Текст книги "The Wrath of Cain"
Автор книги: Kathy Coopmans
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 15 страниц)
Chapter One
Six Years Later
Six years. Seventy-two months. Two thousand and ninety-one days and way too many damn minutes it’s been since my feet have stepped on American soil.
And here I am sitting in my Mercedes coupe shaking like a bitch while I wait in line to cross over the Canadian border into Michigan.
What was supposed to be the best day of my life all those years ago drove me here when on my wedding night I found my husband fucking another woman in his bed. Not just any woman either, she was the one I was warned about by Cain’s stepmom moments before I went into his house and caught him. Stupid whoring club slut.
Nice, wouldn’t you say? I was young and naïve like my mom said when I told her we eloped to get married. I wasn’t smart enough back then to realize I had been set up to walk in and find him with some skank riding him.
My mind went blank and I drove across the border to Canada and never once came back. I threw my phone in the river and ended up in a bed and breakfast just outside of Windsor, Canada.
Those first few days I stayed locked in my room until the owner, Mrs. Henry, knocked on my door. When I didn’t answer, she let herself in and found me in the same clothes as when I had arrived. A fucking mess is what I was. She convinced me to call my parents, which I did, and both of them came to me trying to convince me to go back home.
My dad was on a rampage, wanting to kill Cain for hurting me, but my mother made him calm the hell down. I stood my ground and told her that I never wanted to see either one of those dickheads again.
Even with Windsor being right across the river from Detroit, it took a little convincing and two weeks of my mom staying with me to get her to let me stay. Meanwhile, she ignored all of Cain’s phone calls. He left voice mail after voice mail until she finally turned her phone off, leaving him no way to get in touch with me at all.
Didn’t stop the asshole, though. He resorted to going by their house continuously, pounding on the door, pleading and begging my father to tell him where I was. Dad hated him before he cheated and even more so after. He told him nothing. Cain continued going to my parents’ house every day for about a month, sitting outside in his car when my dad stopped answering the door. One day he just stopped. Fell off the face of the earth, just like I did.
My name is still Calla, but my last name is no longer Bexley or Greer, which was my maiden name. It’s now Calla Bexley-Henry, which wasn’t easy to do. It’s complicated but it’s legal.
Legal because I am still fucking married to that piece of shit. Which brings me back to the here and now. I don’t want to be married to him anymore. Going through all the bullshit of living in a foreign country, filing for taxes and most of all, lying to the last man I dated.
It took me four years to even want to look at a man, let alone go out with one. Even then, I just dated here and there; nothing serious. My body would constantly tighten up the minute they would try and touch me. Until I met Mikel Voskov.
Mikel is a hockey player. We met at an ice skating rink, naturally. His team was there with a group of fourth grade students whose class won a fundraising event, the prize being a night skating with the Canadian Ducks with Mikel as their goalie.
My eyes watched him, the way he bent down to the level of every child he spoke to and smiled, his attention focused on them.
I accidentally plowed him down turning a corner on my skates too sharply, and fell right on top of him. I laughed right along with him, for the first time in years. I had forgotten how good it felt to laugh. I missed it. I missed the longing looks from a man. The feeling of being cherished. A simple touch, a kiss, all of it. Mikel gave me all of those, and so much more.
After going out for several months, he told me he loved me. He wanted me to move in with him, get married. But how can anyone get married when they are still married to someone else?
He was heartbroken when I told him. Who could blame him? I never want to see the look on another man’s face that I did on Mikel’s. I hurt him by lying and betraying him the way I did. Never again. Cain is not worth it.
You keep saying he’s not worth it. Why haven’t you done anything about it before now? Why did you wait until a perfectly good man walked into your life to get a divorce? whispers the charming little devil on my shoulder.
I’m almost twenty four years old and tired of living a lie. I want to live, have a real life; an honest life. I also want to finish law school, move on, and forget about Cain once and for all.
I’ve stalked him online since he returned a year after I left; Google is quite friendly in telling you everything you need to know about a person. He never did fulfill his dream of becoming a cop. He is now the President of his dad’s club, The Sinners of Revolution. A club that was once just that, a club, but now it’s all kinds of screwed up. The Sinners are involved in illegal activities in every sense of the word.
Cain has changed so much; he’s not at all the man I expected him to be, and I want no part of the fucked up life he has created for himself. Pictures of him and his notorious club are everywhere across the internet. He lives and breathes for them. He’s untouchable, they say.
The one thing that hasn’t changed much about him is his looks. He still looks like the young man I fell in love with all those years ago. Dark hair, rock-solid body. That delectable, dipping V. I’ve stared into those eyes for hours on my computer, praying that he is living in a cesspool of regret in the darkest reaches of hell for ruining my life. Fuck. I hate him.
Pulling my car to a stop, I hand the border control officer my documents and tell him I am crossing the border to visit family. He winks flirtatiously at me as he hands me my Visa and passport back.
Pulling back into traffic, my heart rate accelerates as I cross over into Michigan and get on the interstate to head to the one place I dread more than anything. A part of me wishes he wouldn’t even be there, the other part of me hoping he is just so I can shove these papers in his face.
“Keep telling yourself you hate him, Calla. Remember what you saw,” says the angel on my other shoulder.
I love her so much more. I flick that devil off my other shoulder and put a smile on my face, even though I suspect it’s not real.
I come to a stop at the gas station a mile down the road from the compound. I sit for a few minutes, my breathing all kinds of erratic. My hands are shaking. I can do this. I have to, for no one other than myself.
What if he’s with someone else and I walk in on him fucking her like before? What if he’s doing drugs? All kinds of shit starts going through my head. Maybe I should go get my dad. He would be more than happy to shove these papers at Cain.
“No, Calla. You can do this. Just walk in there and be nice. He has to want this over just as much as you do.”
The sound of my own voice and words calms me. I glance at myself one more time in the mirror. My long, dark hair is flat-ironed straight. My greenish-blue eyes are made up with a sultry look, and my tight, red pencil skirt and low-buttoned white sleeveless shirt make me feel like a badass. Top it all off with my black Jimmy Choo stilettos and I am one hell of knock out, if I do say so myself.
Just like last time, I pull up to the gate, which is heavily guarded. My eyes bulge when the biggest man I have ever seen taps a gun on my window. There are tattoos up and down his arms, and a colorful snake tattoo that looks real drapes around his neck, its mouth covering his right cheek, hanging open as if ready to strike.
I’m so freaked out I’m unable to move. I’m studying to be a lawyer, for God’s sake. I shouldn’t be intimidated by this man, but I don’t like the deeply entrenched feeling I’m getting in the pit of my stomach that something terribly wrong is happening around here. What the hell has Cain done with this place?
I jump clear out of my seat when his gravelly voice crashes through my window as if he were sitting right next to me.
“This isn’t a carpool parking spot, little mama. Get the fuck out of here.”
He taps my window one more time then turns his bulky frame away from me. My hands continue to shake when I lower the window just a crack.
“I’m here to see Cain,” I squeak.
He stops but never turns back around.
“Is that so? Boss man went and got himself a high class hooker instead of dipping his dick into that Emerald whore, huh? Well, he never told me about you... so like I said, get the fuck out of here.”
Two steps is all this big bear of a man gets before my fear turns into full-fledged anger. My heart goes from cold to glacial knowing Cain’s still with her.
“Look, you son of a bitch. I am not a hooker. Now do whatever the fuck you do when someone is here to see your so called ‘boss man,’ and tell him his wife is here.”
“The fuck?” He jerks his head back.
“You heard me, you damn moron. Now call him.”
I cross my arms over my breasts, drawing his stare directly there.
“You’re Calla?” he asks curiously.
That’s odd, and instantly has me on edge again. How does he know my name and who I am?
“Yes,” I spit out.
“And how did you know my name?”
“Well, Jesus Christ. He’s a damn fucking fool. And to answer your question, all of us around here know who you are.”
“Come again?”
“Look, woman. I don’t have time to stand here and talk to you. My shift is over. I want a cold beer and my wife. So I’ll let you in. Cain should be in his office. Or in the bar. Anything else you want to know you can talk to him, but…”
He steps into my space.
“Cain may look like a sweet man on the outside with his clean-cut self, but he’s definitely not the same man you once knew. He’s one cold-hearted son of a bitch. Whatever went down between the two of you years ago did a number on him. Take my advice, sweet cheeks. A lot of things have changed around here, and this isn’t the place for someone like you. Now that’s all I’m gonna say.”
He turns his back to me again and I swallow the lump in my throat as his callous words about Cain settle in my head. Hearing the gate creak open, I bite back the big ‘Fuck you, too’ I’m dying to deliver to him and climb back into my car, praying for God to help me get the hell in and out of here as fast as I can.
Chapter Two
Calla
I’ve only been here one time. Either I missed the looks of this place in the excitement of getting to Cain all those years ago, or things have really changed. There are people milling around everywhere. Scary-as-all-hell looking people. There is one big building with neon lights flashing. Loud music barrels through the door as people stroll in and out. What is this place?
This is the life Cain has built for himself. My eyes observe it all. I keep my focus on trying to find a place to park and not on the men whose beady eyes I can feel on me as I come to a stop in front of the building, the same one where Cain’s dad’s office used to be.
I don’t know if this is where Cain will be or not, or if there’s another building somewhere. My instincts tell me to stay in my car, turn around, and get the hell out of here, but there’s a magnetic force tugging at me to stay. So I do. I snatch up my purse along with the divorce papers and get out of the car, hitting the key fob to lock it.
As I make my way to the door, I ignore the various cat-calls and name calling coming from these assholes.
“I’ll tap that ass!”
“How much to suck my cock, bitch?”
Feeling more pissed off than scared, I push open the door, my mouth gaping when I step inside the dimly lit room. Oh, my God. This place has turned into a bar? The internet never mentioned that little fact. The guard did say Cain could be at the bar, but it never clicked for me that this is what he meant.
This is nothing like what I remember at all. Pool tables sit side by side in the back. The dance floor lies deserted in front of an empty stage. The loud music is coming from the old-fashioned jukebox up against the wall opposite of me. The bar itself is long, trailing the whole width of the room.
All the men are wearing black leather vests, which are adorned with a motorcycle on the back and the saying ‘Live Fast– Ride Hard’ along with the club name ‘Sinners of Revolution.’ Some of them have arms draped around women who are dressed normally, like me, but a few of the women hardly have clothes on at all. Here and there I see females also wearing the club vest.
My feet stay deeply rooted to this spot. No one is even giving me the time of day; they’re all in a circle in the middle of the room in what seems to be some sort of meeting. I’m observing them all, and whatever the topic is, they clearly don’t like it. The veins in the men’s necks are bulging, and many hands are clenching into fists.
And then I see him, my darling husband, in the center of it all. His arm is dangling around the neck of the slut whose face I will never forget. She’s fucking beautiful. Her long, blonde hair flows in waves around the flawlessly made up porcelain skin of her face. She’s the only one not paying any attention to what Cain is saying. Instead, her head tilts to the side, recognition of who I am written across her face. I watch her intently as she snakes her arm around his waist, showing me she is staking her claim. I lift a brow, grinning back. You don’t have a damn thing to worry about, sweetheart. The cheater is all yours.
I glance back at Cain. The pictures on the internet do him no justice at all; he’s still fucking sexy. If he were a stranger, I believe I would drop my eyes right down to his package and forget my own damn name.
He makes eye contact with each member of the circle as he continues to talk, his voice too low for me to comprehend exactly what he is saying. I take a tiny step forward and the movement attracts his attention.
Suddenly, his gaze snaps to me, his arm dropping from around his slut as his eyes search my face almost as if he is trying to figure out if it is really me. And then his deep blue eyes travel to that magical spot on my neck where he knows I used to love being kissed by him.
A groan threatens to escape me when deeply buried memories resurface of the way his warm mouth would linger there. My nipples harden and my core aches from just this one look, but I refuse to let my own eyes roam his cut physique, afraid they will betray me like my body is doing now.
I stand there like a wallflower, watching him closely as he continues his personal tour, lingering on my breasts before heading south. His eyes darken when they land on my legs, made even longer by my stilettos.
The room suddenly falls quiet, heads turning on a dime to see what the man in charge is staring at. Hushed whispers start to echo from the onlookers.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” several women ask.
No one answers. Cain moves toward me and the group splits apart as if he was a damned god, leaving the two of us openly scrutinizing each other as he stalks my way, anger and disapproval pouring off of him.
Under normal circumstances, the vibes radiating off of him might make a person uncomfortable, but I’m not moved in any way, shape, or form by the displeasure seeping out of him. He’s used to making people feel that way. I can sense it. He’s no longer a boy, but when I look at him, really look, I can see traces of his younger self behind those cold eyes.
He approaches me, coming to a stop within my reach. My instincts kick in. I’m here for one reason only, and I won’t kowtow to him. What I want to do is reach out and slap his pretty-boy face.
No words are spoken for several long, drawn-out minutes until the high-pitched voice of his Goldilocks bitch sounds out from behind him.
“What are you doing here?” she hisses snidely.
“Shut the fuck up, Emerald.”
The sound of Cain’s voice startles me, so deep and masculine, very different from the young man I knew before.
“Everyone clear the hell out of here!” he orders.
Like devoted cult members, they do exactly what they are told by their leader. Each man passing him slaps him on his shoulder, while each woman looks at me with malevolence as if I have come here to stake a claim on what they all believe is theirs. I roll my eyes at a few of them, telling them silently to go fuck themselves.
“That means you, too,” he barks at Emerald.
“Hell, no! I’m not leaving you alone with her.”
Her honeyed words have me spitting out a low laugh.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” I say condescendingly. “He’s all yours. I just need a few minutes of his time and you can carry on with whatever it is your slutty little self normally does.”
I gesture with my hands for her to leave. She scrunches up her nose, aiming her pointer finger at my chest.
“You bitch! How dare you come in here with your fancy clothes and expensive shoes and call me names? You know nothing about me or what it is I do!”
I’m a little too quick for her. Taking hold of her by the wrist, I twist her around, pulling her arm up behind her.
“Listen here, babe... I know all I want to know about you. I could smell your nasty, used up snatch from over there. Now I need a few minutes with your fuck buddy here and then the two of you can go back to doing whatever the fuck you want, but until then, you will give me the time.”
I release her arm and give her a little extra shove.
“Just go, Emerald. I’m curious as to what my wife has to say.”
“Fine!”
She storms past us, slamming the door behind herself. All of a sudden I am freaking the hell out on the inside now that Cain and I are entirely alone. One of us has to break the silence in this eerily quiet room. Cain’s cold, narrowed eyes have me sucking in a sharp breath. He’s looking at me as if he can’t decide whether he wants to kiss me or hurt me.
Fuck him and his death glare. I’m not about to back down. He’s the one who turned me into the cold-hearted bitch I am today. The one who will never fully trust another man for the rest of my life.
“I want a divorce. I have the papers right here for you to sign, and then I will be gone.”
Reaching inside my purse, I retrieve the papers, shoving them in his direction. He doesn’t move a muscle to try and take them. He doesn’t even blink.
“Goddamnit, Cain. Just take them and sign.”
I shove them at him again. This time he rips them out of my hand and flips them over his shoulder, scattering them all over the floor.
“Jesus! What are you doing?”
I move to step around him to collect the papers. His arms slashes out, gripping my upper arm, pulling me directly into him so our fronts are pressed firmly against each other’s. I can smell the alcohol on his breath.
That little devil on my shoulder has a mind of her own. She’s urging me to dip forward and sneak one little taste of that sweet, spicy scent. Fucking traitor!
Cain continues to stare, his grip tightening. The way his rock-hard body is pressed against mine, I can feel the firmness of his chest and the length of his erection boring into my stomach. I don’t like being manhandled and I sure as hell don’t like the man standing so close to me. He’s pissing me the fuck off.
“What am I doing?” he growls. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?”
“Let go of me now, Cain. I’m not messing around, and to answer your damn question, I’m here because I want a divorce. This was never a marriage to begin with and now it’s in my way. Can you just sign the papers? Please?”
All of a sudden I become all too aware of what kind of man he has turned into when he switches our position, backing us up until my spine is firmly resting against the wall behind me.
“It’s in your way?”
“Yes. I’m engaged,” I lie, hoping he can’t tell. It’s the first thing that came to mind.
“You’re lying.”
He dips his face closer to mine. He still smells the same. All man. Intoxicating. Addicting. I need him to get away from me. I’m on edge and even quicker to defend myself while being trapped beneath his brute force. Anger rears its ugly head.
“I’m not. It’s been six goddamned years, Cain. Besides, even if I’m not engaged, what the hell business is it of yours, you son of a bitch?”
“I’m not signing, Calla. Never!”
On impulse my free hand comes up to push him back, but he’s firmly rooted in place, not budging at all. He brings one of his legs in between mine, nudging them apart. The slit on my skirt threatens to give way.
How dare he try to turn me on? How fucking dare my pussy clench with a familiar ache? How dare my eyes want to divert down to his dick? I’m just as mad at myself for being a disloyal little tramp as I am at him.
“You don’t know me anymore. I don’t know you. I never knew you. You’re a cheat. A drug dealer. A gun smuggler. And a fucking coward. I want nothing to do with you. I hate you. Goddammit, get away from me!” I scream.
“Shut up.”
He gathers both of my hands in his and lifts them over my head. I shake my head back and forth, my long hair flinging all over the place. I’m about to go stark raving mad. It’s been so long since he’s touched me. His rough hands feel the same. I’m on the verge of asking him to touch me here or kiss me there. He threads our fingers together and I clamp down on my tongue. Why after all this time is he doing this? Doesn’t he want his freedom, too?
“Calla.”
The sound of my name coming out of his mouth, as gentle and smooth as it used to, is my undoing. My mind tries in vain to block out how much I’ve missed having him this close, his lips only a hairsbreadth away from mine. A tear slips from the corner of my eye. I don’t want him to think I’m weak or for him to see he is getting to me. When he speaks again, my head is down. I keep it this way and close my eyes.
“You will never marry another man, not as long as I’m alive. You’re mine, Calla. I’ve waited way too fucking long for you to come back to me, and I will be damned if you are leaving here without hearing me out.”
The man before me has changed from the one I knew all those years ago. I can tell he is used to getting what he wants, and he may be the boss around here, but there is no damn way I will let him stake a claim on me after what he did. He threw away his rights the day he decided to fuck that whore. I feel like spitting in his face and then tearing his damn head off.
“I don’t want to be married to you anymore. I just want to be free. I’m not yours; I never was. You proved it, you bastard, on our wedding night, of all days. So, no, you egotistical son of a bitch. I belong to myself. Now step the hell back away from me and sign those papers. Or don’t. Either way, I will get my divorce from you.”
The corners of his mouth turn up in a smug grin.
“Did Bowie let you in the gate the minute you told him who you were?” he asks, completely ignoring my previous statement. The question throws me off guard.
“What the hell kind of question is that? Of course he did. He said he knew who I was. And by the looks of it when I walked in here, everyone does.”
I pull my brows together, trying to get some clarity as to why he’s asking.
“There is so much shit you have no motherfucking idea about. It’s a damn good thing you’ve been in Canada all these years. Better yet, you were smart enough to change your name, although when I finally found out where you were it killed me not to come after you and bring you back were you belong.”
He almost sounds hurt, even regretful. I’m not buying his bullshit. An unsettling feeling begins to well up inside of me. He found me, and he never came for me?
“Y-you knew where I was?”
“Fuck, yes, I knew where you were. I know every fucking thing about you. I know how many men you have fucked. I know where you went to school. I even know where you buy all those lacy, sexy as hell bras you have a fetish for. And one more thing, I sure as fuck know you aren’t engaged. You’re my goddamn wife, so yes, I know every motherfucking thing there is to know. And to answer your other question, they all know I’m married. A few of them even know what you look like.”
His body pushes into mine, his mouth lingering at the base of my ear. Oh, dear lord. He is hard. I’m talking steel hard, and way the hell bigger than I remember him being. The distraction nearly causes me to miss his next words.
“They were all told if you ever came here to let you in. And to never let you out.”
