44

44

STACEY

As soon as Tobias inputs the code, the metal door to the dark room opens. The smell hits me worse than it did earlier, and I try not to gag. The outline of the cage sits in the middle – when the light turns on, I see the IV lines hooked up to some sort of machine I’ve only seen in hospitals.

I can hear heavy breathing, and part of me wishes she wasn’t breathing at all.

“Can you give me a few minutes?” I ask Tobias. “She can’t hurt me. I want to talk to her, just me and her.”

He narrows his eyes. “Two minutes, and I’ll be standing outside the door.” He heads to the machine, messing around with wires and the syringe. “She’ll wake, but she’ll not be able to get near you. The cage is locked, and she’s weak.”

Tobias tugs at the cage door to double-check it’s locked, then pats my shoulder as he leaves. He’ll be right there, and with him being the way he is, I definitely only have two minutes.

For the longest moment, all I can do is study her and enjoy the sight despite my nose burning and my eyes watering. Everything she did comes to the forefront of my brain, and I wish I could just kill her. But I have no right. It should be Kade and Base who end her life.

Her entire team is dead – no one is looking for her. Dead husband, dead daughter, and pretty soon, she’ll join them in hell.

Her skin is pale, red from the areas that have bathed in her mess, and she has saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth. In another life, I would probably feel sorry for her and want to help her escape. Maybe the happiness I feel seeing her this way means I’m spending too much time with people who ooze insanity.

She blinks, her head moving a little as whatever Tobias gave her works through her system. I wish she would wake up fully so I could slap her and she’d know it was me.

Her body flinches, then a muffled sound is ripped from her throat as she tries to lift her head to look at me.

“You look so pathetic,” I sneer. “I wish I’d had front-row seats to see the look on your face when you realised you’d finally lost.” I laugh. “You certainly did fuck with the wrong family, didn’t you?”

Her eyes are dead when she opens them, and I don’t think she even knows who I am, because she has no reaction to the sight of my face. Maybe she thinks she’s hallucinating.

I smile at her anyway. “Hello, Bernadette.”

Groggily, she shifts in the cage until she presses her back to the bars, facing me completely. She looks drunk or off her head on drugs. She blinks a few times, head lolling from side to side.

The humanity deep within me wants me to get her a glass of water, but I won’t. Her mouth is probably dry, she’s most likely starving to death and she could use a hosing down, but still, all I do is watch her trying to realign with reality.

The woman who watched Kade since he was a child. Ruined him.

Her slim hand raises slightly, shaking, but then drops to her lap.

This bitch raped my boyfriend when he was a teenager then sold him to so many people. Turned him into a killer. A drug addict. Mentally and physically abused him. She did the same to Base, then sold me and Luciella at an auction. She took Tobias and who knows what she did to him, because he’ll never talk about it.

She killed Jason.

I think even Chris’s sickness pales in comparison to this horror of a woman.

“You must have thought you were some sort of queen. Having so many people bow down to you and kiss your shitty pedicure.”

She would look good with the syringe sunken into her eyeball, like Kade did with Chris and the nails. But the thought of doing it makes me shiver, so I just keep taunting her.

“It was nothing but fake respect though. You had to blackmail everyone. You probably even blackmailed your mutilated husband to fuck you. The fact you let him have sex with your own daughter makes me sick. You make me sick.”

Bernadette’s eyes lift to me, and they darken a touch, but she doesn’t talk – she doesn’t seem to be in any state to respond.

I settle on my knees in front of the cage, watching the way her body tenses at my proximity. Her stench is making me feel sick, but I stay in place.

And I know I should be terrified that she could grab me through the cage, but she looks far too weak to do so. I want her to break out of the cage and fight me. I want to grab her by the hair and swing her around the room.

I always found Bernadette to be annoyingly beautiful. She had the hair, the perfect make-up, the style and figure, and she was extremely powerful. She didn’t need Archie; he was just her shadow. But right now, she looks like a corpse: thin and sweaty and pale, her face drawn from lack of food. No make-up to hide her imperfections. No styled and dyed hair.

I still don’t feel sorry for her.

I lower my voice and smile through my words. “I watched Kade put a bullet in your daughter’s head. I heard the way her body dropped to the ground when it killed her instantly. I saw the light leave her eyes. She’s better off dead. You can’t hurt her anymore. You are by far the worst mother I’ve ever come across.”

Bernadette just stares at me, shaking, but I can see the rage kindling in her eyes.

“It must be killing you inside. You tried everything you could to make Kade fall in love with you. You tried to trigger some sort of Stockholm syndrome. You abused a teenager, raped and drugged him, and turned him into a machine. You forced yourself on him and Base, turned them into property by allowing others to pay for them while threatening everyone they loved.”

I pause, still glaring at her. “All that power and control you had over him and he still never fell for you. His heart always belonged to someone else. Me.” I point to my chest and hit the bars in anger. “Fuck you for trying to take him away from me. You failed. You’ll always fail, because he’ll always be mine.”

I stand, looking down at her in disgust.

“Kade won’t give you a quick death. He’ll make it last as long as he can. And I’ll be right there when he finally puts a bullet in your black heart and sends you straight to hell, where your equally sick husband will be waiting for you.”

I keep seeing the way Jason’s body went limp in front of me, and a tear slides down my cheek. It’s an angry tear that represents so much heartbreak. It represents years of neglect for me and Kade. It’s a tear that falls onto the dirty floor, representing how close our lives were to ending in that fire, how we’re holding on for a future we might not get.

Because I have no idea what will happen next.

“No one will help you. No one will stop his wrath when he unleashes it. You’re the one that made him this way. You’re the reason he has so much going on in his head, and it’s only right that he unleashes it all on you.” I snort. “I’d be surprised if he didn’t try to fuck me in front of you. How jealous would you get, huh? To see him actually enjoying it. I might suggest it.”

My voice echoes in the cold room, and I can’t seem to stop letting the words fall from my lips. Each one is angrier, gritted out through my teeth as I fist my hands at my sides.

“Kade will never love you. Do you know why?”

Bernadette is staring at me, her eyes rolling slightly, her head dropping to the side.

I’m not an angry person. I’m not a fighter. And I’m the last person you’d expect to wish death on someone. But I want her to die a horrifying death that’s splashed across every news channel. I want the world to know she got what she deserved.

“I’m the one he loves. While you’re lying in your own filth and wishing you were dead, I’ll be in bed with him, wrapped in his protective arms and making promises we can keep. He’ll make love to me – he’ll whisper praises in my ear about how I’m made for him, how it drives him insane the way I fall apart beneath him.” I laugh derisively. “I hope it kills you a little inside to know that Kade Mitchell will always choose me.”

The metal door swings open to reveal Tobias. “Time’s up.”

I glance over my shoulder at her. “I want her to die, but I also want Kade to make it last as long as possible.”

“He won’t be able to move on until she’s dead. I think dragging it out will be harmful,” he says, turning off the light and closing the door. It beeps to indicate it’s locked, and we walk along the corridor. “You okay?”

I nod and hug myself. “I just wanted to get it all out while I can. Kade and Base will be the ones to deal with her, so I wanted to get my piece in and out the way.” I look up at him. “Thank you for letting me come down.”

He shrugs. “She’s incapacitated. I wouldn’t let you in there if there were any risks she’d harm you.”

Tobias walks me to my bedroom door, and when I limp too harshly, he takes my elbow. Exhaustion hits me then, and I yawn far too many times before saying goodnight.

The door clicks shut, and Kade groans and sits up, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. “Stacey?”

I hug myself. “Sorry for sneaking away. I… I had to go see her.”

He quickly gets to his feet and eats up the distance between us. “Did she hurt you?” he asks in panic, searching my body for any new injuries.

“No,” I say, my voice cracking as my eyes burn with tears. I have no idea why I’m crying. “She wasn’t in any state to even speak. I needed to tell her what I thought of her. I’m sorry. Your dad was standing outside the door. I was safe.”

“And you’re okay?” He carefully takes my face in his hands and wipes away my tears as I nod. When I start to shake, he pulls me against him and kisses the top of my head. “Don’t go near her again without me there. She’s unpredictable.”

“I know.” I sniff. “Your dad has a decapitated head in the freezer.”

He laughs. “Sometimes I forget how psychotic he can be. Come on. Let’s go back to bed, Freckles. It’s cold without you.”