Hanging my head, I said quietly, “Yeah. You got her pregnant and then didn’t feel like doing the whole family thing with her. I get it. Is this what you wanted to meet with me for? To tell me I was wanted but she wasn’t?”
“You have two brothers I’d love for you to meet, Cassian and Stefan. You and Cassian are about the same age. Stefan’s a couple years younger. I guess I just wanted you to know that you aren’t alone.”
“I’m sure your wife would love that. Bring the bastard child to dinner and see how that goes. Sounds like a great time, but as you know, I’m going to be a little busy for the next few years.”
He winced at the mention of my upcoming incarceration, and a frown settled into his features. “I know. My lawyer did the best he could, Kane. I know four years sounds like a lifetime now, but it could have been worse.”
“I know. I’m lucky they only gave this monster four years.”
Shaking his head, he frowned even deeper. “That judge was way out of line. You aren’t a monster. You just did something because of what that man did to your girlfriend. But that doesn’t make you a monster.”
I leveled my gaze on the man considered my father. “This is who I am. That judge called me a monster, but he wasn’t wrong. My demons make sure of that.”
“You sound like your mother. You don’t have to be like her. I’m in there somewhere too.”
Chuckling at his attempt to act like a supportive father figure, I said, “All I got of you is on the outside, Cassian.”
We stood there next to his expensive car in that parking lot as the distance he’d always kept between us shrunk just a bit. It was barely noticeable, but it shrunk all the same. Maybe it was because in just a few days I’d be sent away and my mother would be dead, but I didn’t want to hate him, even though that’s all I’d ever been taught to do.
With a look of pride in his eyes, he said, “Well, I’d like to think you have some of me on the inside too, although I do have to admit there’s no denying you’re my son.”
I shrugged, unsure of what to say since all I’d ever felt was his denial of everything about me.
He reached out and touched my forearm as if he cared that I had nothing to say to that. “I know your mother has never had a nice thing to say about me, but would it be so bad to be like me in some way?”
“I probably wouldn’t mind having your money.” I realized how that sounded as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Not meaning to insult him, I quickly said, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant I wouldn’t mind being rich like you.”
Cassian grinned as I fumbled over my explanation. “I understand. Someday when I’m gone you and your brothers will get a lot of my money. But I hope you’re more like me on the inside than you think. You don’t have to be angry at the world, Kane. I know it’s been hard, but there’s a lot of good in this world.”
I thought about Holly and her love, the only real good I’d ever experienced in my life. For the next four years, I’d have to live without that good. How I’d get through without it—without her love to keep me from becoming nothing but that anger I held inside—I didn’t know. Already I felt myself hardening over as I felt my freedom slowly slipping away.
“Maybe you’re right. I just haven’t seen a lot of that good.”
“I know it’s going to get a lot a worse for you, but when you get out I hope you and I can have a fresh start.”
“Yeah, that might be nice,” I said knowing any promises he made might not ever come true when I was finally out four long years from then. “I better go. I only have a couple more days of freedom. I want to spend as much of that time with Holly and my mother.”
“I understand. If you need anything, I’m here, Kane.”
He held out his hand and gave me the kind of handshake I’d always imagined my father would give me when I made him proud. Not that I’d done anything to deserve that. But maybe after I got out I might have the chance to do something.
Fucking whiskey making me reminisce about things that did no good. My father was gone by the time I got out of prison, dead from a heart attack before he’d even turned fifty and just four months before my release. Fate had fucked me again by dangling the chance to finally get to know him in front of my eyes only to take it away.
I left those four years behind to find both my parents and the only person I’d ever truly loved dead and gone. Whatever my father had seen of himself in me I never really knew, but he believed it was inside me and to prove it, he decreed in his will for Cassian, Stefan, or me to get any of his money, we had to work together and make something in this world a success.
More a punishment than anything else at first, we’d fulfilled his wish and I’d found two brothers. But I’d never found that something good inside me my father had seen.
Now I was going to be a father but nothing had changed in me. Two men dead at my hands and my demons happy to make excuses for my actions. I wasn’t the kind of man a child needed as a father. For all his faults, Cassian March III hadn’t been a murderer like me. I had money and anything I wanted to buy like he had, and if that was all I could offer, at least I could give my son or daughter a better life than I had growing up.
But those things didn’t make up for the horrible things I’d done and the demons inside me who would never let me go.
Abbi and our child deserved more than who I was.
“Kane, please open the door. I know you’re in there,” Abbi pleaded as she banged on my door.
I stumbled off the couch and opened the door to find her standing there looking up at me with her gentle eyes full of sadness and Stefan standing behind her.
“Abbi, go. I told you not to come for me. Go back to that little house that’s yours now. I’ll make sure you and our child will never want for anything. But go away from me before you get hurt.”
She reached out to touch me, but I backed away. I watched the tears well in her eyes and hated myself, but this was for the best.
“Why are you doing this? You said you’d come for me. Why did you send Stefan instead?” she asked as the tears began to roll down her face.
Shooting him an angry look, I said, “I didn’t send Stefan. I told Cash to make sure you got home, not to bring you here. You need to go.”
“I don’t want to go. I love you. I’m carrying your child. Don’t you love me anymore? Is it because of what I wrote in that letter? I was just being stupid. I wasn’t sure a child was something I could handle, but I know I can now. I can do this, but I can’t do it without you.”