He leaned forward and braced his elbows on the chipped and worn tabletop. “I am pissed because I want you to stay away from Carl, and not go near him to try and figure out his location.”
“I thought you’d want to know where he was, Cain, because I know you’re not done with him.” She hoped he wasn’t done with him, and how sick did that make her? But the truth was she had a bigger beef with Carl than anyone knew. Fallina didn’t even know about the nasty things that pervert had done to her.
“Believe me, I’ll handle shit,” he said in a softer voice. “I don’t want you worrying about anything, nothing, Violet.”
She glanced at the guard standing by the door, and the other two standing right outside of the room. Violet didn’t want to get into this with Cain, especially not here and now, but Cain was upset, and she needed to tell him why she was so invested in not letting Carl get away. She knew that it wasn’t anyone’s responsibility to handle the man that almost raped Fallina all those years ago. She also knew that the club could have taken out Carl, gotten him while Cain was locked up. But she heard from a couple of the club members right after the attack, while she had been in hearing distance, that Cain wanted to handle this on his own.
He grabbed her hand, stunning her. She looked at him, saw the serious expression on his face, and knew that whatever he was about to say was not going to be something she wanted to hear.
“This isn’t your fight, isn’t your worry.”
She looked down to see him running his finger along the back of her hand. She was really going to tell him, say something she’d never said to anyone because she was ashamed and disgusted. “Carl raped me when I was sixteen, not long before he attacked Fallina and tried to do the same thing.” Violet didn’t look him in the eye.
He stilled, tensed right in front of her, and the anger and heat came from him like a blast to the face. “What?” he said in a low, hard, and dangerous voice. He moved his hand off of hers, shifted on the seat, and stared at her with this cold, unrelenting gaze. “Why didn’t you say something before, Violet? Why did you keep this in for all these years?” He was shaking now, his anger tangible as it wrapped around her, suffocating her slightly, and stealing the air that was in her lungs.
“I was ashamed, Cain, disgusted and sickened that it happened, but can you now understand why I needed to keep track, if not for my own sanity?”
He didn’t respond, didn’t even move after she spoke.
“I need this just as much as you feel you do.” She didn’t elaborate on what she needed, because she knew Cain understood her just fine. There were guards around, in a fucking prison, and so talking about wanting someone dead probably wasn’t the best course of action.
He leaned forward another inch, dropped his voice to a low whisper, “Things will work out, Violet. Don’t worry about anything.” The look in his eyes was violent, deadly, and he was not even blinking as he watched her. “Everything will work out exactly the way it is supposed to, understand me?”
She nodded.
“Carl, that motherfucking prick, will get exactly what he deserves tenfold.” Cain’s voice was undeniably hard and true, and she knew that there was no doubt Cain and his men would deliver on the promise of making this right. The truth was she didn’t want them getting involved, that if she had the means she would have made sure Carl suffered by her own hands. But Cain was already invested in this, not going to back down, and she knew that no matter what she said or did he would handle this on his own terms. He took her hand again, squeezed it tight, and breathed out as if he were in pain.
“I wrote, called, and I miss you, Cain. I miss the family I have with you and Fallina. Blocking me out isn’t what I want, and I hope it isn’t what you want either.”
He shook his head, but didn’t respond right away. Minutes seemed to move by agonizingly slow, but she knew it was seconds that skated by at a snail’s pace.
“You can’t come back, Violet. You can’t. Don’t write, don’t call, and don’t fucking ever come back to this shithole. You’re better than this, better than me.” He stopped talking for a second, as if to let those words penetrate. “What you think you want with me will never happen, because I’m a dirty biker bastard, and you deserve so much better.”
“Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t want, Cain—”
“Violet, I don’t want you anywhere close to this murder pit where assholes run around and have little care for the human population. They’d destroy you, sweetheart, and then I’d have to destroy them.”