39

39

KADE

My body jerks as frigid water splashes over me. “Wake the fuck up.”

I gasp and try to catch my breath. I’m strapped to a chair in front of a table. Archie is sitting opposite me with a folder, ankle to his knee, dressed in his usual navy suit.

A guy with an empty bucket is standing beside me, bulletproof vest and all, and I make sure to remember his face, so I can fucking mutilate him.

“You’re a sneaky son of a bitch,” Archie says, getting to his feet and leaning his hands on the steel table.

“My dad would have your tongue for speaking about my mother that way,” I reply with a smug grin. “But you’re too much of a pussy to say that to his face, aren’t you?”

Archie argued until his face was blue that it was stupid to be involved with the son of Tobias Mitchell and they should stop messing with me before my father retaliated, but Bernadette, being the horrible bitch she is, convinced him to keep going.

He started watching me with her, with others. Then he took his turn.

It was sickening. I’d broken up with Stacey weeks prior, and the sting from her betrayal was still there. I just wanted to get drunk all the time, but they introduced me to ecstasy, cocaine, acid and whatever the fuck else they pumped into me.

Then the violence started. They made me strangle someone to death. My first kill. Then they sent me to other countries to be trained. Russia. Poland. France. Latvia. Spain. Italy. Austria. Brazil. Beijing.

When I attended private parties with Bernadette on my arm, other women began inquiring about me. My bank account started filling up, surpassing one million, then two, three. Kill contracts amped it up to eight figures.

As rich as I was becoming, I was an empty vessel. I still am, but in the past week or so, I became that teenager again, who had no idea how to use a gun or the deep horrors of the underworld. Just the nervous kid who fancied his sister’s best friend.

Archie punches me out of my trance.

“Your father is nothing but a mindless drone. Can he even speak with all the medication he’s on? Does he even remember who the fuck you are when he spaces out?” He scoffs. “Fucking Tobias Mitchell. You’re just like him. Useless, pathetic, pieces of shit.”

I smirk. “Sure. And that’s why you need to beat me while I’m tied to a chair, right? I’m a piece of shit like my dad, yet you can’t take me one-on-one. You’re an embarrassment, Archie. Your wife got so bored of your dick that she had to fuck a teenager for excitement.”

I tip back as he boots my chair, and the air rushes out of my lungs as I hit the ground.

I laugh through my coughing.

He drops to my level on the ground and grips my hair, whispering harshly into my ear. “I’m going to sneak into your little mansion, slit your stepfather’s throat and shove my cock in your mother’s mouth until she can’t breathe. I’ll fuck her corpse and send you the video. Then, after that, I’ll take your sister.”

My blood boils, my smile dropping.

I keep myself controlled, my expression blank. “When I get the chance, I’m going to make you suffer,” I snap. My forehead smashes into his nose, and I hear it crack. He yelps and quickly stands. “You go anywhere near my family, and I’ll fucking kill you.”

He holds his bleeding face. “You little—”

“Oh shut up the both of you.” Bernadette’s voice echoes in the room – it’s coming from the speaker on Archie’s phone. “Kade. What the hell are you playing at?”

One of the bodyguards rights my position as Archie’s blood drips on the floor.

I hope it hurts, the motherfucker.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I reply to Bernie.

“Who is working for you? Who was firing back at us?”

I hold my breath, refusing to speak.

“You created your own little team, didn’t you? Sneaky, sneaky boy. It’s a shame they’ll all be dead soon.”

“Doubtful,” I snap. She’ll never find them.

“Who was she? Who was so important to you that you went to such extremes to protect her?”

“No one.”

“You know the goddamn rules, boy,” Archie spits, his stupid bloodstained moustache twitching with his anger. He rips open the folder, spreading pictures over the table. Different angles of me and Stacey at the club. Standing at the bar, me touching her. Her dancing with my target then us out back.

Me fucking next to my target and killing him while deep inside Stacey.

Then the one he took of her. She looks so innocent and frightened, and my insides twist that I put her in that position.

“Who is she?” Archie asks.

His fist connects with my face before I can spit on him.

Another from the left – one of his men wearing knuckledusters on both hands. My mouth fills with blood as my teeth cut into my gums.

Good. I want pain. I want to feel every single fucking blow they throw my way.

They question me on who the mystery woman is, and to be a prick, I ignore them, just so they can throw more punches and pour ice-cold water over me. It soothes the raging heat inside.

Bernadette eventually tells them to stand down and to get out of the room, leaving just me and a phone sitting on the desk, surrounded by images of my ex.

“If you tell me who she is, I’ll call off the hit on Prince,” she says, and my face drops. “All I want to know is her name.”

“She was just a fuck to pass time,” I lie. “I met her at the club, then we met up again tonight.”

“How many times did you sleep together?”

I grit my teeth, spitting crimson on the floor. “Twice. It won’t happen again. Call off the hit.”

She hums. “Then why did you hide her?”

I lick my burst lip, tasting metal on my tongue. “She was innocent and didn’t deserve whatever shit you were about to throw at her. You going after her was petty fucking jealousy.”

She chuckles. “Fine. I want you on the next flight home. Come to me and apologise in person.” She’s smiling. “Earn your forgiveness.”

I gulp down the sick rising in my throat.

“I don’t like hearing about you sleeping with other people I’m not aware of. No more sneaking off with cheap whores on motorbikes. Do you understand?”

My knuckles turn white. Did she just call Stacey…

I close my eyes to tamp down my building fury.

Hearing Bernie speak about her like that is fucking irritating. She doesn’t come close to how stunning Stacey is. But if I bite, I’ll give it away that she was more than just a fuck.

“Do you understand, Kade?”

I glare at the phone, forcing the words out of my mouth. “Fine. But you stay the fuck away from my friends.”

“Beg me not to kill him, and all will be forgiven.”

I click my neck to the side, shaking my head. “Please,” I grit out through my teeth, a headache coming on. “Please don’t kill him.”

“Done. Hold your fire, James. Go back home.”

They must’ve had a sniper aiming into the hotel room.

Then she speaks to me. “You have a lot of making up to do. I look forward to seeing you.”

My body tenses. “Right.”

She laughs. “Don’t make any plans for the rest of the month. I’ll need some extra company while I’m in Italy.”

The call cuts off as one of her men enters the room, and as my hands are cut from the zip ties, five more pile in. Two have bats, three have knuckledusters and the other a metal pole. Typical – these fuckers need to use weapons against me.

I prepare myself for a fight as I swing for the closest, breaking his jaw on contact. The pain searing through my knuckles drives me to hit the next one. I hear the snap of someone’s neck as I blindly lose my fucking shit.

This I can handle. This I’ll take to keep everyone safe. This is the price I’ll pay to make sure they never find out who Stacey Rhodes is to me.

At least I got to kiss her.