Innocent Eyes (A Cane Novel Book 1) Read online

  I collapse onto my bed as soon as I lock the front door.

  Exhaustion hits me like a freight train, but I hold it back long enough to grab my phone and plug it in.

  Displayed on the screen is one text.

  No one called. No one visited. Two hours of quiet. I don’t see why you had to stay open tonight. I guess that’s why you’re the boss. See you Tuesday. Jenny.

  Chapter Three

  I walk away from the old man, quietly closing the door and barely holding on to the respect that shimmers above the hate. It’s a slither of top lining, just keeping me on-side enough to not smother him. Loyalty to the family. Loyalty to my mother is more appropriate, the same loyalty that brings me to her door every time I’m here.

  “Mother?” I ask, my knuckles rapping on her door. Nothing. No fucking sound at all other than the continued wails that hover around her all the time.

  I open the door anyway, not waiting for an answer that will never come. She’s there, her body curled around the profligate furnishings, legs draped on the floor by the floral couch. Her eyes flick to me, their sneer as deadly as it always is.

  “Who are you, pretty boy?” she drawls as she turns to face me. Her blouse opens, then she trips over the length of her scarf as she tries to get up. I move to help, catching her and pushing her back to the couch before she does more damage than the pills already do. “Get off me,” she snaps, her fingers slapping out and scratching across my face. “I’ll fuck you up like I did them. One fucking touch. You want some, pretty boy?”

  “Mother, calm down.” She slaps again, her eyes suddenly wild and untamed. It makes me grab for her, shielding her from damaging herself in the frantic struggle. “Calm, Mother.” As usual, calm doesn’t descend into this room. It becomes a frenzied attack, her arms thrashing for contact, fear etched into every feature as she keeps coming at me. I shove at her, pushing her back to the couch again until she relinquishes her fight, all the time murmuring words at her to ease this spell. It finally finishes with me holding her down, my arm braced against her chest as she battles for all she’s worth, me looking away to the corner of the room.

  “Quinn?” she says suddenly, her tone as pretty as I remember when I was four. “Baby? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing, Mother,” I reply, drawing away from her and straightening my suit. She frowns and looks down at herself, her hands working the buttons on her blouse together and then patting her hair down. “Nothing at all.” I walk into the bathroom and grab some water, collecting her pills on the way to help ease her back to fucking earth again.

  “Who the hell are you?” she yelps as I walk back in. I shake my head and move towards her slowly, offering her the glass. “You’re trying to poison me. They tried that once. I’ll fucking kill you if you try.” I slow all my movements, my pace reducing to that of a snail.

  “Pills, Mother. You remember? It’s Quinn. Your son.”

  “I haven’t got a fucking son. You’re here to rape me, aren’t you?” She shivers at that, and then moves, her feet clambering over themselves to get to the door.

  I sigh and watch her go, safe in the knowledge that the key is still in my pocket. She rebounds off the door, her hands beating at it as she screams for help. It’ll stop in a while. She’ll come back, remember me. So I sit and roll my dice again, the water and pills placed beside me on the small table. Remember me? It’s fucking pitiful. I don’t think she’s remembered me properly for years. Maybe occasionally when she looks at me, the touch of her fingers reminding me of lullabies she used to sing all that time ago. She’s gone, though. She’s been gone for fifteen years. She was murdered. Murdered by this family and the man I call Father. Her life was sucked out and discarded, spat on, and her frame is kept in this room only because he hasn’t got the balls to put her out of her misery. Me either.

  “Quinn?” she says, a sob catching in her throat as she crumples to her knees and watches the door. She’s waiting for me to visit. Her maid, Livia, says she does that. She sits in the window sobbing, waiting for her favourite son to visit her. All fucking day, apparently. Shame she hardly ever shows that to me. “Quinn, baby. Where are you?” She starts talking to herself after that, mumbles and mutters under her breath as she crawls the floor, her eyes searching for something. “Where’s my baby gone?” I’ve gone, too. I went the moment she did and that fucker made me a man. Quinn baby has long since left, his heart removed the moment this job took over and she told me to protect the family. “QUINN?”

  She can shout all she wants. There’s no point answering until I get a snippet of her back. It’s the softness in her eyes—that’s what she needs to find me again. The fear and terror etched there won’t let her see me. But that’s what comes of living this life we’re all in. It’s what I’ve hardened to, what she couldn’t. But then I haven’t been raped for sport, nor pawned off to pay debts. She has. She’s endured it all for the Cane family. That’s what wives do for their families. That’s what he told me, anyway.

  I watch her for a while longer, knowing that’s the truth. It might be fucked up and indecipherable to the masses, but this isn’t the masses. This is a mobster’s hold of tyranny. We don’t accept anything less than we asked for. Why would anyone else? Opponents. Allies. We’re all the same. We do anything to protect what’s ours, showing the world we’re on top of the power tree. We have to. Integrity isn’t a luxury any of us can afford, not that I have any to care about. My only version of that lies in loyalty to this family, her in particular, and the thought that I can change the old ways with time and patience.

  The damn tears come next. They’re enough for me to stand again and gaze out of the window, partly disgusted with her weakness. I just listen as she starts wailing, my eyes roaming the grounds. Livia’s out there walking to the car with purposeful strides as she waves her hand at the driver. They’re fucking. Have been for some time. Servants fucking. It’s as annoying as these howls of disarray coming from her wretched voice behind me, but then what else is there for comfort when you work for us? Fuck all. You do your damned job and, with any luck, you get a paycheck and keep your life as payment. You don’t show us you care about someone or something. We’ll likely use it against you. No one comes to work here under any other pretence. It’s in the contract. You fuck up, you die.

  They drive off, their car passing my brother’s as he screams up the gravel, dust flying from his green Ferrari’s wheels. Fucking moron. I smile, though, laughing at the move and remembering the small part of me that wishes I was as carefree as he is. Josh has no concerns, nothing to tax the money he spends. He’s free to fuck up as much as he likes as long as he comes nowhere near my business. He’s too weak for a Cane. Always was. He’s explosive, volatile, and fucking drunk most of the time. He says it’s because he could never live up to me. I say it’s because he’s never had to. Silver spoon fed. Everything money could buy given to him as if it was his deific right to have it. He hasn’t worked for it like I have, hasn’t had to prove a thing. He’s just the youngest kid who got the goods that Father delivered, while Nathan and I are the ones who took the brunt of our father’s life. I’ve been made, Nathan’s been pulled along, and Josh has simply been allowed to evolve.

  It’s a pretty fucking useless attempt at evolution.

  I follow his movement as he gets out and looks up at me. He can’t see me; he’s not even looking for me. He’s looking for his mom, hoping she remembers who he is and tells him what to do. He lost her at thirteen, just at the point when a man’s life is about to be moulded. I’d already been made by then. I was twenty. Already honed as a killer. No fucking going back. And it was too late for Nathan not to follow. He was hot on my heels at eighteen, well on the road to perdition with me, but Josh has been screwing around ever since. No route onwards, no guidance, and all I can do is watch on and pick up the pieces, because I won’t let him into the business. I can’t afford the disruption to my order. He exists, that’s all, with me managing the fuck ups he makes and the mo
ney he wastes. It’s another one of my jobs. Protect the family, always, irrespective of whether they deserve it or not.

  Eventually, the wailing stops behind me and quiet resumes. I turn to watch her crawl to me, her eyes dazed and confused as she scans the floor for answers, her fingers finally biting into my ankle like they usually do when she remembers me.

  “Quinn? What happened?” I look down at her there, a certain amount of compassion coming as my knees crouch to her level.

  “Nothing, Mother.” I grasp hold of her elbows to lift her up, my own hands running the silk of her blouse fully together again. “Nothing at all. You just tripped.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. I don’t remember.”

  I smile at her and help her through the suite, the feel of her soft hands on my arm a reminder of times gone by, and then let her get comfortable on the bed. She lies there, her hair tangled from the yanking she’s been doing, her small limbs shifting up to form some kind of comfort for her lacking life. And then she stares around, probably unaware of the room she’s in.

  “Where am I, Quinn?”

  “At home, Mother. Your suite.” I wander off to retrieve the pills and water, wanting to give her a few hours peace as she sleeps.

  “I don’t recognise it. Have we redecorated?”

  “Yes, Mother.” We haven’t. This room hasn’t changed for fifteen years. She picked it before we lost her, and finished it three days before Father made her go.

  “It’s pretty. I bet you chose it. You were always good with colours. You remember the art work you used to do? You should paint again.”

  “Perhaps another day, Mother,” I reply, coming back in to find her looking at me.

  The vision of her there, soft eyes I remember gazing at me with that green-blue haze, would have made me hope ten years ago. There’s no point in that anymore. I don’t hope for anything. Hope is a luxury I can’t enjoy. That woman left a long time ago. She left the day Father made her go to pay his debts. She never came home but for these miniscule seconds that show up occasionally.

  “FUCK YOU,” she spits, her hand suddenly throwing a pillow across the room at me. I sigh again and walk towards her, knowing what’s coming and gauging the need to call someone else to help me sedate her. “Don’t fucking touch me.” She jumps from the bed, both hands up in defence as she backs to the bathroom door.

  “Mother, calm down. It’s me, Quinn.”

  “I’m not doing this again. I’m not,” she shouts, her feet fumbling over the rug until she falls to the floor. I watch her as I slowly move over to her, the glass placed on another table as I go. “You’ve taken enough. Leave me alone.”

  “Mother, you need your pills.”

  “No. No, I can’t do it anymore. Please stop. Don’t hurt me again.” She shakes her head rapidly, limbs scrambling back away from me. “FUCK YOU ALL.” She screams the last of it as my fingers reach for her neck, her chin fitting into them as easily as they always do. “Stop it. Get off me.” I tighten the hold, wrapping the rest of her into my grip and forcing her mouth open with my thumb in the side of it. “Oh god, please, no more.” She bites down, sending agony through me just like any good Cane woman should, but it’s not painful enough for me to stop the insertion of four pills.

  She coughs around them as I grab her nose and cover her mouth, more insistent mumbles coming from her as I keep clinging onto her frame and stare out the window. It’s just movement from her then—legs kicking out as I hold on, arms trying to push their way free. It’s not fucking happening. I’ve done this too many times. This is what a son does for the woman who brought him into this world. It’s my loyalty to her.

  The only sense of it I have for any woman.

  The fighting recedes slowly as the meds kick in, so I sit for a few moments longer, looking out the window, refusing to think about what happened to her. It’s done now. It was done a long time ago. She did what she had to for her family. He ordered it, and because of her, we’re all still alive and breathing. There isn’t a female on the planet with as much backbone as this woman. No one else deserves the energy I give Mother. That’s why I only fuck whores. I fuck them and leave them, no care to the action other than my own satisfaction. There’s only one woman I give a damn about and it’s the one in my arms. She took everything our world delivers and then she was dumped back on our doorstep—debt paid. It’s what happens when you get involved with us, because when this world we’re in fucks, it fucks with whatever it needs to in order to get the debt paid, sometimes for the sheer hell of it.

  I end up putting her back into bed as I always do, not bothering with the covers. They wake her quicker for whatever reason, make her edgier and more difficult for Livia to manage. And then I turn to leave without a backwards glance, calling for the plane as I lock the door behind me. It’s time to visit the motherland, remind it that Canes can cross oceans with the wealth they’ve accumulated if they need to. Remind it of how it should operate for us.

  Chapter Four

  The weather is ominous, the cold snap in the air chilling my skin despite the layers of scarves and jumpers I’ve piled on, but I got a few great shots out at Ruskin Park. My only company has been the nameless tune I hummed all the way home on Friday night. It’s like the repeat button has been pressed and forgotten. I catch myself lost in the notes half a dozen times. It’s a melodic tune that has seeped inside of me, bursting to break free when I give it half a chance.

  On Tuesday, Jenny is at the studio before me. The hostility I felt from her last message has obviously been forgotten over the weekend. Or so I think.

  “Good morning, Jenny.”

  “Morning.” She’s at her desk with her laptop open, and although she’s in work, the pout on her face tells me she isn’t happy about it.

  “Good weekend?” I offer.

  “So-so.”

  No reciprocal enquiry, but then, I should know what to expect. Her mood is as dull as the October rain outside.

  I don’t have a client booked until later this week, so I start on the edits for Mrs Banks and the Wheeler family from last week. As the morning progresses, Jenny doesn’t come out from under her thunder cloud. She doesn’t get up to make a cup of tea or take my offer of conversation. Nothing seems to change her tune.

  “Come on. I won’t apologise for Friday, Jenny. And I’ve just lent you a lot of money. You could at least try to be polite.” My hands have found my hips as I stand in front of her desk.

  “Thank you for the money. I’m not trying to be a bitch, but you don’t understand what’s going on with me, so it’s best you just leave me alone.”

  Her defeatist attitude shakes me. “Then talk to me. We’re friends, or so I thought. Best friends.”

  “We are. But that doesn’t mean we share everything. We’re not twelve years old anymore.”

  “Really? I thought we did share our troubles with each other? If you can’t even be bothered to tell me what’s going on then I give up.” I grab my bag and leave to go and fetch some lunch. I’m not going to be a pushover and pander to Jenny as I’ve already done.

  When I return, Jenny hasn’t changed her manner. Her face is glum, and I ache to lessen her burden. Instead, I ignore her and concentrate on work.

  Jenny’s mood swings aren’t anything new, but her attitude has been increasingly crap over the last few months. She’s never been visibly disrespectful to me before or refused to share her problems. I want to be there for her. But how can I if she doesn’t open up and tell me what’s bothering her?

  I don’t believe her excuse for the money. The more I’ve thought about it, the more concerned I’ve become. The list of possibilities for what the money could be used for grows longer and longer. Gambling debts, drugs, a loan shark—all as bad as each other.

  I try to put my worries for Jenny to the back of my mind, but having a limited number of close friends means it’s a hard thing to do.

  The last boyfriend I had was over a year
ago. Dating websites seem to work for some, but I have no luck. Awkward first dates with men who are after a quick date followed by sex aren’t what I was looking for then, or now.

  It seems there’s a shortage of early-thirty-something-men who are interested in anything close to art or culture of any kind. Even socialising seems a step too far for most. It’s not like I’m asking for Jake Gyllenhaal on the criteria.

  Jenny doesn’t say goodbye at 4:30 p.m. and just gets up and leaves. If I’d said no to lending her the money I might have accepted it, but I haven’t. It’s getting harder and harder to tolerate her behaviour, and I can’t hide the hurt it causes.

  I lock up the studio and make the short walk to the tube and the Victoria line. Twenty minutes later, I’m walking the familiar path to Darlberg Road. It’s too expensive to rent and build the savings needed to buy in London, and the studio has taken all of my savings. It’s still my priority. My goal is to have a successful company. With that will come the means to buy my own house in time. Until then, I’m stuck in the rental market.

  For now, I settle for my little slice of heaven in the shape of a one-bed flat in a Victorian terrace in Brixton. The garden clinched it for me. The space is mine to relax in. No judgements, no Jenny, no questions, customers or bills to worry about. I can be alone with my thoughts and pretend the real world isn’t still racing past outside.

  The drawn-out squeak hasn’t magically vanished as I push the front door open and step into the cramped entryway.

  I dump my laptop on the table in the living room before kicking my modest heels to the side and pouring myself a deserved glass of white wine. After taking a sip, I pad into the garden, despite the weather, and sit on the wooden bench looking out on my patch of solace.

  The simple flower borders have died back now that autumn is growing cold. The colour has drained from the plants, leaving a mix of mossy greens and browns in their place. The two borders leave only a narrow, paved strip down the centre of the garden. No grass to stretch out on and bask in the sun when, and if, it decides to show itself. But I don’t mind. It’s my little escape.