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KADE

The warm blood of my best friend seeps through my fingers as I keep pressure on the gunshot wound in his chest. His back arches, and he grits his teeth through the pain, pupils still fully blown from the drugs they forced into him. Into us. I can’t fucking see properly, but I can see all the blood and his pale face as he gasps.

None of the guards are helping me. They won’t. They aren’t allowed to. They all watch as I lean over him and try to slow the bleeding. He’s not dead – yet – so the shot didn’t hit his heart. But there’s so much goddamn blood. If Dez was here, he’d pass out from the sight.

My other best friend is sunning it up on vacation with his girlfriend while we’re all fighting for our lives. It was always best to keep as many people out of it as possible. Good for him for having the normality we can only dream of.

The fact Base got dragged into it all and is now lying in a pool of crimson fucking enrages me. I’m a protective dickhead – Bernadette knows this and used it against me. She just had to mess with my friends and family. If Base dies and I don’t find my sister and Stacey, Bernadette better hide on a different fucking planet, because nothing, and I mean nothing, will stop me from ripping that rotten bitch to shreds.

Regrettably, or not so regrettably, I snapped the neck of the wanker who shot Base and hit someone else repeatedly with a chair until they were dead. Their bodies are in a heap beside me. And for some reason, despite the excess of drugs in my system melting my fucking brain, I’m fine and unharmed.

The eyelids of the Russian beneath me fall shut, and my chest caves. “No.” I grip his chin. “Don’t you fucking dare close your eyes, Base.”

He doesn’t open them, and my heartbeat accelerates. “Look at me. Fucking look at me.”

I slap him across the face, staining his cheek crimson, and he blinks his eyes open. Groggily, his words broken, he mumbles, “Did you… just… fucking slap me?”

Words coming from him are a good sign. Relief rushes through me, and I sag against him, pressing my forehead to his while keeping my hand over his bleeding wound. “You need to help me find the girls,” I say, whispering, emotional – I can’t think straight. The room is fucking spinning still, and everything is glitching. Is this even real? “Stay with me. Please.”

They have Stacey. My sister too. Sold them.

Bile rises in my throat – I try and fail to control the harsh breaths through my nostrils.

Base’s hand reaches up, snatching at my collar feebly. “Lu-Luci-ciella.”

My jaw tightens. “I’ll find her. I promise.”

Guards fill the room, two medics follow behind, and I move to the side to let them work on him while keeping his attention with a hand on his face – keeping him awake while they assess the damage. The bullet has an exit wound in his back, which is another good sign, but he’s still weak and losing quite a bit of blood.

Nothing they can’t treat, as long as he gets urgent care now.

I hear them talking among themselves about whether to take him to a hospital or to one of Bernadette’s dodgy doctors who works under her belt here in London. Someone injects him with morphine, sticking shit to him to check his obs, and his eyes fall shut as the pain meds take effect.

I sit back on my haunches and look up at where the nightmare rolled out before me only minutes ago. The fear in their eyes… That fucking sinking feeling in my gut repeats in my mind. I need to get there before it gets worse. I need to get the fuck away from these assholes and find my sister and my girl.

We aren’t together – haven’t been for a while – but Stacey is my girl.

Mine.

And people don’t fuck with what’s mine. I gave in to Bernadette, gave up my control and my life when she found out who Stacey was, so why is she now going back on her word? I’ve done everything she’s asked. Every-fucking-thing.

I can’t even think straight to figure out what I did wrong.

In Bernadette’s ballroom, they auctioned off people. Me and Base too. But going by the state he’s in, I doubt he’ll be fulfilling any duties with his buyer anytime soon. Mine, annoyingly, will summon me in a matter of days. That’s fine. I’ll kill him like the last person who bought my time – right after I hang Bernadette’s husband and make her watch.

I’m finally hitting my limit.

“Where did they take the girls?” I ask one of the guards I know hates his job. I point at the blank screen with a shaky, blood-covered finger. “The last two before the feed cut.”

I have a feeling – I was never taken to initiation since I’m technically classed as “trained” to take orders and fuck on demand. But I’ve heard horror stories about the process.

His eyes flit to his colleagues, then he lowers his voice. “They’ll go to the loading floor for induction. They stay there for about five days with their new owners before they leave.”

The intense need to snap his neck like I did his colleague’s is almost too much to handle, so I fist my hands at my sides.

“Why was the auction at the Sawyers’ property and not in Edinburgh like it usually is?”

His gaze floats around the room again, to the guys lifting one of their dead friends, then back to me. “Stop asking questions,” he grits.

My right eye twitches as their head of security enters the room. “We’ve got orders to lock you up, kid,” he says, and I imagine him dead on the floor like the other two. “You’re not to be released until the induction is over.”

Base is lifted onto a stretcher and carried out while my eyes go between him and the guards. They won’t let me go with him – they have guns pointing at me now, but I know he’s not going to die.

Since I don’t have my phone, I glance at the guard I just spoke to. “I want Bernadette on the line. I’ll go to the cells, but I want to speak with her first.”

We’re in one of Archie’s houses on the outskirts of London – somewhere they like to go when things get too heated and want to lay low.

The main guard huffs, and he pulls his phone out, taps the screen then puts it to his ear. “It’s Polner. Yeah, everything is fine down here. Is the boss there?” He straps his gun away and turns his back to me while the others keep their aim on me. “The mouthy one wants to talk to her. No, not the Russian. Tobias Mitchell’s son.”

There’s a pause, then the faint sound of the voice I despise.

“Good evening, Mrs Sawyer. I have Kade here. No, sorry, he isn’t in the cells yet, but he said he’d go willingly if he speaks with you. Yes, the Russian is alive – he’ll survive his injury.”

He turns, his face red as he hands me the phone, and I snatch it from his grip. My body trembles with a mixture of everything I’m feeling. “Call off their deals,” I demand when Bernadette stays silent, yet the sound of her nails pianoing on her desk echoes through the line. “My sister and Stacey. Call it off. Or I’ll pay for them and let them go. Do something.”

She hums, and I can tell she’s smiling. “And why would I do that?”

“The only thing you hold over me is the people I care about. The only thing you ever held over me was those I loved. You fucked with my dad for years, and now you’re fucking with my sister and my—” I stop, gripping the phone tighter. “You’re playing a dangerous game here.”

She laughs. “Is that a threat, Kade?”

“It’s a promise. If they’re inducted and leave with whoever fucking bought them, I will fuck you up. You’ll no longer have anything to blackmail me with. You sell them, and I will make sure the last day of your life is a nightmare. Your daughter? I’ll record her screams while I skin her alive and send you her fucking bones. I’ll make you watch Archie suffer, and I’ll leave you for last. If anything fucking happens to those girls, you better hide, you piece of shit.”

“So feisty, my dear boy.”

Then the line cuts out, and I throw the phone at the wall, smashing it to pieces.

“Nice one, asshole. You owe me a new phone. Now do as you’re told and get in the cuffs.”

Glancing up, I see the mouthy one – the main guard, head of security – unsheathing his gun. He’s much larger than me and built like a fucking tank. I drive my fist into his face so hard, I hear a snap. I’m so blinded by rage that I think the snapping sound might have come from my hand, but when I look down at him on his knees, his broken jaw hangs as he cries in pain. I sigh and let them shackle me then drag me to the cells.