The Exception Read online

  Round one—me.

  I breathed heavily, my chest rising and falling with such force that it almost felt like I wasn’t breathing at all. I looked down at the piece of shit at my feet as he found his wits.

  “We are going to make sure there are no more misunderstandings. Get up,” I commanded.

  “Cane—”

  “Get. The. Fuck. Up.”

  Simon scooted back in the gravel, his eyes filled with absolute terror.

  “Max!” I called, turning my head slightly to the side. “Get this motherfucker up!”

  I heard the rocks crunch behind me.

  “No!” Simon got up to his knees, bringing his hands back to his face again. His nose was already swelling, his face stained with his own fluid. “Let’s figure this out.”

  “I’m losing my patience.”

  Very slowly, Simon rose to his feet, squeezing his eyes shut. He braced for the impact he knew I was about to deliver.

  I threw a roundhouse kick right below his knee, causing his legs to sweep out from under him. The sound of bones snapping pierced through the night.

  He landed forcefully back onto the ground, a whooshing sound escaping his mouth as his breath was knocked out of him. He lay on his side, his face in the decomposed granite, his hands wrapped around his calf. He groaned as he rolled onto his back, still holding his leg.

  I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “I’m disappointed, Powers. I expected more from you. I really did.”

  I moved until I was standing over him. He looked up at me, tears rolling down his face.

  If only I gave a fuck.

  “Let me help you up.” I reached down and grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him to one foot. He winced in pain, trying to pull away, but we both knew he wouldn’t be able to move without assistance.

  I helped him get to the front of his Avalanche and he leaned back against the hood, breathing harshly. His nose made a wheezing sound as he tried to inhale around the mixture of tears and gore swirling around his face.

  “Now, let’s make sure we are on the same page before I go home, okay?”

  He nodded, leery. His eyes were beginning to swell shut and the slits that were left were clouded by tears and blood.

  “When you get up in the morning and you can’t walk or breathe or see, I want you to remember not to fuck with me ever again. You got it?” I grabbed his chin in my hand, pulling his eyes to mine.

  He nodded again against my palm.

  I released his face and patted his face sharply before wiping my hand off on his shirt. “If you call Jada again—no, fuck that. If you ever breathe the same air as her again, I will break both of your legs and make you permanently unrecognizable. Are we clear?”

  His head moved slightly.

  “I can’t fucking hear you, Powers!”

  “Yes,” he whimpered, his hands going back down to his leg.

  “Good.” I smiled as I straightened out his shirt, dusting off the debris from the ground.

  Simon held his breath, unsure as to what I was doing.

  “Now, if you call the police about this, I will leave you in a fucking ditch. The irony of that will not be lost on me. As a matter of fact, go ahead and call them because the thought of following through with that promise makes my dick hard.”

  Simon’s lip quivered, my words cutting to the core of our problem. The satisfaction I got from seeing his fear was better than I had ever imagined, regardless of how many times I had dreamed about it.

  “Cane, dude, I’m sorry.”

  “Fucking really, Simon? After everything that’s happened, you think ‘I’m sorry’ is going to fucking fly with me?”

  “I lost everything because of you!” He said, spitting out a mouthful of blood to the side. “Everything! It’s taken me years to get back on my feet while you waltz around the city in your shiny car and with your pretty little girlfriend. I had to sit there and watch that development go up, listen to everyone say how brilliant you were. What a great son you were, what a legacy your father had. You think that was easy for me to swallow?”

  “I could give a fuck if it was easy for you.”

  “Fuck you.”

  I took a step back and smiled widely before reaching out and patting him on the shoulder. I took a step towards Max and heard Simon exhale in relief.

  Like a flash, I turned back around and unleashed a flurry—a right, left, right—to his face. His head bounced like a ping pong ball before his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed against the SUV. Slowly, painfully I’m sure, he slid to the ground and toppled over into a lifeless heap.

  I watched him lay there, reduced to the piece of shit he always had been.

  Max came up behind me, clasping me on the shoulder. “What now?”

  “He’s still breathing, so we leave him here. If someone finds him, they’ll think it had something to do with drugs. They won’t even question it.”

  “Fine. We better get out of here then. You ready?”

  “Let’s go.” I turned towards the truck.

  Simon had been taken care of. Now I had to take care of the other piece of the puzzle, the one I should have taken care of a long time before.

  CANE

  “Where is she?” I stormed into the kitchen, Max a few feet behind. I hadn’t bothered knocking or ringing the bell and Kari looked a little surprised to see me.

  Kari stood with her arms crossed, looking at me silently.

  “Where is she?”

  Someone better fucking answer me before I lose control.

  “She’s upstairs,” Kari said softly, “in her room. But I don’t know that you should just go up there, Cane.”

  “Thanks for your input,” I muttered, making my way to the staircase and taking the stairs two at a time.

  I had to see her. I had to know she was okay.

  I knocked lightly on her door but there was no answer. I knocked again.

  “Jada? Are you in there?” I pressed my forehead against her door. Even if Kari hadn’t told me she was in there, I swear I would have known. I was drawn to that room, like there was a chord attached to me and something on the other side. It was insane and I would have laughed my ass off if I had heard someone else say that. But it was true in this new strange world I was living in.

  Please don’t let me have completely fucked this up.

  I waited a few seconds before cracking the door open.

  My heart paused in my chest as my eyes found her. She lay in her bed, her brown hair splashed across her white pillows. Her face was calm, unmarred, and just so damn beautiful.

  A peace settled over me as I watched her, a feeling I didn’t have very often. The only peace I was ever able to grasp was from avoiding shit I didn’t want to think about. I had never known peace like she had at that moment and I wished she always had it. Not like the night before when her face had been so twisted in anger with me.

  For the first time in a long ass time, I was embarrassed of myself.

  I quietly made it over to the bed and knelt beside the mattress. I pulled the comforter down a little and the purple marks on her upper arm jumped out at me. They were obviously finger marks, narrow prints lying like they were wrapped around her arm.

  I felt the incredible urge to go beat the shit out of Simon again.

  Jada stirred in her sleep and I placed the comforter back over her, tucking it lightly around her small body. She rolled over onto her back and opened her eyes slowly.

  I rocked back on my heels, giving her a little space.

  This will go one way or the other …

  Once she focused on me, she scrambled to sit upright. “Cane! What are you doing here?” Her voice was squeaky, verging on panic.

  “Shh, it’s okay. Calm down.” I smiled softly at her. “I came to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Of course I’m okay. Why would I not be okay?”

  I shot her a knowing look. “I know what happened, Jada.”

  She swallowed hard,
pulling the comforter up and around her, creating a barrier between the two of us. “Cane, look, it’s really none of your concern.”

  “The hell it isn’t.”

  She sat with her mouth open, like she didn’t understand anything I just said.

  How is this not crystal clear to her?

  “How is this any business of yours?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

  I shrugged my shoulders, the adrenaline starting to wear off. I scrubbed my hands over my face, exhaling a breath I had been holding for a long time.

  “Cane? What’s on your hand?” Jada leaned up and took my hand, turning it over. “Is this blood?”

  I nodded hesitantly, closing my eyes and enjoying feeling her skin-on-skin. Being with her, touching her, feeling her—even if it was only our hands—made me feel differently than I ever had. It was like a part of me instantly quieted. A piece of me found the link it was looking for.

  It was scary and stupid and amazing.

  Her eyes were wide as she looked at me in disbelief. “Whose blood is it?”

  “It’s Simon’s.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What do you think?”

  She let her head fall back against the headboard. “Why did you do this? This was my problem, not yours!”

  “The moment you agreed to go to dinner with Simon, you made it my problem.”

  “And how is that, Cane? Are you a knight in shining armor now? I can take care of myself. That’s how I roll.”

  I clenched my jaw, my eyes blazing. “That’s how you roll, huh? Well here’s how I roll, sweetheart. If someone fucks with you, they fuck with me. There is no grey area.”

  “That’s asinine! It makes no sense!”

  “Lots of shit doesn’t make sense. I’ll agree with that. But there’s one thing you need to get through your fucking head—do not fuck with Simon Powers, Jada. It is not negotiable. I’m not kidding.”

  “You keep saying this shit! You keep warning me off, but you refuse to tell me why! It’s really impossible to tell if you have a valid reason or if you are just jealous.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you don’t need to know everything?”

  Her eyes steeled. “No, actually. That logic sounds like someone trying to evade the question.”

  I glared at her right back. “I’m not evading anything.”

  “Then you either talk to me or you get the fuck out. Because that’s where I am right now. I am sick of this shit!” Her voice began to waiver and she looked away. Tears began to pour down her cheeks as her body heaved, sobs escaping her throat. “I am so sick of this. All of it.”

  Instinctively, I gathered her in my arms. She pounded my chest for a few seconds before finally giving in and letting herself be comforted by me.

  I held her against my chest, her head tucked under my chin as she expelled all of the anxiety she had been holding in. I wrapped an arm around her back, holding her tighter, gathering her hair out of her face.

  My heart broke as she fell apart and I wished I could take the pain away. I would have done anything in the world to ensure she never felt like that again.

  And that’s when I knew—there was no point in fighting it anymore. I needed to finish playing the hand that had already been started. It really wasn’t up to me anymore.

  I looked at the ceiling and uttered a silent prayer that I was doing the right thing. I didn’t know the first damn thing about being a decent guy or how to take care of someone other than myself. But I knew if you wanted something to last, you had to treat it differently.

  Here goes nothing …

  “Simon and I knew each other a long time ago,” I began once she had quieted down a little. I moved so that my back was against the headboard and her head was on my chest. I expected a fight from her, but she didn’t struggle. She felt so small against me, such a perfect fit curled up into my side. It raised feelings that I had never felt before; something had changed deep inside me. If I thought about that long enough, I may have panicked. So I continued on with my story.

  “His father is in prison right now for killing mine.”

  Jada’s eyes went wide as my words sunk in.

  “I was surprised to see him, with you, at Solomon Place. But it was just a weird coincidence, I guess.” I looked down, trying to figure out how much I had to tell her. “Simon’s family lost everything when his dad got arrested. I pushed for the investigation after Dad died, so he has always blamed me. I haven’t seen him in a long time, but when he showed back up, Max and I did a little digging. He’s bad news, Jada. He’s into some real bad stuff, which is why I kept telling you to stay away from him.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that?” She tentatively placed her arm around my waist. It laid on me for a few seconds before she started to withdraw it, but I wrapped her wrist with my hand and held it against me. She stilled before looking at my face, her smile mirroring mine. “I’m so sorry to hear about your dad, Cane. I won’t push you on it, but I’m here if you do want to talk about it. I can relate, in my own way.”

  “Yeah, I really don’t want to talk about it.” I watched her delicate arm lay against my abdomen. I was usually against those types of demonstrations, but I wasn’t sure I had ever felt something as natural as that. It felt like her hand belonged around me, like she belonged next to me.

  I took a deep breath. “But to answer your other question, I didn’t really think he would do anything to you. I was going to explain everything last night. If you would have talked to me then, or answered your damn phone tonight, you would have understood,” I said, shaking my head.

  She sat upright, her jaw clenching. “Yeah, we should’ve done that. We could have talked and then you could have taken that girl home and fucked her!”

  I couldn’t look at her. “I am sorry about last night.”

  “What? Did she not make you breakfast this morning?” she hissed. “Poor you.”

  I snapped my eyes up to her. “I did not take her home with me.”

  “I could give a fuck.”

  “You do give a fuck! That’s why you are pissed off right now. Admit it.”

  “It doesn’t matter if I do or not, Cane. You are you.” She smiled sadly before looking at the floor. “That bullshit last night—that was you being you. I don’t know why I was surprised.”

  I took a deep breath.

  Sink or swim, Alexander…

  JADA

  I watched a flurry of emotions cross Cane’s eyes as he watched me. I wasn’t sure what to expect as he opened his mouth and I braced myself for the worst.

  “Look,” he finally began, his usually confident voice wavering slightly. “I know I’ve been a dick lately. I know that and I’m sorry. I just—”

  “Don’t, Cane. I get it. I get you.”

  “You know what? You don’t. And I know you don’t because I don’t know that I get me anymore. Since the minute I saw you in the restaurant, I’ve not been able to stop thinking about you. There’s something about you that I can’t shake, that I want to get to know. I don’t just want to fuck you and move on, although that would make my life so much easier right now.”

  “But you did do that to me, Cane,” I said angrily.

  “No. No, I didn’t,” he said emphatically. “I never moved on. I know I technically did go to Payson, but that wasn’t me running from you. That was me knowing I was in over my head. And if you want the truth, I wanted you to call me. I wanted to know that you wanted me as much as I wanted you.”

  He took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

  “I’m sorry for leaving like that. Honestly, there was a part of me that did think if we fucked, I could move on. Because needing someone, Jada, is not something I know how to do. But you know what? It made it worse. I wanted you more, not less. I didn’t know how to handle that. I wasn’t sure what I was even feeling. Fuck, feeling anything at all is against every rule I’ve ever made.”

  Cane looked briefly at the fl
oor before raising his eyes to mine.

  “Me leaving was me trying to give us both time to wrap our heads around everything.”

  I wanted to latch on to what he was saying, but there was a fear of being rejected that I just couldn’t shake.

  What if I was somehow misreading everything he said? What if he just wanted five nights instead of one?

  Choosing to go the safe route and guard my heart, I decided to let him get everything out before responding. I didn’t want to look like a fool by jumping to conclusions. “Did you decide anything?”

  He turned around and lay down beside me. I scooted backwards, allowing space between us. I didn’t want him that close because I wasn’t sure how things were going to end.

  And it always seemed to end.

  “Yeah, I decided that being with you is this conundrum. I want to be with you, but you deserve the best and I don’t know how to be a nice guy, Jada.”

  “That’s not true. You are one of the nicest guys ever when you aren’t being an ass. But here’s the thing about that,” I turned, squaring myself up with him, “you choose to be an ass. I really believe that. You did that thing at the bar to intentionally hurt me, Cane. And it worked.”

  He flinched. “That thing last night was one major fuckup. I can’t believe I did that and I won’t even ask for you to forgive me because I won’t forgive myself.” He didn’t continue until our eyes met. “I am embarrassed. I regret that. And I am sorry.”

  I weighed his words in my mind. He said he was sorry and that means something, but is it enough to offset the pain he put me through on purpose? I felt my shoulders sag as I realized … it wasn’t.

  “I don’t know that I can forgive you for that, Cane. Knowing for a fact that you knew you were hurting me, I don’t know if I can get over that.”

  He looked down at the blanket and I watched his body droop. He slowly raised his eyes and they landed on my arm, the blue turning into a violent storm. “When Max called about … that, I realized something. I feel like you’re mine, Jada. That’s stupid and out of line, I know, but that is how I feel. I’ve felt that way for a while.”

  “That is stupid and out of line, Cane.”

  “You were what I worried about when I saw you with Simon. That’s why I had Max keep an eye on you.” He looked to the ground, biting his lip in hesitation before continuing. “That’s why I asked your dad to assign Zack to the Solomon Place account.”