Chapter 38 #2
"I always said," Cain says, his voice completely even, "never let a woman get in the way of business."
He looks at me.
Not a glance. A look. Direct and completely without flinching, the kind of look that has always made me feel like every thought I've had in the last month is written on my face in permanent ink.
I hold it.
I owe him that much.
"There is always a plan." His voice doesn't rise.
It never rises, and somehow that makes it worse, makes every word land with its full weight undiminished.
"I have everything set. Every corner is covered.
Every detail in every file exists because I have sat down and thought through every possible variable, every possible complication, every possible thing that could go wrong and I have planned for it.
" He puts his hand flat on the table. Then he slams it.
The glass jumps. The bottle shakes. Lileah flinches beside Mum.
"A plan. So that when it's done it stays done.
So that nobody in this room ends up behind bars or in the ground because someone didn't follow the fucking plan. "
The echo of it settles over the room.
"But you—" His finger comes up, pointing across the table at me, and I don't move. "You thought it would be good to do your own thing." The finger doesn't waver. "Over a woman."
The room is so quiet I can hear the clock on the mantelpiece. I can hear Olivia breathing in the armchair. I don't look at her.
"If you wanted him dead," Cain says, pulling his hand back, refilling the glass. "You come to me."
"He was never on the list." The words come out of me before I've decided to say them. Not defensive. Just true. "He was never going to be on the list."
Cain looks at me, then he laughs.
It's a short sound. There’s no humor in it. He shakes his head slowly and he looks down at the glass in his hand and he laughs again. It’s quieter, like he's had this argument with himself already and lost it.
"And you think," he says, looking back up. "That for you, I wouldn't have put him on it."
The words hit somewhere I didn't know was undefended.
I look at him.
"You didn't give me the chance." He sets the glass down, precise and deliberate, and the quiet that follows it is total.
"You didn't come to me. You didn't tell me.
You made a decision alone, in the dark, without a file, without a plan, without a single variable accounted for and you pulled a trigger, you walked away and you thought it was done.
" He shakes his head. "It wasn't done." Now those three words he shouts.
"For two weeks," Cain says, "I’ve been cleaning your mess.
Leo Holt's body was found before I could get anywhere near it.
Do you understand what that means? What that set in motion?
" He doesn't wait for an answer. "An investigation.
Eyes I didn't want on anything connected to this family. I had to call in favors I’ve been holding for years, fucking years to redirect those eyes.
I had to dismantle a timeline. I had to build another one in its place.
" He pauses. "And when I needed someone to stand in that timeline, someone to take the blame for what you did—"
He stops and looks at the glass, filling it up, then drinking it in one go.
"I went into the Pit," he says quietly. "I went in myself to find someone. To fight for someone who would take it." His jaw moves. "And someone did. Someone who trusted me enough to say yes, and who’s now dealing with consequences that belong to you."
"I didn't do it for her," I say. My voice comes out steady. I need him to hear this. I need it to be steady. "I did it for me. You look me in the eye and you tell me you don't understand that."
Cain looks at me for a long moment. Something moves through his face. Not softening. Cain doesn't soften, not here, not now.
"Then you should have come to me," he says quietly.
He picks up the glass.
He drains it again, stands up.
He looks around the table one last time, at my brothers, at my parents, at the girls, at all of us assembled in this room that has held this family through everything and his voice when he speaks is completely final.
"You're all out of the business. Until further notice."
Mason is on his feet before the sentence finishes. "We didn't do anything—"
"Mason." Dad's voice is sharp and immediate.
"No, seriously, Hayden made a call, one call, and we all get pulled out? That's not—"
But Cain’s already moving, he walks to the door.
Miles stands. "Cain, just… five minutes, let us—"
The front door opens.
The front door closes.
And that's it, Cain has spoken.
The room sits in the silence he left behind, and nobody moves for a long moment. The clock on the mantelpiece keeps going, indifferent, and the whiskey glass is still on the table with the ring it left on the wood.
Slowly, one at a time, I become aware of my brothers.
"You should have told us." Mason is the first to talk. “You fuck up, and we get benched, because you couldn’t talk to your brothers.” I stay quiet not sure what to say, I don’t think there is anything I can say.
“What the fuck happened to having faith in the family, that means fucking nothing to you.”
I look at him in shock that he said that to me. I’m the first one to have the families back, but right now, he’s right. I didn’t have faith in them. He pushes back from the table and leaves the room.
Miles stands next, slower. He looks at me for just a second, not with anger, and then he leaves.
Declan stands, shakes his head, and leaves.
And I stand at the table in the room that is still full of people, Mum, Dad, Lileah, Trixie, Olivia and the absence of my brothers is louder than anything Cain said.
I didn't just break the rule.
I broke my relationship with not just Cain, but my brothers.