Darkness

31. Cain

Thirty-One

Cain

I should have listened to everybody when they said, give it a day before I go to see Yang. They kept kept telling me I’d just woken up.

Did I listen? No.

Why? Because I know Yang, and he's waiting to make another move the minute he knows I'm awake. For once I need to be ahead of his game, because at the moment he’s winning, and I need to catch up.

I have to say though, I feel like shit. My body is hurting, my head is pounding, and I think I might have pulled one of my bullet wounds open a little. Fuck.

Walking through the doors to his office, I look around the room. First thing, always look around the room to see how many men are there? If a fight breaks out we are ready, there are five of us. Knowing Yang, he'll have a lot more, the man is good at what he does. You can’t take over the whole of New York, if you don’t plan ahead.

Hands in my pants pocket, I stare at Yang as he stares at me.

“Mr. Cain, how are you feeling today?” he asks, as if he has nothing to do with my situation.

Never show weakness.

“Amazing.” I reply, and I look over at Yang's friend. “How are you doing without your hand?” I ask him. The prick thought he could come into my office and try to attack me. I don’t think so, but I’m not the one who cut his hand off, it was his friend. Yang always taught me, if someone tries to kill you, make sure you kill them before they can attack again. The only reason I didn't kill him was because I wanted to show Mr. Yang that I can have the upper hand if I want it.

He takes a step closer to me, and I smile. Does he really think he's got a chance against me? Even with me injured I would hurt him. He turns to Mason and Hayden. “Pretty boys, sure I can take one of these idiots.” His comment makes both of them laugh, even makes my lips curl a little.

Mason pushes him to take a step back. “I'll be happy to cut off your other hand, and your dick, then place your dick into your hand, so you can see what it looks like every day.” Hayden laughs like a full on laugh, and Lincoln to the left of me chuckles to himself. Maybe Mason wasn't the best one to bring.

Yang finally stands up, he’s annoyed with me asking his friend about his hand, and getting pissed off that my family don’t fear him either. He steps forward, standing in front of his desk. “You’ve taught them well.” He looks at Mason and Hayden, before turning back to me. “How is Miss White today? I know my friend is counting down the days until he gets to meet her again.”

I chuckle to myself, even though, on the inside, I have no idea what Yang's move is or how he sees this game ending. I keep my face straight. A poker face is going to be everybody's best friend. Do not let him know if he affects you or not.

“We can go around in circles all you want, Yang. You want your son, you know the rules. So, what are you thinking?” My question makes Yang laugh like a full on dangerous laugh, because he’s got me where he wants me.

He played his game, and he played it very well. Yang has been one step in front of me this whole time, and I knew it was going to come one day. I just didn't think it would be like this.

Yang takes a step closer to me. “The ghost has a weakness and to protect her, he will do anything I want. Anything,” he says again, because he might be right about it, but I will also not bow down to him without a fight. “Fight, keep the rules of The Pit. No one helps you. You're on your own, the weapon of your choice, until death.”

With laughter in my head because The Pit is the only way I know how to fight. But there is something else he wants to tell me.

“This is what I want. You fight, not one person, but two.”

He knows he's got the upper hand here. Keeping Autumn safe is all I care about. If I don't agree. Autumn will still be in danger.

“So my friend Mr. Rowan wants to fight for his girl, and I've given a bullet point of what The Pit is, and I told him, yes I would discuss it with Mr. Cain. He wants to fight you for his girl.”

Now that makes me think I've never looked into Rowan being a fighter. So this could be an easy fight, or it can be one hell of a hard fight. I need to look into him to see what training he has.

“And the fights would be right after each other, no time for a break.” Yang adds.

I spend a moment just thinking everything over, but not for too long, because I know him well enough to know he is watching every muscle in my face for a tell on how really feel about it.

“There's something else.”

He laughs, shaking his head, at my comment. “You know me too well. Mr. Cain or shall I say, Crawford, it's nice to see you have finally let your family into your life.”

“What else is it you want?” I demand from him.

“Oh, yes, Miss White, will be there to witness the figh-”

“No,” I answer before he can even finish his sentence, there's no fucking way Autumn is going down there.

“I like how you think you have an option here. You do not. She comes to The Pit for the fight. If you come to the fight without Miss White, she'll be looking over her shoulders all the time, every day. And I will make sure she's scared of her life every single day.” Yang takes a step closer to me, leaving very little space between us. “Now, you can't spend all day with her, can you Cain?” Fucking asshole.

“Time?” I ask.

“I think you need to recover Mr. Crawford, so I'll give you two weeks.” Bastard. He knows I won't fully recover within two weeks. He also knows I’m weak from the poison that the bastard put into the bullets.

“Who's the other person I'm fighting? You mentioned Rowan.” Which is fine, I can do a big, deep background check on him to see how good he is at fighting. But the other one, it's got to be someone he trusts, someone he knows can fight for a long time. He’s seen me fight in The Pit, he knows what I can do, so it has to be someone he knows can win.

“Oh, that's an easy one. Me.” And there's the answer I was worried about. Fuck.

Not letting him know he's affected me, I stand up straight. “You touch Autumn before the two weeks, your son's head will be delivered to you in a box.”

“No one will touch her. I can't stop him talking to her, but no one will touch her.” Yang shrugs his shoulders, as he walks back around the table.

“Any harm comes to her, your son's head will be delivered to you within an hour,” I mention again. Making sure he knows I’m not fucking around here.

“We will see you in two weeks. Mr. Cain.”

Without another word, I leave his office, and the moment we step outside of his house, and I'm confident no one can hear us.

“No one talks until we get back to the office. Don't fucking trust Yang bugging the car while we were inside there.”

Fuck! This is not what I thought would happen. Autumn in The Pit, and a fight with Yang. Shit.

I pace the office thinking about our meeting with Yang, it’s all mind games, something he’s fucking good at. Miles and Declan are down here too, I think Mason rang them to let them know we were on our way up to the office.

As I continue to pace the office, all I can hear in the background is Lincoln telling me Rowan has done some kickboxing training and probably MMA fighting which means he knows how to fight. Hayden's talking about how old Yang is and probably can't fight. And Uncle David is constantly telling me that two weeks is not long enough to recover, something I already know.

The only good piece of information I got was Lincoln telling me Rowan knows how to fight which is fine. I'm not worried about Rowan doing any damage to me, unless he's fighting me second. Then maybe he will do some damage. If I fight Yang first, he will take all my energy from me, if I win that fight, I’ll be happy to fucking walk out of The Pit.

“Cain!” Lincoln shouts.

“What?” I turn around to Lincoln.

“Your mom's downstairs. She's on her way up.”

Oh, for fuck sake, she’s the last person I want to be talking to considering the mood I’m in.

“Just tell her to come upstairs.” Walking away from him, I slam my hand against the elevator button. All I want to do is see Autumn. She's probably been worried about this meeting, and I'm downstairs listening to everybody give me information which means nothing to me.

I leave Lincoln in the office, he can bring mom up himself. I'm in this fucking mess because she couldn't be bothered to trust the family.

As the doors open to my apartment, I lay eyes on Autumn, and she runs over to me, giving me a hug. Her body slams into my chest making the wounds on my chest hurt, but I keep that to myself. Because right now, all I want to do is have her in my arms. This is all I need right now, her calmness around me, telling me everything is going to be okay.

I messaged Doc to tell him to be here within the next ten minutes to check on my wounds. I feel the burning pain around the wounds, so he should be walking through the door any second now.

“What happened?” Autumn asks.

“I will tell you everything, I promise. I haven't even had the chance to tell Miles or Declan anything yet, but I need him.” I point to the door which opens to the elevator, and it's Doc. “Just to check my wounds, because they’re hurting.” I reassure Autumn because she takes a step back to look at my chest to make sure I’m not hurt.

Right behind Doc is Lincoln and Mom. Mom's talking about something in her coffee shop, not really paying much attention, I take my shirt off and throw it onto the table.

Doc shakes his head.

“What?” I snap at him.

“Cain, you were shot only three days ago. Take it easy. These aren't going to heal.” Doc wipes a cold cloth over my wound which makes me flinch.

“Told you,” I hear Uncle David behind me.

“He's not listening.” Hayden puts his opinion in there.

“What happened?” I hear my mom shriek.

I glance over at Aunt Jane, because I'm not in the mood to talk to mom. I'm hoping she will go over and talk to her instead for me, and as if Aunt Jane can read my mind she walks over to mom.

If Mom thinks I'm going to be an open book for her, I'm not. I'm trying my best to get on with her, and if I can just put The Pit behind me, then I'm fine, but until then I can’t. Before I used to go to Logan's games because I thought I would give everyone a chance, like Grandad wanted, but it’s not working. I’m finding it so hard to forgive and forget.

“And you didn't think this was information that I needed to know, Cain!” Mom shouts to get my attention.

“You lost the right to see how I am the day you walked out the door. I'm a grown man who doesn’t need his mommy looking after him.” I flinch once again as Doc cleans the wound. “What the fuck, Doc?”

“Stay still and stop tensing up. He snaps back at me.

“I made a promise to the man who was my parent. I fulfilled it. It doesn't mean-”

“You will never forgive me, will you, Cain?” Her voice breaks as she asks the question.

Maybe I could lie and say I can forgive her, but I’m not a person who can lie to someone to make them feel better about themselves. She picked her path, now she has to live with it.

“No, you didn't have faith in dad's plan. The day you left, you didn’t just leave dad, you left your son. I'm trying with you, mom. I go to lunch, dinner, anything you want, but you don't get to be my mom again. Not yet at least.” I don't even look at mom in the eyes, my words are hard, I know, but I'm not in the mood for this. It's been a fucked up day, fucked up three days, and it's going to be a fucked up two weeks. I finally turned to face her. “Logan finally wants a relationship, I'm giving him a chance. Be happy with what you get from me.” I know I can be a prick, but there is no way I can forget what happened, not when I have to remember it every time I close my eyes.

She walks closer to me and places her hand on my cheek. “I'll take anything you give me, but please, let me have some part in your life.” She presses her lips together with a small smile, but I can tell that she's trying not to cry.

I glance over at Autumn, “How do you feel about leaving the city?”

“What? No. First of all, you said we would be safe, now you want to leave. That doesn't give me much reassurance, Cain, and two, I didn't think you'd be the type to run away from a fight.” Her eyes locked with mine, waiting for me to say something.

If only she knew what Yang is capable of. Everyone starts arguing.

“You can't run.”

“You have to fight.”

“We’re all here.”

Everyone stops when Lincoln shouts my name. “What?” I ask him, and he doesn't answer just turns his cell to show me who’s calling.

This is all I fucking need.

“Answer it.” I tell him, and he puts it on speaker.

“Hello, Mrs. White.” Lincoln is the first to speak.

“Is my daughter okay?” I can hear the panic and the worry in her voice. Something’s rattled them, what has Yang done?

“Yes. Mrs. White, she's completely fine.” Lincoln looks at me then towards Autumn.

“I've got a letter saying that she's in the hospital-”

“Mrs. White, if you can give me a few minutes, I will get a safe line connected, and you can FaceTime with Autumn, but it'll only be for a little bit because it's not safe.” Lincoln ends the call before she can even say anything back.

Autumn is staring at me, but I have no words for her. My fucking head is hurting, and Yang is throwing everything at me all at once, not giving me a chance to think. It’s one thing on top of another.

Lincoln puts the computer on the kitchen counter, and Autumn walks over.

“Mom-”

“Autumn, are you okay? We got this letter saying you're in hospital and it's life threatening.”

“I'm fine. Mom, I promise I'm fine. There's a problem though, Rowan is in America-”

“What?”

“Cain is working on it. Mom, I'm living with Cain now, and I'm with somebody at all times. Please do not worry.” As she continues talking to her parents, I look around at everyone.

I need to think about what to do. What is my game plan? I take some painkillers, not just to ease the headache, but the parts of my body which hurt, just anything to give me a little bit of peace within my body.

Every single member of my family is giving me an opinion, from Uncle David to Miles. Saying I should fight and I should not run away. I keep shaking my head because everyone is actually pissing me off.

I slam my fist into the table. “Enough,” I shout. “Autumn, tell your mom you'll call her back.” Pressing my palms into my eyes as they hurt so much, I give myself a little talk to calm myself down, but it's not really helping.

Taking a deep breath and with a heavy sign, I turn to everybody. “Would you let Aunt Jane go down to The Pit?” He stays silent. “Uncle David?” It is so easy for all of them to give me their options, so let's see what they do when I ask them.

“No.”

“Would you send Lileah down there?”

“No.” Uncle David answers the second I finish asking the question.

“So, why the fuck do you think I want to take Autumn down there? It's easy for you to say, yes, take her down there, but yet you won't take the two people who mean more to you in the world. You all stand there like you know how it is down there. You don't. It's a fucking nightmare. You saw only the very top layer of hell. You ask, Autumn, how much do I sleep during the night? I can answer it. I don't. I close my eyes and the demons, the pain, the screams and the smell hit me, there's always something that will wake me up.” I take a moment to catch my breath, as I’m shouting at them all. “You all stand there saying, ‘Oh, it's fine, you can do it.’ You think I want people and families from down there to know who Autumn is? Get a look of her face? No. Do I want them to see you? No, that's more enemies who will come for me than I'd ever want.” With a heavy sigh, I run my hand through my hair, because I'm losing it with all of them. “Then the fight with Yang. That man didn't lose one fight down there, not one. The only reason he never left the fucking Pit was because his son couldn't win a fight. You only leave that Pit if you win a fight. He could have walked out after twenty-four hours down there, but he didn't because of his son. He knows Chinese martial arts to the fucking T, that's what he does. He moves fast. Yes, he's old, but he killed people for fucking fun, ask Lincoln the man's fucked in the head.” I point to Lincoln just to give me a second to get myself back together.

“He once cut off a guy's fingers and started using them as chopsticks.” Lincoln looks over at me when he tells them just one of the things he did.

There's a silent echoing in the room, you can almost hear everyone's thoughts going on in their head. Fucking hell.

“Can I fight him? Yes. Can I win? I don't know. The last time I got in a fight with him I was losing. The only reason I'm here is because grandad took my place, and look how that ended up. Grandad is dead.” My sight moves to Autumn, who hasn't said one word, but she looks absolutely petrified.

I close my eyes as my head replays the fight I had with Yang. The man would pick me up with one hand, yeah, I was a kid, but he could throw me across that Pit with no trouble. My grandad was a good fighter, he was a strong fighter, but he took him down in minutes.

“Do I not get a say?”

I turn to Autumn and I have to stop myself from laughing at her. “No, I'm not taking you down there.” She must think I’m fucking crazy.

“So, you're going to look over your shoulder, like he said, you can't be with her all day,” Lincoln adds. Shaking my head, I grab a whiskey glass and walk over to my bar and fill it up to the rim, because two fingers of whiskey will not help me right now.

“Can everybody leave?” I turn to look at Autumn as she speaks. “I think it's been a fucked up three days. Half of you have not slept. Half of you are just saying things without really thinking, and Cain has only this morning woken up, and gone to talk to the crazy man who shot him, so I would like everyone to please leave. When's the fight?” Autumn asks.

Lincoln answers the question for me. “Two weeks.”

“Right, we have two weeks to figure something out, figure out a plan or work out another way. But for right now, I would like everybody to leave and rest. Maybe a good night's sleep for everyone is what's needed.” I lean on the counter, and watch everyone leaving, no one saying anything to me, because Autumn’s right.

It’s been a crazy day for me, but my whole family has been here for three days, and they need to rest.