Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Kain was absolutely right. I should really watch how much I tell people I don’t know that well.
It was too late to take his advice now. The extravagance of this large house now made sense.
The shaking terror in Victor’s eyes upon seeing Kain now made sense.
His whole demeanor… Everything made sense.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” His voice came out annoyed with the slightest hint of antagonism. I flinched under the harshness of his tone, wrapping my arms around myself to feel secure.
“Like what?” The shaking in my voice exposed the uneasiness that I was suddenly feeling. I looked away from him, thinking that might help.
“Like you’re scared of me. Did I give you a reason to be scared of me?” he asked.
Yes and no, I thought to myself, but I didn’t dare say it out loud.
The Montgomery family is dangerous. Everyone in Miami knows that they’re dangerous. They were the type of people who’d make an enemy at noon and have them killed before sunset. Name a crime, and some member of that clan is guilty of it. From drugs to murder, and everything in between.
The biggest villain who bore the Montgomery name was Silas Montgomery, who sat at the family’s head.
He’d managed to avoid the law for nearly thirty years, even though everyone in Miami knew he was a walking life sentence.
Silas Montgomery started in the 1980s by capitalizing off the crack epidemic, but no one could ever connect him to the networks of dealers throughout Miami.
As crack died out, he began investing in legitimate businesses.
If you can call clubs, bars, and strip clubs legitimate businesses.
Most of the clubs and bars were really just well-veiled fronts for cleaning drug money.
Strip clubs are not illegal, but for years Miami-Dade County had been trying to prove he was hiring underage girls, as well as pimping some of his dancers out.
There was a news story that once said that over seventy-five percent of the prostitution in South Florida could be tied back to Silas Montgomery. They said that it was a billion-dollar industry. From the looks of this house, they certainly weren’t lying.
Most recently, Silas was booked on involvement in a triple murder, and he’d posted the twelve-million-dollar bail in less than forty-eight hours.
However, this crime would be the one that the city of Miami would use to bring Silas Montgomery down once and for all, and my father was the lead prosecutor on the case. There was word out for Dad’s head simply because he was bringing Silas Montgomery to trial.
“Now you’ve got nothin’ to say,” Kain observed. It was true. I’d been reasonably talkative up until I’d realized who I was talking to. I didn’t even know where to begin. I’d already said too much. “And this is why I can’t stand being in Miami.”
Kain was talking more to himself than he was to me. He sounded unreasonably frustrated.
What? Does he expect me to ignore the fact that he just told me that the most dangerous man in Miami is his father? A dangerous man who wants my own father dead, no less. I’d have to be made of stone to not be fazed by this.
I briefly remembered Kain saying to Victor earlier, ‘Do you know who I am? You know what we do to people who lie to us?’ Of course he would just casually carry around a gun like that. He was probably just as dangerous as the other members of his family.
And I just told him my that father was trying to put his father away. To his face. I shuddered at my extreme stupidity.
“Say something,” he said. His voice was louder and it startled me, but there was something else there, too. A subtle plea.
“You’re a Montgomery,” I said first. Kain looked at me, and I watched the softness in his eyes melt away, getting harder…more defensive.
“Clearly.”
“I don’t know if I should be here,” I mumbled quietly. I could tell the fear in my voice was grating on his nerves, but he just drew in a sharp breath, turning away from me as though he couldn’t stand to look at me anymore. “Should I go?”
He returned to my face again, visibly irritated when he asked, “Do you want to?”
“I can’t exactly drive home.”
“Are you askin’ me to take you home?”
I shook my head slowly. Not because I didn’t want to go home, but because I was very worried about giving out my address to a Montgomery. I felt like Kain understood why I responded that way as well, but he just shook his head.
I didn’t speak for a very long time. We sat in an uncomfortable silence for what could have been fifteen minutes.
I smoothed down my hair nervously, unsure of where we stood from this point.
Part of me looked at him and tried to remind myself how gracious he’d been the whole night.
The fact that he was a Montgomery didn’t change the fact that he’d saved me and then proceeded to keep watch over me as I slept.
Was it fair of me to change my mind about him so drastically?
Kain sat in my silence, eyes lost in thought, attention elsewhere.
I traced the details of his features and my intuition told me that the person in front of me wasn’t as bad as I wanted to believe him to be.
The chiseled masculinity of his face would’ve given anyone who possessed it an intimidating aura, but on him it was made palatable by the natural air of integrity and benevolence he gave off effortlessly.
Deep down, I felt that I knew I had nothing to be afraid of. In all honesty, I couldn’t say I was scared of the man in front of me at all.
Kain caught me staring and his hardened features softened a little, the harshness in his eyes dissipating. He sighed before he spoke.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said. It seemed like he was annoyed that he even had to assure me of this. “This isn’t the part where I decide to switch up just because of who your father is. That’s not me.”
“He’s trying to put your dad in prison, though,” I reminded him.
Kain crinkled his eyebrows with confused exasperation. This girl really needs to stop running her mouth. That was the sentiment his face illustrated. Shaking his head, he simply replied, “I know... And I heard you the first time you said it.”
“So?” I questioned. I wanted to know where we stood from here.
“What’s that got to do with you?” he asked. “Or me? Or any of this?”
This?
I didn’t voice the question that immediately came to mind.
To me, it was way too likely that I was reading too much into things.
One man’s “this,” is nothing to start a new conversation about.
I pushed my curiosity to the side, and tried to stick to the topic at hand.
Kain looked at me expectantly, waiting for my response.
“Are you asking me to ignore the fact that our fathers are literally at war?”
“I don’t know what that has to do with me. Or you. So what are you scared for? Have I given you a reason to be afraid of me?”
“No.” I bit down on my lower lip. “But you can’t just expect me to carry on like your family doesn’t have a bounty on my father’s head.” Kain didn’t deny this. “People are after my father because he’s working this case, am I right?”
Kain didn’t verbally respond as much as lazily shrug, as if to say the question wasn’t worth asking or answering. Of course people were after my father. That was to be expected.
“Do you see why I’m reacting to you the way I have?” I asked then. “Anything I say could be used as a means to get to my father… and I just… I don’t care how good or kind you seem. I’m not betting my father’s life on it. I feel like I’ve already said to much.”
“You have,” Kain informed. I fought the urge to ask him what I might’ve said that he found to be too telling.
He appraised my reaction to what he’d said and chuckled to himself before he asked, “Who in my family knows that you’re Joshua Caplan’s daughter?
Or any of the other stuff you felt the need to share tonight? ”
“You know.”
He nodded. “And what do you think I’m gonna do with this information?”
My voice came out hopeful when I answered. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
Kain had the most focused, honest eyes. It was intimidating, but I actually believed him.
With eyes so intense, I felt like Kain saw everything at once.
There was a silent wisdom in his discerning gaze.
It was like he’d seen all there was to see in this world.
He seemed so sure of himself. So strong.
I felt like a person with eyes like those didn’t have a reason to lie to me.
If he was going to screw me over, it’s not like I could stop him.
He was telling the truth.
“So you just don’t care that my dad’s trying to put your dad in prison for life?”
With a flash of his perfect teeth, it was clear that Kain was amused by the question. It almost sounded like he was suppressing a laugh when he replied, “My father’s not goin’ to prison, Lauren. That much I can say.”
The confidence in his tone was unsettling.
It was as if he’d travelled to the future and seen my father lose the case against Silas Montgomery with his own eyes.
Because I knew how hard Dad was working, Kain’s response bothered me quite a bit.
To my irritated expression, Kain explained why he thought so.
“With all due respect, your father has a losing case. No tangible evidence. No witnesses.”
“Isn’t your family threatening all the witnesses?” I questioned.
Kain shot me a look as if to say, You can’t possibly think I’m going to answer that question. I pressed my lips together, acknowledging that it was a foolish thing to ask.
“You don’t tell me anythin’ about your father’s case. I don’t tell you anythin’ about my father’s defense. Okay?” he offered. “We’re movin’ on.”
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered. “Nobody is trying to kill your father.”