EPILOGUE 1

EPILOGUE 1

STACEY - 5 years later

One of my pet peeves is waiting.

Waiting on Tobias calling me to tell me how he’s doing.

Waiting on Kyle proposing to his girlfriend after hyping him up for the past three years – he’s nervous, but considering she’s head over heels for him and already has their future planned out, she won’t say no.

Waiting on Tylar’s parents signing off on the sale of the studio and finalising the documents – it’s to become the Rhodes Dance Academy for kids and adults.

Waiting on Aria and Ewan telling me we can finally meet Jason Junior – Giana hasn’t let him have any involvement with the family so far, given how crazy the media attention remains.

Waiting on Kade walking through that door for our last ever conjugal visitation – the clock says that he’s two minutes late, and he’s never late. It makes me nervous as I strum my fingers on the small table I’ve been bent over too many times to count.

I sit back on the chair and look around the room. It’s almost identical to the one Tobias used to have me visit him in. There’s a bed, a bookcase, a table and two chairs, and a box filled with board games.

We were offered a family room, but since we don’t have any children, we accepted this one – a special circumstance, like everything else when it comes to Mitchells and the authorities.

There’s a beep that draws my attention to the door, my frown turning to a full grin as it opens and Kade walks in. My boyfriend is as handsome as ever, his hair a black mop on his head, his eyes still the same beautiful shade of blue that drew me in all those years ago. Colour floods his cheeks when he sees me, and I take in the faded scar and the muscles he’s been working on every day.

I’m the luckiest girl in the world.

He tries to hold in a smirk as the guard removes his cuffs and gives him the usual speech before closing the door.

Kade barely keeps his balance as I launch myself into his arms and slam my mouth on his. His back hits the wall, his hands holding me up and against him as I wrap my legs around him, devouring his mouth like I didn’t just see him two days ago.

He spins us around then presses me into the wall and kisses along my jaw, snatching my earlobe between his teeth before letting his mouth travel my throat and sliding my dress up my body until it’s wrapped around my waist.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says as he rips my underwear and drops the material on the floor while I fumble with the string of his trousers then tug them down to free his cock.

We both gasp as he thrusts deep. It’s not slow or sweet or careful – it’s harsh and fast and mind-bending as he fucks me against the wall.

We don’t use protection. A few times we were reckless, twice the condom broke, then for four weeks straight, we didn’t use anything and I still didn’t get pregnant. We haven’t used birth control for months now.

Every test I’ve taken has been negative.

“You belong to me,” Kade growls, pounding deeper so my back hits the wall with each thrust. “Ever since we met at the pool house at fifteen, you’ve belonged to me.”

I smile against his mouth. “I was looking for you,” I admit, hooking my heels into the back of his thighs to draw him in deeper. “I knew Luciella had a twin brother.” I sink my teeth into his bottom lip. “I was intrigued and wanted to meet you.”

His cock swells inside me as my inner walls clench around his thickness, my spine tingling and sending rushes of heat between my thighs. So close. I’m so, so close.

“I watched you from my balcony,” he tells me, sucking on my tongue and swallowing my gasps. “Now you’re fucking mine.”

I let out a moan as he hits somewhere deep and sweet and euphoric, igniting a fire within that has my orgasm slamming into me so hard, I nearly pass out in his arms. He fucks me through it, telling me how beautiful and perfect I am, how soaked and tight I am, how I’m his and always will be.

He backs up to sit on the chair, me straddling his thighs, his cock still buried deep. He pulls my dress up and over my head, unclipping my bra so he can feast on my nipples while I fist his hair and continue riding him.

Kade’s hands roam my body as I move – as his mouth leaves wet trails, kissing from my breasts to my throat, making my head drop back on a moan.

“So pretty,” he mutters against my skin. “So pretty and mine.”

Feeling his cock fill me with each drop of my hips, I tense around him some more, gripping his shoulder with one hand and fisting his hair tighter. “Yours,” I breathe out harshly.

These types of visitations are over quick, so we make the most of them. There’s usually no talking, unless we count him whispering dirty things in my ear while making me explode. When we aren’t here, we’re sitting at a table with twenty other inmates, everyone overhearing each other’s conversations and hating life.

Kade usually stays silent and just listens to what life has been like for everyone since their last visit. His mum and Ewan chatter for the entire hour. Dez comes himself, and Base, if he’s allowed to leave his castle in Russia, told Kade that talking to him for those sixty minutes is the only time he feels like he’s still alive.

Kade was supposed to get six life sentences, though the officers told him if he took the fall and told them what happened to Chris and Bernadette, they’d free me, Barry and Base, and reduce his sentence to ten years.

They lied. He was given two life sentences with no hope of ever being a free man again. But I refused to let that happen, so Aria and I got to work right away on his appeal.

After five appeals and a worldwide debate on his sentencing, we managed to reduce it from two life sentences to fifty years. Then Aria got a new lawyer in, but the next appeal fell through, and then another, until a man from Australia with salt-and-pepper hair flew here and won the next one.

We got it down to ten years.

I was happy to wait – I would have waited until my last breath for Kade. But that was until petitions started gathering more attention, and mobs began standing outside the prison and courthouse, chanting for Kade to be released. Social media exploded when even more footage surfaced, proving that Kade had been forced and blackmailed into all the killings.

In one video, he was being forced to strangle a man and all we could hear was him repeatedly telling the victim that he was sorry. Witnesses came forward saying he’d saved them when their homes had been raided by Bernadette’s team – so, so many witnesses – and the next appeal blew up the internet.

Ultimately, when his sentence was reduced one last time, we accepted it was time to stop fighting. Kade was ready to stop fighting as soon as he was told he’d never be free again, but the world refused to let him die in prison. It rallied for Kade, and now I get to stand outside the prison next week and run into his arms. I get to have Kade all to myself – no ties or blackmail or worrying about what will happen next.

We get to be happy.

“Fuck,” he blurts. “Seven minutes.”

I lean back, grinding against his cock as I smile at him. “That didn’t stop you last time. You threw a chair at the guard while still inside me.”

“Never again.” His hold tightens on my hips. “I don’t want anyone seeing me fucking you.” He slides his hand up my chest and grabs my throat, using his hold to control me as he cuts off my air. “I want to feel your pussy strangling my cock while your eyes roll to the back of your pretty little head.”

“I think I’ll die if I come again,” I gasp.

He yanks me to him by the throat and kisses me. “Then I guess we’re both dying. Because there isn’t a life for me without you.”

We fall apart together – muttered words of praise and love and kisses to the forehead and shoulder. I stay straddling him, desperate to fill my lungs, sweat sticking to our skin as his hand strokes my back, tracing his fingers over each vertebra.

“Are you worried?” he asks, his fingers still playing on my spine.

“About what?”

“This has become routine. What if I don’t fit into your life outside of here?”

“You fit into every aspect of my life, Kade. This isn’t routine – this is us waiting for your freedom.”

He takes a deep breath. “I’m nervous. What if I don’t adjust? I’ve done all my therapy in here. I’ve worked on everything in here. What if I get out and the seizures and blackouts start again?”

Shaking my head, I wrap my arms around him and press my forehead to his. “Then we’ll work on them like we have in here. Together.”

He blinks at me, curling a strand of hair behind my ear. “Always fighting for me. I need to get out of here and make sure everyone knows you’re mine.”

“The entire world knows I’m yours,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“I would still like to claim my girl on the outside.”

I blush and stand, grabbing my bra and dress from the floor, and shoving my ripped underwear in my bag. “Can you still call me your girl even though I’m almost thirty now?”

“You’ll always be my girl,” he says.

I smile and sit on the table in front of him, leaning back on my palms. His hands slide up my thighs, kneading the muscles there. I’ve still been dancing and teaching. Luciella came back from Russia two years ago, and I’ve spent a lot of time with her and the twins. I’ve had to hire more instructors in the studio so I’d have more time to help her.

The door beeps behind me, and I sigh.

Kade ignores the guard and stands, moving between my legs to tip my chin up and kiss me. “See you on the outside, Freckles.”

We never planned on the media being here. We never planned on the entire world waiting patiently at the gates of the prison either. Crowds upon crowds, news stations set up, people with signs and whistles, all of them giving us space at the front of the crowd as we wait.

And wait, and wait, and wait.

Eden is hurting my arms with how heavy she is, and Anastasia is holding Luciella’s hand. The Prince twins have been told not to try to speak to their daddy while in public – it’s a sad necessity to keep them safe.

Luciella doesn’t let her eyes slip to the father of her girls as he stands with all his bodyguards. His wife is on his right, her main bodyguard behind her, and she keeps looking at me.

A silent hello.

“Can I please go see Daddy?” Eden asks me, and I fix the nearly five-year-old in my arms as I tell her I’m sorry, but she can only see Daddy when he’s by himself.

Anastasia is the well-behaved one. She stands with a stone-cold expression like she always does. Even when Base does manage to sneak away from his duties in the mafia, she doesn’t pay much attention to her absent father.

It’s not his fault. If the Russians find out the twins are his, they’ll kill them and Luciella.

That’s definitely a story for another day.

I look over my shoulder, my gaze clashing with Gianna’s as a little boy the same age as the twins clutches her leg. It’s not hard to tell that he’s Jason’s son. Jason Junior. He’s his father’s double.

She gives me a stiff smile – before she glances at the cameras and pulls Jason Junior’s hood up. The fact she’s here is the first step.

The mass of people starts screaming, and my head snaps back to the main gate as a group of guards walk out of the double doors, all of them crowding around one person, taller than most of them, his black hair a mess as he runs his hand through it.

I lower Eden to her feet, and Lu takes her hand. Aria is crying, because she’s always crying; Ewan is beside her, his grey hair flapping in the wind; and on the other side, with a cap on, his hood up, wearing glasses and a short beard to hide his identity, Tobias waits for his son.

The gate slides open, and everyone stays put as I run. I don’t even need to think about it – my feet carry me straight to Kade, and he catches me in his arms as everyone cheers. My legs hook around him as he keeps walking, further and further away from his cage, my head buried into his shoulder.

I sob into him, and he doesn’t let me go, his hand at the back of my head, his chest shaking. “You waited for me,” he says against my ear, kissing my temple. “I hope you’re ready for the rest of our lives, Freckles.”

“Uncle Kade!” the twins scream, and he settles me down just before they collide with him.