Page 104 of The Sweetest Devotion

“Nah,” Cain disagreed. “You can take some home, I can give some to my men, and I’ll have food for the week.”

He really did live on takeout. He must’ve religiously gone to the gym to keep his build.

There was only so much eating I could do, and because I was curious about his past, I turned and faced Cain eagerly. “So, I have some questions.”

“I’m sure you do,” he responded.

“Where’d you grow up?” I asked first.

Cain gathered his glass of wine and took a sip. “No place like this.”

I looked around the area, noting the luxury and cleanliness. Black was the overall theme of Cain’s home. A cavern of gloom. It shouldn’t have surprised me that he chose to live in the shadows.

“Youdohave a lovely home,” I spoke up.

Cain bobbed his head. “My realtor all but begged me to never have children so they wouldn’t fuck it up.”

I almost laughed, but then I was curious again.

“Cain? How do you know James Carter was your father?” His mother died and he was placed in foster care. It didn’t exactly add up.

Cain set his fork down, and all at once his expression went blank. “My mother was open with me on my paternity when I asked. Doesn’t hurt that I look like the guy.”

I would have to Google the late James Carter to confirm this.

“So when you were a kid you never met your father before…all this?”Before he died and left youeverything?

Cain’s finger tapped on the table momentarily. He caught the tick and reached up, swiping at his bottom lip. At his scar. “Once.”

“Once?” I repeated.

Cain’s posture tensed as he flickered his gaze over to me. “I don’t have nice stories to tell.”

I placed my hand over his. “It’s okay.”

Cain studied me thoughtfully before looking away and beginning his story. “So, I was about six, and we lived in this small house. My mother and I. I remember she was heating something up and I was playing under the kitchen table, and there was a knock at the door. She went to answer it and this angry voice started talking. It was him. He was yelling at her, telling her to stop calling his phone, to stop making things harder on herself. She was crying and telling him she was going to go tell his wife.”

Cain didn’t go on. He seemed lost in the memory. Lost and angry.

“Cain?” I pressed, wanting to know what happened next.

Slowly, he looked at me and a chill raced through me. In his empty eyes only blackness could be found. No regret. No emotion. Nothing. Just a hollowness that left me wondering if he had a soul.

He blinked and looked off, at nothing in particular. “The next thing I remember hearing is a loud slap and a squeak. I was still under the table, but I could see from their movement that he had her, was shaking her. He shook her real good and said his wife didn’t talk to whores. He told her if she ever called him again he’d kill her.

“Right before he left, I poked my head out, to see him. He only took one look at me and snarled, asking me what I was looking at, before he stomped out of the house and slammed the screen door shut behind him.”

Cain ran a hand down his face and shook his head, ridding himself of the past.

Of course he wasn’t that simple.

The villain with the sad backstory.

James Carter had been an asshole. A cruel man who had cheated on his wife, abused his mistress, and abandoned his only heir, his son. Leaving his empire to Cain didn’t make up for any of it, but I was sure it helped.

“You said you were in foster care. Were you able to keep anything of your mother’s?” Being twelve, I couldn’t imagine him having the sense to take what he could of hers. To always have a reminder.

Cain gave a stiff nod. “A few things. Others were…lost along the way.”

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