Chapter 30: Chapter 30

CANNON

LEONARD ARKINSON was the type of man to show up with ill fitted pleated khakis and a tweed jacket with suede elbow patches at a beer party.

On this fine morning however, I had spotted the dick and his SUV right before he could cough up that lazy Brad fucking Pitt smile that must have worked on a ton of women in this town. Throwing off one of those British Vogue looks of ‘best dressed men’, Mr. Tailored suit stood by his car waiting for my wife.

Can’t lie that I thought about how fast it would be to put a bullet through his head from where I was standing. It would take like what? Two seconds? Two fucking seconds to end the moron before he even knew what hit him.

Nicole showed up a few seconds later and I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to use my god damn Swiss knife to pop the eyes of the smarmy bastard. If him licking his lips wasn’t a fucking sign he liked what he saw, then his pants tautening at his crotch was a clear fucking indication he was turned on.

And Nicole?

Damn me for falling for her but she was as clueless as a mouse nibbling cheese on a mouse trap. And I had never liked those sorts of women.

When I envisioned myself with a woman-seriously-, I only thought of women who were more like me. A woman who knew how to fight, a woman who was tough on the inside and the outside and a woman who would be able to pick up hints.

And Nicole if am being fucking honest was nothing like that.

She knew how to fight. Verbally but not physically. Not yet at least because I would teach her to fight for herself. To fight off men who eye fucked her without her knowledge. Most of all I would teach her the one lesson she had choked down my throat.

That she was fucking mine.

That men like Leonard Arkinson didn’t get to look at her like that.

She might have grown more curves, lost a few pounds over the years but she was one hot firecracker.

Raspberry red gloss swiped across her lips, tucked in a navy skirt and jacket add in four inches of Jimmy Choos on her feet, she looked like a fucking angel and that gutted me the whole fucking day that Leonard got to see her like that while I merely got the silent treatment.

“This is stupid”, Jr bellowed, I knelt on the grass my hand on his shoulder.

“Spoken like a tough guy”, I smiled.

I looked at him and I saw myself in him and I fucking hated it.

He was angry, for a short little man he was filled with rage and if this didn’t help, I would have to use other methods that Nicole wouldn’t necessarily advocate for her boys.

“All you have to do is throw five of these down that hole. Shouldn’t be too hard for a tough guy like you”

I stepped away standing a few feet from Jr.

His eyes fired daggers at me before he stared at the bullseye next to me and Connor. He wouldn’t make the shot even if he tried to and that was the point of the whole exercise.

To get the fucking kid mad, so fucking mad he would realize it was poison and give it up.

Then I would peel off the layers from him, bond with my son and erase every fucking memory etched in his mind by Lucas.

“What about Connor? Why is he not doing it?” Jr accused.

Because he was a good kid, I wanted to say.

Barely bypassing my knee, Connor stood next to me, a popsicle in his hand.

“He doesn’t hate me”, I replied with a sadistic smile.

Like I fucking guessed, Jr’s scowl grew wider as he picked the egg from the box holding it like fragile glass.

“Anytime now buddy. You throwing it or not?”

He hesitated.

“Mommy wouldn’t—”

“Mommy’s not here”, I fired back, he stomped on the ground like a frustrated mail man after being chased by a bloody hound.

Nicole treated Jr like he was fragile and I get our boys were fragile but they needed discipline and the little man in front of me and Connor sadly lacked any.

My father didn’t instill discipline in me by teaching me how to throw eggs in a fucking hula-hoop, no, he believed in the power of the belt. Whipping my back with a belt till I couldn’t fucking walk so the way I saw it Jr was way fucking lucky to have me.

His sneakers digging into the ground, his right-hand swishing back, he threw the first egg and it missed the hole ten feet away from him completely.

God, he was going to be bad at baseball.

“Again!”

“I missed”, Jr said.

“He missed”, Connor laughed.

“Shut up stupid”, Jr yelled, tears at the brink of his eyes.

“Hey, he is your brother. The only person who’ll tolerate you when we are gone—”

“I hate him! I hate you!”

That’s it. That’s it. Let it all out.

“Mommy would never—”

“Mommy won’t be around to fucking kiss your booboos goodbye. You are angry? Take the damn egg and rise up for yourself. Nobody likes a mama’s boy anyway”

“I hate you”, he cried picking another egg and I stood tall like his words didn’t fucking mean anything even though they did.

He was just like Nicole when she was mad. And he was so God damn hard headed like me, I wanted to swat him.

He threw the egg and missed the hula hoop I had swung from the tree entirely.

“Again, and again till I say stop”

“You said five - “

“The rules changed the minute you yelled at your brother”, I turned around taking Connor with me to the house.

“Well, you never said the fucking cameras were mute. I can’t hear a fucking thing”, I complained.

“You said bad words”, Connor whisper jumped in his seat.

“My hands are tied, I sent you what I fucking had on short notice. Besides you do know that I have better work other than sending you tiny cams to spy on your neighbors”, Holy hollered on the other end of the line.

“You’d be fucking complaining too if you saw them”

He laughed.

“Buddy, I know you hate people like you fucking hate Bates but tune down the paranoia. What does Nicole have to say about the neighbors and my wireless cameras?”

Give me Jason Bates any day than Frank fucking Hanks.

“Jesus Christ you are using the cameras on Nicole, aren’t you?”

“I want a refund. They are defective as fuck”

“Says the pervert spying on—”

“Pervert? Callan what’s pervert?”

“Shit you got me on loudspeaker?”

“You owe me a refund and you owe my kid five dollars for cussing Holy”

I hung up.

“What’s pervert?” Connor asked licking the last of his popsicle with a mellow grin.

“A word mommy hates and we wouldn’t want her to hear you say that would we?”

“No”, he shook his head.

“Good kid”, I ruffled his hair my eyes glued to the security feeds in front of me.

“Jr’s not bad. I call him stupid too”

He said absent mindedly running a finger against his spiderman shirt.

“Mommy says he’s an angel like me”

I fucking smiled at his attempt of trying to help his brother.

Looking at the screen above the one that showed Nicole’s office, I saw Jr still going at it with the eggs like an angry smurf.

“Your mother thinks everyone is an angel except me”

Connor didn’t understand shit as he blinked a few times at me.

“Go. Help him”

He didn’t need telling twice because the next thing I knew he was off his chair and running towards the slider doors that led outside.

I returned my gaze to the woman bending down to open a mini fridge.

Holy’s cameras might have lacked sound but I thanked my lucky stars that the swath of olive skin at the back of Nicole’s thighs was mine to watch and no one’s fucking else’s.

Like the delusional bastard I was, I had called her reading between the timelines that she had been cooped up in the office and hadn’t had enough time to gobble anything since morning.

“Either you deactivate your stupid cameras or you are out of the house tonight”

“Guess I’m sleeping in the garage tonight”

Gimme a gun and I could fire that baby without breaking a sweat. Gimme a fucking IED and I would disarm the damn thing in seconds. Gimme two minutes with Nicole and every fucking time, I would find a way to mess things up Cannon style.

She came home that night, in the same fucking SUV with the same fucking gringo.

She didn’t say shit to me other than hand me some few pillows and a loose cover.

An hour later, I was in the fucking garage swirling my trusty Glock to get the time going.

“Here”, someone spoke and the voice echoed in the empty space.

Standing by the door way separating the main house and the garage was Jr in striped pjs and bunny slippers.

I made no effort to stand up but I definitely hid the gun behind me as I took the plate from him.

“I don’t like chocolate cake”, he lied.

I took the cake chomping on it.

“Mommy told you to leave, you left”

“I respect her”, I said, the kid fidgeted with his fingers.

“Daddy Lucas never left when mommy told him to. He—he got mad and—”

Pushing the ill feeling of him calling Lucas his daddy down my throat, my ears peaked up. He was trying to tell me something and I was all motherfucking ears.

“And?”

“He hit her with a lamp”, he cried, “I tried to stop daddy. I promise! I promise I told him to stop but daddy was angry. He wouldn’t listen, mommy cried, I yelled and he hit me. I promise I’m good, I tried— “

Tears streaked his face and I didn’t wait for him to finish those words before I hauled him to my chest placing the damn plate down.

His hands roped my neck and his whole body shook with small sobs.

“Where?” I asked parting from him, my shaking hands on his forearm, “Where did he hit you?”

His hand landed on his forehead and he swept his dark hair long enough for me to spot the scar near his hair line.

I didn’t realize my hands were shaking terribly up until the moment they landed on his cheeks.

“Your dad’s here and no one absolutely no one will ever hurt you, Connor or your mom again, okay?”

I would kill Lucas with my bare hands if he ever came close to them again.

The door creaked and the sound was enough to send Jr and I glancing at the intruder.

Connor stood by the door way with a glass of milk.

“I don’t like milk”, he lied and my fucking swelled.

Nicole might have hated me at the moment but these boys were definitely warming up to me and after everything I had just learnt leaving them was something I would never do.