Chapter 18 #2
“You were eight when he went away. Now you’re turning twenty-one in, like, a month and a half.” I met his eyes, holding them to mine. “You think he’ll be proud of the man you’ve become?”
“No,” Kain replied, looking away from me.
“Why?”
“I’m a lot like Vance in some ways,” Kain confessed, “but I’m a lot like Silas in others.”
“But you hate your father.”
“No,” Kain replied casually, looking at me. “I never said that. I don’t fear Silas. I don’t respect Silas. I don’t like Silas. But I never said I hated him.”
That was an inaccurate assumption on my part. I’d be lying if I said a little part of me wasn’t disappointed to hear Kain correct it.
“In what ways are you like your father?”
“Do you really wanna know?” Kain asked, warning me. He was ready to tell me if I wanted the answer that bad, but he was already telling me I wouldn’t like it.
“No,” I sighed tiredly. “I guess I don’t want to know.”
We laid in an almost sleepy silence, but neither of us fell asleep. Instead, we just stared at each other. Finally, after quite some time, Kain asked me a question.
“Feeling emotionally exhausted?”
Kain really doesn’t miss a thing.
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“You think you might go home?” he asked next.
I blinked a few times, a little gloominess in my voice when I asked, “Do you want me to?”
“No.” He reached into the distance between us, caressing my cheek lightly. “I want you to stay.”
Relief settled in my chest. I breathed out, setting my hand on his to keep it on my cheek.
“Well, since you went ahead and took the whole week off…” I still couldn’t believe he did that. He even got rid of his cellphone for me. “I’m not in a hurry to face my parents, anyway. It’s not like they can send out an Amber Alert. I’m…”
“…grown,” Kain finished my sentence, still getting his kicks off teasing me from this morning.
I wrinkled my nose, pretending to be annoyed. “I was going to say I’m nineteen.”
“They can still report you missing, baby,” Kain informed. “If they haven’t heard from you for forty-eight hours, they can file a police report.”
“Yeah, but they wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t?” Kain wasn’t sure he’d heard me correctly.
“It would embarrass them,” I explained. “To all their important friends and coworkers. They would be the talk of The Beauvais.”
My parents were so heavily invested in their exclusive social club of wealthy black Southern families. I imagined my relationship with a Montgomery, if ever made public, would cause problems for them at all those society events.
“Your parents are Beauvais members.” Kain found this funny. “Why am I not surprised?”
“You know about The Beauvais?” My eyebrows rose. This was honestly surprising. The Beauvais was so elite that it was practically a secret society.
Kain reminded, “I went to a really expensive private school. Most of the black kids’ families were affiliated.”
When Kain once told me it was his family who sent him to private school, I assumed that meant his father. It didn’t make sense to me at all then when I tried to wrap my mind around it. I now realized when Kain said family, he meant Vance.
“Were you sent to private school because of your Uncle Vance?” I asked for confirmation.
Kain nodded.
This kind of made me wonder if there were any good qualities in Silas Montgomery at all. My very short mental list of Good Things Silas Montgomery Has Ever Done shrank by one. There was only one thing left on the list now.
“Has your father ever done anything good?” I asked. “Besides buying this house for your uncle, who quite frankly deserves more than a four-bedroom house for going to prison for something he didn’t do.”
Something I’d said made Kain laugh, just a little.
“What?”
“Silas didn’t buy this house for Vance,” Kain disclosed. “I did.”
And there went the last thing on my list of Good Things Silas Montgomery Has Ever Done.
If my memory served correctly, Kain never did say Silas bought this house. He only said the house was for Silas’ brother, and I assumed that meant Silas bought it.
“Lauren, I’ve been feelin’ real guilty lately,” Kain confessed suddenly.
Panic started to rise in my chest at the sound of that. My voice was just below a whisper.
“What have you done?”
“It’s not what I’ve done,” Kain assured. “It’s what I want to do.”
I let out a slow exhale. “What?”
“I bought this house for Vance, as a fresh start and a space all his own after, you know, twelve years in a cage.” There was an unspoken, ‘but,’ in Kain’s words. “Every time I’ve come to this house, it’s been with you. And with each time we come back, this place feels more and more like home.”
Understanding what he was trying to say, I relaxed.
“And now you want to keep it.”
“Now I’m gonna keep it,” Kain confirmed. “You know last night was the best night’s sleep I’ve had in weeks?”
I squinted in disbelief. “You slept, like, four hours.”
“I know,” he expressed. “Without wakin’ up in the middle even once.”
What kind of life does a person have to live where sleeping four hours straight is an accomplishment?
As some sort of delayed reaction, I suddenly asked, “Wait, did you say that every time you’ve been here, it’s been with me?”
Kain nodded.
“Like, since the summer started?”
“No,” Kain replied. “Ever.”
My brows came together in confusion. “How did you buy the house then? Furnish it? Remember the first time I was here, and you pulled a gun out of the kitchen cabinets? Who put that there, if not you?”
“I didn’t even pick this house. You can buy furniture and household items online. You can get movers and interior decorators to do the whole décor thing, too. I got all this set up from my dorm room.”
“You didn’t pick the house?” This was news to me. “Who did?”
“Amir did. In fact, I think his opportunist ass went out of his way to pick the most expensive house in the neighborhood, just so he could get the largest possible return.”
“Return?” Was that code for something?
It wasn’t code at all.
“Amir owns a real estate company,” Kain informed. “We closed on the house five days before I brought you here for the first time. I asked him to leave a gun in the kitchen for me. The rest is history…”
Wait, what?
“Amir owns a real estate company? As in your best friend, Amir Ofori?” My eyebrows climbed up. “I thought he was a fashion model.”
This was apparently the funniest thing I have ever said to Kain, from the way that he laughed. “He really is extra as fuck with all those tailored suits.”
I already knew that Kain was the youngest member in his group of friends, but Amir was not that much older he was.
“How does a twenty-three-year-old come to own a real estate company?”
“Folks in high places, deep pockets, and a desire to work with someone who won’t ask too many questions about where the money comes from. Even though Amir didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps, he’s still one of us.”
One of us…
Whatever ‘us’ entailed, I was a little dismayed to recognize that Kain still counted himself within it.
I wondered what Amir’s business cards said.
Amir Ofori – Real Estate for Criminals.
With a shake of my head, I chased away the silly thoughts, making more observations about Amir.
I said, “And he’s clearly down to step back into that world as a favor to you.” He’d done it twice. Once to protect me, and again today. “You have an extensive list of responsibilities.”
Kain sighed, his mood content. “What? You never ask your friends to help you with your chores?”
I rolled my eyes. “Taking out the trash and transactions with trappers are not the same thing, Kain.”
“Transactions with trappers,” Kain repeated, snickering. “That don’t even sound right coming from you. What do you know about that?”
“My dad’s Miami-Dade’s state attorney,” I reminded, though Kain definitely hadn’t forgot. “I know a lot.”
“You do know a lot,” Kain agreed. I caught the double meaning.
As if to check if he still had full confidence in me, I asked, “So is Poseidon always your responsibility? Or do you do the other clubs, bars, and lounges, too?”
While sunlight is what lights Miami during the day, Montgomery Clubs are what light Miami during the night. They had a total monopoly on Miami nightlife.
All of the clubs, according to my father, were just centers for cleaning drug and prostitution money. After seeing that even the most luxurious Montgomery clubs were not safe from illegal activity, I was inclined to believe him.
Kain showed that he still trusted me, answering my question.
“Poseidon is my only stop. Every weekend since the Summer started. Pick up on Sunday. Deposit the following Saturday.”
“Why just that one?”
“Because it’s consistently the biggest pot. Not everyone can be trusted with that kind of money. Even family. When I’m not around, Silas makes those stops himself.”
“And since you’re home for the summer, he assigned it to the person he trusts the most,” I gathered.
I might’ve already knew this, but today I confirmed that my boyfriend is the person Silas Montgomery trusts the most.
“Gotta make myself useful,” Kain replied with wry humor.
“You didn’t drop off any money yesterday,” I remembered. Kain was with me on Saturday night.
Kain nodded. “Amir did it for me.”
“So is Amir the person you trust the most,” I asked curiously.
Kain nodded doubtlessly. “That’s my brother.”
With that, I couldn’t keep myself from asking, “Why doesn’t he like me?”
My boyfriend did not sugarcoat his response at all.
“He thinks you’re weak,” he explained, before adding, “But he doesn’t dislike you. He dislikes what you represent.”
“What do I represent?”
“Amir thinks you’ll make me weak, too. He thinks messin’ around with you is gonna get me killed.” Lux had once said the same thing about Kain.
Is there such a thing as too much honesty in a relationship? I was actually scared to ask my next question.
“What do you think?”
Kain thought about his answer for moment and my heart sank. I was holding my breath, readying myself for the emotional blow of realizing my boyfriend thinks of me as a problem.
After much consideration, he finally said, “I think I’m happy.”