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Maybe it wasn’t reasonable, but deep down, I was afraid that if he ever moved back, he’d somehow fuck things up for me. I’d come a long way from that angry kid with a deadbeat father and an alcoholic mom, and I wanted to keep it that way.
“Besides,” I said, “if I cut him off, he’d only hit my mom up and she’d give it to him.”
Even after all these years, she was still in love with the SOB. As for me, I didn’t even use his name. The night I’d been made in the syndicate, I’d dropped the Esposito to go by my first name, Talon.
Cain shook his head. “It only encourages him to keep coming to you, his hand out.”
“It’s my money.”
“You should just off the asshole.”
I lifted a brow. “Like you should off your uncle?”
Cain’s mouth bent down, but he stopped pushing me. “Anyway, while you were in New York, I heard from the PI we hired to keep track of your father. Esposito’s in Halifax. The PI thinks he’s on his way back to the island. Something about him owing a shitload of money to a loan shark.”
I worked my jaw from side to side. “I see.”
“Why don’t you have Brien ban Esposito from the island? Who cares if the man’s family has been on the island for practically forever? He’s a leach. Half of his family doesn’t even talk to him.”
“Two reasons.” I held up a finger. “One, the humans are touchy about things like that, and Brien’s just ascended to primus. Why piss them off when it’s something I can handle?” I raised a second finger. “And two, if we ban him outright, he might sneak onto the island anyway. This way, we can keep an eye on him.”
“You forgot number three.”
“What?”
“Your mom would come crying to you.”
“So?” I met him stare for stare.
He broke first, shaking his head and looking away. We were equal in dominance, but on this, I’d wouldn’t back down. Ever.
Cain didn’t remember his own mother—she’d died giving birth to him—and he’d lost his dad while still a toddler. His aunt and uncle had been more like prison wardens than parents. It was easy for him to say that as a vampire, I should break my human attachment to my mother.
Maybe my home life had been screwed up, but I’d always known my mom loved me.
“Does Brien know?” I asked.
“No. I figured I’d tell you first.”
“Thanks, bro. Don’t tell him, all right? Give me a chance to look into it.”
The last thing I wanted was to drag Brien into another of my messes, especially with Eden still fresh in his mind.
“This isn’t syndicate business,” I added when Cain looked like he was going to object. “It’s personal.”
His knee was jiggling again. “Fine. But I hope it doesn’t come back to bite you.”
9
Eden
I wasn’t used to late nights anymore. By the time I crawled into the four-poster bed, I was dizzy with tiredness. The mattress was super-comfortable, and the castle’s deep silence enfolded me like a familiar pair of arms.
I should’ve gone right to sleep, but instead, I stared up at the bed’s gauzy white canopy, thinking about my parents and wondering when I’d get to see them again.
Dad was a lobsterman, Mom a teacher. They kept early hours. They would’ve been asleep now for hours in their white clapboard house, the one with blue shutters and a creaky front step and flowers everywhere.
They wouldn’t even know I was back on the island unless Talon let me out of the castle, and I had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen—not for a while, anyway.
