10

10

STACEY

Everyone sits around the table, talking, bickering, trying to figure out how to help Kade. All I can do is stare at my fingers fidgeting in my lap.

“I’ve been working with him for years, and I’ve never seen him like this.”

Aria wipes her eyes and leans forward. “He’s having withdrawals. Has my son always been on drugs?”

Barry looks at Tobias, then at me and Aria. “Not willingly. Kade didn’t want any involvement in these activities. But I noticed closer to his departure to Russia a year ago that he was losing weight, wasn’t eating or working out like he used to, and his body spasmed a lot. I put it down to trauma, but I later found out that Bernadette’s husband had been injecting him daily before…” He trails off, not wanting to continue.

“Before what?” Tobias pushes.

“I’m not comfortable disclosing any further details,” Barry says, crossing his arms. “If Kade knew I’d told you half the stuff I already have, he’d kill me.”

Jason, still bruised from earlier, speaks up. “What did Archie do to my brother?”

Barry stays silent.

But it clicks.

Archie abuses Kade too.

I feel like I’m going to be sick.

Except for Cassie arguing her father wouldn’t sexually assault a man, silence fills the room, and my heart slowly shatters into millions of fragments that only Kade can mend.

Tobias stands. “I’m not sitting around here any longer. I’m going to find them both and make it fucking painful. You” – he points at Cassie – “get out of my sight before I blow your fucking brains out.”

Barry, bold as brass, stands in front of him as he heads straight for Cassie. “Going after the Sawyers isn’t a good idea. Trust me, I’ve been trying to get Kade away from this from the start. You’ll only put a target on his back if you insert yourself.”

He scoffs. “You expect me to do nothing while my son is being fucking drugged and raped?”

Everyone flinches at his truthful words.

“I’m asking you to work with me and your son’s team to get him out alive, not go in and cause a riot and get everyone killed in the process. Your daughter might be safe from the Russians thanks to Prince, but with the control the Sawyers have over everything, Luciella’s flight won’t land in Edinburgh tomorrow. You’ll never see your son again, and Aria will be next. Are you willing to risk them all?”

“He chose her over me,” Tobias says, stepping right up to Barry, ignoring one of the guards shifting his gun from his waistband. But I see Aria moving forward, blocking the path between them so he can’t shoot. “He should have picked me. Because if he even attempted to come after me, I would’ve taken him away from all of this and helped him.”

The arguing goes on and on, and I eventually get to my feet and join Jason, who’s headed outside to the patio once more. I slip the cigarette from behind his ear, and he lights it for me. I fill my lungs with deadly smoke and blow it out into the distance.

I haven’t told them that I’ve been in contact with Kade.

When none of them pays attention, I’ll sneak out. Once I get a message with the location, it all ends. Everything.

I stare at Kade’s older brother. He has bruising on his cheek and a split lip.

The moon is peeking out from behind a hill far away, and it’s in the calmness that I let my eyes water. “I hate this,” I whisper. “I hate it all.”

Jason doesn’t speak, but he shuffles closer to me as we lean our elbows on the wooden railing.

I inhale, exhale and allow the burning nicotine to fill my lungs once more. The debate inside stops, and we watch Aria and Cassie walk out onto the patio, standing in front of the small river.

She’s crying. Aria’s trying to calm her, always the neutraliser, even though Cassie’s a bitch and the daughter of her son’s abusers.

Eventually, Jason clears his throat and says, “If we really have lost my brother, I won’t let him hurt you, even if that means taking a bullet for you.”

“You think we’ve lost him?”

“He shot at you, Stacey.”

I close my eyes, the cigarette slipping from my fingers. Because I think he might be right. And the idea of losing Kade forever hurts me to my very core.

How did we all get here? Why? One glorious minute, I’m on a flight back from Greece with Kade’s hand gripping my thigh, ready to tell the world he’s mine, and now we’re here. Hiding in my family lodge, unsure where my abusive brother is, waiting for Luciella, and Kade just shot me and beat his brother up.

I don’t blame him for choosing his life over mine. He deserves freedom.

He has a file, one that requires a password to get into it. One night, while I was drinking coffee and browsing on the laptop Barry had given me while Eva slept in her crib, I typed in Freckles0907 – the date we first kissed in the tent – and it opened.

I’d spent hours browsing the images and video clips, the recording of him laughing while I tried to sing every song from The Greatest Showman. Me running on the manor grounds with the dogs chasing after me. Him kissing my cheek while we had a picnic at Lunderston Bay beach.

He’d recorded me dancing a lot. Moving around a hoop, a pole, and blushing when I notice him.

Us both drunk in Greece, singing “Kings and Queens” with sweaty faces and big smiles.

Kade zoomed in on my smile a lot. And my ass.

There were clips he’d deleted. Intimate videos and images that I would have shamefully watched again and again if I had the chance, yet he kept everything else.

Now he’s accepting kill contracts with my name on them.

“He might have a plan,” Barry says, appearing next to me, and I flinch as Aria rests a hand on my shoulder, comforting me. Tobias stands behind her.

Seems the arguing has stopped and everyone has followed us outside.

Ewan is leaning against the wall behind us, and Cassie is shaking, her eyes welling with tears. “My mother is a monster. I knew she wasn’t a good person, but…” She covers her mouth on a choked sob. “My dad…”

“How old are you?” Tobias asks.

“Twenty-two,” she replies. “Why?”

“It took you twenty-two years to realise your parents are a pair of assholes who deserve to die?”

Her crocodile tears quickly vanish. “I didn’t say that,” she retorts.

“No, I did. I don’t give a fuck about you. When I next see your mother, I’ll kill her, right after I force her to watch her husband being tortured. Nothing you say will stop me. If you try to intervene, you’ll be subjected to the same fate. I’ve been patient having you anywhere near my family.”

Aria rolls her eyes. “Tobias. Behave.”

“With all due respect, sweetheart, I behave for no one when it comes to our children.”

She throws her hands up and starts pacing around. “Fine. But you don’t need to threaten a little girl.”

His eyes darken. “She’s not little. She’s also not oblivious to how evil her parents are. She knew Bernadette was drugging our son, and she still went after him. She witnessed his mistreatment and still demanded he marry her. She’s as much the devil as her bitch of a fucking mother and deserves the same treatment. And when I see Archie? Not even a gunshot to the head will fucking stop me.”

Cassie wipes her face. “Kade loves me.”

I flinch and turn away from them as Tobias laughs. “You might be more delusional than your mother.”

I glance over my shoulder at the silence. She’s narrowing her eyes at Tobias. “And I’ll still become your daughter-in-law someday. Now stop threatening me.”

I stare at my fingers for a second. They’re shaking like fragile leaves in a heavy wind. I glance back up and fist my hands, sitting on them. I want to hit her.

“You’re not fucking marrying my son.” Deadly and cold, Tobias looks at her, a snarl on his lips. “I promise you, and everyone in this room, if you get in my way, me threatening you will be the least of your worries. You’re lucky to still be fucking breathing as it is.”

“My mother will come for me. She will come, and you’ll be thrown back in jail where you belong, you psycho!”

“If your mother ever comes, you’ll get front-row tickets to her demise, and you’ll follow.” He blinks twice, harshly. “Don’t fuck with me.”

Aria stands between the two of them before grabbing her ex’s hand. “Come with me, Tobias.”

Ewan shifts on his feet, Jason whistles and heads round the side of the house for another smoke, and Cassie excuses herself and escapes to her designated room.

As soon as she’s gone, a twinkle appears in Tobias’s eyes, and he winks at me as Aria stomps out into the garden. He follows, messing my hair as he passes.

Ewan stares at me, noticing my puffy red eyes. “For the record, with everything you’ve gone through in your life, I think you’re strong. I just wanted you to know that.”

I look down. “I don’t feel it.”

“You are. This, all of this, isn’t what we wanted for the twins. Me and Aria raised all three kids to have respect for others, and I believe Kade is still innocent. He… cared about you. He went to considerable lengths to deny it at the beginning, because he thought he was going to break your heart, but he cared about you a lot. I believe he still does.”

“I hope you’re right,” I reply, and his eyes flicker over my head, to the pair talking across the garden. I glance over my shoulder, and Aria is crying into Tobias’s chest again. “Forgive me for saying this, and tell me to stop if you think I’m out of line, but… those two, the way they still are…” I bite my lip. “You deserve better.”

He chuckles, as if he’s heard it a thousand times.

“She tells me that. Often. I love her too much to accept it. We’ve been important to one another since we were eighteen. I… I cheated on her when we first got together. I was such a dick back then. It was one time, and it’s still my biggest regret. Jason was only a few months old when we got together, and when she fell pregnant, during our break, to Tobias, we stayed active in each other’s lives. I could never leave her, even if she still loves him.”

I give him a warm smile. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“Nah. She’s happy, and so am I. At the start, I would have probably left, but their connection, it’s… I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. It helps them both. But thank you,” he replies. “Everything will work out in the end. I feel it. He’ll come back. We’ll get Kade back, and Luciella will be home soon. Then all I need to do is find Jason somewhere in that shell.”

“I’m going to speak with Giana. When this is all over.”

He smiles at me briefly, then he walks back inside, out of sight.

Everyone’s busy. I could easily sneak away now and wait for Kade’s message.

Maybe it’s idiotic to think this’ll work, but if giving up my life means Kade gets his freedom, then I’ll do it. I have nothing. No real family. No job. No reason to keep going, but look at what Kade has. He has everything.

I make my way to my own room quickly, noticing the time. It takes me a few minutes of breathing and hyping myself up, but I manage to pull on clothes and brush my teeth.

My phone vibrates.

He’s sent a screenshot of the Maps app, with a pinpoint on where we’ve to meet. A small parking place at the bottom of a hill walk in the middle of nowhere. I guess he needs privacy – no witnesses while he puts a bullet in my skull.