Restitution (The Edge of Darkness, #3)

by Leigh Rivers

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 h...

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.”

She’d be spoiled and adored and wild like her mother.

“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.

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

Jason, still bruised from earlier, speaks up. “What did Archie do to my brother?” Barry stays silent. But it clicks. Archie abuses Kade too. I feel like I’m going to be sick.

Tobias stands. “I’m not sitting around here any longer. I’m going to find them both and make it fucking painful. You” – he points at Cassie – “get out of my sight before I blow your fucking brains out.”

He scoffs. “You expect me to do nothing while my son is being fucking drugged and raped?” Everyone flinches at his truthful words.

“He chose her over me,” Tobias says, stepping right up to Barry, ignoring one of the guards shifting his gun from his waistband. But I see Aria moving forward, blocking the path between them so he can’t shoot. “He should have picked me. Because if he even attempted to come after me, I would’ve taken him away from all of this and helped him.”

Eventually, Jason clears his throat and says, “If we really have lost my brother, I won’t let him hurt you, even if that means taking a bullet for you.”

He has a file, one that requires a password to get into it. One night, while I was drinking coffee and browsing on the laptop Barry had given me while Eva slept in her crib, I typed in Freckles0907 – the date we first kissed in the tent – and it opened. I’d spent hours browsing the images and video clips, the recording of him laughing while I tried to sing every song from The Greatest Showman. Me running on the manor grounds with the dogs chasing after me. Him kissing my cheek while we had a picnic at Lunderston Bay beach.

“How old are you?” Tobias asks. “Twenty-two,” she replies. “Why?” “It took you twenty-two years to realise your parents are a pair of assholes who deserve to die?”

“No, I did. I don’t give a fuck about you. When I next see your mother, I’ll kill her, right after I force her to watch her husband being tortured. Nothing you say will stop me. If you try to intervene, you’ll be subjected to the same fate. I’ve been patient having you anywhere near my family.”

Aria rolls her eyes. “Tobias. Behave.” “With all due respect, sweetheart, I behave for no one when it comes to our children.”

“If your mother ever comes, you’ll get front-row tickets to her demise, and you’ll follow.” He blinks twice, harshly. “Don’t fuck with me.” Aria stands between the two of them before grabbing her ex’s hand. “Come with me, Tobias.” Ewan shifts on his feet, Jason whistles and heads round the side of the house for another smoke, and Cassie excuses herself and escapes to her designated room.

As soon as she’s gone, a twinkle appears in Tobias’s eyes, and he winks at me as Aria stomps out into the garden. He follows, messing my hair as he passes.

“Forgive me for saying this, and tell me to stop if you think I’m out of line, but… those two, the way they still are…” I bite my lip. “You deserve better.” He chuckles, as if he’s heard it a thousand times.

“She tells me that. Often. I love her too much to accept it. We’ve been important to one another since we were eighteen. I… I cheated on her when we first got together. I was such a dick back then. It was one time, and it’s still my biggest regret. Jason was only a few months old when we got together, and when she fell pregnant, during our break, to Tobias, we stayed active in each other’s lives. I could never leave her, even if she still loves him.”

I give him a warm smile. “It doesn’t bother you?” “Nah. She’s happy, and so am I. At the start, I would have probably left, but their connection, it’s… I don’t know. It’s hard to explai...

When I bought this place and realised I had too much money that could get swallowed up by the system if I died, I made a will. When my untimely passing happens, I’ll split half my money between my family. They can argue among them who gets what amount. The other half will go to Stacey, along with the ownership of the dogs, my Stirling apartment, and my bike and car. She already has a few of my accounts that Barry gave her when they moved to America.

My savings – all thirty million dollars hidden in a separate bank account – goes to Barry. It means college fully paid for his daughter and any future kids, and he’ll have full control of my business and all guards.

I sit at the kitchen counter, “Cities” by Toby Mai (featuring Two Feet) echoing through the surround-sound speakers all over the house, and watch my phone screen – the dogs are running wild in the backyard, and the manor workers are trying to catch them. They look happy, barking and rolling around with each other. I miss them.

keep the app open and grab a glass of water, downing some of it and rushing to my bathroom to check my face and hair. There’s no fixing the latter; it’s too long and wavy, and my face is ripped apart with bruises, little cuts from Jason hitting me and the hideous scar that’ll probably scare her. I don’t want to scare her.

I fix my leather jacket and keep my helmet on as I head into the building to pay. My pulse pounds when I see her. Like my teenage crush from back in the day returns and I’m unable to even form a word in front of her – to look her in the eye without imagining us spending the rest of our lives together. My hands shake, and I fist them.

For over a year, I’ve imagined the conversation we’d have. Twelve months of waiting, finding different ways to get to her. Fifty-two weeks of torture while Barry and my team kept her safe. It all boils down to this moment, when she glances over her shoulder and gives me a tight smile out of friendliness, not knowing it’s me. The one who shot at her. The ex-boyfriend who would burn the world down for her. The piece of shit who could never fall out of love with her.

I nearly drop to my fucking knees, staring at her little dimple and the freckles dusting her cheeks and n...

A masterpiece. And I’m proud to say that I was...

The closer I get, the more I want to drown in her. All of her. I want to wrap my arms around her and hide from this fucked-up world. I want to say I’m sorry for everything and beg her to run away with me.

I can see the winter wonderland within a forest in her eyes, her long lashes touched with mascara, the lip balm coating her lips, her hair falling down her back in soft waves that make me want to brush my fingers through them.

Her skin has always had a slight tan, freckles scattered across every inch, and her lips, those full fucking lips, part as she stares at her reflection in the blacked-out visor.

My hands bunch on the counter, the leather gloves crunching, aching to push a lock of hair behind her ear, to flip up my visor and force her ...

Not that an apology is even close to being enough, but at this point, it’s all I’ve got. I don’t have the privilege of time to do everything I can to win her back. I can’t g...

When I left for Russia a year ago, all I could think about was her. In fact, since I met her at fifteen, I’ve not had one day where she hasn’t been on my mind.

My breathing halts when she nearly misses a turn on the road. Fucking hell, Freckles. Drive carefully.

I speed up, approaching her right side. For dramatic effect, because she’s only doing fifty on a road with a limit of fucking seventy, I pull out my gun and keep it in view as I slide up beside her window and aim right at her. She looks to the side, and her eyes widen.

She’s still as terrible a driver as ever. But no matter how fast she goes, I match the speed, mocking her every time I turn my head to look at her. She keeps her eyes forward, gripping the steering wheel for dear life.

I pull up the visor, and she doesn’t give me any eye contact; she just stares at my hands as one lifts to aim the gun at her, the other pushing into the space of my helmet to press the button in my ear. Fuck, forgive me. Fucking please forgive me, Stacey. “I have her,” I say in a firm tone. The uncontrollable blinking starts, a layer of sweat forming on my face. “She’s right in front of me.”

Bernadette’s sadistic laugh comes through my earpiece, loud enough for Stacey to hear. “Are you intentionally playing with your food?” “You know I like the chase,” I say, removing my finger from the trigger as it spasms.

Stacey stares at me like I’m a lunatic. “What are you doing?” I don’t respond as I shoot the cameras, getting both the first time and breaking the last connection Bernadette has to where I am, what I’m saying and what the fuck happens next.

This is it. This is the moment I’ve been playing in my head since I crashed my car trying to get to her a year ago. My first fucking chance to actually speak to her face to face.

“Freckles…” “Don’t you dare call me that! Don’t you dare!” Her face contorts as she fights tears, her chin trembling as she points a finger at me. “You tried to shoot me.” My voice is low, quiet. “I intentionally missed.”

The slap knocks my face to the side. “I tried to tell you before you ran off and left me on my knees on your bedroom floor. You won’t silence me again. You wouldn’t listen before, but I’m fucking talking now. I was raped. I was raped by my own stepbrother and all his friends. Jason was drugged, and he was raped too! And you…” She covers her mouth and steps back once. “You left me when I needed you. My dad died, and I was alone and scared.” “I know,” I say