Chapter 23 - Cain
Cain
I’m driving now, and I can’t turn my mind off. What the fuck does Ophelia mean that she might go home for a period? That’s not even remotely in the cards. I won’t fucking allow it.
Neither will Rome or Mal.
I glance in the driver’s mirror to see she’s still sleeping, curled up with her head on Mal’s shoulder. Mal’s eyes are closed, too, and I find myself smiling that he’s somehow managed to find time to reapply his eyeliner. He must have done it in the bathroom of the rest stop.
No one really got any sleep last night, and now we’re going to be driving right through the day.
I doubt we’ll make it back to Verona Falls much before sunset.
We’ll take turns driving so the others can get some rest. Roman has his eyes shut, too, his temple against the passenger window.
Despite everything, his injuries don’t look as severe as they had only a couple of days ago. He’s healing fast.
We’re free of the Prophet, and it almost doesn’t seem real.
A stupid idea pops into my head. What if Ophelia doesn’t need us anymore?
Is that the reason she’d mentioned going back to her parents? After what her father did, I can’t help feeling a sting of betrayal that she’d even mention doing such a thing. Ophelia had been with us because we’d helped keep the Prophet’s voice at bay, but now she won’t need us to do that anymore.
I shake the idea out of my head. She loves us, and we love her.
So why even suggest going home?
I take a shaky breath and tighten my fingers around the steering wheel, doing my best to focus on the road ahead.
I need to cut her some slack. She’s just lost the girl she’d considered to be a sister, even if she hadn’t seen her in over a year, and taken a man’s life.
She’s not thinking straight, and I can’t take that personally.
My self-reassurance doesn’t stop me from wanting to take Ophelia home and chain her to the bed, though.
There’s so much shit running through my mind, and I don’t know where to start. The previous twenty-four hours keep flashing across my vision as I drive down the straight, deserted road.
Things don’t add up. Something is fucking missing, puzzle pieces that I’m failing to put together.
The hours pass, and after another couple of pit stops and a couple of changes in our positions in the car, we arrive back at Verona Falls.
Ophelia’s been crying on and off, and I remind myself that her grief isn’t going to go away in a matter of hours, or even days.
It’s something she’ll learn to live with, eventually.
She’s also killed a man, and that kind of shit changes a person. I should know.
We stop at the gates.
“Welcome back, sir,” one of the guards says, recognizing us. He dips his chin in a nod to the others.
“They’re with us,” I tell him, jerking my head at the RV following us.
“Of course.”
We drive through and make our way back to the water tower. I’m relieved to be back, as are the others, I’m sure.
“I’ll run Ophelia a bath,” Mal offers.
Roman swings his long legs out of the vehicle. “And I’ll make us something to eat.”
“Thanks.” I glance to the RV. “I’m sure the men would appreciate something, too.”
Roman smirks. “As long as they don’t comment on my cooking.”
I can’t help chuckling at that.
We settle back into the water tower, washing up and changing, preparing food, and just trying to remind ourselves that we’re normal human beings.
Ophelia emerges from the bath, her long pale hair hanging down her back, still damp.
She’s wearing one of Mal’s black band shirts, and it reaches down to her thighs.
Her legs are covered in a baggy pair of plaid pajama pants.
She looks cute as fuck, but she’s still pale and shaky, and her lower lip keeps wobbling, though she’s more together than at the commune.
Roman’s made a huge pan of chili, and the scent fills the air, reminding me how hungry I am. He dishes it up with rice and nacho chips and a bowl of sour cream. Before I can eat, I need to make sure the other men are okay.
I carry a large bowl of the chili out to the RV. None of them will be able to complain about a lack of meat with this dish, since it’s full of ground beef, though after last night, I doubt any of them would have dared say anything even if I’d brought them a salad.
As I reach the RV, I pick up the low murmur of a voice. It’s not coming from inside, but rather around the back of the vehicle. I catch the end of a sentence—
“—the mission failed.”
I frown. Is that Felix talking? I’m sure it’s his voice. I freeze, my breath held. What does he mean by ‘the mission failed.’ Even though we lost Daisy, we did what we set out to achieve. We’re all safe, and the Prophet is dead.
“No, I can’t.” He’s speaking in that low, urgent way of someone who doesn’t want to be heard. “They’re watching her like a hawk. But there’s no reason to think your son will ever find out.”
I place the bowl of chili down quietly and stalk around the back of the RV. Felix’s eyes widen when he sees me, and he shoves the cell behind his back like a child who’s been caught with something he shouldn’t have.
“Whose son?” I demand. “Are you talking to my father?”
“Cain. I thought you were inside the water tower.” His expression is a mask, but I know that’s good training, not to reveal your emotions.
“Hand me the cell phone.”
He shakes his head. “That’s private property.”
“I own you, the other men, and everything in your possession, including that cell phone and the fucking clothes you stand in. Now give me the fucking phone.”
Still, he doesn’t budge.
With a roar of anger and frustration, I lunge at him.
My fist curls into his shirt at the base of his throat, and I throw him backward against the side of the RV.
I swing and manage to smash his nose, but, though I’m big and strong, Felix is also trained.
He catches me in the gut with his fist and winds me.
I don’t give up, and I swing for him again, this time catching him in the jaw.
He kicks out and takes my legs out from under me.
We end up on the ground, rolling in the dirt, delivering punch for punch. We’re too well matched, and I fear we might end up killing each other.
The noise from our fighting grabs the attention of the others. People rush out of the RV and then the water tower. Hands are on us both, dragging us off each other, though we’re both still trying to kick and punch.
“What the fuck is going on?” Malachi demands.
“Did he insult my cooking?” Roman wonders out loud.
I let out a growl. “He’s in on something with my father.”
“You’re overreacting.” Felix spits blood onto the dirt.
Heads turn from one direction to the other as we verbally spar now.
“Then show me the fucking cell phone.”
I realize Ophelia is standing there, her mismatched eyes wide with dismay. She’s already seen far too much violence, and I wish she didn’t have to see this either, but I can’t just let this go. Something is going on.
I remember catching a glance passing between Felix and the Prophet. I hadn’t given it much thought at the time because there had been so much going on, but now I think about it, it was recognition, I’m sure. But why would they know each other? Unless… Felix is somehow on the Prophet’s payroll?
But it wasn’t the Prophet that Felix had been talking to just then, because the Prophet is dead. It had been my father, I’m sure.
I’m not letting this drop. “If I’m overreacting, you won’t mind us looking at that cell phone, because something tells me that you and my father are in on something, and it is connected to the Prophet.”
At that, Ophelia gasps, her hands covering her mouth. “Your father! It was him.”
I shoot her a confused look. She seems to know something more, but how is that possible? What the hell is she alluding to?
“What’s going on, Ophelia?”
She shakes her head. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.
There’s something I never told you. I thought it was my father who was responsible, and I didn’t want you all to hate him even more than you already did.
Then I reasoned it couldn’t be him, but I was convinced that would be your conclusion, so… I kept it secret.”
I stare at her. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Daisy told me that the Prophet knew who I was long before he snatched me as a child. She said the whole thing was planned, that I was set up. The Prophet didn’t come across me accidentally the day he took me.”
Her words hit me with the force of a sledgehammer, making it hard to get air into my lungs. The terrible consequence of what she’s saying is almost too much to handle.
“You mean someone set up your kidnapping?”
A solid lump of rock seems to form in my chest. Is she saying what I think she is?
She stares at me with big, round eyes. “I think so, and now with this … what if it was your dad?”
Everything clicks into place. All those years ago, my father never liked how close I’d gotten to Ophelia and her family.
He could see how much I’d loved her, even back then.
He’d probably envisioned a future where I’d want to marry her and so would join our two families together.
He’d always seen our family as superior to Ophelia’s.
Would he really have gone to such an effort to rid her from our lives?
It wouldn’t have been difficult for him, not if he knew the Prophet somehow. He could have easily learned where Ophelia’s family were going to be and handed her over to the Prophet.
“Fuuck!” I roar, my fists clenched.
As I stare at Felix, I know, deep in my gut, that my father did this and Felix is in on it.
His eyes are wide, jaw tense, nostrils flared, and his face is pale.
So fucking pale because he understands what’s going to happen to him.
One look at that face, and I am one hundred percent sure that Felix has betrayed me and almost got the woman I love killed.