Page 10 of Cain

Damn, that man. I don’t get like this. I’m flustered, which isn’t like me, and I hate it. Hate not being in control of my emotions. And I hate that my body just can’t seem to figure out how to act around him.

“Don’t beat yourself up too much over him. He has that effect on all the women he comes in contact with,” the bartender, whom I now know as Delaney, says in passing. Like I didn’t already know he’s the type that only has to snap his fingers, and someone is there asking how he likes his dick sucked.

And on that thought, I just don’t want to be anywhere near here right now. I slide my burger basket to the creepy drunk guy next to me and signal for my tab.

I need to get the fuck out of here.

After trying to settle my tab only to find out she actually put everything I ordered on his, I left a twenty on the bar and got the fuck out of there.

I need to clear this Cain fog and get my head on straight.

By the time I get home I feel no better than I did when I left the bar. Not even Hades, acting like he hasn’t seen me in ten years when I walked through the door, cracked a smile.

My stomach growls as I pop the last bit of edible I had made the other day into my mouth before I lay out the ingredients for my famous beef Wellington. Declared famous by me and Hades, who swallows it without chewing. Cooking has always been meditative for me. There has just always been something about bringing random ingredients together to create a delicious dish. This is my form of therapy. Frustrated? Beat it out on the meat. Sad? Add your favorite alcohol to the sauce. A little buzz has never hurt anybody. I’m just finishing wrapping the beef in the puff pastry when I catch a flicker of light out of the corner of my eye, making me freeze.

What the fuck was that?

I move over to the kitchen sink and lean forward, eyes squinting as if that’s going to make looking out the kitchen window into the pitch-black yard any easier. I know I smoke a lot, and sometimes, I do get into my head and hear and see things that aren’t actually there. I won’t go as far as to say that I’m a paranoid smoker, but there’s always a tiny bit present with me. I just chalk it up to being the result of a shitty fucking childhood.

There!

I see the light again coming out from behind the barn. It almost looks like someone is walking around with a flashlight. What the hell?

My stomach is in my throat as I whistle for Hades and grab my handgun from the kitchen drawer. I conveniently have a gun stashed somewhere in every room of the house—something Zeke insisted on when I bought this place. At the time, I never understood, but now I hate to admit that I get it. “Let’s go, boy,” I whisper quietly while motioning for him to follow me out the backdoor.

“Seek,” I command quietly, silently thanking myself for basically selling my arm and leg for this type of dog training.

Hades doesn’t hesitate before he’s off sprinting in the direction where I last saw that stranger. It never ceases to amaze me how smart dogs are.

I quietly step off the back deck and make my way to where the grass and trees meet. Slowly, I creep along them, heading toward where Hades ran, trying to blend into the shadows. I inhale sharply, trying to suck my stomach in as much as possible. Like that will make me melt into the shadows.

My heart is racing so fucking fast from all of this. What if it’s an axe murder? All the crime documentaries I’ve watched have taught me that a situation like this only ends one way. Assaulted in every shape and form before they choke you out and send you six feet under. God. I don’t think I’ve felt this much blinding fear since my foster dad, drunk off his ass, was trying to bust down my dead-bolted bedroom door. Again.

Just when I think I’m going to throw up from it all, I hear Hades’ “I’m going to fuck you up” growl. And that’s when I start running at a dead sprint directly toward where Hades is. And by dead sprint, I mean a light jog where I start to regret my life choice of canceling my gym membership because I didn’t think I needed it. There’s nothing like the universe giving you a big “fuck you, I told you so.”

I flatten myself up against the back of the barn’s wall, my hand on the safety of my gun, ready to fuck someone up as I peek around the corner.

I wasn’t quick enough, though.

A bike’s engine quickly fires up as I round the corner, the trespasser speeding out from behind a tree where his bike must have been stashed, darting across my lawn and back up my driveway. “Motherfucker!” I yell.

“Hades, come!” I scream as he starts to give chase but immediately stops and comes back to me. “Good boy. I’ll get you a treat in a second.”

I tried to get a good look at the person, but it all happened so fast, and they were wearing a black ski mask. Fucker.

What in the hell just happened?

During the entire time that I’ve lived here, I have never had someone come out here like that. It was pretty fucking obvious that they didn’t want me to know they were here.

Only two people— well, three now, know what is back here and what I do for a living. I guess that isn’t true, is it? The whole club probably knows. Guys I haven’t even met before.

An uneasy feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. It feels like an immense sense of dread. Like no matter what I do, something really fucked up is about to happen.

That could have been so much worse than what it was. This person was clearly looking for something. But what? My plants? You’re not going to ride out of here with those on the back of your bike. Maybe what I have packed and ready to go? But even then, you still wouldn’t fit that much in a saddlebag. Thank god they don’t know that everything I have ready to go isn’t kept in the greenhouse.

It’s kept in the highly secured bunker I installed when I first moved in. It was a typical old, unfinished basement. And if someone got their hands on the plans for my house, that’s all it would show. I fucking made sure of that.

Would the club double-cross me?

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