Prologue
Falling in love with my best friend’s sister was never part of the plan. Neither was her cheating on me, or her trying to pass the product of that affair off as my daughter.
Kalea Ka’ana’ana. She was fire and brimstone, wrapped in a sarong of passion. And it hadn’t hurt that she wasn’t as crazy as her brother. Four years younger than Aloiki and me, Kalea was always there in the background. I met Aloiki and Kayl, another close friend, when we were in grade school. The three of us pulled a lot of shit together, but while Kayl was still a friend, he chose to become a cop while Aloiki and I chose less reputable professions.
When Aloiki was nineteen and Kalea was fifteen, theirmakuahine, mom,was killed by a horse. It broke theirmakuakane’s, their dad’s, heart so much to lose her that he left the funeral, and was never seen again. The belief was that he took a long walk off a tall cliff to join his beloved in the sea.
Kalea was a wreck following her parents’ death, and Aloiki wasn’t what one would call “paternal by nature”. He never mistreated her, and always made sure she had everything she needed from food to new clothes, but he was neverthere. Not like I was. And while I never had paternal feelings toward Kalea, I did step into almost a big-brother role the latter half of her teen years. Aloiki took over their family’s farm and was heavily involved with a radical activist group as I was building my arms business and helping to take care of his teenage sister.
She became such a constant presence in my life that I hadn’t even realized I so heavily relied on until she was no longer there.
The shy, indoors-y type, Kalea didn’t date much through high school. That might also have to do with the fact that Aloiki, Kayl, and I had left behind such a reputation that her last name alone likely kept many potential suitors at bay. When she was nineteen and going to community college, she met a man whose name I never could remember but whose terrified face I would never forget.
Because you never forget your first kill.
The prick had struck her. Not once, not twice, but numerous times over several months. She’d begun disappearing, not checking in. I hadn’t even realized how often we talked on a daily basis until she no longer sent those messages.
Aloiki might not be the most emotionally available person, but there’s a code with him. Family and loyalty were everything. Betray that, and you pay the ultimate price. And I knew that it wasn’t just me she was ghosting when Aloiki approached me to know if I had heard from Kalea recently.
Aloiki and I tracked her down. And when we found her beaten and broken on the fucker’s kitchen floor? Well, let’s just say the sharks ate well that night.
She never knew. We didn’t even tell Kayl, who was still walking the beat back then. But that was when I knew the feelings I had for Kalea werenotpaternal or even fraternal. Absolutely fucking not. Because the rage that consumed me at the very memory of seeing her crumpled and bleeding on that old, yellowish linoleum floor wasvisceral.
I told Aloiki that she was mine. Maybe not today, maybe not even in the near future after what she’d just gone through, but she wasmine. I was a patient fucker, and one day, I would have her.
I showered her with gifts, protection… I even bought her a house. My business was a dangerous one, but it was quite profitable. Helped when one of your best friends was a police officer who swept certain things under the rug for a little extra paycheck each month. I took her on adventures. The entire island knew that Kalea Ka’ana’ana was mine, and what happened behind closed doors—or didn’t happen, in our case—was none of their fucking business.
Both Aloiki and I asked Kalea if the prick had raped her. She swore up and down that he hadn’t, but a part of me always felt like she was lying. She’d been so young, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he’d been her first. Then again, I’d fucked my first when I was fourteen, so I wasn’t exactly the authority on what was “young” when it came to sex. All I knew was that Kalea was skittish when it came to physical intimacy between us.
I was many things:Kanaka Maoli, an arms dealer of both illegal and legal weapons, a murderer, a warrior… I was not a rapist.
My vow to protect Kalea did not just mean from the world, but also myself. She would never know harm by my hand or cock. I never made her feel guilty or pressured. Waiting did not change my feelings for her or my claim on her. It was only when she was ready that I took her for the first time.
We married the following year when she was twenty-four.
My home life wasn’t the greatest growing up. Unlike Aloiki and Kalea’s who wouldn’t even let death separate them, my parents hated each other with such a passion that they continuously used me as a pawn between them long after the divorce. I walked away from both the moment I turned eighteen, and never looked back. I saw them on occasion, but I never acknowledgedthem. As far as I was concerned, I had no parents. I was a son of the sea and of the land.
When I put a ring on Kalea’s hand, I hadn’t been sure what to expect of marriage. I certainly hadn’t had the role models she had growing up, and I couldn’t spend the rest of our lives together just trying tonotbe my parents.
It was Kalea who eased my worries and my fears. She said our marriage would be neither of our parents’. It would beours. We would make it our own and compare ourselves to no one.
I was fairly certain I fell in love with her all over again at that declaration.
Life became good after that. It wasn’t without its struggles, but I never felt like it was too much or not enough. My business expanded. For a few years, I worked with Aloiki when he needed someone watching his back he could unquestionably trust. He had his own struggles with heartbreak, and literally decided to move on by pussy hopping his way through life. The fact that he made a killing doing it with his growing porn business was either fucked up or completely genius. I never got on camera, but I helped out behind the scenes when he asked.
Then, Kalea and I started to try. I was nearly thirty at that time, and we just celebrated our first wedding anniversary. A child was a big step, but the idea of fatherhood did not scare me. I wanted it so much that I became blind, ignoring signs that I now realized were right in front of my face the entire time.
After two years of trying and seeing a fertility specialist, it finally happened. We got to see those two blue lines on that piss stick.
I was never an angry person by nature. Even growing up as I did and my chosen profession, I had always defined myself as a rational person. Then again, when your best friend can easily be called a sociopathic asshole, you tend to always appear the more reasonable of the two.
I cannot remember a happier time in my life than experiencing pregnancy with Kalea. It was new and exciting, and there was something primal about knowing I had knocked up mywahine.
And when the nurse placed that little bundle in my arms? When I got to hold mydaughterfor the first time… It had nearly brought me to my knees. I was afatherto the most wonderful, most perfect baby girl on the planet.
Or I was for three weeks.
Pualani Ano. That had been my daughter’s name. The name she should have had until I gave her to the man—or woman—who would love, cherish, and protect her for the rest of her life.