Paradise Found: Cain (Paradise Stories Book 2) (10 page)

My mind came back to the dining room table as I watched Sofie reading. I hadn’t moved, holding my breath, while she scanned the pages. Hopefully, she would agree to the amount written at the bottom of the final page. I didn’t see why she wouldn’t take it, but if she asked for more I was willing to give it. Anything she wanted just to ensure she remained silent. It was as much for her protection as mine.

“Do you have a pen?” she asked. It was the most mundane question. Her voice was hollow. I’d never heard it so empty. Even when she said my name on that fateful morning, it wasn’t nearly as despondent as her tone presently. I found one in the kitchen and returned quickly. Sofie was still staring at the final page of the settlement. The click of the pen was like a shotgun going off in the silence that suddenly oppressed us. Drowning in the quiet, I watched her make some marks and then sign on what I assumed was the final line. We needed a witness, but Kursch already agreed, despite not being present. He knew I wouldn’t force her hand. She’d sign the forms willingly.

“I’d like to go home, now,” she spoke quietly with that vacant voice.

“Sofie, I…” But the look in her eyes stole the words from my lips. I’d seen that look before. When I woke up another morning, thinking she was some random woman I’d hooked up with, and I demanded a repeat performance before kicking her out of my bed, out of my room, and out of my life. Something was off that morning, though. It was the disbelief in her expression. It was the way she ignored me. People often didn’t. I commanded attention, positive or negative, but Sofie just scooted away from me. She was doing it again. She was shutting me out.

I reached to push back a fallen hair from her ponytail, but the slightest movement let me know my touch was not welcome. Sighing, I lowered my hand and pointed toward the front door. My hope had crumbled.

My eyes stung as we rode in silence back to my apartment. I continued to blink rapidly, willing the tears not to fall. I had been such a fool.
Tempted by the fruit of another,
continuously replayed in my head. He hadn’t been faithful to me, and yet it was ridiculous to expect a man of his sexual capabilities to remain loyal. I had been the pretend wife. I didn’t even know we were still married until less than a week ago. How was I to expect him to remain true to me? His presence screamed sex. It was in the way he walked. The way he smiled. That slight dimple peeking from the curve of his mouth. It was how he brooded when he said my name. He couldn’t possibly have remained with one woman. The devil dances with all types.

Then there were all those zeroes to keep me silent. Essentially that’s what the final statement entailed. As we had only a few witnesses, too drunk to remember any better than Cain did, our only legal witness was his bodyguard and some woman who apparently was a legitimately ordained minister. She had probably been bought off as well. This was a scandal, only less epic than the rumors of Cain’s killing a man.

My arms crossed over my stomach and my hands rubbed up and down my cold skin. I shivered. Shock, I warned myself. When something traumatic happens, the body can shut down. It was a basic result of overload and I was in it. The weight of the girl’s name, the rush to sign the papers, and the amount of money offered were too much for me. I was a simple girl. I wanted a man who loved me, a marriage that was real, and I didn’t want any trouble.

I practically jumped out of the vehicle when he pulled up in front of my apartment building.

“Sofie,” he called after me, as I briskly walked toward the main door. My keys dropped as my hands shook. Balancing on the precipice of trapped sobs, I teetered with the weight of choking back tears. I ignored his calling.

“Sofie,” he said softly behind my back, as I stood and tried to work the keys in the lock. I couldn’t respond to him. The pain slowly clawed through my chest. The demon would only rest once it constricted over my heart, until the pressure was so great I’d collapse. That’s all I wanted at the moment: to fall on my bed and cry.

“Sofie, wait,” he pleaded when I forced the door open hastily, the key now stuck in the latch and I struggled to remove it. My patience was shot. The first tear fell.

“Sofie, why are you running?” I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t explain. I straightened, took a deep breath, and turned to face him.
You know what
, I decided,
let him see my pain
. The devil feeds off it. There would be no sting from my sorrow. He’d only take my sadness to pump the venom in his veins.

“Goodbye, Cobra,” I said, having never used his fighter name before. Then I turned on my heels and closed the door behind me. The first sob escaped before I hit the emergency stairwell leading up out of hell.

There was one thing I hadn’t expected of Sofie, and that was tears. I’d never seen her cry before. She didn’t cry that first morning when she realized I was a snake. She didn’t cry the second morning when she realized I was an ass. She stood stoic and proud, then removed herself from my presence on both occasions. It would have been dangerous to pursue her immediately after I left her behind at The Vineyard Inn. My father was on fire for my vengeance from an unjust system and my clearance from an uncertain crime. He would not have been one bit sympathetic to a sudden wife. In fact, he wouldn’t have been sympathetic to a wife a year later.

My mother had been instantly in love with Atom Callahan, the scrappy fighter from Ireland. His accent, his muscles, and his prowess were the attraction that caused her to fall and fall hard. Kursch told me, my mother felt she was a part of my father, convinced that they were one. My father didn’t always see it that way. He focused more on his career, and building up himself, rather than nurturing his marriage. My mother was dragged to the fighting pits, while my father tried to make his way upward. It was there that she met someone with a dark side. Introduced to drugs, once bitten, she was hooked. The attention from another man spiraled her into sin, and my father, who gave no sense of loving her unconditionally, banished her. She was kicked out of the house without addressing her children, or so, Atom had thought. She simply disappeared from our lives, and we eventually assumed she was dead. Our father wished for her death. He blamed her for having children, and having the nerve to need something more. He wanted her presence in his bed, but he didn’t want her to have an opinion. When she gave into temptation, he couldn’t see that it had been his fault for not allowing her to be free.

I didn’t want to be like my father, but I was glaringly similar. I was driven in my career as a fighter. My body was my temple; championships were my heavenly reward. I worshipped at the table of numerous women. I intended to be on top, no matter what the cost, until the price was the life of someone. The awareness of my strength and the power to take a life, both thrilled me and shamed me. I had to get away after it happened, and that’s when I met Sofie.

Silent and strong, there was something that drew me to her. Maybe it was that damn smile, which lit like a flame and burned slowly across her face. Maybe it was her incredibly sexy body, that wasn’t as recognizable under her flowing skirts and fitted t-shirts, but under that clothing the devil danced with delight at a body that was ripe for sin. We fit unexpectedly snug, and my dick had never felt anything like it. I used her like I expected on a wedding night. She broke me like I never imagined possible. She would be my salvation, and yet I’d tossed her out of the confessional again.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I loved a woman, and I wanted another taste of her.

I couldn’t have that prayer answered, though. I had a fight to contend and returned to Vegas. My father had already questioned why I wasn’t there two nights before the event. This was my return to glory, he swore. My fight with Abel was child’s play. A farce of a fight, he accused, as I let Abel win. I was currently up against other players in the field, bigger names that drew larger crowds. However, the media circus around the fight with Abel was nothing like I’d experienced before. It was in the ring I intended to redeem myself, not in Sofie’s arms.

I had to stop thinking of her and my training worked. My muscles ached as I concentrated on each motion. Each sit-up. Each jump of the rope. Each stride in a run. Every movement took my focus. It had to, or my heart would feel the familiar pinch of losing something I didn’t really own.

I skipped out on Malinda. The pent up sexual frustration was to be my penance. It would also feed the snake within me. Poison slithered through my veins as I prepared for another battle. The fight with Abel had been like a living room tussle, but to my brother’s credit, he was strong and worthy. He didn’t have the meanness in him. The devil burned inside me. My energy came from repressed aggression toward the one man I refused to fight – my father.

My opponent was none other than Rustin Dweller, a prizefighter in his own right, and this was a rematch of the fight before Joey Montana. I’d been belted as world champion during that fight. Montana’s match-up was merely roughhousing on the playground in comparison. Rustin was commendable. He held his own as we battled. Left hook to the ribs. Axe kick to the chest. Powerhouse slam. I took my beating, but gave as good as I got. I needed this fight. My mind was seared by the image of Sofie’s tears. I hated that she cried. I hated more so that I didn’t know the reason why. My anger vibrated for the release a fight would bring.

The adrenaline snaked within me. I hissed as Rustin got my chin, but another strike and he was on his back. I stood over him, seething with frustration, arm raised to take him out, but something stopped me. A fear I hadn’t known before: the terror of killing. In my second of weakness, he almost got me with a kick to the chest. Without lessening the blow, I struck with a final hit. Rustin was down. I was back on the pedestal as a champion.

Returning to the locker room, I was still tense.

“You need a good lay and a stiff drink,” my father suggested, as I beat a locker door then double jabbed in mid-air. The match with Dweller hadn’t been long enough. Kursch recognized my irritation. A decent fuck and hard whiskey weren’t going to be a cure. My father eventually excused himself. He had investors and sponsors to schmooze. The smile on his face would have appeared approving, but it was only false praise. He was still expecting more of me. I was never going to be good enough for him until I killed a man for real. I couldn’t go where those thoughts led.

Still struggling with pent up aggression, I practically wrestled the wraps off my hands. I kicked out like a toddler about to have a tantrum. I groaned in annoyance. Energy hummed through my body, demanding release. My heart pounded in my chest. My fingers twitched with the necessity for contact. I punched the locker and the vibration of metal ricocheted up my arm. The dent equaled the hole in my heart.
Fuck!
I screamed internally. I had to stop thinking of her.

“I reviewed the papers,” Kursch broke into my childish outburst. I hadn’t seen him since the night I returned to my home without Sofie. I’d called him to let him know I was leaving for Vegas. I’d left the papers on the dining room table, afraid to touch them after she had. He assured me he would review them, notarize them, and forward them to the lawyer I hired outside my father’s team. I couldn’t afford for someone within his inner circle to know what I’d done. Not to mention, I needed a lawyer in California where we were married, not in Nevada.

Kursch’s comment brought on a new tremor of contained tension. I picked up a chair and tossed in against the opposite wall. The clattering of cheap metal did nothing to relieve me. Break. Smash. Crush. These were my thoughts. I wanted to shatter something whole and concrete down to nothing, like I felt.

“She crossed off all the zeroes.”

I froze. My body still in uncontrollable motion as blood seethed and heart raced. My chest rose and fell as the rest of me stilled. I was alert to his words only.

“What?” I growled, my voice rough with the effort it took to calm my wired body.

“She put a line through the numbers. Wrote
I promise to take it to my grave, till death do us part
, and signed the bottom of the papers.”