Chapter Eighteen
Cain stood before me in nothing but a pair of black sweats to match the blacked-out tattoo directly over his heart, the ink looking scratchy, almost as if the tattoo was done quickly. My eyes snapped back up to meet his pale blue ones, a lock of his blonde hair hanging down on his forehead, his jaw jumping.
“I needed to see you,” I told him, trying my best not to trip over my words. I’d spent hours crying on top of the parking garage, and when I was done, I decided the best thing to do was confront him. I needed to know why he didn’t tell me. I had so many questions.
Was the Bratva at The Pit?
Was that why he pushed me way?
When did he get out?
Was it before or after he sent that letter to me, and I ran to New York to be with him?
Did I waste years of my life racing to find him while he was in Russia the entire time?
Was it all for nothing?
“You needed to see me,” he parroted, slowly.
I nodded.
His eyes trailed down the length of me again. “You could’ve come to me at Oasis instead of getting behind the fucking wheel again,” he said, growling the last bit.
I stiffened, ignoring the venom in his words. “I thought I was ready.”
Suddenly, he was in front of me, his hand clutching the back of my neck again. “You were foolish, Nik,” he snapped, anger flaring in his eyes as the temperature in the room dropped, the air around us getting heavy.
“I thought—”
“I know you,” he cut me off, using his other hand to point to the door. “I know you better than anyone else in this city—at Oasis. I know shit sticks with you. I know what goes on in that beautiful fucking head of yours. You can try to pretend in front of everyone else, pretend that crash didn’t fuck you up, but I know. I’ll always know.”
A sharp lump formed in my throat, making it hard to swallow as I tried to form a sentence. I couldn’t think straight with his hand on me. Memories from our first kiss surged forward, overtaking my logic. He didn’t seem to mind. He wasn’t done lecturing me.
His fingers flexed on the back of my neck, sending goosebumps down my back as he said, “I pulled you from the fire. I watched the EMTs and doctors work to try to get you to fucking breathe. I watched you while you laid in that fucking hospital bed, covered in dirt, soot, and blood. I watched you hobble around that fucking loft for a week, trying to hide your winces, trying to appear strong.”
I whimpered as his other hand came up to my face. “You can pretend for everyone else, but you never have to pretend with me, clover.” His thumb stroked my cheek and I wanted to wake up from this dream. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
My heart skipped a beat as his eyes dropped to my lips. “Don’t call me that either,” I told him, my words coming out as a breath.
His eyes snapped to mine. “And I told you I’ll call you whatever the hell I like,” he murmured.
“W-what are you doing?” I breathed as he focused on my lips again.
“A word of advice, Nik; don’t show up to my house in the middle of the night again,” he warned, his nostrils flaring as his hands dropped from me, leaving an ache behind. “Come in here. I’ll get you some ice water.”
My heart skipped yet another beat. “You don’t have to get me ice. I’ll just take a bottle,” I told him softly as he brushed past me.
As I turned to follow him, he whirled on me, halting me once more. He stuck his tongue on the inside of his cheek as he gave me a look. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Overlook your needs for the sake of convenience. You can do that with anyone else, but not me,” he said sternly.
I only drank water ice-cold; anything other than that made me want to gag. I’d always been like that, and my mother found it annoying, but my father always managed to make it happen.
My chin wobbled as Cain turned from me, heading through his wide living room which house an enormous sectional with a TV hanging from the wall. Once we were out of the living area, we walked by a dining room and—
“You h-have an engine hanging over your table,” I gawked, eyes wide. There was a heavy piece of leather covering on the table with his tools scattered on top of it and half an engine hanging over it, held up by a chain. It wasn’t very big, and I knew it was just in the beginning stages of being built. The chair at the head of the table was pulled out like someone had just gotten up from it.
“Order for customer,” he muttered, moving on.
After a second, I followed him into the kitchen and, once again, found myself gawking. The first time I’d been here was a few weeks ago with Mina, but I mainly stayed in the living area.
The first thing I’d noticed was how clean this house was. It smelled of lemons, and there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. His kitchen was just the same. It was an all-black kitchen, with gorgeous black marble counter tops, a gas stove, and sink. The backsplash was tiled, black with gray marbling.
He went to the huge fridge, grabbed a bottle of my favorite water, and then to the cabinet. I watched in silence as he filled a glass with ice and poured the water over it. And, just to torture me it seemed, he opened a drawer and plucked out a metal straw, dropping it in the water before handing it to me.
I preferred drinking out of straws. He knew that, too, along with everything else I’d thought he might’ve forgotten.
“Thank you,” I whispered, remembering the time he brought me a huge container of plastic straws to my room one night after I’d told him my mother wasn’t going to buy me any more. She’d said they were a waste of money and that I needed to stop being such a spoiled little brat.
“Why did you need to see me?” he asked, getting right to business as he stepped back, folding his arms over his bare chest, leaning against the counter by the stove. The light above him made shadows appear under his hard features, making him look menacing.
Clearing my throat, I looked away from him and took a sip of the water.
Cold.
Crisp.
Just right.
I felt my shoulders sag a bit.
“I just—I know I told you we needed to live our own lives,” I began, looking back at him, trying desperately to ignore his beauty. “When I found out, Cain, I was in a room full of people I barely knew. Finding out something about the man I’ve known since childhood, it…it—” I cut myself off, looking to my feet. “It hurt.”
“It was none of your business, Nik,” he said, his voice distant.
My head snapped up as I blurted. “It damn well should’ve been!”
His eyes flashed. “What?”
I set the glass of water down as the feelings I’d tried to bury came surging to the surface, all the pain I’d forced myself to forget and had to re-bury when I saw him in Denver for the first time with Oasis, the memories of us and what should’ve been if he hadn’t been so fucking stubborn. “You pushed me away,” I told him, my voice filled with pain. “You pushed me away and when I came to The Pit—”
“You should’ve never gone to that place,” he snapped, cutting me off. “That place wasn’t for a girl like you.”
“And it was for a boy like you?” I countered, raising my voice. He looked away from me, his jaw tight. I shook my head. “You pushed me away, and I want to know why.”
“We’re not doing this, Dominique,” he told me.
“So you’re back to Dominique now, huh?”
His arms dropped before he braced his hands beside his hips, gripping the edge of the counter as he glared at me. “So you find out something about me and you think it gives you the right to come to my house in the middle of the night, demanding answers? You wanted nothing to do with me. For fuck”s sake, you had Mina come pick you up from the damn loft. You ran from me, Nik, not the other way around.”
His words struck true and, before I could stop them, words flew from my mouth, ones I’d never thought I’d say to him.
“Yes, and after spending years chasing you, I was ready to let you go! Then, I find out the fucking truth from the head of the Italian fucking Mafia. I had my theories as to why you kissed me like your life depended on it one minute and shattered my heart in the next, and because I was in love with—”
My eyes widened, and I looked away from him, bringing my shaking fingers to my mouth as regret washed over me.
“What did you just say to me?”
The question came out as a cold, dark whisper, like a ghost in the night, forever haunting me.
Fear had me by a blade to the throat, and I knew when I looked at him, my heart would shatter all over again. He was never supposed to know.
I was so stupid.
My fingers fell from my lips as I gathered one last ounce of courage, lifting my head.
Our gazes collided, and the world ran out of air.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
I couldn’t speak.
There was only him.
Cain slowly pushed off the counter, his arms hanging at his sides as his throat worked. “What the hell did you just say?” he clipped coldly.
Because I was stupid and apparently liked doing stupid things, I repeated his words back to him. “You heard me.”
“You chased me.”
“Yes.”
“You loved me.”
My heart resumed beating, skipping every other beat as my breath hitched. “Yes.”
I didn’t know what to expect when my truth came out to him. Hell, I never intended on telling this truth to him, and I never had the chance to imagine how it would play out. I’d been so sure of myself and the feelings I’d buried. I moved on. I was good. I was steady.
Until this morning.
Until that fucking meeting.
However, the last thing I expected was to see fury rolling off Cain in waves and that captivating upper lip curling.
“What?” I bit off, rage building inside me now to match his.
He looked away, shaking his head as a quiet, cruel laugh escaped him. “You stand here, years later, and say that shit to me now.”
“I—”
“Were you chasing me seven years ago, Nik? Or had you given up by then?” he asked, cutting me off sharply.
I leaned forward, my gut twisting. “Yes,” I hissed. I knew what he was referring to.
That fucking letter.
“You get my letter, baby?” he asked, darkness rolling off his tongue as his head ticked to the side. “Or did it get lost in the mail?”
I straightened, reaching into the back pocket of my jeans, my fingers wrapping around the worn paper. The ink was faded now due to how many times I read the fucking thing and the tears that fell on it. The paper was discolored and wrinkled from sitting in a box for two years, because I was finally living for myself and not anyone else.
That didn’t last long, because when I found Cain’s t-shirt during my move to Denver, it sent me into a spiral, and my wounded heart had cried out for mercy. I didn’t give it to her; instead, I read his letter over and over again until the images of him in that alley with another woman flooded my mind.
Slowly, I pulled the letter from my pocket, and when I brought it around to my front, Cain stiffened. “Yeah, I got your fucking letter,” I quipped, tossing it onto the island in between us. He remained silent and, with each passing second, he grew colder as his eyes fixated on his letter.
“I see,” he finally said, his voice quiet. The fury was still there, but it had diminished slightly, revealing pain.
A chill swept over me at the sight.
All at once, I wasn’t looking at the hardened man, a ruthless street racer. Instead, I was looking at the sad little boy who used to climb into my bedroom at midnight just to hear me read a fairytale to him. The same little boy who used to hide his bruises from me, brushing them off and saying his brother and him got into a fight.
It was never his brother.
It was always his mother.
“Cain,” I whispered, my voice cracking slightly.
“I didn’t even want to write the damn thing,” he said, more so to himself than me. “Tried over and over, wasted an entire notebook on that fucking letter.” His pale blue seas lifted to meet my eyes and, suddenly, I was drowning in them, unable to escape. “I waited for you to come.”
It was a slap in the face, but I refused to flinch, remaining silent.
“I’d gotten out of the Bratva weeks before that,” he continued, his eyes dropping back to the letter. I could breathe again, and yet, I still held my breath. “All I wanted to do was find you, to see you—to fucking apologize to you.”
It was too much. Maybe I wasn’t as ready as I thought. Maybe I was crazy for coming here when I knew damn well I shouldn’t have. “Don’t.”
His head snapped up, and the fury was back tenfold. “You wanted answers. You’re going to fucking get them,” he bit off.
I shook my head. “This was a mistake.”
“Which part?” he clipped, his head ticking to the side again. “You getting my letter and ignoring it? You coming to Oasis when you knew I was here? Or was loving me the mistake, clover? Which is it?” I stared at him, eyes wide as he muttered, “Living in my own version of hell, being around you day in and day out. You could’ve stayed in fucking Denver, Nik!”
“What I do with my fucking life is none of your concern,” I shot back, my voice raising.
“Everything you fucking do is my concern!”he roared, pushing away from the counter again to get close to me.
“I went to New York, Cain!”
He halted.
“My dad was the one who got your letter, and he sent it to me! Years—years, Cain! I spent years of my fucking life looking for you!” I screamed at him, my voice cracking. “You don’t kiss a woman like that and then expect her to stay away. You don’t tell me, the one who knows the dark parts of your childhood, to stay way when there’s fear in your damn eyes, Cain. You don’t do that to me!”
His chest was heaving now, his eyes on me, nostrils flared.
“But you did. You did that to me, and I—” I looked away from him, trying to swallow in the glass in my throat. I couldn’t look at him. Not like this. Not when my heart was being laid out on the table for him to see, cracks and all. “I couldn’t give up on you. I couldn’t—for the life of me—stop fucking loving you! That next day, I dove into learning everything I could about street racing, worked my shitty little part-time job, saving every paycheck to get that shitty Honda ready. I went back months later, won a race, and I was ready to prove to you that I belonged there with you—beside you.”
“Stop,” he ordered.
My eyes shot back to him.
I wasn’t going to stop. There was no stopping this. It was too late. “Imagine my fucking surprise when people told me they hadn’t seen you in months. Months, Cain.”
“Nik—”
“Don’t you fucking call me that again unless you mean it,” I seethed, agony ripping through my body like a blade.
His mouth shut, his jaw tight and sharp like a damn razor.
“I searched for you,” I cried out, tears finally making their debut. “I bounced from city to city, looking for you at street races, car shows…hell, I even checked police reports. I couldn’t find you, but I never gave up hope. I kept racing and learning, doing everything I could to get better. Then, somewhere along the way, that hope started to turn into pain, into fear. I felt like so foolish, chasing a man who clearly didn’t want to be found.” I looked away from him again, down to my feet as I prepared to tell him about the night my life changed.
“When I got your letter, I cried for an hour. I’d never felt so relieved. I was just thankful you were alive, Cain,” I whispered, my voice thick as I looked back up to him. A single fell from my eye as I continued, “I ran to New York.” A soft laugh came from me. “Hell, I couldn’t get there fast enough. I came to the bar and stood outside in the snow, staring inside for a long time, clutching that letter in my hand. Then, I went inside, and you weren’t there, but the bartender told me you were out back.”
Realization flashed in his eyes.
My voice was softer than before, filled with a never-ending pain. “I found you, Cain. I came to you. Heart in my hands, I came to you, and where did I find you? In that alley against a wall, head tilted to the sky, eyes closed, with some woman on her knees in front of you.” My soul whimpered at the memory.
He shook his head, his throat working. “You—you found me—”
“In an alley with your cock down some woman’s throat as I held the letter you wrote me in my hand,” I finished for him.
I moved then, needing space. I walked to the back door, staring out the windows into the night, my back to him. “After that, I left and did everything I could to move on from it—from you,” I told him as I wiped away the tears.
“Nik, look at me,” he ordered, his voice closer to me now.
I didn’t. I kept my eyes focused on the darkness.
His arm came around me, his fingers gripping my chin before he twisted my head, forcing me to look up at him. It was then I felt his body heat, and my cracked heart skipped a beat. “I said look at me,” he murmured.
I kept my eyes on his, my body still.
“What you saw—that wasn’t—Nik, she wasn’t doing what you thought she was,” he explained softly.
I bit down and jerked out of his grip, stepping away from him. I got about five steps away before his hand was on the back of my neck again, turning me back to him. His anger was back as he leaned down, his lips an inch away from mine. “Listen. To. Me.”
I pushed against his chest, but then his other arm locked around my waist, trapping me against him. His hand slid into the hair at the base of my neck. He tugged on it, tipping my head back. “I listened to you. Give me the same damn respect, Nik.”
“Let go of me,” I whispered, my voice brittle.
“Be good, and I will.”
After a moment, I nodded and he released me, but he didn’t back away. For some reason, I didn’t either, leaving only inched between us.
“I remember that night,” he told me. “It was the night I was shot.”