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But there isn’t.
“Yes.” His voice cracks while my entire world shatters before me.
But his next answer will cement our fate for good. “And did you take her money?”
He at least has the common decency to look at me when he splits my heart into two. “Yes.” He peers down at the folder Lacey holds and pinches the bridge of his nose. “That was in storage for a reason.”
“I can see why,” she bites back. I’ve never seen her this angry with her brother before. “I knew there was a reason you told me to stay in Myrtle Beach. Now”—she waves the folder in one hand—“I know why.” She meets my baffled stare as I play ping-pong between them, attempting to decipher what the hell is going on and hold back my tears.
She’s been in Myrtle Beach? I thought she was making herself scarce because of the shit that went down.
“And now, she needs to know, Cayden. She needs to know it all.” Our eyes finally lock. She looks fatigued and completely shattered.
“Wh-what’s going on?” My falter betrays my utmost fear.
Cayden is riddled with whatever he’s about to reveal. He thumbs the corner of his mouth, attempting to gather his thoughts before he speaks. With his face downturned and shoulders slumped, he finally delivers me the final piece—the piece which connects us all together.
“Everything I told you last night was true. But there is a common denominator.” I gulp as the walls begin closing in on me. “My father.”
Lacey’s whimper has me rubbing the goose bumps from my arms.
“Us meeting when we were kids wasn’t by chance. I knew who you were the entire time. Not just because your surname was notorious, but because my father told me about the white house and the woman inside.”
“The woman?” I wet my lips twice, afraid I’m about to be bled dry.
“Your mom. Just like you and me, your mother and my father met here when they were kids. But unlike us, their relationship was one-sided. My father was smitten by your mom. But your mother saw my father for the parasite that he was, though he never took no for an answer. He saw her rejection as her playing hard to get. But there was no way someone like Stella Lane would be caught dead with someone like my dad.
“No matter how hard he tried, it didn’t make a difference…until one night. Your mom knew he ran with a bad crowd, hell, he was the bad crowd, but she asked if he could score her some weed.”
My eyes widen, and I pull back, stunned. “Are you sure you have the right person?” The notion of my mother smoking pot is just unfathomable.
But Cayden nods once. “Yes, this is what triggered a chain reaction that affected us all for the rest of our lives. In my dad’s own twisted way, he loved your mom even though he knew he could never have her.” I bite my bottom lip as this tale sounds a little too close to home. “But when she sought him out, asking him to meet her by the oak tree with some weed, he thought she’d had a change of heart.”
“She doesn’t have one,” I bitterly counter, hating she has a part in every aspect of my life.
“And my father was soon to find that out. He wore his best shirt, which would have looked ridiculous to someone like your mom. He picked a bunch of flowers, hoping that night was the night the girl of his dreams finally felt the same way he did. I almost felt sorry for him because back then, I wanted to believe he wasn’t the motherfucker he grew up to be.”
Cayden’s resentment toward his father has always been evident, but this hatred is something else.
“He waited, ready to lay all his cards on the table, but what he was greeted with affirmed his place in the world. It was and would always be us versus them.
“A group of guys your mother was friends with jumped him and stole his weed. They gave him a good beating, the message clear—stay away from your mom. Someone like him could never have someone like her.”
“She set him up?” I don’t know why this shocks me. I suppose I want to see the good in everyone. But Stella Lane is clearly the exception to that rule.
“Yes. After that, his love turned to hate. He resented her, but most of all, I think he resented himself. That single event was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. He grew to hate your mother and all that her ‘kind’ represented. She was a reminder of everything he wanted but could never have.
“In the crowd he ran with, he was the tough guy. No one said no to my dad—no one bar your mother—and he never forgot it. For as long as he lived, he promised to make her pay for everything she did.”
Lacey and I stand mute, as there are no words to describe what we’ve just heard.
Cayden interlaces his hands behind his neck, peering up at the ceiling. “I was curious about your mom. I wanted to meet the woman my father would mumble about late at night when he was near passed out from the bottle of whiskey he drank. I was curious, but I should have just stayed away.
“The moment I saw that lemon tree…well, you know the rest. And that, like so many other events, is the biggest regret of my life. If only I stayed away, none of this would have happened.”
I catalog over everything he shared. I knew I was missing the vital piece. I’m about to find out what.
“I tried to keep our relationship on the down low because, as you know, you’re the spitting image of her. But when my father saw you, his lifelong obsession with your mother turned a corner. He no longer wanted her. He wanted…you.”
He clenches his jaw, fists bunched by his sides. “If I’d known that, I would have tried harder to keep you away. But you were a bird, caged in that house. You rebelled, and look what happened. You met me, and your whole life changed. I tried pushing you away, but a selfish part of me was happy when you pushed back.
“One night, you had snuck into my bedroom, and my father caught us. I’ve never seen him like that before. Usually, he ran on pure anger, but something else was behind his gaze. A longing for what he lost? I’ll never know. You introduced yourself, not knowing what you just did. But I leaped to your defense…I didn’t want you anywhere near him. I told you to leave, and for once, you listened. But it didn’t matter.”
“And that’s why he beat you?” Lacey’s small voice draws us back to the now. “He couldn’t understand why Peyton wanted you when her mother didn’t want him.” She has just connected all the dots, but we both wish she was wrong.
Cayden nods, standing tall. He doesn’t want pity. He doesn’t want to be a victim. But he isn’t. This man is nothing but a warrior through and through.
I cover my mouth with a quivering hand while tears sting Lacey’s eyes. “He beat you all the time. I remember. I thought they were just a dream, but they weren’t. Oh God, Cayden. I’m sorry. I should have…”
“No, don’t you dare.” He charges forward, cupping her cheeks and leveling her with nothing but sincerity. “I would rather it was me than you. I’m your big brother. It’s my job to protect you. To protect you both.”
I can’t listen to this without wanting to curl into a ball because there are so many layers. But Cayden withstood so much, and now, it’s my turn to do the same.
“Every time Peyton was here…he beat you? Didn’t he? As punishment or jealousy? Or maybe both?”
