37

37

STACEY

“When did it start?”

I tilt my head, looking down at my leg, which is folded over the other, my fingers fidgeting. “When I was fourteen. My mother died, and my dad married a woman called Nora. She had two sons.”

Kade’s therapist hums and tips his glasses up his nose. “Had?”

“One is dead.”

“And I assume that is Mr Mitchell’s doing?”

My eyes flicker to the side; I’m unsure how much he knows and how corrupt he might be. “What do you mean?”

“Was he murdered?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Kade inherited many attributes from his father, but most of his skills were trained into him. I’m aware of these. I’ve been treating him since he was a boy and noticed a dramatic change in him when he was leaving his teenage years. He loves you, and has for a long time, but he had no idea how to control how he felt and sometimes it made him angry. But nowhere near the way he gets now. I know his aggression, and how deep he can fall into his own mind.”

There’s a pause, and he lowers his notebook. “If your abuser was the dead stepbrother, then I don’t need to do the maths to know who took care of him.”

For some reason, I feel comfortable talking to this man. Even though I don’t know him, I blurt, “Both of us.”

“Excuse me?”

“Both of us took care of him. Kade did the most, but I ended it. I had to end it.”

“You should be proud of yourself then. It can take a long time for someone in your position to fight back.” He notes down what we’re saying. “Do you feel lost?”

I shake my head. “Even when he was here, I wasn’t lost. I was scared of him, put up with his violence, but I never let him break me.” I gulp down the water. “You’d think with everything he put me through, I’d be fragile and a shell, but I guess I got used to it.”

For the next hour, we talk back and forth about my childhood, what school was like, when I met my friends, how I felt when I lost my parents, right up until Kade lost his brother and the terror that followed. He listens, and the more I talk, the more the words flow out my mouth. Unloading my emotions has never felt so… free.

“Do you still dance?”

“Yes, but not often for myself. I try to keep Luciella calm by dancing with her. I’ve been so focused on helping Kade too.”

The man sets aside his notes and takes his ankle from his knee to lean forward. “You need to focus on yourself. Mr Mitchell has more than enough support. Help yourself. Love yourself. I want you to dance until you’re in tears from the overload of emotions. I want you to scream. Write down your thoughts. Always, always put yourself first going forward. Do you understand, Miss Rhodes?”

I lower my eyes. “I’ll try. I don’t think I’ve ever put myself first, because I had no future that looked pretty. Chris robbed me of everything, and I’ve been zoned in on Kade to try to make sure he’s okay.”

“And do you have a future now?”

“Yes,” I say without hesitation. “I can see us as a family, living in a house he’s built, with our two dogs and children running wild in the garden. I can see myself performing during a dance show, and spending time with my two friends without feeling bad for always lying. I used to make up excuses when Chris would force me to come home.”

He smiles. “I won’t medicate you. I don’t believe you need that kind of intervention, but I would like to see you regularly. Under the circumstances of the… manor being locked down, if I struggle to get past the crowds, then I can meet with you via video call.”

“I’d like that.”

“We can also do couples therapy. I think, although you are both working on your relationship, it could help.”

I nod. “Anything.”

“Thanks for having the courage to talk. It’s the first step.” He shakes my hand. “Before anyone else, love yourself, Miss Rhodes. You cannot give your all to someone if you aren’t doing the same for yourself.”

I nod again, trying to force down the lump in my throat. “Thank you.”

When the therapist leaves, he’s escorted to the gates by four guards. I watch the CCTV footage from the sitting room; the crowd moves aside to create a path for him to reach his car. I smile at all the new faces I can see.

The young man from earlier – who tells me his name is Malcolm – walks beside me as I go to the kitchen. My friends look like they’ve just woken, and Aria grins at me as she pulls pastries from the oven and sets them on the counter to cool.

“Dr Daniels is great. He was my therapist when I was pregnant with the twins. How did you find speaking with him?”

I slide into the seat at the breakfast bar beside Luciella and Tylar, who are eating cereal. “I felt strangely comfortable. I’m going to see him again.”

Aria’s eyes light up as she moves around the kitchen. This is what she’s been like since we got back to the manor – constantly on the go, refusing to sit down and relax.

“How are you feeling?” I ask them. “Did you both sleep well?”

Ty nods and yawns.

Lu swallows her cereal. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll know how I’m going to feel until Base is here. It’s just…” Her eyes well up with tears, and she huffs. “Fucking hell. Every time I even think about him, I cry. It’s annoying.”

Aria rests her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “You’re allowed to cry, sweetheart. You’ve been through a lot recently, and holding it in is worse than keeping it all bottled up.”

“Thanks, Mum.”

Aria dries her hands, and a guard escorts her out of the kitchen to go find Ewan. Luciella sighs and takes another mouthful of cereal, and Tylar yawns again, very audibly.

Ty leans her cheek in her palm, her face freckled from all the sun she got while travelling with Dez. “Out of curiosity, since we haven’t broached the subject of anything since I got home, what the hell happened while I was gone?”

For some reason, Lu and I burst out laughing. “Where do we even start?” I say as Lu says, “Just the usual family drama.”

Tylar snorts and glances at me. “You killed your brother?”

I bite my lip and nod. “I did.”

“Yikes. I should say I’m shocked, but it’s been a wild week. You didn’t even tell us about him. I only knew about Kyle.”

“You met him once. He was the guy at the studio you thought was my Tinder date.”

“Oh, Jesus. I should have hit him in the nuts.”

“Did I ever meet him?” Lu asks, her brow furrowing.

My eyes widen as I remember what Chris said to Tobias in the basement. “Oh, I think you actually had sex with him.”

She pales, her eyes wide as Ty gasps. “What?”

I pull out my phone and click on his social-media page, zooming into the picture of him and Kyle and showing her it. “He said he slept with you. Or was he lying?”

She grimaces. “He was terrible in bed. He started crying when he came.”

We all wince. “Ew.”

Then we burst out in more laughter, and it only causes a chain reaction of leg slapping, snorting and us holding on to each other as tears roll down our cheeks.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ty says, and we all catch our breaths. “Were you fucking Base while telling us to stay away from your brother and his friends? That’s so hypocritical!”

“No, no, no. I swear. We didn’t sleep together until he came to Russia to get me. We… did do something before that. Two somethings.”

We wait for her to elaborate.

She sighs. “They were in the moment, and even I’m mortified with myself.” Luciella looks around then lowers her voice. “I had a threesome with Base, but we didn’t touch, because I said it was off limits. He was inside the guy while the guy was inside me.”

Well, that’s…

Ty raises her hand. “Hold up. You had a threesome and didn’t tell us? When?”

She hums. “A few years ago.”

“What was the other thing?”

“We touched each other in my dorm room, and then he stormed out because I said it was a mistake.”

“Shit,” Tylar blurts. “I’m a little mad at you for pushing me away from Dez. But I forgive you. Can we all go watch a movie and wait on… What is Base now? I honestly feel like I’ve come home to a fairy tale.”

Luciella wipes away her tears of laughter. “A billionaire crime lord basically. He made a deal to marry a mafia princess and take over from his grandfather. I think he was the Don or something. I can’t be mad at him, because it was to save me. I just… miss him.”

“And Kade runs his own organisation…”

“Yep,” I reply.

Tylar shakes her head. “And Dez lives with his grandma. How come I landed the normal one?”

We all break into laughter again.

After we finish up breakfast, I text Kade to ask where he is, but the bodyguard by my side tells me he’s in room four on the east wing.

The manor is a lot busier now that everyone is awake, and I smile at multiple staff as I make my way to the other side of the building. I go to open the door of room four and freeze when I see the plaque hanging from it.

It’s Jason’s room from when he was a kid. There’s a superhero flying above his name and a “Keep Out” sign just below it.

I bite my lip and push the door open to see Kade sitting on the small sofa in front of the TV, his game paused. He doesn’t look at me as I close the door or make my way towards him. He’s staring at the screen, catatonic, not blinking – emotionless.

I sit down beside him, placing my hand over his, and let out a breath as his fingers curl into mine, his throat working on a deep swallow.

We stay like this for what feels like forever, a comfortable silence, as he slowly lets the controller slide from his other hand and drop to the floor.

“He used to sneak me in here when I was a kid. My mum sent me to bed for school, and Jason always made sure we spent the night gaming at least once a week. When I was grounded, he’d offer to babysit me while our parents went out, and we’d have this place filled with pillow forts and snacks. Luciella sometimes joined too.”

I tighten my fingers around his hand as my heart twists in my chest. “He was a good brother.”

“The best,” he says, still not blinking. “He taught me how to drive. Took me skiing in France. Bought me the newest release of every game I liked. And he was the first person I told when I kissed you. He was hyping me up to kiss you again then celebrated when I told him you were my girlfriend. I told him before anyone else that you were pregnant too.”

“You did?”

He nods and deeply exhales. “Fuck, I miss him, Stacey. I wish I’d had time to say I was sorry for kicking him out of my life. He was drinking himself to death and abusing drugs, and I wasn’t there to help him.”

“But you did apologise to him.”

He looks at me, his eyes bloodshot. “When?”

“You ran away at the lodge, and we found you in the forest. Jason was the one who snapped you out of the spiral. You were apologising to him for everything. He forgave you.”

Kade doesn’t seem to remember that part; his brows are knitting together, but he no longer appears spaced out. “I… I didn’t know that.” He drops his face into his hand. “There’s so much going on in my head. We can’t track down my dad, and I’m starting to think he’s actually dead. I’m just so fucking tired. I… There are detectives on their way here, and I’ve given them clearance to come through.”

“You’ll speak to them?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, I don’t know what other choice I have. Barry said they just want to talk to me. There still aren’t any charges on my record. He said it’s squeaky clean. Even the offences from when I was younger have been scrubbed – Bernadette’s erased every little detail.”

There’s a knock at the door, and a voice says, “Sir, Sebastian Prince is here.”