Page 13 of Darkness

Dad used to tell me the family business was dangerous, and to hurt the family they would hurt me and one day he would tellme what it is we do, because I’d be running it. Now that day will never come. I turn to the man who killed my dad, and in that moment I make a promise to myself. He will die, because I’ll be the one to kill him.

“Can I see mom?” I ask grand-dad, and he shakes his head looking up at the house, following his glance and see my mom standing by the window. I go to raise my hand to wave, but stop when I see a little boy hugging her leg. “She replaced me.”

“No!” my grand-dad shouts. “No, she didn’t. I promise I’ll tell you everything, but now we have to go.”

Not taking my eyes away from my mom, grand-dad picks me up and walks away from the house.

“Cain!” I open my eyes and see Lincoln standing in front of me. “What is all this?” He picks up all the papers from the floor and holds up the whiskey bottle, raising his brows at me. Rubbing my eyes, my fucking head is killing me. “Cain-”

“What?” I shout at him before he can say things I don’t fucking care about. Getting up, I take the bottle from him. Not sure why the fuck he’s complaining, it’s not even empty.

“Go see someone about your headaches, man.” I hear Lincoln behind me as I walk over to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, trying hard to ignore him. Unfortunately, the man has a way of pissing me off sometimes. “You’re getting worse.”

“I’m fine!” I snap, walking back over to him. I grab my cell to see the time. Eight in the morning, this can’t be right. I’ve never slept past six. Grabbing the pills on the table, I take two and rub my eyes again. Fucking hell, my head is pounding.

“You’re not fine. I’ve known you long enough, man. I saw the shit you went throu-”

“It happened to you too,” I hiss at him, not looking at him I stand by the window to see if Autumn-Rose has left for work or not.

“Yeah, it did, but we both know the fucked up shit they did to you was worse. You were there a lot longer-”

“Can we stop talking about it?” This is the last thing I want to talk about. It’s bad enough it haunts my nights when I’m at my weakest. I don’t need it fucking up my days, too.

“What’s all this?” Lincoln stands next to me, holding all the papers I spent my night reading through.

“Nothing. I’m going to shower, then we have to leave.” I walk away from him hoping a shower will help me feel somewhat alive for the day.

“Where are we going?” I hear Lincoln shout, but I choose to ignore him, knowing while I’m in the shower, he will read through the papers. We will see how much of an asshole he wants to be when I get back.

Making my way straight to my all-black en-suite, I turn the shower on, letting it warm up. I don’t have much color in my apartment. It’s mostly all black, which suits my mood. It also means that any light coming from the windows doesn’t have anything to reflect off to brighten up the rooms. After undressing, I get into the shower. I purposely don’t have a long mirror in the bathroom, or the apartment. I don’t need to see my body. I know every scar. I remember the pain of every single one of them. I don’t care what grand-dad said. There is no way that place was safer for me than the outside world.

Placing my hands on the black tiles, I let the water move down my body, trying very hard to push the bad memories as far back as I can into my head. I’m awake now. They won’t win. I won’t let them.

“Who is this girl?” Lincoln asks, holding the papers up. I was right, he did read them. “You’ve met her once, and you have a pile of information on her, and she lives over the road from you.” Lincoln’s tone is a mix of confusion and annoyance, I ignore him. I fill my travel mug up with some coffee, something which will be the only thing fueling me today. “Cain?”

“I don’t know who she is. I had no idea why she lives across the road from me.” I put my jacket on, and grab my mug. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Are you going to tell me where?” Lincoln follows me and presses the button for the elevator.

“You read everything?” I ask him, pressing the button for the lower floor. Lincoln gives me a nod. “What do you think?”

“She’s a figure skater from England who owns a flower shop. Not someone who is coming after you. Come on, she came to the club in a yellow flowery dress. She looks like she likes puppies and cupcakes.” Walking out of the building, Lincoln continues to talk about how Autumn-Rose is a sweet girl who likes to live a happy life, as I tap away on my cell.

From the moment I’ve known Lincoln he’s been a chatterbox and fucking hell is he in a chatty mood today? Years have passed, and he knows I hate talking. He still doesn’t shut up. I’m the only person he talks to, other than that, he lives in his own world.

Walking around the corner, I walk into a bunch of flowers. “I’m so sorry.” I don’t need to see her face. I know who it is. Autumn-Rose puts the flowers on the floor and smiles at me.

“Mr. Cain and Mr. Upgrade.” Her smile gets bigger, if it’s even possible. Her eyes linger on me for a moment. “Nice suit.”

“You can call me Lincoln.” Lincoln puts his hand out for her to shake, and she does.

“Autumn-Rose.” She introduces herself with a small curtsy and giggles to herself.

“Oh, very nice, a British Rose.” I hear Lincoln, as I take the moment to look her over. I stop as soon as I see the bruise on her arm.

“What happened?” I point to her arm, and as she folds her arm to look, I see the cut on her forearm. “And there?” Now I’m looking at her body. She has a lot of bruises on herself.

“This-” she points to the bruise. “-I walked into a door, and this-” she points to the cut. “I cut myself when I was making dinner. Nothing new.” She rubs her arm a few times, then picks the flowers back up. “I have a question. What’s on the sixth floor? Katy said the waiting list is almost six months long.”

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