He was about to say something, but then fixed his gaze on the black suitcase on top of my bed. His lips parted, like he was about to speak again, but then it clamped shut. He closed his eyes, inhaled, and then exhaled.
“Dad,” I pleaded, but he cut me off.
“Your mother is downstairs. We all need to talk.” He turned away. When I heard him walking down, I sighed and reluctantly followed after him.
Rounding the corner, I spotted my parents in the living room. Mom was sitting on the arm of the love seat, and Dad stood right beside her, his hands in his pockets.
“Lora Cane visited my house yesterday?” Dad inquired.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“What did she want?”
“She gave me a letter…from Cane.”
“That said what exactly?”
I looked him in the eyes. “He misses me.”
Dad huffed and crossed his arms.
Mom stood. “And you miss him,” she stated, like she already knew I would say it next. She put her eyes on Dad, turning to face him. “The other night, she was whimpering his name, Derek. Whimpering. She was still a little out of it, but she claimed all she wanted was to be with him. She said it to me that night.”
“So what? It was probably just a dream!” Dad bellowed. “She doesn’t need to be around him again! You see what happened the last time we let her go!”
“I understand you’re upset,” Mom said evenly, “but I’ve had time to think about what happened, and we both know the stabbing wasn’t his fault. He can’t control Kelly’s actions, and he even reported that he’d just found out about her mental instabilities and about Kandy’s pregnancy. He had no idea what Kelly was capable of!”
“I don’t care about any of that, Mindy! Our daughter almost died—she lost her ability to have a child because of him!”
I had to admit, that statement hit me right in the gut. So he knew this whole time? I guess I should have known. He was Mom’s best friend, after all.
“Was Cane the one with the knife to her?” Mom snapped. “No, it was Kelly. You heard Kandy’s story, and you also heard the doctors. Cane saved her life by bringing her to that hospital! The least we can do is let her talk to him!”
“So now you’re going to back him up? A few weeks ago you were ready to have her press charges on him!”
Mom started to fire back, but I took a step forward. “Guys! Seriously? I’m still in the room!”
They both stopped arguing, whipping their heads to stare at me.
“Look, I appreciate everything you two have done for me and everything you have sacrificed for
my sake. Dad, I understand your anger, but…like I told you before, I love Cane. I love him a lot. Just like how you and Mom are, and with all the stories you guys have told me about the things you’ve been through, I know that the best thing to do is to fight for what I love, not let it go to waste.”
“Don’t compare what your mother and I have to what you had with Cane! It’s only lust, Kandy! You’re young and easily manipulated, and he took advantage of that!”
I stepped closer to him. “No, he didn’t, and I have told you plenty of times before what really happened and how we started! You can’t always protect me, Dad! I’m not a kid anymore!”
“Kandy, he is not the man for you!” his voice boomed.
“How would you know? You aren’t around when we’re together!”
“You almost died!” he barked, getting toe-to-toe with me. “I had to watch blood pour out of you in that hospital, watch you cry and grieve, all because we left you to be taken care of by him, and he fucked it up! Forgive me if I don’t fucking trust him!”
“Derek!” Mom cut in.
I breathed hard through my nostrils while he raged like an angry bull. The room went absolutely quiet. If a pin hit the floor, it would have sounded like a heavy thud.
“I’m going to Charlotte to see him,” I stated, and didn’t give a damn how he felt about it. “I’ll be down there for however long I feel like it, so unless you handcuff me to something in this house, I’m going.”
Mom’s head dropped as she sucked in a breath through her teeth.
“You are out of your goddamn mind,” he snarled. He stormed around me to get to the hallway. He took my car keys out of the tray that all the keys were in and stuffed them into his pocket. “If you leave, it won’t be with the car I worked my ass off to buy for you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Whatever,” I scoffed. “There are plenty of other ways to get there.” I turned away and rushed back up the stairs. Mom called after me, but it was too late. I wasn’t looking back.
I slammed the door behind me and snatched out even more clothes from my closet, stuffing the suitcase. I was livid, but he wasn’t going to stop me from going. He could be such an asshole sometimes, and the fact that he would withhold his support from me, going so far as to take my car, blew my mind.
I would find a way there and he knew I would, so taking my car keys was a pointless move.
* * *
It was nearing 6:00 p.m. when I heard the stairs make their usual deep croaking as someone made their way up, and then there was a knock on my door.
“What?” I muttered. I was in the bathroom, running a finger over the bags beneath my eyes.
Dad walked right in, taking a look around my room, before cracking the door behind him. He ran a hand over his head, the other hand in his back pocket. I couldn’t stand it when he acted like he didn’t belong—like my room was some magical portal he’d never been through.
“Mind if I sit?” he asked as I stepped around the corner to see him completely.
“It’s your house,” I mumbled. He sat at the end of the bed, letting out a long, weary sigh, then he patted the spot beside him.
“Sit, Kandy. We need to talk.”
I frowned at his hand, but to make sure I didn’t act like as much of a stubborn ass as he did, I sat, though not too closely.
We were both quiet, only breathing. Thinking. “Look, I know you think I’m overreacting about Cane, but I know so much about him. So many secrets that he will never tell you because he knows it will make you look at him differently.”
I tried hard not to look at him. “Secrets like what?”
“Like how he pulled a knife on a store clerk because he didn’t have enough money to pay for groceries once.”
I blinked quickly. “That’s not so bad.”
“Or how he almost killed someone who hurt Lora.”
“Would you not do that for me?”
My throat thickened as Dad locked his eyes on me. “You want to know how I really met Cane?”
“I thought it was because you saved his mom’s life?”
“No. We’d met way before that. We didn’t become really good friends until I helped her.” He ran his palms over the thighs of his pants nervously. “I used to get calls all the time about fights and suspicious activity in his neighborhood, and guess who was always the one being questioned or arrested?”
“Cane,” I whispered.
“Back then he was a juvenile, so most of it didn’t go to his record. Minus some fights here and there, it’s a pretty clean record, honestly. Lots of it was disregarded.” He sighed. “Anyway, when I really got to know Cane, he was eighteen. Fresh out of high school and didn’t know what to do with himself. I’d heard he was working for a man named Horacio, who was this big drug dealer in his area. Most of what we heard was rumors. We were never able to confirm it, and there was never any proof, but that was mostly because Cane was smart. He’d been pulled over many times, but never with any drugs on him. No…” Dad tapped his temple with two fingers. “He was too smart for that, but he slipped up one day. We got a call for an assault on a young woman. I was nearby with the partner I worked with back then, so we raced to the scene, and that’s when I saw Cane and his sister, Lora.”
I was shocked to hear that. “Lora? For what?”
“She’d gotten into an argument with some guy she talked to, he hit her, and she called Cane. Cane dropped everything to come for her, and when we got there, we saw him inside a gym beating the man to a pulp. I mean, he had blood everywhere. All over the floors, on his face. The man’s face was hardly recognizable by the time he was done with him. We pulled him off, my partner searched him, and we found a small bag of coke on him.”
“Wow.” My heart was racing now.
“Yeah. Anyway, I drew up the paperwork that night, but I couldn’t stop looking at him, you know? I mean, he was just a kid, and he was lost. I knew all about his mother and her addictions and how there were always reports of her getting abused. I also heard she was sick and needed a kidney…so I purposely didn’t report the coke. I left it off the record and only reported the fight.” He dropped his head. “I told him what I did for him and made him promise me to never get into any trouble again—to get his shit straight and get out of that fucked-up part of town. Stop selling, go to school—something. He promised he would. He spent two nights in jail and was out. Didn’t get into any more trouble again for a while.”
I dropped my eyes. Dad went on.
“Not even three years later, we got another report for that area—another assault. This one was on his mother. His father had returned and was threatening to kill her. He’d hit her many times, left her with a black eye and a busted lip. He’d even ripped some of her hair out, and had punched Lora in the ribs so hard that some of them were fractured. It was brutal, and the worst part was that he didn’t stop, not even when we got there. That’s when I stepped in, set him straight. That same night, I brought his mom and sister into the station, got their written statements about what happened, and then took his dad’s. Cane came into the station, took his mom and sister home, but not before talking to me. He was wearing khakis and a dress shirt. I remember because I’d never seen him wear anything like it. He had this nice Rolex watch on, his hair styled differently. He looked…different. That’s all I could say. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he wasn’t the same eighteen-year-old kid who was getting into fights and selling drugs. His eyes were darker, like he’d seen bad things, but that was just his life in general.
“Anyway, he asked for my number, said he wanted to repay me for saving his mom. That’s when we started meeting for beers at that cheap bar up the street. We hung out a lot, and he really felt like family to me. He told me about school, about his sister and how she was thinking about moving out of her mom’s place to stay with one of her friends from school. He even told me how he had this idea to open a company that sells wine. He knew some man who had a vineyard and made great wine. He wanted to
invest in it one day. Everything seemed to be smooth sailing, but there was one night in particular when he got a phone call. I don’t know who it was from, but when he looked at the screen, he seemed nervous all of a sudden. He told me he had to take the call and walked off. I watched him go, but when he talked on the phone that night, it looked like he was arguing. He came back, said he had to go. I thought nothing of it. But then it happened repeatedly—I’m talking for a solid month. I got suspicious then. I mean, he was a kid from the wrong side of the tracks and could have been pulling anything behind my back. Hell, I could have been in danger. Not only that, but he was a fucking genius—probably had the most street smarts I’d ever seen in a person.
“So he paid the tab one night, we left early, and I waited a while in my car before following him. He drove for a while, until he reached an abandoned warehouse. I parked a little ways away with my lights off, and saw him pull up beside a black truck.” He breathed a little faster. “A man stepped out with a black suitcase in hand, handed it to Cane, and then left. It was quick. Sudden. I knew it was an illegal exchange. From that moment on, I watched him every single time he left early. Every single time he answered that phone, I knew he was going to that warehouse.” He frowned and shook his head. “And then one night I saw him…a man the news had been talking about for months. A man that the FBI had been looking for, for a long time. He was the reason we started cracking down on the Hispanic gangs in Atlanta. The coke was too clean and more and more fights were happening in the cities. Browns against blacks. All of that.” He met my eyes. “The man I saw was named El Jefe,” he rumbled, and my eyes stretched so wide I thought they’d leave my skull. That name. God, why did it always give me chills? “I saw him one night during one of Cane’s drops, and realized Cane was good friends with that man—that he worked for him. I got down to the bottom of it and eventually confronted Cane. I followed him all the way to school and demanded to know what was in the suitcase. I’d taken pictures of him with El Jefe as leverage, just so he couldn’t deny it, and that’s when Cane told me the truth. There was money in his suitcase.”
Loving Mr. Cane: Cane Series #3 Page 7