14

14

KADE

Iblink away the blurriness in my eyes, sitting up against the door of the bathroom. The light blinds me, the headache edging close to being unbearable.

A knock sounds at the door. “Kade?”

I close my eyes and ignore her, the ache in my temples growing. I lean forward and take a deep breath before grabbing my phone and bringing up my messages.

Trembling fingers fly over my screen as I send a text to my mum.

Me: Are you still with Dad?

She sees it right away, but my vision blurs so badly that I rub my palm into both eyes. I only took two lines earlier, not the full bag, but I feel like I’m seconds from passing out from another overdose.

If I black out and think of Stacey again, I’m going to be more than pissed.

Mum: Yes, sweetheart. Do you want to talk to him? Is everything okay?

Me: Yeah. I’ll call in ten.

I wash my face with more force than necessary, ignoring another knock on the door. My lungs are struggling for air, a painful ringing in my ears so intense I’m surprised there’s no blood spilling from them.

I grip the edge of the sink and drop my head, knees trembling.

Something is sitting on my chest – crushing it.

My car keys are sitting next to my washbag, so I take them – and immediately drop them on the marble floor. “Fuck,” I mutter.

Stacey’s soft voice annoyingly soothes me. “Kade? Are you okay? You can talk to me.” She’s right there, on the other side of the door. “I’m sorry.”

I groan into my palms. She better fuck off.

I put my head under the running tap to soak my hair in ice-cold water then dry it with a towel, but I feel no better for it.

Whatever is rushing through my body is crippling me – my hands are cramping, there are tingles all over my face and the last thing I’m going to do is ask her for help.

“We won’t make this awkward. I know it meant nothing, okay? We can forget it happened if it makes you feel better. Come out and we can watch a movie or something.”

Jesus, why can’t I just fucking breathe?

I bring up my messages again, staring at the most recent ones from Bernadette.

Bernadette: I sent you a contact to deal with while you wait for your flight. No mess – do you understand?

Bernadette: Are you at the hotel alone?

Me: Yeah.

Bernadette: Two hours, Kade. This has a big payment for the both of us – don’t fuck it up.

My response to her, not even an hour later, was confirmation that the job had been completed and a picture of the guy’s head. Although I’d intentionally made quite the mess for her to clean. The target was an abusive wanker. He deserved it.

Bile rises in my throat to go with the anxiety riddling me right now.

Stacey’s sitting on the bed, legs crossed and looking worried when I exit the bathroom. I grab my bag and throw it over my shoulder.

“Kade.”

She’s up and coming towards me now. I dodge her hand.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” The words are strangled and forced.

“Where are you going?” She stops in the middle of the room. “Talk to me. Don’t make this awkward.”

I don’t respond as I slam the door shut and make sure it’s locked. I quickly message Barry and tell him to put a guard outside the room. He confirms instantly.

I nod to one of my team as I leave the hotel reception; outside, a black SUV holds more of my guys waiting for instructions. Wherever I go, they’re always nearby.

Always watching my back. Always on alert. Always waiting.

When I drop into the driver’s seat of my R8, I shake my head at the scent of her everywhere.

Can I not escape her? One – she’s my ex. Two – she’s my sister’s best friend and always there. Three – she’s coming to America. Four – I’m stuck in a damn hotel room with her.

And five – the biggest mindfuck of the year – I want to go back and screw her brains out, to hear her moan my name again, to feel her skin beneath my hands and the taste of her on my tongue.

I press my forehead to the steering wheel to rid all the thoughts and call to mind the video – the one that started all of this – thankfully losing the semi that was growing.

Mum answers on the second ring. “Hello, sweetheart. We have ten minutes before the visitation ends.”

We do the whole back and forth on how the day has been while I try focus. It’s sunny over there, raining here. Luciella has argued with Base all morning, and she can’t wait to see us.

She whispers something to my dad: “I’ll go to the bathroom and give you two some peace.”

My lungs are still on fucking fire. “Thanks, Mum.”

There’re a few seconds of silence.

“Kade?” the deep, threatening voice rumbles through the phone.

As much as the world is terrified of Tobias Mitchell, he’s my dad. He has his issues, and a terrible past, but I’m not much better. I’ve taken over one hundred lives in only two years, whereas he’s killed four people.

He has the excuse of not understanding right from wrong, but I know fine well what I’m doing when I track a person down and make them bleed and beg for mercy.

“Dad…” I stop, a lump strangling me. Everything is hitting me at once.

“Son?”

My eyes close. “Can… Can anyone hear me?”

“Just me.”

I grit my teeth, unsure how much I can say. He doesn’t know that I’m tied to Bernadette and her fucked-up world, and I don’t think even the institution could keep him on a leash if he found out.

He would start with Archie, and decapitate him while Bernie watched in horror. I want to be the one to end her though.

The crushing pressure against my chest amplifies, and I’m certain my team sitting in the SUV across the car park can see me hunching over my steering wheel.

I take as much of a deep breath as I can. “We missed our flight. The next one is tomorrow.” I pause, gulping, sweat breaking out all over me. “We need to share a hotel room with only one fucking bed.”

“Language.” He sighs. “What did you do?”

“Too much.” I manage another gulp as sweat drips down the side of my face. “Dad… I can’t breathe properly and my… my chest is killing me. My lips are tingling and so are my hands. The way it used to happen when I was a kid.”

We haven’t talked in a long time. Nearly two years. But I know he can talk me out of this. He always did before.

Dad hums, and a few seconds go by. I can hear the thundering of my erratic heartbeat in my ears. “Can you see?”

My jaw clenches and unclenches repeatedly, fingers obsessively tapping on my steering wheel. The coke should be slowly leaving my system now. “Yeah. I can see.”

“Five objects you can see. Tell me.”

I exhale, my eyes scanning the area. “Other cars. A lamppost. The hotel car park sign.”

“Good. Keep going.”

Dad stays silent while I try to concentrate. Slowly, the pain in my chest eases a touch, but not fully. “A fox just ran across the small hill in front of me.”

“Do you remember Luciella wanted a fox as a pet when she was ten?”

A smile tugs at my lips. “Yeah.”

“One more, son.”

My mind isn’t against me. All this panicking is just in my head. “I can smell her in the car. She’s still wearing the same perfume.”

I know he’s nodding. “The one you bought her?”

“Yeah.”

I stare at the passenger seat and imagine her soft legs, toned from years of dancing, and her hair flying around her face as I drive faster. She’s giggling, then crawling into my lap.

“Same one. Flowerbomb.”

“You’ve had to spend time with her.”

I look away from the hallucination of her beside me. “Yeah.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

“That I was okay with breaking the first four rules. But now I regret it, because at the end of the day, she doesn’t deserve for me to break the fifth.”

Dad helped me form the five rules. I was spiralling right after we broke up, and he knew I was seconds from losing it. He thought it would help me get off the booze, completely unaware of all the drugs I was consuming.

I needed something to fill the void, and partying myself into a comatose state was the best way when I had Bernadette over my shoulder, leading me into the underworld like an animal into a slaughterhouse.

“I watch her,” I admit. “When she’s in the manor, at the studio, or walking around the mall. If I don’t see her at least once every day, I lose my mind. I’ve climbed to her window to see her sleep, and I’ve been trying to hack her phone for the last year. I hacked Luciella’s.”

And I hunt down the people she sleeps with and make them disappear, but I keep that part to myself.

“That’s extreme,” Dad replies. “But I understand.”

Of course he does. “I can’t stop hating her though.”

“It would help if you let her explain.”

My hand nearly crushes the phone to my ear. “No. We’ve already talked about this. Neither of them deserves to be fucking heard.”

“Stop swearing.” Dad is silent for a beat. “What else has happened? Your mother is worried about you.”

I divert his attention from me. “Stacey has a lot of bruises,” I say. “They look fresh. When I saw them, she said most were from the studio.” It’s quiet for a long second, and I add, “It’s making me think.”

I pull a cigarette out and spark it, glad my lungs are functioning enough for me to get the dose of nicotine I need. The ember casts a soft glow around the car as I suck and inhale deeply.

“What are you thinking?”

I blow a cloud of smoke out the window. “She’s a good liar, but Luciella does the same training as her and she isn’t black and blue. Someone hurt her.”

Stacey is probably the best, most manipulative kind of liar. I know. I’ve been on the receiving end of her lies.

“You didn’t notice anything while stalking her like a crazy ex-boyfriend?”

My eye twitches at his tone. “No.”

“Where is Stacey now?”

“Hotel room. The door’s locked, so she won’t be able to get to her.” I inwardly groan as soon as the words fall from my lips.

“Who?” His tone is dangerous.

“No one.”

“Kade. So who can’t find her?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

His hand slams down on something. “Don’t keep something like this from me. Who are you in trouble with?”

I take another draw, enjoying the burn of each inhalation. “If I tell you, you’ll try to escape. You’re better off not knowing. I’ll deal with it.”

He laughs, and it sends a chill up my spine. “You think I’m stuck here? That’s insulting, son. It would take me less than a day to be out of here and halfway to Scotland.”

My brow raises. “You could escape?”

“In a heartbeat. Now tell me what’s going on?”

I ignore the second part. “Why haven’t you escaped then?”

“My family is happy – why would I ruin that? I hurt your mother by trying to love her the way she needed. As much as she will always be everything to me, I could never give her what she wanted.”

I hang on to this subject, knowing he’s so deluded when it comes to my mother that he’ll stay on it. “I think she still loves you. I see it in the way she changes when you’re there.”

It’s true though. Mum’s face lights up as soon as she sees or speaks to my dad. She loves my stepdad Ewan, that much I know for a fact, but she’s totally different and more alive when she’s around my dad.

If he wasn’t a psychopath who put her through hell when they were in their twenties, then maybe they’d have a shot. But, in all honesty, from reports I’ve read about them, they were toxic.

Besides, I like Ewan.

Silence. And then. “I wish that were true, son. Ewan is the love of your mother’s life, and she is the love of mine. There’s no changing that.”

“Sounds miserable,” I say, flicking my finished smoke out the window then rolling it back up with the press of a button. “You’ve been locked up for over twenty years and you still love her?”

“Not a day goes by have I ever felt less.”

Yeah, as I said… miserable and deluded.

“I can tell you’re feeling better. Good. We’re allowed to have bad days too. It’s late for you. Why don’t you try to get some sleep before your flight?”

My eyes close as my head drops back against the headrest. “She’s there, remember?”

A pause, and he scoffs. “Then have some self-control around her.”

I hear Mum asking if everything is okay, to which he says yes and that he’ll be right there.

“I’m going to spend time with your mother before she leaves. Go to the room and sleep. And for fuck’s sake, son, keep your dick in your pants and stay out of trouble.”

Mum scolds my dad for his language.

I chuckle. “Right.”

He hesitates. “And Kade? I apologise for what happened the last time you were here. I had no idea she meant so much to you.”

The call ends.

I stare at the screen with a bitter taste in my mouth. Dad knows more than anyone what it’s like to want someone you can’t have. His block is himself, whereas mine is that I don’t trust a hair on Stacey’s head.

We have six hours before our flight. There isn’t a chance in hell I’ll survive that. I’m honest enough with myself to say that I’m terrified to be back in that room with her.

My phone vibrates in my hand as I walk over to Barry’s car.

Speak of the devil.

Stacey: You’re not seriously going to sleep in the car? There’s a killer on the loose! I’ll sleep on the floor or the bathtub. Some dude is at the door too – he told me to wait for your return when I tried to come out for you. What’s that about?

Little does she know that I’m the monster that goes bump in the night.

I chew on my lip as she types again, still tasting her even after vigorously washing my face.

Barry is silent as I get into the passenger seat of the SUV.

Stacey: I get it, you hate me. What happened tonight was a lapse in judgement from both of us, but we need to be mature adults about it. We’ll make a deal not to go near each other, even if we’re tempted, okay?

Me: Stop texting me.

An impulsive reply I regret as soon as she reads it. I try not to smile when she sends an emoji of the middle finger. Her war cry.

I glance at Barry, who’s watching with a raised brow and waiting for me to speak, his fingers hovering over his laptop. “Are you smiling?” he asks me. “Don’t do that, it’s weird.”

“Fuck off. Can you trace who called her about an hour ago?”

“I can try. Her phone is still jammed – I can’t break into the damn thing.”

“She’s bruised too.” I rub my face. “I think whoever the bastard is is beating her. Can you look into it? My hands are tied while I’m with her.”

Barry nods. “I’ll see what I can do. You should sleep.”

“Yeah,” I say with a yawn.

I’m tempted to go back to the room, just to see her, but that would just be feeding the possessive side of me that watches her every fucking step on a daily basis.

I’m my own worst enemy.

I hate her, but I can’t live without knowing what she’s doing.

After ten minutes and another smoke, I pull up my secret app, transfer funds to it and make different travel arrangements.

I have more than enough from contracts, clients and business shares, so money isn’t an issue when it comes to travelling. With the number of assignments I’ve done over the last two years, my bank account could rival my mother’s and Ewan’s combined.

Tonight’s contract earned me three hundred grand. It took me less than an hour to get the job done. I used to hate it, but not as much now. It’s fuelled a deep hunger in me for blood and havoc.

I get an adrenaline rush when I hurt people.

I know it’s wrong, but it’s built into me now. I can still see the blood of the guy I beheaded tonight and hear his screams for help as I chased him with a machete in my balaclava.

Once I arrange a time and place for my jet to land and refuel, I message Stacey.

Me: Get ready. The jet leaves in a few hours.

Me: And deal. Try to keep your hands to yourself.