36

36

STACEY

Chris has always been smart when it comes to technology, but as I stare at all the computer screens and flashing lights on boxes I’ve never seen before, I think I may have misjudged just how brainy he really is.

Not that I want to praise him or anything – he’s still a horrible human being.

After a week of annoying me, asking me every two seconds if I’m okay, he’s finally exhausted and has fallen asleep on the couch. He’d lose his shit if he saw me in here. I tried to come in yesterday, but he pushed my face into the wall and told me that if he saw me trying to go in again, I’d regret it.

Being the loose cannon that I am – and apparently stupid – I’m standing in the middle of the room, staring at all the equipment and pictures decorating the walls.

Chris said a few days ago that he wasn’t scared. Looking at this room, it’s clear he lied.

He’s trying to track Tobias and Kade. He has images of them on the wall, with a red string tracing Kade’s movements, and a blue one highlighting Tobias’s. The former’s is considerably longer, with sightings all over the States, Russia, Spain and back to Scotland.

I narrow my gaze on an image dated the day Chris came for me that shows Kade fixing a scarf or snood to his face. He’s wearing the same uniform as others who raided my place. His hair is longer – and for some reason he looks taller.

Maybe that’s because I haven’t seen him in nearly a year. Since he fucked me then threw me away.

The most recent sighting is of him leaving a black SUV and holding his hand out to the blonde. Written below the photo in messy handwriting is: Edinburgh, 6:09 a.m., Cassie Sawyer – aged 23. Fiancée? Potential blackmail?

There were only a couple of sightings of Tobias before the trail went cold – him wearing a cap and sunglasses at Barry’s house and then him getting into a car at a gas station.

It’s likely he’s with Barry then. If so, I hope Lisa and Eva are hidden. I also hope Tobias is okay. I hope so much that he’s on his way to find his son.

My hands shake as I lift up a plastic folder filled with pictures of me and others. Some of them are from my old phone – images of me and Kade, me and the dogs, me and my friends. Chris has crossed out everyone’s faces aggressively except for my own.

I open one of the laptops, and my blood runs cold as the screensaver pops up – it’s an image of me sleeping. I slap it closed and back away from the desk.

CCTV fills all the screens on the right-hand wall. Some of the footage is from the lodge, and I can see Chris asleep still, and some are from random areas around our town, the path that leads to the lodge. Three are around Nora’s estate, and the rest are somewhere I don’t recognise.

I stare at the screen nearest me, which displays a black-and-white image of a room with sterile-looking furniture and a four-poster bed with two people sleeping in it – a man and a woman. He has his arms wrapped around her, and my eyes widen. I recognise his face. He was the one who approached us on the pier a year ago and made Kade freak out when he took a picture of me. He was there that night I killed those three guys.

Archie Sawyer. Which means the woman in his arms must be Bernadette.

I step closer to get a better view, and as if they know I’m looking, the monster sits up, not bothering to hide her nakedness. She glances down at her husband, her mouth moving, but I can’t read her lips. Then she stands, grabs a robe and walks to the door.

The adjacent screen shows her walking down the hallway, then she appears on the screen beside that, knocking on a door and pushing it open.

My stomach drops when the next screen shows her lifting the duvet on someone else’s bed. And as the person turns around to see what’s happening, I gasp.

It’s Base.

What the hell is Base doing there? Kade never mentioned him working for her too.

Lu was right – there was something off about his apparent work in Russia. He was never there with his family, was he? Base left when Kade did.

When he sits up and shakes his head at her, she presses her finger to his lips and pushes him back down, and I can’t stop the way my mouth falls open in shock.

She lets her robe fall, and I cover my gaping mouth as she climbs on top of him and parts her thighs while stroking him through his boxers. A few minutes later, she’s sickeningly moving above him while he covers his face with both hands.

Chris showed me a similar image – her and Kade in bed. She’s cheating on her husband with them both? But he… said no. He shook his head. She’s raping him. That’s non-consensual.

When I turn in revulsion with the back of my hand to my mouth, I don’t even flinch when I find Chris staring at me, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Do you ever listen?”

For a long moment, I try to control my rampant thoughts. I drop my hand to my side. “To you?” I retort. “No.”

He gestures to the screens behind me with his chin. “Kade is on screen twelve. Top-right corner.”

I turn again, and my heart slowly shatters at the sight of Kade lying on his back with Cassie Sawyer in his arms, her head on his chest.

Her blonde hair sprawls over the pillow, her skin perfect – the total opposite of his inked body. I already know she’s flawless, pretty, stunning, and she has Kade.

Jealousy burns in my gut.

“Every night, without fail, they share a bed. Sometimes he’ll go to his own room and the mother joins him, but there hasn’t been a night yet where he hasn’t been inside at least one of them. Kind of sick, if you think about it.”

I keep my gaze on the screen, and I notice Kade’s eyes are open. He’s staring at the ceiling, thinking deeply with the girl hugging into him. He doesn’t seem to be hugging her back though.

Chris keeps talking. “You should know he agreed to marry the daughter. Some sort of deal was made – no idea what it was though.”

I close my eyes, sinking my teeth into my cheek to stop my tears.

If he’s sleeping with the mother and daughter, is he being forced like Base?

I feel ill as I watch Kade. I want to jump through the screen and pull him to me, to tell him that it’s all going to be okay. He won’t need to marry that girl if he doesn’t want to.

“Did you love him?”

I snap my head to Chris. “What?”

“Kade Mitchell. Were you in love with him? Or was it a stupid crush and you accidentally fell pregnant?”

I swallow a building lump, a mixture of hatred and sadness filling me. “Why do you have access to these?”

“Answer my question and I’ll answer yours.”

I roll my eyes. “He was my boyfriend for nearly a year. He was the father of my unborn child, and we had a life ahead of us before you took it away. Of course I loved him.”

Chris glares at me, his hands curling into fists. “And now? Watching him in this life.” He waves his hand to the screens, to Base and Bernadette, with the added audience of her husband Archie now, then to Kade on the other screen. “Do you still feel the same way?”

“Does it really matter if I still love him or not?”

“Well, I can assure you that he doesn’t love you anymore.”

I turn my body to fully face him, my arms crossed. “It’s been four years since I started falling for him. I know he might not care for me, but I will always love him.”

My throat is captured in a firm grip as he turns my face towards the screen. “Your love for him is worthless. He’s not the same. I’ve watched every single clip of him. She has a folder filled with hundreds – and I mean hundreds – of videos of him doing horrific things. His hands are filthy.” He pushes my face away. “A lot dirtier than his lunatic father’s, that’s for sure.”

The resounding slap reaches my ears before I realise what I’ve done. But I don’t wait for him to retaliate – I turn my back and train my eyes on the screen once more.

“You just fucking hit me again.”

“As always, your observation skills are on point. Congratulations,” I reply, watching Kade reach to the side to grab a cigarette – or maybe it’s a joint? He lights it up, trying not to wake Cassie as he slides his arm free from beneath her head.

I feel like I shouldn’t watch, but I can’t stop. It’s been so long – he’s right there.

He sits up and takes a draw, blowing out a cloud of smoke that slowly rises to the ceiling before dissipating.

He grabs something from the bedside unit, twists it open then starts rubbing some sort of cream from the corner of his mouth, down his chin, all the way to the middle of his chest. I can’t quite make it out in the video’s low light.

Kade puts it back and studies his hand, which is very obviously shaking. I wish I was there to kneel in front of him and tell him it’s okay. Tell him his dad is coming to get him out of the mess he’s in. We’ll do what we can. We care for him and love him.

Hold on a little longer. Please.

As much as he broke my heart in numerous ways, I’m going to do everything I can to help him. Including ruining the deal Chris wants to make with Bernadette. Instead of my safety, I’m going to trade everything she wants for Kade.

I tilt my head, watching him stand and stare into a mirror, tracing the trail of cream with his finger again. I continue ignoring Chris, who’s still holding his cheek like the dramatic idiot he is.

“Are you jealous?”

I tut. “Go away.”

Chris chuckles. “You’re the one in this room. The one I told you not to come into.”

I tense all over as he comes up behind me and rests his chin on my shoulder, his hands on my sides. I try to shrug him off, but he digs his fingers into my ribs.

“If you want, we can send him a video of us doing the same. A little cuddle wouldn’t hurt, sweetheart.”

“I’d rather die.”

Kade glances around the room, stubs out the smoke, then hunts for his clothes without waking Cassie. He looks like he has more tattoos and even more muscles.

I miss him. I miss him so much that sometimes I find it hard to breathe. My bedside unit had a picture of us. I looked at it every night before I fell asleep. It was a little obsessive, considering we were done and all, but I’ve never really been able to move on.

And like everything else me-and-Kade, that’s also gone.

But I still love him.

Kade doesn’t love me anymore though. Why would he? I’m the lousy one who’s clinging to the emotions – he moved on. Once upon a time, we stood on a Greek beach next to a cave, full of laughter, happiness and alcohol, and Kade poured his heart out to me. He loved me then.

I remember every single word that made my heart beat faster, made it swell in my chest and gave me hope that I could have a happy ever after with him. We were teenagers, but we knew what we wanted.

“Are you going to be my forever, Freckles?”

What is forever if it’s not with him?

It felt like everything had fallen perfectly into place when he asked me that. I had true love, friends, my passion for dancing, a chance at a life I never knew I’d get because of the prick standing right behind me.

I had it all, and Chris ruined it.

Instead of running for a knife and slashing his throat like I should, I glance over my shoulder and ask again, “How do you have access to all of this?”

Thankfully, he lets me go and walks over to one of the laptops, opens it to reveal another screensaver of my face and inputs my date of birth. “When I infiltrated Bernadette’s database, I managed to pull everything, even the codes to all the CCTV she has set up. But I made sure to cover my tracks in certain areas, so she doesn’t know how much access I actually have.”

“She’s going to kill you.”

“Nah, she just wants what I’ve got, because it would put her away for life if it got into the right hands. She’ll take the deal, or I’ll send everything out for the public to see.”

I cross my arms. “Then she’d kill you.” Not that I’d give a shit. Chris dying would make my life easier. “Why not just release it all?”

Chris shrugs nonchalantly. “She’d retaliate by releasing what she has on me, and I can’t be with you if I’m locked up.”

I don’t give him a response as my eyes fly back to screen twelve, where the girl lies in bed, Kade now nowhere to be seen.

I check the other screens and see him walk into the room Bernadette is currently fucking Base in. Archie tips a glass of whisky to him, but he blanks the older man and angrily points at Base and Bernadette.

He’s saying something to them which makes her throw her head back in annoyance and climb off Base. I can tell they’re raising their voices, but all Base does is lounge back in the bed and pull the duvet over himself. Completely unbothered as Kade pulls a gun out and points it at Archie.

I’ve no idea what’s being said, and I ignore Chris typing on the laptop while they all shout – until Kade closes the distance between him and Archie and smacks his forehead into his face. The tall, skinny man grabs his bleeding nose. I still don’t know what’s being said, but Bernadette grabs her husband’s arm and pulls him out the room.

As soon as the door is shut, Kade stands frozen for a second, making sure they’re gone, before rushing over to Base and slapping his face hurriedly. He shakes him, and it’s now I realise that Bernadette must’ve drugged him as he starts to vomit.

My eyes stay on the screen as Kade rolls Base onto his side and shoves his fingers down his throat.

“Where is this?”

“Don’t sound so panicked – he’ll be fine. They’re in Bernadette’s manor,” he replies, not looking up. “They arrived three days ago. His little friend there seems to be a huge part of her control over Kade. She tortures him to make your ever-loving ex do shit. I even witnessed him sucking Kade’s dick once.” He fake shivers. “It was uncomfortable to watch.”

I think all of the blood has drained from my face.

“She’s disgusting. Why can’t you send all of this to the police?”

“Because it’ll go nowhere,” he replies, closing his laptop. He nudges me with his shoulder and grins. “If you think that’s bad, you have no idea what world your little lover boy is in.”

“You think this is funny?”

He shrugs as he watches Kade dragging his friend to the bathroom, and once the door closes, we can no longer see what they’re doing. “It’s a bit entertaining, don’t you think? We can sit here every night and watch them.”

“You know what? I hope she gets you, and then Kade deals with whatever’s left of your pathetic body.”

His eyes light up. “If she gets me, then she gets you. I wonder what she’ll make us do together?”