“So he paid the tab one night, we left early, and I waited a while in my car before following him. He drove for a while, until he reached an abandoned warehouse. I parked a little ways away with my lights off, and saw him pull up beside a black truck.” He breathed a little faster. “A man stepped out with a black suitcase in hand, handed it to Cane, and then left. It was quick. Sudden. I knew it was an illegal exchange. From that moment on, I watched him every single time he left early. Every single time he answered that phone, I knew he was going to that warehouse.” He frowned and shook his head. “And then one night I saw him…a man the news had been talking about for months. A man that the FBI had been looking for, for a long time. He was the reason we started cracking down on the Hispanic gangs in Atlanta. The coke was too clean and more and more fights were happening in the cities. Browns against blacks. All of that.” He met my eyes. “The man I saw was named El Jefe,” he rumbled, and my eyes stretched so wide I thought they’d leave my skull. That name. God, why did it always give me chills? “I saw him one night during one of Cane’s drops, and realized Cane was good friends with that man—that he worked for him. I got down to the bottom of it and eventually confronted Cane. I followed him all the way to school and demanded to know what was in the suitcase. I’d taken pictures of him with El Jefe as leverage, just so he couldn’t deny it, and that’s when Cane told me the truth. There was money in his suitcase.”
“Money?” I asked. “For what?”
“Money he earned for pushing Jefe’s drugs. He was selling it to college kids, organizing what was being sold in Atlanta. He was taking trips back and forth for the drop-offs and the pick-ups, but was using me as his alibi. He was getting paid good money for it, I’m sure, especially if he got out of college without any debts and opened his own company right away.”
“Holy crap,” I breathed. “So what did you do?”
His eyes squeezed shut. “I kept his secret.” He shrugged. “I disrespected my job and made a mockery of my career by keeping his damn secret. And you want to know why I kept it?”
“Why?”
“Because Cane informed me that El Jefe knew who I was. To this day, he knows everything about me. He knows every single person that is connected to Cane. It’s the way he operates, probably so he can know who to target if things get awry.” His face was serious, eyes misty. “The only reason I kept his secret is because I knew telling it would have bitten me in the ass. I had a daughter to live for. A wife to take care of. After finding all of that out, I had no choice but to make his secret my own.”
“Oh my God, Dad,” I wheezed. “Why stay friends with him after finding that out then?”
“Because…he was a good kid. He was respectful, loyal, and I could tell he was going places. Not only that, but he promised he was going to get out of it, and back then I didn’t have many guy friends. Hell, I still don’t. At that point, he had already met you and your mother. He was in deep with us. I couldn’t just cut him off—not without lying to your mother, which I suck at doing—and there was no guarantee El Jefe would leave us alone even if I did.” He shrugged again. “It also looked like he needed a friend, you know? I mean we all have our demons—trust me, I have many—so who was I to judge? Who was I to tell him that in his position I would make different choices? I had no right to even think like that, and he guaranteed that as long as I kept quiet, things would be fine and he would get out, so I let it go. Things returned to normal. I think by now he’s gotten out—haven’t heard much about El Jefe since that explosion that happened at his home during the raid, but you never know what else lurks in Cane’s shadows.”
I nodded, lowering my gaze. Cane wasn’t out. That much was clear, from what I remembered with the black flip phone he had in his closet and how panicked he was when he saw the news.
“Look, Kandy…I’m not telling you this to scare you or make you think he’s a bad guy. He’s not all bad. To be honest, he’s one of the best men I’ve ever met. He’s got wits, he’s talented, he thinks on his feet, but he has a hell of a lot of baggage. When you met him, he may have seemed like this nice, wealthy guy with a big house and nice cars, but I’m almost positive he had to do some foul shit to get all of it. I don’t know what all he had to do for El Jefe, but anyone who works for that man doesn’t get things easily, and for Cane to be in the position he’s in now, it only means that he sits at the same table that man eats at and is just as dangerous as he is.” He grabbed my hand, and I picked my head back up, meeting his eyes. They were sincere, watery. “I love you so much, Kandy, and all I want is for you to be safe. That’s it. It may seem like I’m holding you back, and that I’m putting you against him, but it’s for your own good. I only have your best interests in heart, and I know for a fact that your best interest is not Cane. If you go…I—I don’t know what I’ll do. I just know that it won’t sit well with me.”