by Ali Vali
“Hayden, I was with you all afternoon. I’m sure Cain will be fine once she showers and lies down for a little while.” Emma just stood there when Hayden left her to follow Cain, glancing back at her with suspicion.
She turned to Merrick and knew the woman wouldn’t give her any information, but thought she’d take the chance and ask anyway. “What happened?” Emma had to admit Merrick seemed as confused as she did.
“She just overdid it. Nothing to worry about.”
Emma fought a feeling of sheer panic that insisted something was terribly wrong. She knew the mobster would’ve rather been shot than show that kind of vulnerability in public. “I’ll give her and Hayden a few minutes. Then I’ll come over and help you with dinner.”
“Look, Emma, how about you just skip tonight.” Merrick saw the protest forming on Emma’s lips, so she overstepped her position and tried to defuse it. “How about I try and talk Hayden into going up to the house to join you and your parents for dinner? That way I can take care of Cain.” Merrick looked at the woman and tried one more thing to get her to agree. “If she’s sick we’ll have to leave early, and I know you don’t want that to happen. I’m sure things will be better in the morning. Just let me take care of her.”
I’m sure you’ll take every opportunity to take care of Cain. The thought made a flash of jealous anger bolt through Emma’s heart, but it quickly died away when her head reminded her that she had left, not the other way around. No, Cain had given her every chance to change her mind, only turning away when Emma refused to believe her and insisted on leaving. Whomever Cain chose to spend her time with, in or out of bed, wasn’t Emma’s concern anymore.
Four Years Earlier in the Casey Home, New Orleans
Cain dismissed the guards outside the door, wanting to spend a quiet afternoon with Emma. The memory of what Danny Baxter had tried to do to Emma had kept them up for a good portion of the previous nights. Cain was exhausted from holding her while she tried to comfort and soothe her, and Emma was worn out from bouts of crying.
Something had changed that morning, though, when Emma sent Cain off to work with a promise she would call if she needed anything. She had said that she was trying to put Danny out of her mind.
Danny was Cain’s cousin from the Baxter side of family, who had talked her father into a job a year before Dalton was killed. Unfortunately, the young, short redhead was a little too aggressive for either Dalton or Cain to trust him with too much responsibility or information about their operations and business associates.
At first, Danny accepted his low-man-on-the-totem-pole position, since his family relations wouldn’t get him a more important role in the business. But with each passing year he resented his status more, and he centered his hate on Cain.
He blamed her for locking him out of the main family business and was quick to complain to anyone willing to listen. The attempted rape was his way of trying to show those closest to Cain how weak she’d become, and he had gambled on her falling apart after she saw Emma broken and bloody.
He wasn’t planning to take over the family. Even he wasn’t so stupid as to think he could. He just wanted someone else at the helm who would give him a chance--the chance to prove he was man enough to expand their operation and up their profits, at the expense of the store owners who dealt with Cain. To him they were all pathetic sheep whom he could bend to the will of his gun.
“So close” became his mantra when Cain spared his life after he attacked Emma. With the woman’s underwear feeling silky under his fingertips, he had come so close before the dark side of his cousin’s nature turned its fury on him. It had taken months for the bones in his once-handsome face to mend, and weeks for the bruises on Cain’s knuckles to fade, but she had let him live. His only punishment was banishment from her family and her business.
The reprieve that allowed him to keep breathing came from the most surprising of places. He owed his life to the woman he had tried to humiliate. The fact gave him no cause to be grateful. Instead, it reinforced his resentment of Cain and the fact that she had been given everything in life. Her decision to give in to Emma’s request only strengthened Danny’s resolve to crush his cousin through those she loved.
“Baby, where are you?” Cain called from the foyer as she flipped through the stack of mail on the small table by the door. When Emma didn’t answer, Cain turned around and noticed the pile of luggage in the den.
The number of bags foretold a long absence, and Cain dropped all the envelopes when she spotted Emma sitting on one of the sofas in the room, wiping away tears with a tissue.
“Going somewhere?”
Emma flinched at the question.
Cain knew she hadn’t spoken roughly and wondered if Emma was afraid she’d be angry with her answer.
“I’m going home.”
She turned to the bags again before she concentrated on Emma. She unbuttoned her jacket and took it off before sitting down across from Emma, realizing she was going to be in for a long talk. “I thought this was home.”
“I’m going home to my parents, Cain.” Emma stopped and put her hands up to her face to wipe away the tears. “I’m not coming back, and I’m begging you to not try and talk me out of it.”
“I know you’re scared, sweetling, but you can’t just give up and walk away. Danny’s never going to hurt you again, and I swear on my life, I’ll keep you and Hayden safe.”
“That’s not enough anymore, Cain. I don’t want to raise a child in all this turmoil. Can’t you understand that?” Emma looked at her lap.
“Emma, you know I love you, right?”
“I know you do, honey. This isn’t about me questioning your feelings or your commitment to me. It’s this life I can’t take anymore. I love you so much, but the violence and the people you surround yourself with are killing me. I can’t stay.”
Cain sat back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling for a minute, not saying anything. The woman she had trusted with her true self had blindsided her, and she was having a hard time figuring out where this irrational need to flee was coming from.
Once she’d become the head of the family, Cain didn’t fear much because she controlled her life and how she lived it. What scared her was what she had to take on faith, and Emma and how she felt about her was a huge part of that fear. Emma’s demeanor gave her the feeling that her blind faith was about to be tested.
“What brought this on? I know you’re still upset, but I won’t let anyone like Danny get close to you again. You have to trust me to take care of both you and Hayden.”
Emma gazed out the window and watched Hayden trying to run around the much bigger man as he tucked the football under his arm like Cain had taught him. He had wanted to play and promised her he wouldn’t get dirty, so she let him go outside. She was glad that in the safe sanctuary Cain created, his companion Mook could drop his guard and just enjoy a friendly game of tag football with the seven-year-old he had come to love. Emma thought of how oblivious her son was to this conversation and how it would change his life.
She took a deep breath and faced Cain. “You can’t be everywhere, my love, and I can’t take any chances by just praying you’ll keep us safe. I know this is hard, and it seems like I’m not giving you a chance, but try and understand what I’m going through. I’d never dream of keeping Hayden from you. You can see him whenever you want. Though for the first couple of months it might be better if you came to us. Just until he adjusts.”
Cain let out a loud laugh, thinking Emma was joking. She looked outside and saw how Hayden was dressed, and then scrutinized the bags. Finding his sitting next to Emma’s, she realized she wasn’t kidding. “You want out, then get out. But don’t be crazy enough to think you’re taking Hayden. That’ll never happen.”
“Cain, he’s my son.” Emma put up her hands and scooted to the edge of her seat, ready to drop to her knees and beg if she had to.
“You made a commitment to me, Emma, one I’m willing to release you fro
m, but Hayden stays here with me. Or have you forgotten who you’re dealing with?”
Emma closed her eyes and saw again the blood all over Cain’s hands. “No, I could never forget that.”
She could only watch as Cain picked up the phone and called for the car. The driver loaded her bags and left Hayden’s for the nanny to put back in his rooms.
“Is this your final decision? It’s not too late for the staff to take your bags up with Hayden’s.”
Emma stood up and moved closer to Cain, stopping when one of her hands went up.
“I asked you a question.”
“I can’t stay.”
Without another word, Cain headed for her study. The door closed, with a slam of finality.
When Emma moved to the patio doors leading out to the yard, one of Cain’s guards stepped into her path and shook his head. She would have no tearful good-byes with her son. She turned next to the closed door of the study and let out a sob for what she was losing.
Because of the solid oak door to Cain’s sanctuary, Emma would never see the luxury Cain afforded herself, crying out all of her pain alone. Nor would she see the extent of the hurt she left behind when the front door clicked closed, locking her out of Cain’s and her son’s lives for over four years. All by her own choosing.
When Emma left, she had never feared reprisal from Cain, but losing four years with her young son had been a steep price to pay. Now she found herself questioning if she should have left. Cain had been very generous with her so far. But if she hadn’t drawn the line when Cain killed Danny for something he had almost done, where would she have drawn it? The price of staying in the mobster’s bed was just too high, and she had so much more to think about than just herself.
What had hurt the most, though, was the ease with which Cain had looked her in the eye and claimed she had let him live. That night and the words, “Just get rid of him,” were etched in her memory. They represented much more than a lie between lovers, but the essence of the person she cared for.
Cain’s calm delivery of her order was the factor that had made Emma face the truth. Her partner was obviously familiar with that level of violence, and her impassiveness showed her comfort with it. Emma could only guess Cain had learned such callousness at Dalton’s knee, since their relationship was so close.
She had never had the opportunity to meet Dalton Casey, but Cain idolized her father, in much the same way Hayden worshipped Cain. Because every generation seemed to embrace it as a rite of passage, the family would never break its cycle of malicious tradition.
Emma’s true nature gave her the strength to walk away, even though she still loved Cain. She wasn’t a zealot like her mother, but some of Carol’s lessons had taken root. She believed in the difference between right and wrong, but Cain believed the world revolved around her rules or, if someone crossed her, she could eliminate him.
Danny Baxter had broken the ultimate rule and dared to put his hands on Cain’s woman. At least, that was how Emma had felt when she was rescued, then shuttled upstairs like a child. Her opinion hadn’t mattered because, while she’d been wronged, the insult to Cain superceded her feelings.
She couldn’t stay with someone who treated her like a possession to be owned and killed over. She only hoped she wasn’t too late for Hayden.
Chapter Thirteen
“What the hell just happened to Casey?” Kyle had witnessed the whole scene through his high-powered binoculars from the trees near the road. In all the years he had watched Cain, he had never seen her so undone.
The two agents behind him were new to his team, so they had been stuck with the job of keeping pace with Cain and Merrick for their afternoon run. Hopefully the equipment they were carrying picked up more than just their own heavy breathing.
“We may have a problem, sir.” The first agent to arrive was leaning over with his hands resting on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
“That’s not a career-making statement, Simmons.” Kyle dropped the binoculars into the bag at his feet with a dull thud. “I’m not going to ask you again. What happened?” he screamed.
“She ran by the Rath place, sir.”
“And?” Kyle asked, waiting for the rest of the report.
“What Simmons is trying to say, sir,” interjected the second agent, who sat on the cold ground nursing a charley horse, “is Maddie Rath had the kid outside. Casey just stopped when she saw them. Then she came back here. We’re sorry, sir, but we weren’t able to keep up on the way back. We did get a little on tape before she got there.”
“Did Maddie see Casey or Merrick?” asked Kyle.
“Not that we noticed. She was still outside when we continued our pursuit.”
Kyle pinched the bridge of his nose and took a couple of deep breaths. “Don’t say a word about this to anyone else or you’ll both be investigating moose droppings in Alaska. Get me?”
“But, sir, shouldn’t we inform Ms. Verde?” Simmons was still breathing hard from his run, making his question sound hesitant.
“It’s taken me close to four years to get Emma Casey to this level of cooperation, and I’m not going to jeopardize that with something this trivial. That means keep your mouths shut, gentlemen, and head back to the command post. I expect a transcript of what you picked up on the first leg of your run. You two worry about that, and I’ll worry about Emma.”
Kyle turned his back on the two men and watched Emma just standing in the yard, seemingly lost in thought. Yes, he had spent too many years on this case already, but his career wouldn’t advance until he could justify the money and time he had invested in Cain Casey. He was just about ten years from mandatory retirement, and he wanted to spend that time heading up some other task force at FBI headquarters. The feds owed him that honor for his loyalty and diligence. History would gloss over how he brought Casey down, but his superiors would remember that he had. That’s what counted.
*
“Honey, where’s Cain?” Ross asked as the feed truck turned up the road. He watched it approach, thinking that the unloading would be a good excuse to spend more time with Cain.
“She’s cleaning up, Dad. She and Merrick went for a run and Cain got sick. Do you need anything?”
“No, she just promised to help me with something.”
Emma barely heard the last part because her father was already moving toward the bunkhouse. He disappeared a moment later when Merrick opened the door for him and showed him inside.
“Just fabulous. I bring Hayden here so I can bond with him, and it’s my father and Cain who end up forging a lasting relationship.” Alone with her thoughts, Emma ignored the cold and sat on the porch wondering what was going to happen next. Two young deliverymen were the only ones who broke the silence as they flung bags of feed off the back of the truck into a pile by the front of the barn.
“Agent Kyle called while you were out.” Carol spoke through a crack she had made in the front door. The windy cold temperatures of a Wisconsin winter were becoming increasingly unbearable as she grew older.
“And what’d he have to say?”
“Our bird started singing this afternoon, so he wants you to try and keep her around for a few more days. I’m glad to see your father finally coming to his senses.” Carol opened the door a little more and pointed toward the delivery boys. The only way Roy was letting that much feed go was if Ross had taken Kyle up on his offer of assistance. “Have you decided what you’re going to do with the boy once this is over?”
“What do you mean, do with him?”
“Agent Kyle mentioned a good school in Virginia for him. Not that we can afford it, but I’m guessing they’ll let the boy keep some of her ill-gotten money.”
Emma watched her knuckles turn almost purple from gripping the armrests of the rocker. “I didn’t do all of this to send him away, Mother, and his name is Hayden. It’s not ‘boy,’ just like her name is Cain. What is it about my life you find so disgusting? Is it the fact that Cain’s a woman or that my
son thinks our family is a joke? God, can you blame him?”
“Don’t get hysterical, Emma. If you want to know, yes, I think what you did with that woman is not only a sin, but also disgusting. Your boy’s an abomination as far as I’m concerned, and if you want to make your home here, it’s going to be without him. I didn’t raise you to go off and whore yourself, sniffing around someone like her. I won’t have it, and I won’t be parading your little family at Sunday services when this is done. To tell you the truth, it took a lot of prayer to not send you away when you came back like you did, but I’m a Christian. The only reason I agreed to all this is because it’ll mean it’s over and I don’t have to worry about you running off again to take up with that spawn.”
The venom in Carol’s voice was hard to miss, and Emma didn’t understand where it was coming from. Her mother had never taken the time to know Cain, so her hatred was hard to comprehend. “What Cain and I shared was beautiful, and it gave me the opportunity to learn how to love. The only reason I even recognized the emotion at all was because of Daddy. You and your ‘Christian’ values were always too busy condemning the rest of us to teach me anything about the concept. I never did ask, Mother, but why did you ever marry Daddy and have me? Being here with the two of us has obviously brought you nothing but misery.”
“Because it was either your father or Mark Liston, and even back then he was nothing but a drunk. If that’s not a good enough answer, then make one up you like better. Women back then didn’t run off and come back with bastards in tow. But you sure made the most of your choices.”
A freshly showered, angry Cain stood ten feet from the porch looking like she was about to pounce on Carol. “You call my son a bastard again, old lady, and I’ll teach you the meaning of the phrase ‘raising the old Irish.’ The fact that you hate me doesn’t bother me, but Hayden’s never done anything to earn your displeasure, so while I’m here, don’t speak to him or his mother like that again.”