Loving Mr. Cane (Cane 3)

“Well, why don’t you give him some so he can leave you alone?” I urged

“It doesn’t matter how much I give that motherfucker, he’ll never leave us alone, Kandy.” He looked me in the eyes. “I tried it before. I filled his commissary—stuffed it with money so he could get whatever the hell he wanted and so he would leave us the hell alone, but was he satisfied with that? No. He kept making threats. Kept writing to my mother. Kept sending me letters, telling me that I couldn’t buy his silence.”

Damn. I didn’t even know how to respond to that.

“He’s miserable, and I’m sure you’ve heard of the saying ‘misery likes company?’ He hates knowing that we are happy. He wants us to be just as fucked up and miserable as he is and will do anything to make us feel that way.”

“Is that why you brought me here? To vent about him?”

He looked all around him, and eventually shook his head. “No. I came because I wanted to see it one last time before I left it behind for good. When I lived here—way before I met you or your family—I’d constantly come back to this house, even after Buck went to jail and Mama was hardly around. I came at least once a week just to torture myself,” he breathed. “I’d remember all that happened here—the hatred that seeped through the walls. The fighting. The years of abuse…but then I met the Jennings.” He put his eyes on mine, taking a step toward me and grabbing my hands. “And when I met that beautiful family and saw how happy and complete you all were, I came back here less and less. Unlike Lora, I didn’t run without looking back. I kept looking back, and it fucked me up for years.” He cupped my face, watching my eyes carefully. “I also wanted to show you where we grew up, to let you see why we fight so hard for what we want…because this is where we came from. What Lora did was truly fucked up, but she did it for you and me, and I can’t fault her for that because if the roles had been reversed, I would have done the same for her.”

I pressed my cheek into his palm, nodding. “I know you would have. And I don’t blame her for it, or you for thinking that way.”

His hand moved down to tip my chin. He dropped a smooth, warm kiss on my lips and then sighed as he pulled away. “Come on. Let’s get out of here,” he said, grabbing my free hand. “And hold onto that. I might use some of those notes to write a book one day.” He winked and led the way back out. We walked back to the car, and I got into the passenger seat. He walked around the car to get to the driver’s side, but didn’t get in right away. He stood outside of it for a while, and I had a feeling he was giving the house one more view.

When he was in the car, he put it in gear without hesitation and drove off without looking back.

He’d mentioned that when he met my family, that he’d stopped torturing himself by coming back, but I think in that moment, he had really let that torture go.

His brutal past.

The years of abuse.

His broken soul that had slowly been restored thanks to meeting my family.

He let it all go, and for the first time in all the years I’d known him, he was finally in control of his own life.

Chapter Thirty

CANE

There was one more place I wanted to show to Kandy before going back home. It was a place that I had pretty much called my second home.

Killian’s Tattoo Parlor.

When I first started getting tattoos, I wasn’t even the legal age to get them, but I went to Killian’s garage anyway. Now, thanks to the fifteen grand I’d promised to give him if I ever got successful, he’d opened up his own shop. I was basically Killian’s canvas as a teenager, and he did one hell of a job. Every tattoo I had? They were drawn by him. My tattoos weren’t regrets. They all had meaning and represented my life in some way, shape, or form.

“A tattoo shop?” Kandy asked as I locked the car.

“Yep. I’m craving some new ink.”

“You’re basically slathered in ink,” she laughed, hooking an arm around my waist. “Where are you going to get another one?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get one on my face. Haven’t tried that yet.”

She busted out laughing. “You do that and I’ll strangle you.”

The shop was just as I’d remembered. The walls were painted burgundy, and there were three black leather chairs in their own corners. Every corner was vacant except Killian’s. He was inking up someone’s back, focusing hard on his work, brows furrowed and all, like I’d remembered. That focused face of his still hadn’t changed. Killian was a buff guy. He lifted a lot, and by the looks of him now, he hadn’t stopped. His skin was light-brown, his head bald. He had several face piercings and both ears pierced, and of course he was decorated in ink. Full sleeves on both arms. He even had tattoos on his legs and feet. “How can I help you?” he mumbled with his thick, southern accent. He was never a man for many words.