TWENTY-FIVE
Cain
Cain carried an unforgiving head of malice as he strode into his business operation block on the first floor. His gait was determined after catching a red-eye plane back to Cali.
He found Damon in the breakroom talking to two of Cain’s bounty hunters.
They greeted him, but Cain was unable to fake pleasantries out of his tight throat.
He stared at Damon, who raised an eyebrow as he sipped coffee.
“You remembered where you live,” he smirked. “Is the biker chick with you? I can’t see you leaving her side.”
He let the snark go because of their years of friendship.
“Get out.” He commanded the others in the room. They must have sensed the ice around him because they left with haste. “A few years back, you were the one who handled the research files about the Raging Rebels. About my father.”
“Yeah. What of it?”
“In any of those reports, did you see where it said he was involved in sex trafficking with the Mexicans? More importantly, that he was a fucking rapist? That he kept women as hostages in that hellhole?”
The smirk fell off Damon’s face, and he sat straighter in the high-back chair. Cain could read people like books, and Damon looked guilty as fuck as his pallor changed.
“Be fucking careful before you spew lies, Damon. I already spoke with the P.I. who sent you all the reports. I’ve now seen the unredacted files you fucking kept from me.”
“Cain, listen, bro.”
He felt the blood in his veins freeze over. “Yeah, go on. I’m fucking listening. Tell me why you never mentioned I was fighting for a man’s honor—for his damn reputation—when he was known for trafficking women and young girls across the country.”
The other man sighed and pulled long on his smoke. “Yeah, okay. I knew all that shit. The guy was a fucking maniac, Cain. If you remember, I tried to stop you from proceeding. No fucker wants to know their dad is a rapist or a drug smuggler, I thought I was keeping the worst from you for your sake. How many times did I tell you it was a bad idea to pursue getting retribution? I said to let it lie.”
“You should have fucking told me everything.” He ground out. “I don’t pay you to decide for me.”
“You don’t just pay me. I have shares.” He shot back sharply, looking offended. Boo fucking hoo.
“Eight percent. That doesn’t give you the right to withhold anything from me.”
“I know, man, I know. And I’m sorry I did. But once you got it into your head to fuck with the Renegade Souls, I went along with it because it made sense for business to expand out that way without their interference.”
“While I was fighting for a fucking predator!” he hurled.
He finally had the long-overdue talk with his mother at the airport that morning, asking her outright if she’d known about Hades’ proclivities. After a long pause, she admitted she found out around the time he died. Guilt over keeping Cain a secret led her to have her father’s P.I. dig into him. What she uncovered made her swear never to tell Cain—until Zach needed a kidney transplant, and Cain insisted on being tested. That’s when the dark truth about his bloodline had to come out. He didn’t blame his mother. She’d made the right decision for her kid.
But his closest ally kept this shit from him, and Cain was close to murdering Damon.
He paced the breakroom like a tiger. There was only a slither of control left, and it was fraying around the edges so fast.
The thought of everything he’d put Harper through made him sick.
He’d overturned her life because he was a self-righteous prick, thinking he was doing right by his father by attempting to destroy their world. Then he met her, and his plans changed to be with her, no matter what he had to do.
Tiredness clawed through his mind as he scraped both hands through his hair, picturing her face before he’d left.
She’d been utterly fucking broken.
He’d also replayed her mom’s reaction in his mind a thousand times on the flight.
It all made sense now.
There weren’t a lot of pictures of Hades; he'd only seen one before – a skinny 15-year-old with a priest.
But Zara’s ghostly reaction made him realize how much he must resemble Hades.
Turning slowly, he faced Damon.
“Do you know what you’ve done by withholding this shit from me? I would have spat on that motherfucker’s grave if I’d known who he was, what he’d done.” He felt sick even saying the words as he stared at Damon’s nonchalance. “The father I thought was murdered was trafficking women. He snatched a woman and kept her hostage inside his clubhouse for years. You can imagine what he did to her. That woman was Harper’s mother, Damon. Her fucking mother! The Souls had every right to slaughter him in the street and to end his MC.”
Exhaling like he’d been running, he couldn’t outrun the murderous chaos inside his blood.
He felt unmoored for leaving Harper without a word.
His only goal had been to get answers.
The P.I. had done his due diligence and was the best in the business. The underground criminal world was a hive of activity and gossip.
He believed Harper most of all.
“Oh, shit. Really?” Damon exhaled through his teeth, climbing to his feet. And then the fucker had the brass balls to flash a smile. “Seriously, what are the odds?” then he made it worse as Cain’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “Don’t worry about it, Cain. She’ll get over it.”
She’d get over it?
Cain fucking lost it.
There was no recollection on his part of choking Damon and repeatedly punching him until his knuckles were bloody. He heaved a much-needed breath and flung him away, snarling like an animal.
From how Zara Marinos reacted to his likeness, she wasn’t getting over it. Harper wouldn’t either.
“You need to get the fuck out of my sight, Damon.”
For once, the guy listened, cradling his jaw, blood oozing from his busted lip. At the door, he turned. “I told you she’d be your downfall, Cain. I was fucking right. This shit doesn’t have to go down like this. We can move on.”
“You were fucking wrong.”
Harper was innocent, and he’d used her as a pawn for a crime that didn’t exist.
Cain was the monster, the predator, the tormentor, the manipulator.
He’d seen her, wanted her, and taken her.
The anger with Damon persisted, but this monumental fuck up was laid at Cain’s feet.
And as he sat on a lounge chair later that night, unable to sleep as he stared into the dark California sky, a joint to his lips, hoping it would ease the turmoil in his brain, he said the words out loud that had been churning in his mind for the past twenty-four hours.
“I’m just like him.”
The monster apple hadn’t fallen far from the evil tree.
Corrupted by Hades’ blood in his veins, Cain’s privileged upbringing couldn’t stop him from becoming despicable.
Just like Hades.
Just like the man who’d stolen Zara and used her.
He’d done the same with Harper.
Patterns and behaviors were destined to be repeated.
And so were monsters’ DNA footprints.
Without Cain’s knowledge, his thoughts were with a woman across the country experiencing her trauma at the same time.
* * *
Harper
The truth hurt.
It fucking killed her as her chest constricted while she shifted her gaze between Angie and Knox.
She admitted almost everything, except for the fact that she was married. However, things took a turn for the worse once Angie revealed her link to Hades, adding details unknown to her before.
On the night Angie encountered Zara, masked men kidnapped her, resulting in her parents' deaths. She was meant to be trafficked. However, that very night, the Souls attacked and destroyed the Rebels’ base, rescuing both girls in the process. The rest was Souls’ history.
Harper had never known that part of Angela’s past. Although aware of her foster care background, she believed her meeting with Zara and Rider was coincidental.
“I’m so sorry, Angie.” She squeezed out of her tight throat. “Your parents… you were only fourteen. I’m so sorry they were taken from you.”
“I am, too.” Angie smiled sadly. But she reached over and gripped Harper’s hand. “It was a long time ago. Lawless got payback for me. He hunted down every man associated with the trafficking ring.”
In Harper’s world, that was true love.
Knox had remained silent.
“Don’t you have anything to say, Knox?” His face was a streak of anger. “I’m going to tell Mom and Dad,” she assured.
Knox’s forearms were resting on his spread knees. Then he suddenly climbed to his feet, looking wiser than his age. “I can’t talk to you right now, Harper.” He said in a bitter voice. “If I do, I’ll say some shit I’ll regret.”
Harper’s heart skipped, and he shook off her hand when she tried to stop him from leaving. “Knox, please. I was trying to make it right for our family.”
“Family?” he said, deathly calm. “You don’t know the fucking meaning of the word.” And he walked out of her apartment.
Harper slumped, deserving of every inch of hate coming her way.