"No." He was in some kind of trouble with his biker club, but I was afraid to ask what the specific brand of trouble was.
"The Marines were my whole life. I couldn't fucking deal with it when I got out. It was the only thing I knew, since high school. The discipline, the structure, the brotherhood - I was fucking lost without it. When I found the MC, it was someplace I fit, someplace with other vets. With people just as fucked up as I was. No one gave a shit that I'd spent the last twelve years being a killer."
I opened my mouth, started to say something, but Cade kept talking.
"In fact," he said. "I had certain skills that were useful in my new line of work. They gave me a family, a home, when the Marine Corps kicked me out of mine."
"So what happened?"
"The Inferno," he said. "My fucking club, the people I thought were my fucking family, they tried to kill me."
Shit. I had thought it was something big, but not that.
"They tried to kill me, kill Crunch," he said. "Would have fucking killed April and MacKenzie. After I did everything for those assholes."
"I'm so sorry, Cade," I said. What else could I say?
"Do you know what it's like to lose yourself, to lose everything you believe in?" Cade asked. "To lose who you are?"
I lost my family before I turned eighteen. "Yes," I said.
Cade looked at me for a long moment, and nodded. "You would be the one person who could understand that, June," he said. "The problem is, what did you do with your shit? You became a fucking doctor. Joined the Navy. I didn't exactly go the honorable route."
"What do you mean?" I asked. "You joined the Marines."
"And then I joined the MC, June."
"You had your reasons, I'm sure," I said. "It was a place that fit. It wasn't all bad, from the beginning, right? You couldn't have known."
"June," he said. "You need to stop. Stop defending me. It's not worth it. I'm not worth it."
"Don't say that," I said. "It's bullshit. And, besides, I'm not defending you. I can think for myself."
"Do you know what I did for the MC?" he asked.
I shrugged. Nothing good, I was sure. "Probably a whole bunch of criminal stuff. I'm not naive, Cade. Give me some credit. I just think that you feeling ashamed of what you've done is pointless. Just because you've fucked up in the past doesn't mean you're fucked up forever. There's always a way to right things." I listened to myself say the words, the person who believed people couldn't ever change.
Did I really believe that, or was I just naively hoping Cade could change?
"June." He brought his face up, looked at me, unblinking. "I was the enforcer for the MC."
"So what?" Enforcer. I had an inkling of what that meant.
"So," he said. "It's not just because I was good at throwing punches, June."
"It's because you were a sniper," I said. "So you killed people for the MC." I wasn't asking. I was listening to how it sounded, the statement coming out of my mouth.
"On occasion," he said. "Still think I'm not fucked up forever?"
I couldn't answer.
"Yeah," he said. "I thought so." He exhaled, his eyes down, looking like he was deflating as he sat there. My heart ached for him, for the pain he carried. I wanted to tell him I couldn't answer because I was the one who was permanently fucked up. How could I judge him, when I was just as bad? It's not like I hadn't ever killed anyone.
"Cade," I said. I couldn't take it, watching him hurt like that. I crawled over to him from where I sat, moved across from him, put my fingers under his chin and tilted his head up. He shook his head away, and I took his face in my palms, made him look at me. "You're not fucked up."
"Don't, June," he said. "You don't know all of it. Not everything."
"What else is there?"
He took my wrists, pulled my hands off his face. "June. There's something..." His voice started to crack. "Shit, I can't even say it."
"What is it?" I pulled back, already tense. What could be that awful that he was so ashamed?
"June," he said. "Hell, I don't even know how to say it. Your sister-the ranch hand, it's all my fault, what happened."
"What are you talking about?"
"I knew about the two of them. I caught them together once, in the barn. I threw him out, sent her home. I should have done more, but I didn't. And it was my fault. If I would have kicked his ass, told someone..."
"This is your big secret? The thing you're so ashamed to admit?"
"June, I don't even know what to say..."
"Cade," I said, taking his head in my hands again, "I knew about them too. That night? I knew my sister was going out to party with him. She snuck out of the house."
"You knew about it," he repeated slowly.
"Yes," I said. "Have you been beating yourself up over this for all these years?"