9

9

KADE

My heavy boots and bursts of breath are drowned out by the harsh, erratic beating of my heart as I run through the woodland. Branches snap beneath me as I put as much distance between me and the lodge as humanly possible.

I abruptly stop, pull down the material covering my face and vomit all over the forest floor. It burns my insides. Makes my eyes sting and feel pressured, and I stagger sideways and bang into a tree.

I fucking deserve this.

Pulling that trigger and the way I spoke to her… she’s never going to forgive me.

All I want is her forgiveness.

After heaving until my eyes feel like they’re going to pop out, I spit, breathe and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, gasping for air as I rest my head against a tree trunk.

There’s a crackling in my ear, and I tense my jaw when her voice comes.

“You missed,” she tuts at me, her voice fucking grating on my nerves. “I’m disappointed.”

I close my eyes and shake my head, as if it will get rid of the devil’s voice. I have a fucking migraine. “I did,” I reply into the earpiece as Bernadette huffs. “It won’t happen again.”

Lie.

Although my insides still twist at the sight of her fear burned into me. The way her eyes widened when she realised I pulled the trigger.

I just need Bernadette to think I’m serious about killing my ex, even if it means scaring the shit out of Stacey in the meantime. It worked, I’m sure of it. She was terrified, and I can still hear the tremor in her voice that fucking broke me.

I told her vile shit while mentally memorising everything about her through the scope, as if I don’t already remember every inch of her, every conversation we’ve ever had.

She’ll run. After the threat I made about killing everyone, she’ll run. That girl will never risk everyone’s safety. She’s insufferable like that – always putting others before herself.

And when she does leave the lodge, I’ll find her. I’ll message with a location and time, and I’ll make the minutes of peace we grab worth it.

All she needs to hear is my apology. Whether she chooses to accept it or not is up to her. Regardless, it all ends the same for me.

At least it’ll be close to being over. I’ll force Stacey to listen, then I’ll hunt down and slowly kill her stepbrother. By then, Bernadette will have her army looking for me. She’ll want me to watch her kill everyone I care about. I’ll take me, Bernadette and her shitty husband out with one of my home-made bombs.

And I’ll need to just fucking pray her team don’t realise it was me and retaliate.

If I don’t end it all soon, it’ll keep going, and I’m so fucking tired.

“You never miss,” she says, tsking. “We need to get those shakes of yours under control. They’re hindering your work.” She sighs, and I look behind me when I hear a branch snap, but nothing’s there. “You have quite the team on foot looking for you. I suggest you stop fucking around and get back to your bike. Your assignment is still ongoing.”

Screwing my eyes shut, I stand up straight. “I left the sniper rifle back there. I can’t run with it.”

“You evidently can’t walk either. Why are you stationary?”

My stomach churns as I look down at my vomit and back up. I can hear faint voices at the bottom of the hill. If there wasn’t a canopy of trees above me, one of the drones would find me.

Bernadette speaks again. “Don’t get yourself caught, Kade. That’s an order. If you do, kill as many of them as possible. You have your blade in your boot?”

I nod, even though I know she can’t see me. I’m just a dot on a digital map on her screen. “I do.”

“There’s a team of five near you. Move it.”

Sliding the cover back over my mouth, I take a few quiet breaths before I get moving again, slapping branches out of the way until I reach a small stream. I splash through it, the icy water filling my boots and soaking my black trousers.

I’m exhausted, but with adrenaline coursing through my body, and the uppers Bernadette made me take before I left my apartment, I’m able to ignore the stinging pain from the cold. I focus on getting to my bike as quickly as possible. It’s hidden below a grass verge, with branches and scrub covering it.

Bernadette’s order was plain and simple: go to the lodge and shoot Stacey.

All I could think about on the way here was how to tell Stacey I meant none of it without Bernadette hearing me.

I intentionally aimed to the side last minute, but then my finger spasmed as I added pressure to the trigger and fired. My heart stopped for what felt like hours until I heard her gut-wrenching scream. The one sign that I hadn’t shot her in the head.

My dad threw the door open, and my eyes widened at the sight of him rushing to my girl’s side. He cares for her, that much is obvious. Barry had run in too, and I’d known I had to get the fuck away from there.

But I hit her. I fucking hit Stacey.

She needs to live.

I’m not going to kill the only person that’s kept me alive this long. If it wasn’t for her, I would have ended it years ago. Ever since I found out what her cunt of a brother did to her, to our daughter, I’ve done everything to keep myself in line, to not lose myself, so I can be strong enough to ruin him.

That doesn’t mean she’ll ever forgive me. But as long as she’s alive and he isn’t, that’s fine.

The contract changes everything. It’s her, or me, and I know who the fuck I choose.

“You have someone—”

Her voice cuts off as someone tackles me from the right, winding me and sending shocks of pain through my cracked ribs. We skid across the muddy grass and roll down a small hill until I land on my back, groaning at the tightness in my chest.

A hand grasps my collar and shoves me into the long grass when I try to get up and defend myself. I’m weaker than usual. I’ve not slept, and I’ve hardly been able to hold my food down most of the time.

Plus, I’m high as fuck.

A fist smashes me across the cheek, and I glare at the person above me.

But then my lungs seize.

Jason.

Before I can say a word, he snatches my jaw and grips me hard enough that I can feel my teeth nearly cracking. “What the fuck, Kade?”

Then he hits me again.

“You fucking shot at her!” he yells. “What the fuck are you playing at?”

This is not how I wanted my night to go. Bernadette’s going to get him killed if I don’t deal with him.

I grab his throat and headbutt my brother. “Get the fuck off me.”

Jason falls back with a bleeding lip, wiping it with the back of his hand as he comes for me again. This time, I kick him in the chest and get to my feet while he falls back once more.

I roll my jaw. “Stay in your lane, Jason. Stay the fuck out of this.”

He looks fucking terrible. Thin, pale, his eyes sunken – he looks like he needs a year of sleep.

What happened to my big brother?

“Kill him,” Bernadette snarls in my ear.

Everything goes quiet at those two words.

Kill him.

Kill your brother.

Kill the brother you beat up and left behind.

The brother who lost everything the same night Stacey did.

I roll my jaw again and throw my fist at his face as he pushes to his feet. Once, twice, three times, until my knuckles are red and split open. Jason doesn’t even try to block the blows, his head snapping back with each one.

He falls to the ground.

When I try to climb on top of him to stop him from fighting back, to make him fucking stop, he knees me in the ribs again, and I nearly burst into tears at the ripping pain cracking my bones.

When I got to my apartment in Stirling, Bernadette had every guard nearby waiting for me in my front yard. They beat me to a pulp and left me lying in the mud.

Rough him up, Bernadette had said. Make sure he remembers his task.

Now Jason is throwing me aside and punching me again. “Stop fighting me!” he yells. “Fucking stop it!” The next smash to the face stops me from retaliating, and I let him keep going – I just lie there and take it. “Why would you do this?” My eyebrow splits. “Why?”

He’s shouting over Bernadette’s voice. She’s telling me to use my blade and kill him.

“Stacey didn’t cheat on you,” he says, stopping his attack and grabbing my chin with a solid grip. “She was raped. We were fucking raped, Kade.”

Bernadette huffs. “I swear, if I hear this girl’s name one more time, I’ll go there and kill the bitch myself.”

I ignore her, even though I want to tell her to shut her fucking mouth.

Jason’s hold on me slackens. “She has a stepbrother. Christopher Fields. He kicked the shit out of her when he found out she was pregnant.” He slaps me when I stare at him. “Do you fucking hear me?”

He shakes me and slaps me again. “Are you listening to me?”

Another smack.

“Help me find that piece of shit,” he cries. “Fucking please.”

“Stop,” I say quietly.

But Bernadette hears me. “Stop what?”

I close my eyes, gritting my teeth until they hurt before I shove Jason away. “Go back,” I say. “Turn around and go fucking back.”

“I ordered you to kill him.”

I shake my head, trying to communicate with Jason to leave without speaking. I point behind him, stepping into his personal space, mouthing, Go back – please. I beg him with my eyes, fucking pleading for him to get the fuck away from me.

Frowning, he looks at me in confusion. “What?”

I sigh and hope the world forgives me as I clench my fist and smack him as hard as I can in the side of the head, knocking him clean out. He drops at my feet, and something cracks in my chest.

I’m so sorry.

I search for his phone and send Ewan his location. I want to say something else in the message, but I can’t risk them discussing it and Bernadette overhearing them, since they’ve already hacked the lodge’s system.

“Are you deaf?”

I roll my jaw a third time and shake my hand. It throbs from hitting Jason too hard. “For once in your life, stop fucking talking, Bernadette.”

I’ll regret that later.

The text to my new phone comes twelve hours later.

StaceyNew:Where?

I lie on the couch in my apartment, half asleep, half buzzed from taking a line. The word is jumbled in random letters for a second, but when I focus, I can see it properly.

I glance up at the camera in the corner of the room with one eye screwed shut. As I sit up, the bag of ice slips from my ribs, my skin red from the coldness. I have bruises all over my face from Jason belting me with his fists.

Shirtless, I stand up straight and crack my neck from left to right, yawning as I stretch my arms above me. I didn’t mean to sleep – I knew the message would come, so I was icing my injuries while I waited.

Must’ve dozed off.

My place is bare. No decorations, no pictures hanging on the wall. If it weren’t for the dog bowls in the kitchen and the toys strewn across the living-room floor from the last time I had Milo and Hopper up here, someone would think it was unoccupied.

I miss the dogs. My mother’s been looking after them, but since she left to go to the lodge, the staff at the manor have been watching them. Milo seems lost, and Hopper keeps searching the grounds. Either for me or Stacey.

I hope the latter takes them when I die.

I lean on my kitchen counter, set a line out to calm my nerves and try to type back as I sniff it. It takes me ten attempts to spell the message correctly.

Me: Knew you’d come to your senses, Freckles.

Although I’d rather tell her I’m sorry and that I didn’t mean a fucking word I said, or to goddamn shoot at her, my messages are also being monitored. Bernadette thinks I’m actually going to kill Stacey to save my dad and Base.

A quick death. The ultimate sacrifice.

Stupid bitch.

She’s at a meeting with some group from the underworld – she pissed off the wrong people and now she’s trying to fix it while Archie stands by her side like a shadow.

StaceyNew: Where?

Sighing, and a little nervous, I call her, holding the phone to my ear and listening to each ring as I make my way to my bedroom. When she doesn’t pick up, I toss my phone on the bed and rake my hand through my hair. It badly needs cut – the black waves are tickling my neck and nearly covering my eyes.

What’s the point?

Sitting on the foot of the bed, I lean on my thighs and wait for her to call back.

I wait. And wait. And wait some more.

I eventually accept she’s not going to call back and decide to grab a shower. The water is too hot, scalding my skin as I step under the spray, instantly drenching my hair.

My forehead stays against the tiles as I close my eyes, trying to rid the image of her through the scope from my mind. The terror. The betrayal. The sound of her scream after I pulled the trigger.

Fuck. I shot at Stacey.

Regardless of the reasons, I shot at her.

It takes me nearly an hour to leave the shower, and I dry my hair with a towel after wrapping another around my slim waist. The weight I’ve lost has me looking like I did when I was eighteen, when I first started working out properly and getting into shape.

I pull open my dresser drawer to get a pair of shorts, pausing when I see the box I shoved in there when I first bought this place years ago. I didn’t want it in the manor, and I barely stayed here, so it seemed best to keep it here.

Settling back on the bed, I place the box down beside me. A shaky hand lifts the lid to reveal the pair of pink booties and a drawing of Stacey, and I quickly slam the lid back down, screwing my eyes shut.

My heart races so fucking fast, and the idiotic part of me opens my eyes as I lift the lid once more, letting it drop to the floor.

I gulp, reaching for one of the ultrasound photos. The first time seeing one of these, Stacey’s first scan, feels like a lifetime ago. The delicate paper between my fingers holds the image of the daughter that was taken from me – murdered.

Something cracks within me then. Something harsh and painful that has me shaking as I run my thumb over the distorted image.

A nearly four-year-old should be cuddling up to me and Stacey in bed right now while we read her a bedtime story. She’d fall asleep on my chest, and I’d carry her to her own bed, only for her to sneak back in when me and her mother are sleeping.

I let go of the picture and the box, launching it across the room, the contents smashing into the wall and cracking the mirror hanging there. I tip the dresser over in a fit of rage and grab the lamp, throwing it, destroying anything I can get my hands on as I blindly lose my shit.

Staring at myself in the cracked mirror, I’m disgusted with who I’ve become. A murderer. A sex slave. A scarred, sick, mentally deranged motherfucker who can’t go a day without drugs.

When I reach for my gun, I don’t stop to think before putting the barrel to my head and pulling the trigger.

Click.

My back hits the wall, and I slide down it until I’m on my ass. I let the gun fall from my hand, and my body goes limp as a tear slips down my cheek.

My heartbeats are all I can hear. They’re strong. Hard. Fast. Proof that I’m somehow alive after my loaded gun failed to fire.

Proof that I’m not ready to die.

I glance down at the material under my hand – the pink princess dress I bought years ago still has the tags on it; it’s still unworn, still fresh. I grasp the fabric in a fist and lift it my chest, hugging it as more tears fall.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, the two words broken. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”

How different our lives would be if she’d survived. She would have been so loved by everyone. She’d be spoiled and adored and wild like her mother.

My phone rings from the bed – somehow it survived the rage-induced spiral of destruction my room suffered. I lean forward, not daring to let go of the dress, and grab my phone to see Stacey is calling me back.

I answer but don’t say a word as I shift and lie on the floor, the dress still clasped to my chest.

“Kade?”

Fuck. Her voice. She has no idea how much she soothes the darkness within me. It’s like the fragments of my heart slowly join back together – until I hear the soft whimper of her trying to hold in her tears, and everything comes crashing down again, because I caused those tears.

“Kade? Are you there?”

Can she hear how uneven my breathing is?

If I talk, I’ll fuck this up. She’ll know I’m upset.

She’s met with my silence. “I don’t know what’s happening with you, but if you need to do this assignment for your freedom, I’m willing to let you do it. I…” Her voice breaks, and so does my heart. “I don’t have anything to live for, but you do.”

Swallowing, I close my eyes, still refusing to speak.

Her voice is so soothing without her even realising.

Stacey Rhodes. My girl. My anchor that sank to the bottom of the ocean without me.

“Send me the location and I’ll come. Just… get this over with.”

The line cuts out, and the phone slips from my ear.