39

39

KADE

The detectives follow me to my mother’s office, and I feel itchy. I scratch my nape, and instead of sitting behind the desk I had Stacey bent over before blacking out, I sit on the edge of it and cross my ankles and arms. “Get it over with then. Did your chief talk through his ass? Are you charging me?”

“Not at this time, no,” one says, then the other guy says, “As much as it would bring us great pleasure.”

I scowl at him and commit his face to memory. “Hm. Then what the fuck do you want?”

The main woman speaks. “The file you sent, with all the locations of illegal activity… All those areas are now secure, and we would like to thank you for that. You saved a lot of lives with that information and reunited many families. We also gathered enough evidence from the file to make several arrests. Fifteen high profilers are detained. That doesn’t include the hundreds all over the world that were arrested with no chance of being released anytime soon.”

I rub my fingertips with my thumb obsessively. “Right…”

“As you’re fully aware, Archie Sawyer’s death was live-streamed to the world. It accumulated over three hundred million views. That video has now been deleted. All traces of it are gone and therefore cannot be used against you. Archie’s wife, Bernadette Sawyer, has been struck from her position and a warrant has been issued for her arrest.”

“Then go arrest her,” I say, even though I’d rather kill her in a worse way than I did her husband. “I still don’t know why you’re here. You already thanked me and told me Bernadette would be dealt with.”

The dickhead one leans forward with a smirk. “Are you aware that there’s a very large price on your head?”

I nod once. “Here to chance your luck? You won’t get far, you skinny prick. I’d snap your legs before you even got out of that chair and beat the shit out of you with them.”

He goes pale. Did I just threaten a detective? Shit.

“We’re not here for an argument, Mr Mitchell. Please refrain from threatening my colleague.” The woman speaks with some authority, even with a spark in her eyes. “We’re looking for Bernadette Sawyer and her acquaintances. Along with a handful of others who are extremely dangerous. We fear, based on what we’re hearing from our intelligent sources, that there will be an attack on you soon.”

I still don’t understand why they’re here.

She sighs and pulls out a folder containing two pieces of paper, handing me them. I scan the words, and the more I read, the deeper my frown becomes. When I look at her, she nods with a warm expression.

“We are providing you with protection. You and your family, your friends and your partner, Miss Rhodes. No one protected you before, Mr Mitchell, and we understand you went through a lot of traumatic situations and were let down by the system. You were attacked. Blackmailed. You were used as a weapon. And we want to do what we can to show our support.”

“Is this a joke?”

“No,” she says bluntly. “We aren’t asking. Within the hour, enforcement officers will arrive at the manor with highly skilled firearms units. We’ll have a helicopter overhead. Your team and Sebastian Prince’s can stay if they want. But our officers are here for you.”

The pieces of paper burn my fingertips as I read them again and again. I’m still reading long after the detectives leave. Barry calls, but I don’t answer. I don’t reply to any messages as I reread the papers a final time.

The crowds will be told to leave for safety reasons. They’ll even be safely escorted back to their homes – their countries. The media will be kept out of it. And at the bottom of the page is a signed note from the new chief officer, offering me his condolences for all my losses.

Even when Stacey finds me sitting at the desk, my eyes glued to the words, I still don’t believe any of this.

I was ruined by the head of Police Scotland. I was catapulted into the underworld by her when I was a teenager and violated in every way possible, and yet, here I sit with words offering me deep apologies and protection, thanking me, with Police Scotland stamped at the top.

They fired Bernadette, and she’s now a wanted person. And I’m protected. Is this real?

Stacey lowers herself into my lap and kisses my temple. “I texted you hours ago. Your mum said the police are settling in to their roles.”

I blink.

“You’re sweating.” A palm presses to my forehead. “Here, take your hoodie off.”

I feel material pull over my head, and I want to thank her, but I can’t speak.

I keep thinking my dad will pop up out of nowhere and surprise us. I keep thinking he’ll walk through the manor doors and pull us all in for a family hug. That the police will call again and say he’s been spotted somewhere far away. I thought, for a split second, the detective would mention him.

I think my dad is actually dead.

Mum probably thinks the same. She’s worried; cries sometimes when my dad is brought up, and my sister can barely hold back tears whenever he’s mentioned. But then again, she’s been a bag of emotions lately. Even I’ve had to hold her for long periods of time. Like me, Luciella has a hard time registering certain emotions. But hers have always been more controlled, less angry, more silent. With Base being here with his wife, she must be losing her mind.

She doesn’t see a therapist – Jason was the one she spoke to, until he vanished for two years. And now he’s dead.

Base loves her regardless of how insanely controlling she is. And I know this marriage has been one of the worst things that’s ever happened to him. He tried to get out of it. He tried to pay the girl to refuse the proposal and offered alternative men who would be more suitable. He even told the family that he would never love her, but a deal was a deal.

Now Base is trapped with a wife he doesn’t want, in a family he hates, to protect the woman he loves. Their story has the potential to be more disastrous than my parents’.

“Kade, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

In all fairness, Dad did try to be good – the same way Base has been trying to win Luciella over since she turned eighteen, to be good enough, to show he’s not just a fuckboy who wants another notch on his bedpost. When I was six, my dad got his diagnosis after years of professionals arguing for and against different spectrums. Mum fought and fought and fought even more to get him the help he needed.

Soft lips press to my temple again, but I’m trapped in my own mind as Stacey tries to take the life-changing paperwork from my grip. I can’t let the pages go though, even if I try.

My vision is blurring, and there’s a high-pitched ringing in my ears.

The doctors… The doctors… One argued Dad had a schizophrenia spectrum disorder. Another debated he had a schizotypal personality disorder that caused psychosis. He had autistic traits that didn’t lead to a diagnosis because doctors refused screening, but he had even more traits that went against that diagnosis anyway.

“I’m going to walk you to our room, okay?”

Another stated that he could be a sociopath, or he had OCD. The last doctor said he was acting and was just trying to outsmart everyone, and he was simply obsessed with my mother to the point of becoming a danger to himself and everyone around him. But he showed signs of neurological behaviours way before he met her.

After medication, therapy and a lot of time in the institution, he fell into one personality – one dad, one human being – and his mind stopped playing games enough that he got his ASPD diagnosis, coexisting with anxiety, impulse control and depressive disorders.

Still, doctors strongly believed my father’s mind was a lot more complex than that.

“Is he okay? What’s that in his hand?”

“The letter about the protection order. He won’t let it go. I think he’s in shock, Aria.”

“Oh, Ewan, darling, help Stacey get him to their room.”

Someone tall snakes my arm over his shoulder.

My mum says, “Let’s get him to bed. I think seeing so many people around him after everything that’s happened has finally hit him. I’ll make some tea and toast.”

“Woah. Is he drunk?”

“No, Desmond. He’s in shock,” Mum says. “Sebastian, sweetie, take his other arm. He’s losing consciousness.”

I’m awake and I’m here, I want to tell them. I can hear you all, but I can’t talk. I want to tell them that we’re going to be safe. I want to tell my dad we’ll all be okay.

My dad loved us.

“He’s going to seize,” someone says in the distance. “Get him on the floor.”

Dad loved our family, despite struggling to understand the feeling.

Tobias Mitchell fell in love with Aria Miller, and no one will ever understand the level of obsession he had for her.

“Just breathe, sweetheart.”

He’s dead, so I guess no one will ever truly know how his mind worked.