Cain glares at him, grabs a file off the desk, and slaps it down in front of us.
“The hit.”
I sit, lean forward, and flip the file open, scanning it. My mind’s still stuck on Olivia, the kiss, the soft hum of her voice when she whispered goodnight. I should be focused.
I try to be focused.
But then Declan laughs. “He didn’t even look at it. He’s been too busy making out with Olivia in the kitchen like a teenage boy with no concept of house rules.”
“Seriously?” Cain’s voice cuts sharp, and I look up just in time to see him staring at me like I just kicked his dog.
I roll my eyes. “It’s not like that.”
Declan shrugs, all innocent. “It looked like that to me.”
Cain doesn’t smile. “Business comes first, Hayden. Always. You know that.” There’s a meaning, a warning behind those words.
I nod. “I do. But something about this one... feels different.”
Cain eyes me carefully. “Different how? It’s a fucking job. Open the envelope follow the fucking step. Do the job and never talk about it again.”
Cain leans back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. The fatigue is painted all over his face, the war he fights inside his skull evident in the deep lines around his eyes.
I hold out the pills. “Take the fucking pills, Cain,” I say finally. “Or I swear to God, one day I’ll drug your whiskey and handcuff you to the bed while Doc plays musical chairs with your brain cells.”
Declan bursts out laughing, but Cain doesn’t, but he does slide the pills closer to him like he’s considering it. Progress. I think he knows I would do it
I flip back to the file, letting the weight of it sink in. Leo’s father. The man behind everything. The one who fucked everything up. How do I just walk away from it?
“How deep does this go?” I ask.
Cain taps the side of his whiskey glass. “Deeper than we thought. Connections in politics, medicine, law enforcement. Everything that crushed Olivia, it started with him.”
Again, I ask myself, how do I walk away without him knowing it’s me who ended him.
I grit my teeth. “Then it ends with him.”
Cain nods, but again it feels like something is going on in his head, like he is planning something else.
There’s a long pause, and then Declan clears his throat.
“Oh, by the way, Autumn says the flower shop’s busier than ever and she’s pissed at you, Cain.” Now Cain knows the shop is busy, because she tells him all the time, so Declan is doing something to break the silence.
Cain doesn’t even blink. “Why this time?”
“She says you never come home. You spend more time here or at The Pit.”
Cain groans. “We run a fucking criminal empire; she runs a flower shop. I can’t exactly close shop early because she misses my face.” Now I know Cain’s head is bad, and there’s a lot moregoing on in his head, because he loves Autumn, so for him to snap like this, it’s weird.
Declan smirks. “Well, yourfaceis the reason she’s with you, apparently.”
“I’ll send her a bouquet,” Cain mutters. “With your dead body in it.”
I laugh quietly. It’s a strange moment but it still makes me laugh.
Leaning forward, so Cain looks at me with his dead eyes. “You have a family who cares, a woman for some crazy reason who loves you. Take the pills Doc gives you, if you care about any of us even a fucking little.”
He stares at me for a whole minute between turning around and looking at the screens, and that’s him telling us to fuck off.
