Who Knows the Dark (10 page)

Cade opened the door and stepped inside, then hit the light switch with his elbow, like he’d done a million times before.

Blue rug and wood panel walls twenty years out of date before he was even born. One window—near the big tree out back, a good backup plan when you couldn’t sneak down the stairs—covered with the long navy drapes Amelia had made him when they turned this into a “teenager’s” room. The matching spread on the queen-size bed, tall wood dressers still bearing his school awards and sport trophies.

Did anyone really care he was Most Improved Soccer Player anymore?

“There’s a bathroom down the hall, opposite side. You probably want to get in there before Rachel,” Cade said absently as he walked into the room and dumped his bags next to the bed. “I’m going to use the washroom downstairs.”

“Are you okay?”

“Hmm?” Cade turned around and once again found Nox backed up in a doorway. With the fight-or-flight response etched on his face, Nox looked like he was floundering for something to say or do.

“Are you okay?” Nox repeated.

“Why are you asking me that? You look like you want to jump out of the window,” Cade said, feeling irrationally annoyed. “Just get in here and shut the door.”

Nox moved aside and did what Cade asked. He watched Cade like someone trying to figure out how to defuse a bomb.

Cade sat down on the bed, the shimmy and lumps in the mattress like a flashback. His entire body sagged.

“I am both really glad to be here and really fucking hating it,” Cade said quietly, kicking the dirt-caked sneakers off his feet. He wanted a hot shower and food and to sleep for about a month. He wanted to wake up and realize this was all a really fucked-up dream.

“We don’t have to stay long,” Nox offered, sitting down next to him. Close but not touching. “Sam needs a few days at the most, and then….”

“And then what? Exactly.” Cade’s hands shook; he was discovering how fine he could be until he stopped moving, and then the walls fell away and reality kicked him in the teeth. “There are warrants out for us. We’re six hundred miles away, but is that enough?”

“If they wanted to find us, they could have.” Nox’s expression flipped back to the one Cade had first seen in the city. The one that didn’t see anything but a threat to assess.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Cade laughed. He felt choked by the dirt on his skin. “I don’t have a job anymore. I’m back home without a penny to my name. If I’m lucky, I won’t get thrown into prison or, you know, murdered by fucking… gangsters.” He spat the word, that edgy laughter shaking through him. “In a few days, what the fuck is going to change?”

Nox didn’t move, not even a blink. Cade broke their mutual gaze and dropped his head into his hands.

“If I leave Sam here, do you promise to protect him?” Nox asked finally.

Cade turned to look at him. “What?”

“If I leave—I can’t take Sam, not right now. Will you stay with him, make sure he’s safe?”

The quiet pain in his voice pulled at Cade’s emotions. “I didn’t mean you had to leave.”

“I’m the reason you’re involved in all this.”

“Yeah. And there’s also a heap of me not staying away,” Cade said with a tired sigh punctuating his words. “I said I would help you, and I will. Just—this is hard for me, okay? I left this shithole determined to make it on my own, to show my father I was just as fucking valuable as my brother. And now I’m back because I screwed up.”

Nox touched him then, a big warm hand against the back of Cade’s neck—and the bolt of heat that followed made his mouth go dry. “You’re back because you didn’t let a kid get killed. And you didn’t let more people die in that casino,” Nox murmured. “You’re valuable to me and everyone else who’s here and safe because you made it happen.”

Cade wanted to laugh again, maybe cry for a while too. What was fucked-up was this man and the fact that nothing about their connection pointed to anything but heartbreak.

But Cade couldn’t break this living, breathing thing between them.

“I already let you fuck me—you can stop with the sweet talk now,” Cade whispered back.

Nox tightened his hand on Cade’s neck and guided him closer. “Cade,” he said, utterly serious, “if it gets too much, tell me to leave and I will.”

The quiet words hurt, but Cade nodded, the pang in the center of his chest a feeling he was afraid he’d need to get used to.

A
QUIET
knock roused their tortured tableau.

“Cade, Daddy’s home. You should probably come down,” LJ said through the door.

“Comin’.”

Hands still shaking, Cade kissed Nox on the lips—quick and simple, more for his own benefit than anything else. “Time to meet the man who made me what I am today.”

N
OX
STRIPPED
out of his filthy clothing and pulled on a pair of semiclean jeans and a gray sweater. He left his dirty boots in the corner as Cade rubbed nervous, damp palms against his shirt. Then Cade led Nox downstairs to the kitchen, where everyone save Mason and Sam was gathered. At the table, Rachel and Damian were deeply engrossed in bowls of stew while Amelia fussed around the kitchen. At the stove stood Lee Creel Sr., all rangy muscles and receding hairline, his face leathered and dispassionate.

“Dad,” Cade said, extremely proud of the way his voice came out. Haughty, a little bratty—the voice he used with clients who wanted a reason to kick his ass.

Well, wasn’t that a revelation for another day.

“Caden Lee, what the hell did you bring into my house?” It wasn’t loud or even angry. Just weary and filled with disappointment, washing over Cade like an old lullaby. Oh yes, he knew that tone well.

Amelia didn’t stop flitting around, but Cade saw Rachel’s shoulders go up the tiniest bit.

This might be a race to see who punched out his father first.

“I brought my friends, Dad. And thanks for your concern—I’m fine.”

“The FBI…,” Lee started, and then stopped, both hands fisted and pressing against the dirty sides of his jeans. “In my house.” He stepped into the center of the kitchen, rheumy blue gaze locked on Cade like they were the only two people in the room.

“Not the first time the feds were here—remember when Uncle Leon got caught skimming money off the books?” Cade met his father halfway; behind him, he felt Nox’s presence, quiet and deadly backup. He wanted to tell himself to shut up, to approach this like a fucking adult, because, like it or not, he needed his father’s help, but something mean and childish and hurt kept feeding him lines guaranteed to set off his father’s temper.

“Don’t be flip about this,” his father snapped. Up close, Cade could smell a whiff of beer, really see the age spots and craters beat into his father’s skin.

When the hell did Lee Creel get old?

“We didn’t do anything wrong. It’s… it’s a misunderstanding, and we’re going to straighten it out.” Cade tried to sound reasonable, like there wasn’t so much more to the story than those two sentences. “My friends need a place to stay.”

“One of them is sick, Lee,” Amelia said quietly. She stood at her husband’s side, looking at him with a pleading expression. “If we could just let them stay a few days.”

Lee turned to his wife, the change in his tone and expression one that didn’t go unnoticed by Cade. “Amelia, I’ve been trying my best to keep those people off the farm, but if they realize they’re here, they’re gonna raid the place. You want to go to jail?”

“I won’t turn them out.” His mother’s resolution was the only thing to soften his father, so Cade kept his mouth shut.

Clearly frustrated, Lee raised a finger in Cade’s direction as he turned back. “You stay out of sight, and you make arrangements to move on as quickly as possible. I see a single fed heading down the road with a gun in his hand, and I’m telling them you’re here. I won’t put your mother in harm’s way.”

Cade didn’t have much choice in the matter. Shame burned his face, licking a fire of regrets against his skin. Putting his mother and brother and yes, fuck, even his father in danger hadn’t fully dawned on him. He wanted to be safe and to help Sam and Nox, and he’d brought this mess to his family’s door.

Selfish, just like his father accused him of being.

“Fine,” he snapped. “We’ll be gone in a few days.”

Lee threw a disgusted look at all of them, one by one. Silence followed him as he turned and stormed out the back door.

“Where is he going?” Nox’s voice broke through the tension, a knife sharply cutting out words.

“The bars are closed,” Cade said tiredly. “Probably a walk.”

“Actually he’s goin’ home,” Amelia murmured next to him. “He doesn’t live here anymore.”

R
ACHEL
EXCUSED
herself shortly after Amelia’s bombshell. Damian followed, a quiet shadow in her wake.

Nox tasked himself to take dinner up to Mason and Sam; he left with an overloaded tray after a gentle brush of fingers against Cade’s shoulder.

“So you kicked Daddy out,” Cade said as he sat with his mother and brother at the kitchen table.

“His drinking has been… quite frequent lately. In the past few months.” Amelia twisted her hands in her lap. “For the past two years, actually. As the farm has been failing, so has his will to resist.”

“You should have called me. Told me what was going on.”

“LJ was here to help, and we didn’t want to bother you.”

Cade threw LJ a nasty glare. “
You
should have called me.”

“So, what? You could come back here? Let’s face it—your paycheck is keeping this place afloat.”

Cade felt sick to his stomach at the idea of his mother dealing with this—and even sicker to realize that without his money, they wouldn’t have a choice about selling the place.

“I’m sorry—” Cade started to say, but Amelia cut him off.

“No, no, please. Caden, don’t say that. I hate what you’ve had to do these past few years. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m not sorry for what I used to do at the Butterfly, Mom,” he reminded her gently. “I’m sorry that I won’t be able to contribute.”

“We’ve just been prolonging the inevitable,” LJ broke in. “Daddy knows it. That’s why he started drinking so much.”

Cade’s head swam. He clutched at his mother’s fingers and twined them with his. “Where does he live?”

“He rents an apartment over in the new development. They let him do handywork around the place so he can stay there cheap,” LJ said.

At least they didn’t have to worry about him being around.

But….

“Can we trust him to keep quiet about me being here?” Cade asked. Amelia tightened her hands around his. “Or is he running to the sheriff?”

She and LJ exchanged glances.

“He’s the one who convinced the sheriff to distract those government assholes. Played up the paranoia, big-government thing so much the entire force is basically protecting this place.” LJ sounded almost proud. “Daddy’s had ’em in his pocket for years. Let’s ’em keep their illegal arms on the farm—so everyone’s paranoid they’re gonna find out about all those guns in the second barn.”

Cade stifled a half-crazed laugh. Well, Nox and Mason were going to have a fucking field day with that. Bless his father’s manipulative bullshit. “Jesus Christ.”

“But it is—it’s good. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but he’s worried about you,” Amelia said quickly. “We just want to make sure you’re safe. And what he said—you don’t pay him any mind. He won’t give you up. So… you can stay here for a while, right?”

Her anxiety tripped a dozen switches in him. He just nodded and leaned over to press a kiss against the back of her hand. “Yeah, we can stay awhile.”

N
OX
DIDN
’
T
sleep as well as he had on the boat—ironically. In the soft bed, on the slightly musty sheets, he waited for Cade to join him.

He’d eaten with Sam and Mason in the bedroom, another ode to little boys who seemed to grow up in some sort of sitcom with Little League and country fairs. Sam conked out pretty quickly after a shower and change of clothes; Mason kept losing track of the conversation, so Nox took his leave and tried not to obsess over leaving Sam alone in the room.

With Mason.

But the siren call of a shower of his own pulled him back down the hall. He scraped off a few layers of dirt under the hot, weak stream, wincing as the water hit his banged-up knees. Blood and filth-stained water circled the drain of the old-fashioned tub, pipes rattling with the effort of cleaning so many exhausted people in one night.

He rebandaged his knees with a first aid kit he found under the sink and then dressed in a pair of thick sweats from Cade’s bag. Back in the bedroom, he stowed the Sig under the right pillow, his knife between the mattress and box spring. The light left on, Nox climbed under the covers and resolved to wait.

He didn’t last long.

Sleep pulled him under quickly; he floated in and out of wakefulness for a while, voices murmuring in the hallway outside the door. He thought he heard Cade but fell back to sleep.

When he woke again, Cade was curled against him, head on his chest, clutching him tightly around the middle. The tension in his lover’s body made Nox think he was awake, but no—Cade breathed slow and deep.