8

8

STACEY

What was once Nora’s holiday lodge, where she and Dad used to disappear to for some peace from the hectic combined family, is now what Barry keeps calling the “safe house”.

Technically, it’s mine. Or should be. My parents owned this long before he met Nora. But when he died, she took everything.

A perimeter has been set up around the lodge. Some of Barry’s men, who were once Kade’s, drive around the place, send out drones into the sky and patrol on foot to keep everyone out.

Although Tobias is still a heavily wanted man, still dominating headlines and social media, given all the fake sightings, he couldn’t be any calmer about his situation.

He’s a psychopath. An actual one – not just a madman with crazy, obsessive tendencies that people label as a psycho. He thinks differently. He’s been watching us for the past two days like he’s learning the way we greet each other in the morning and how we start conversations. He listens like he’s studying each and every one of us.

When Aria is talking to him, it’s obvious he’s taking in every word like it might be the last time he hears her voice. When she giggles, his eyes light up. He always needs to be beside her too. Always looking at her. Always keeping her the centre of his attention.

A man full of regret for his past mistakes, loving the woman he can never have.

And when she falls asleep on the couch, he stays close before carrying her to her allocated room, across from his.

For someone who doesn’t feel love the way romance novels portray it, he certainly makes her swoon and blush like a teenage crush by just smiling at her. When he laughs at something Ewan says, she beams. And when he starts to blink uncontrollably and knows to remove himself from the room to find a way to hold on to control, she sits with him, silent, just there.

He’s trying so hard to fit in with the rest of us, but all of his meds suddenly gone from his system has brought on paranoia and sleep disturbance.

The guy is about to hit his fifties, yet he works out like he’s in his twenties with insane stamina. He’s forced Ewan to go for a run with him the past two mornings while he also tracks the area, plotting potential escape routes if a situation arises and we need to run. He has muscles on muscles, and his eyes are blue, but not the same shade as his son’s.

Kade has his mother’s eyes. From being so close to him on multiple occasions that play out in my mind when the nights are dark, I remember the flecks of silver in them, iridescent shades of the ocean looking back at me as he tells me we’ll have a family together.

On screen at the auction, those same eyes were empty. He was there but wasn’t. My heart breaks for him. I need him to be okay.

The safe house is in the middle of the woods, surrounded by vast blankets of treetops and beautiful little streams. It’s raining, but everything is a bright, verdant green. When Chris brought me here, I couldn’t properly enjoy the sight, but now, I give myself a few minutes at a time to stare at the vastness of the world and breathe.

It’s cold, but Tobias and Ewan make sure the fire is kept lit all day and night. Aria cooks with what she can find in the cupboards, and Cassie complains on the sofa while we all pretend she doesn’t exist. Aria looked after her when we got here – she’d been drugged, probably by her own mother, and not once has someone looked for her.

Sad, but I don’t care. I hate Cassie. Though not as much as Tobias does – he’s only tolerating her presence in case he can use her at some point to get to Bernadette.

I push up from the couch to go to my bedroom, stopping when I see Jason standing on the patio, his hands in his pockets, watching me.

He’s so thin, his face drawn, his hair longer. His eyes are empty, as if the weight of the world is on him. I barely recognise him.

“Are you okay?” he asks me, his voice deep but hesitant. He’s dodged me for the last forty-eight hours. If I entered a room, he left it. I tried to say hi when we got here, but he looked like he was going to vomit and vanished.

Aria told me he just needs time.

I nod and cross my arms. “Are you okay?”

He stares at me then looks down. “Yeah.” He shifts on his feet, rubs his face and looks at me again. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“I broke my promise. I said I’d be there for you. Your dad died, and I was gone. Kade was gone. If I’d stayed and helped you, maybe none of this would be happening.”

“You did what you had to do. People respond differently to situations.”

He lets out a huff of air and shakes his head. “I didn’t fight for my relationship with Giana or try to get my brother back – I couldn’t even face looking at him to explain my side. I sold my house and blew every penny on drugs. I didn’t do what I had to do; I did the total opposite.”

With the sound of the breeze outside, I swallow. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “My own fault, not yours.”

“Are you clean now?”

“Three months. My dad put me into rehab, and Giana told me I needed to get sober.” He drops his gaze to the ground. “It took me two and a half years to get a text back from her. I got to see her for the first time a few weeks back, and we’ve talked about trying again, but she doesn’t trust me. I’m a cheat after all.”

“I have all the footage from that night,” I tell him. “Chris, my stepbrother, he drugged us both. He made us do it. Neither of us were in our right mind or even fully conscious. You aren’t a cheat, Jason; you’re a victim.”

Jason’s brows furrow. “He drugged us?”

I hug myself and step onto the patio with him. “Kade was sent an edited clip of us. It looked like we were willingly…” I pause, shaking my head.

“Even if I try telling her, she’s not going to believe me. Why would she?”

“Then make her believe you,” I say, stepping forward again, seeing the tiredness in his eyes. “We were attacked. It’s clear as day in the full recording. You could show her it as proof.”

His eyes are red as he looks away. “I’m not going to show her me fucking a teenager.”

“It wasn’t consensual, Jason.”

After a minute, he looks at me again. “I’m sorry I shut you out,” he says. “I shouldn’t have blocked you and ran. I just needed to… get out. Escape. I lost my job a few days later and couldn’t handle it all. It’s no excuse. I failed you. I’m sorry I broke my promise,” he says again.

“You don’t need to apologise to me.”

“Do you always do that?” he asks.

I tilt my head. “Do what?”

“Ignore your own demons to cater to everyone else’s? From what I’ve witnessed, you seem to run after those around you, be there for them, centre yourself in their trauma, and no one seems to do the same for you.”

I shrug and give a tight smile. “I’m fine.”

But his comment hits hard. Do I ignore my own pain and focus on others?

“Things will get easier,” I say. “I’ll help you with Giana if you want? Maybe I can explain what really happened?”

He closes his eyes and sniffs, wiping his face with his sleeve. “I don’t deserve your help.”

“Well, I’m giving you it. Come on – I can hear the kettle boiling.” I grab his thin wrist and pull him into the house as Aria leans out of the kitchen and asks if any of us want a cup of tea.

For the next week, Barry keeps himself busy with securing the perimeter and hunting for Chris. Him and Kyle went back to the Fields manor and packed. But they lost his trail when my stepbrother infiltrated the signal following him. He’s also trying to track Luciella, as per her father’s orders.

She’s in Russia the last we heard. Tobias made a deal with Base’s grandfather, but now, he won’t reply to any emails or phone calls. All the Russian guards have been ordered home by their boss, and all communications have been cut.

Tobias is losing his mind about it.

He’s paying more attention to Aria than anything else now, probably to keep his mind from deteriorating. She walks to the bathroom, he follows. She hangs up the laundry, he helps. She cooks, he cleans. She goes for a walk through the woods, Tobias goes with her.

Strangely, Ewan doesn’t seem to mind; he’s completely unbothered by the sight of his wife and the father of her kids being so close and touchy. Even when they’re on the sofa, she’s between them while one holds her hand and the other plays with her hair.

Imagine having that much attention? I would blow up.

Maybe what Kade thought when we were younger was true, and they are messing around. All three of them.

On day eight, Barry and Ewan are scanning Bernadette’s database for any trace on where Kade is, or if she’s tracking my brothers, when Sebastian’s grandfather calls back.

Tobias is restless as the man speaks in his thick Russian accent and tells him to get to the fucking point as Aria laces their fingers together.

Luciella is still in Russia.

The older man informs us that Base has been released from Bernadette’s clutches. He tells Tobias that Luciella was taken but is with them again, that she’s safe and will be on a jet home soon.

But only because Base gave up his entire life to save her.

I can see the relief on her parents’ faces when they hang up. Ewan holds Aria’s hand as she happily sobs into Tobias’s chest. I smile, because my best friend is okay and coming home. Even Jason looks a little more alive after the news.

“Do we know where the stepbrothers are?” Tobias asks Barry. “Or are you still being an incompetent dickhead?”

Barry narrows his eyes. “You’re not exactly doing much, are you? You’re too busy staring at your ex-wife.”

“We were never married,” Aria says, completely unfazed by the bickering. It’s all they’ve been doing since we got here.

“We’ll catch him and kill him – don’t worry,” Barry assures him.

Tobias steps forward, closing some of the distance between them. “When I find that piece of shit, I’ll be the one to skin him alive and make him eat his own flesh.”

“That’s a bit inhumane, don’t you think?” Cassie’s voice goes right through me, and I glare at her. “No one deserves that.” Her lip curls in disgust. “Monsters, all of you.”

I grit my teeth. Ignoring her existence is way easier when she’s silent. “That’s a little rich coming from you.”

She’s been annoying me the past few days, bragging that Kade and her parents will come for her. Kade this, Kade that. Marriage this, marriage that. I even contemplated cutting off her wedding finger so she’d never wear a ring there.

Barry sets up the big TV in the sitting room and plays footage he found from the manor. This time to look for clues – on what, I have no idea.

Tobias is sitting beside me, his arms on the back of the couch, his finger twirling a strand of Aria’s hair. Ewan holds her hand. Cassie hugs her knees across from me as we watch Luciella being dragged through the corridor by a bulky man.

She doesn’t go to a room like I did – a bag is put over her head, her hands cuffed behind her as she’s taken to a car that rushes out of one of the many garages that Bernadette had.

“Did anyone report seeing this car speeding out?” Barry asks one of the guards standing around the room.

They shake their head, and he huffs. “I want more information on this. Since the Princes won’t elaborate on who took Luciella from them during the auction, I want to know everything about the people who took her in this clip.”

One man nods and vanishes from the room with his phone to his ear.

Jason is smoking out on the patio again. He’s always smoking, barely talks and sleeps maybe an hour a night. He doesn’t want to watch.

I swallow and train my gaze on the screen.

Tobias has the white, faceless mask on as he stabs a blade into someone’s chest and drags him into a room. He does it three more times before he reaches four guards, two of which lead him to the room I’m in.

The footage skips to Tobias pulling me out of the room.

My cheeks go bright red. It’s embarrassing watching it all back in front of everyone. I’m in the shortest white dress ever pretending to be his obedient pet.

This is very awkward for me. It’s an act, obviously, but we can all see Tobias pressing me to the wall with my thigh up to his hip. Us holding hands as he drags me through the lobby. He needed the spectators to think I was his.

From the corner of my eye, I see Tobias kissing Aria’s shoulder and whispering something. An apology. He’s pale, pain written across his face as she assures him it’s okay. That he didn’t do anything wrong.

The footage cuts to a different scene, and I straighten my spine at the sight of Kyle punching Chris across the face and yelling at him. We don’t know what’s being said, but my brother looks panicked, raging, grabbing Chris’s collar and pushing him to the ground.

He scurries after him as Kyle walks away, running his hands through his hair. Turning, he stares at the manor again, and when Chris tries to say something, his arm swings, his fist smashing Chris in the nose so hard, he drops onto his ass.

Another cut, and the CCTV footage is grainy, smoke filling the corridor we snuck through, bodies strewn across the floor in the auction room, main foyer and yard.

The manor blows, and the footage stops.

Tobias whistles in the silence.

When I wake up hours later, the lodge is in darkness aside from the glow and crackle of the fire. I try not to make too much noise as I creak open my door and tiptoe into the kitchen for a glass of water.

I freeze when I hear a song playing – “Medicine” by Daughter. I remember it from one of the times me and Kade watched a home movie of Tobias and the twins spending Christmas together in the institution. That song was playing in the background of each clip. Glancing up at the clock above the entrance of the sitting room, I see it’s two in the morning.

When I slowly walk across the landing, holding the doorframe, I look in to see Tobias and Aria… slow dancing?

His hand is on the small of her back, his head lowered to her shoulder as she leans into him, their laced fingers held out to their side. They barely move, but they don’t need to.

In another life, they would make the perfect couple, but in this one, they love each other so dangerously there’s no chance of ever being together. This version of Tobias is already cracking around the edges. He doesn’t have any of his meds, and adjusting to reality when he’s spent over twenty years locked up and controlled is hard for him.

Aria cries softly as she holds on to him tighter while he kisses her forehead. His gaze lifts to clash with mine, and I give him a soft smile before backing away.

I go back to my room, noticing I have a missed call from a random number. I sit on the bed and call it back, thinking it might be Luciella. The person answers on the first ring, but they don’t speak.

“Um, hello?”

“Ah, Freckles. It’s been a while since I heard your voice.”

My lungs stop working, and I’m not certain I’m even blinking as my hand grabs at the bed sheets beneath me. “K- Kade?”

For a split second, things start to brighten. Even a smile pulls at my lips. “Are you okay?” I ask when he says nothing. “Where are you?”

I gulp as he remains silent, and my voice betrays me as it breaks. “Kade?”

“Stand up.”

Frowning, I look around the room. “What?”

“I said…” He pauses as I hear metal clanking. A gun loading? “Stand the fuck up.”

My legs fail me, and so does my voice.

My entire body stiffens when I see the red dot shining against the door. He’s aiming into the room? What is he doing? My lips move, but no sound comes out.

“Stand up,” he snaps. “I won’t tell you again.”

“No,” I croak, my face twisting. Is this really happening?

“Are you scared?” he whispers, amusement in his voice.

But I don’t reply. I can’t.

“You know the best part about accepting kill contracts? It’s the chase. The adrenaline that comes from knowing someone is terrified, running, hoping they see the next day. I’m going to make you run. And I don’t mean the way I did before you whored yourself for me at the party.” He inhales deeply, taking a drag of his smoke. “I’m giving you a day to run. Make it exciting for me. Because once I find you, I’m not going to bury my cock inside you – I’m not going to kiss you until we can’t breathe.”

I go pale as he deeply chuckles, inhaling smoke. “I’m going to fucking kill you, Freckles.”

I close my eyes, my heart sinking. Maybe all the drugs he’s consumed, the deaths he’s brought about and the abuse he’s endured have finally destroyed the Kade we all once knew.

“You don’t mean any of that,” I say quietly, standing and reaching for the door handle. I need to get to Barry or Tobias. “I want to help you, Kade. Please let me help you.”

“Don’t fucking move,” he snaps. “Stay exactly where you are.”

I go ramrod straight, my eyes wide as I turn around, looking down to see the red dot on my chest. “You won’t hurt me.”

“Even from a distance, I can still see how much of a bitch you are.” He laughs, amusing himself as he takes another draw of his smoke. “Play a little game with me. Keep your eyes open until they burn. Blink, and Barry dies.” The red dot vanishes from my chest. “Got a clean shot on him too. Ready, get set, go.”

“Kade…” I stop, my eyes flicking over the small hill to the side, the woods and the grass verge near the river. I still don’t blink. “I know it’s hard, but we just want to help you. We can get you away from them.”

“Yeah, you can. You just need to die in the process. That was the deal we settled on. I had to choose between you, my dad and Base to win my freedom. You were the obvious choice. Oh, did I see you blink?”

I shake my head. “You’re bluffing.”

The window smashes as he pulls the trigger, and a searing burn rips across my cheek as a bullet grazes me before I drop to the ground.

The blast of the gunshot echoes outside and in. He chuckles through the phone, loud enough that I can hear it lying beside my head. “Don’t underestimate me, Stacey. I’m not the stupid little boy who fell in love with you. Run, and I’ll come find you. This is my final warning. Stay, and I’ll kill them all. That’s a promise.”

The call cuts out as the door bursts open, and someone picks me up off the floor. It’s Tobias. I can tell. His fingers touch my painful cheek as warm liquid trickles down my face to my neck. Someone yells to get Aria. Barry rushes to the window, his shoes crushing the shattered glass on the carpet.

“Jason ran out,” I hear Cassie say. “Is she okay?”

My lip trembles as Tobias lifts me from the ground and carries me to his room. Aria is trying to safely pull a small fragment of glass from my thigh before cleaning my cheek while I blankly stare at the ceiling.

I think I might be in shock.

I was in love with Kade Mitchell, and now he’s going to kill me.