Breaking Mr. Cane (Cane 2)

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. The whole thing with Kelly is fucking weird.” He pushed up and rolled onto his back. I sat up, placing my cheek in my hand and balancing my elbow on the mattress. “I had someone do some digging on her after finding out my office was bugged. Had it cleaned out and then hired this guy to get some information about her and her family. It is true that her father is a wealthy man and her parents are still married. They live in Florida now, moved sometime last year, but were Georgia residents for years.” He frowned again. “But the investigator told me she’d spent four months in a rehabilitation facility, and before that, spent six years visiting a behavioral therapist in a certified clinic.”

“What?” I gasped, eyes expanding. “For what?”

“Not sure yet. He’s getting into that now, digging a little deeper. But the thing that fucks with my head the most is that she was checked into the same rehabilitation facility my mother attended. It’s almost like she’d planned to get to know me. Almost like she’d been watching my every move, waiting for my visits. Waiting to run into me. I met her at that very clinic. I saw her around, but she wasn’t in scrubs or anything, like the others. She wore the clothes she wears now. Fancy shit. When I first met her, she told me she was there visiting a family member, not that she was a patient seeking therapy. She lied.”

“I don’t get it. How could she wear regular clothes if she was a patient?”

“For most rehabs, they have a thirty day program for their patients, where they can come back and do group therapy or one-on-one therapy sessions. For that, the patient can wear whatever they want because the program is optional. From the dates I was shown, and by doing the math, I’m assuming she was doing her thirty-day therapy sessions around the time I had checked my mother in.”

“That is fucking insane!”

“It really is. Which makes this much worse than it already is. I don’t just have a desperate woman coming after me and jeopardizing my business, I have a desperate woman with deep baggage coming after me. Not only that, if she was with a behavioral therapist, I’m certain she has a mental case as well. Her behavior isn’t normal, and I remember talking to her mother once when she’d called and Kelly was in the shower. Her mom told me to make sure I called her if anything seemed off with her daughter. I had asked what she’d meant by it, but she didn’t go into great detail, just told me to call if something didn’t feel right.”

I sat up then, looking down at him. “Cane, this is serious then. You said you had a way to take care of it. Said you’d have to go back to your old roots. What exactly are you going to do?”

His eyes flashed up to meet mine, but he pulled them away just as quickly. He sat up and climbed off the bed, picking up his briefs and then his pants. “There are people who are good at intimidating others. Lora knows a lot of them. In my position, and with my career and my business on the line, I can’t do what I really want to do to get her out of the picture, but the people I know can. They can put a scare into Kelly, have her back off for good. They used to do stuff like that for me all the time, but it was for more serious matters. I’m just not sure if I really want to go that route.”

“Why not?”

“Though she is a pest, it’s not like she’s threatening to physically harm any of us. She just wants everything to go her way. With these people, everything could backfire. It’s too big of a risk.”

“God, Cane. You make it sound like you’re going to kill her or something.”

He gave me a warning look, and for a moment I froze…until he shook his head. “I would never kill anyone,” he mumbled, eyes falling. His eyelashes created small, wispy shadows on his cheekbones. “But I have no problem ruining someone’s life for trying to ruin mine. Because of her, I almost had to sell my company. They were trying to get someone to buy half of it, make me co-owner, push me out of the picture and turn it into this stupid trade with obligations I didn’t like. I refused, so I busted my ass and made deals I’m not proud of to make sure it didn’t happen.”

I climbed off the bed to stand in front of him. “Well, it’s okay. You didn’t sell it, and things are getting better now, right? As long as you are safe in the end and no one is harmed, I don’t care what you do. Do what you have to in order to make this work.”