Chapter 11 #2
Kain presented his answer like a question. “My family???” He looked at me questioningly. “You do realize I didn’t raise myself, right? Would you send your kid to a school in the hood just because they asked to go?”
The answer was so obvious, but then again, it wasn’t. It was so difficult for me to imagine Silas Montgomery as paternal. There were many depictions of Silas Montgomery in the media—ruthless, charismatic, business-minded, straight up fucking evil… Fatherly was never on the table.
“You know I’ve been meaning to ask… How does a… an individual like Silas Montgomery raise a son so…human? You clearly didn’t inherit his mean streak.”
Kain’s eyebrows came together in vague confusion at the way I chose to word that question. He sighed, “I guess no matter what the standard, we’re all just destined to disappoint our parents.”
“You think your father would be disappointed in you for being…human?”
“Do you have to keep saying it that way?” Kain raised an eyebrow. “Human is a very strange way to put it.”
“What I mean to say is… you’re… good. Kind. Protective. You’re amazing.” I could’ve went on for at least a dozen more bullet points. “And your father… he’s pretty much evil in the flesh.”
Kain’s smile was a little sad when he replied, “What if I’m more like him than you realize, and…
and you’re just the exception?” I raised my head from his lap, sensing a serious shift in the conversation coming.
“What if the person I am with you is nothing like the person I am when you’re not around? ”
“Well,” I mumbled, a little caught off guard, but holding his gaze by any means necessary. “How hard are you trying to be this person right now?”
Kain’s honest vulnerability was everything to me when he said, “This is easy.”
“And how hard do you have to try when you’re with others?”
My smile faded when he replied, “That’s easy, too.”
“Any particular reason why you need to switch at all? If both are easy, why not just pick one?”
He let out a measured breath, cocking his head to the side a little.
“I’m on the border of two entirely different worlds right now.
There’s your world… and then there’s mine.
I can’t just pick one. The person I am with you just wouldn’t survive in my world.
The person I am with them… would scare a girl like you to death. ”
I leaned in a little closer, resting my chin on his shoulder before I whispered, “What happens when those worlds collide? Who would you be then?”
“I’m not tryna find out,” Kain responded after much thought. “It’s a lose-lose situation regardless.”
“Well, that’s disheartening,” I expressed. “Doesn’t really set the foundation for a promising future.”
His eyebrows raised a little, his interest piqued. “You’ve been thinking about a future, have you?”
I raised my chin from his shoulder and shrugged.
“I know… I’m being silly.” Kain looked like he might say something, but I wasn’t ready to hear whatever it was, so I changed the subject immediately.
“I’m sure Marlon, Amir, and Jay have seen both—everyone else’s Kain and my Kain.
” The fact that I could even say ‘my Kain’ gave me butterflies.
“Do your friends ever make fun of you for how you are with me?”
A smile stretched across his features, his eyes amused when he replied, “Not to my face.”
“So you think they do it privately.”
Kain let out a drawn out, “Shit,” before laughing. “I know I would clown the mess out of those niggas if the roles were reversed. But, I dunno… You and me—” Kain pointed at me and back at himself as he said it “—are not a likely pair. I think right now they’re too confused to find any of it funny.”
“I mean… can’t forget they are putting their lives at risk with everything you’ve asked them to do.” Certainly they didn’t think that was funny either.
“They good.” Kain shrugged. “I don’t ask for things I wouldn’t do in return.”
My eyebrows climbed to the top of my forehead. “You mean you only had to ask them to do all of this? And they just up and agreed knowing the consequences? You’re saying that you would do the same? You’d risk your life for them?”
“They’re my friends,” Kain reminded me as if this was a good enough answer for all of my questions.
I could only blink in silence. Would I die for Lux?
Hell, would I die for Morgan, my actual sister?
The answer to my thoughts was not an immediate yes.
Slowly, I unconvincingly assured myself that I probably might. Maybe.
Is Kain like this with all his friends? Does Kain consider me his friend? Would he put his life on the line for me? I asked myself the last question and immediately decided that I never wanted Kain Montgomery to care about me to the extent that he would put himself in danger.
And with that thought, I regretfully remembered how all of this started.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ a memory of Kain’s voice echoed in my head, reminding me of the first night I met him. ‘If I hear anythin’ useful. A time, a day, somethin’ like that... I’ll let you know. You can warn your father if it should come to that.’
Why should I be surprised that a man who made me a dangerous as hell promise the first day he met me—for no discernible reason—would not take the same risk for his actual friends?
“Tell me how you met them,” I pressed curiously.
Kain had become a lot more talkative than he was six weeks ago.
The Kain that I met over a month ago used to approach all of my questions with caution and suspicion, but not so much anymore.
When Kain couldn’t answer a question of mine, it was almost always because knowing the answer would add a bullet point the list of reasons his father would want me dead.
When Kain could answer my questions, he would.
There were even times when he’d predict what my next question would be and go right ahead and answer that, too.
“Amir—we went to school together until his Pops got locked up.” To my curious expression, Kain explained. “Drugs.”
“Meaning he… sold them? I mean, to afford private school, I would assume—”
“He was Silas’ partner for a really long time.
Had some reliable connections in Ghana’s drug trade and before Silas established his own connections in South America, Amir’s father was pretty much the plug.
It’s what a lot of us would’ve considered clean work, but then charges start piling up and before you know it—sixty years.
If I remember correctly, your father put him away. ”
My breath caught in my throat, and my voice squeaked when I asked, “Does Amir know that?”
Kain released a low laugh. “Don’t sweat it. Amir hates his father. The man used to beat the dog out of his mother. They’re doing better without him.”
A not so discrete sigh of relief came from me. “And Jay?”
“Marlon’s cousin. Growing up, they were kind of a package deal type duo. We—Amir and I—hated his ass at first. After a while, things just got to feeling incomplete without him. Goofy ass… I suppose you could say he grew on us. We all have that friend, I guess.”
Before I could ask, he was already explaining how Marlon fit into the equation. “Marlon’s mom used to mess with Silas way back.”
“Like a girlfriend? Or...?” I didn't want to say prostitute or any of its synonyms.
“Like a girlfriend,” Kain clarified. “Marlon and his mom lived at the house off and on for a good ten years.”
“So you two were like brothers,” I gathered, to which Kain nodded. “So then what happened after ten years?”
“Silas got bored,” Kain replied like it was a simple fact of life. “They moved out for good, and he put them up in some house in Fort Lauderdale.”
“Like a woman in every city type of arrangement?” I asked, which made him grimace before he replied.
“Exactly like that.”
I frowned, my mind wandering back to Kain’s statement on how similar he was to Silas.
Did Kain have such liberal views on relationships, too?
Would I be a Main Chick for some amount of time and then eventually be demoted to the name of whichever city I was in?
Was I even a Main Chick now? Noting a change in my mood, Kain asked, “What’s on your mind? ”
“Do you do the whole...main woman, side woman thing?” The question fell out of me like a cup overflowing, followed by the age old cliché, “What are we, anyway?”
“I don’t do the main woman, side woman thing,” he promised, eyes shining even under the dim lighting. He seemed entertained when he said, “And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re one of those girls who needs to be formally asked before you go around putting titles on things.”
“Well, don’t you sound like you’ve encountered several kinds of girls,” I observed.
“Do you wanna be my girlfriend, Lauren?”
“No,” I cut in quickly. I took him by surprise, but his amusement didn’t falter. “You’re not changing the subject with your deep voice and honeyed eyes. How many girls, Kain?”
“Will you be my girlfriend, Lauren?” he repeated, trying to move on.
“How many girls have you asked that question?” No amount of charm was going to get me to budge now that the curiosity had surfaced. My voice was whiny. Leave it to me to get exactly what I wanted, but still find something to complain about. “Now I’m curious.”
“Does it matter?” Kain asked, voice a low, hoarse groan, as he leaned in closer, his forehead settling into the crook of my neck.
“Whether it matters or not, is irrelevant,” I said against his shoulder. “I would still like to know.”
Kain raised his head from my collar, meeting my eyes. “Two.”
“Including me or not including me?”
“Before you.”
“And so… like… are these ladies just women you dated exclusively, or does the number two make up the sum total of women you slept with altogether?”
The expression on Kain’s face was a unique mixture of incredulous and entertained. “Really?”