Restitution (The Edge of Darkness, #3)

by Leigh Rivers

“She couldn’t find out that I…” She backs away from me. She’s pale and looks exhausted. “Find out what?” I swallow a lump threatening to suffocate me and force out the words, even though they’re muffled through the material covering my mouth. “That I’m still in love with you.”

“You’re not,” she replies, her cheeks soaked. “If you were still in love with me, we wouldn’t have just spent years in hell, Kade. If you were in love with me, you would have stayed by my side when I tried to tell you the truth a year ago. You don’t love me – I’m just someone you used to have in your life when it was normal, so you hold on to the thought of me.”

Carefully, my boots move forward again, carrying me towards her until her back presses to the SUV. “I would rather kill myself. I did what I had to do to get us here. I had to apologise to you. I’m not going to complete the contract.” Stacey shakes her head. “Then she’ll kill you.” “I’m aware.”

“I’ll deal with Bernadette. I just needed to apologise. You don’t have to ever forgive me, but I want you to know that if I had all the time in the world, I would spend it trying to win you back. I’d prove myself worthy of you, Stacey. Because there hasn’t been a day that’s passed where you haven’t kept me going. My love might not be enough for you, but it’s all I have left. I love you. I love you so fucking much that I want to live.”

She moves closer, gripping my hand like I’ll vanish on the spot. Her forehead is nearly touching the helmet. “What did you say in the voicemail?” I lift my free hand to her face, my fingers spasming over the gash on her cheek. Instead of telling her what I said, I smile, even though she can’t see my mouth. “The first time I saw you, I was yours. I’ll always be yours, Freckles. Our girl will be proud of the woman you’ve become. You’ll both always be my girls.”

My heart

Cassie comes running straight for us, but I roll my eyes and put a bullet in her skull before she can reach me. Stacey flinches and turns away in revulsion as Cassie’s body drops to the ground like a sack of potatoes. Gone. Dead. Good-fucking-bye.

AHHHHHHHHHHH

“It’s you and me, son,” Tobias says, low enough that it’s a whisper, but I’m close enough to hear. “You’re not doing this by yourself anymore. I’m here. I’m not letting you do this alone. You and me, you hear me?” Kade doesn’t reply. Tobias shakes him. “Do you fucking hear me?” “All I can hear is you asking for death,” Kade replies. “They’ll kill you.”

His dad chuckles and grips his shoulder. “Maybe, but not before every single one of them pays. Getting revenge, son, is what we are going to be fucking doing. I have a list, and Christopher Fields is at the very top. Help me hurt the motherfucker.” Kade lifts his head on hearing that name. “You know where he is?”

The older version of Kade huffs and stands by the door, holding it open. He glances over at me just as I wipe mascara from under my eyes. “You good?” Tobias asks. I nod back and rub my arm, trying not to look down at the river of blood currently sliding towards me. “I’m okay.”

When I get out of the car, I pause on seeing Kade climb out the one in front. He pauses too, staring at me as he pulls up the fabric to cover his mouth, but I already see the purple line from the corner of his mouth, travelling down. He looks like he wants to speak. Aria says something to him, and he nods, not taking his eyes off me.

Even when he looks completely exhausted and drained of life, he’s handsome. His hair is longer, wavy, and his usual clean-shaven face is covered in stubble. I like it. I love him.

Wanting to kiss someone, to hold them and beg them to forget the last few years and go back to the way things were has got to be one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced.

Kade shifts on his feet. His fingers are spasming, and he’s blinking a lot. “Do you think you could ever forgive me?” he asks, and I can tell the drugs he’d taken are starting to wear off – he’s fidgety and sweating and his knees are bouncing. “I need you to forgive me. I’ll do anything. Just tell me – I’ll do it.” I flatten my lips to hold in a sob. “I don’t think this is about forgiveness. I could have said something years ago about my brother, but I didn’t.”

In a way, he is violent, because as annoying as Cassie was, I didn’t expect him to shoot her in the head with no emotion.

“I love Tobias more than words will ever explain,” Aria says. “But I also know he doesn’t belong out here. It’s just a matter of time before he snaps.”

The man in question glances towards us, giving Aria a soft smile. He mouths, He’ll be okay, and goes back to holding a glass out to Kade. They remind me of a couple in their twenties. They’re goofy and hot-headed, yet the love between them is unbeatable. It’s a shame for Ewan, even if he is okay with it.

I shiver at the thought and head inside. I find Kade standing in the kitchen now, leaning against the counter, watching me. He tilts his head towards the stairs, a silent request to speak to me again in private. He still has the material over his mouth, refusing to remove it. Such a bad time to find him hot, but I do. Even if his eyes are bloodshot and he can’t stand still for more than a second.

He’s sweaty, pale, and he keeps flinching in his sleep. “Kade’s only ever had a seizure once,” Aria says, hugging herself. “He was eight, and doctors had no idea what caused it. Said it could’ve been due to his high level of anxiety. We were to monitor him and record the next time it happened.” She glances at her son. “He’ll be okay. He’s gone through a lot, so I think he’s mentally exhausted.”

“Stop fucking hitting me.” Chris spits on the ground, his face stained red, his nose crooked. He’s strapped to a chair in the middle of the basement, and his eyes follow Tobias as he flexes the fingers on both hands, slowly walking around him. Stalking his prey like a starved animal. “Tell me again why you think you own her.”

Chris moves his head from side to side, cracking his neck, then glares. “Do you really need to keep hitting me? What are you getting out of being violent?” “Joy,” Tobias replies, crossing his arms. “I like watching you bleed. I’ll enjoy it a whole lot more when I kill you.”

For the first time in forever, Tobias has no immediate response. His anger slips just enough to reveal his shock. Then: “What did you just say?” “Your daughter moans like a fucking angel.” Tobias smacks the side of his head with the gun.

want to tell Tobias to shut up, that baiting him won’t help, but the rage in his eyes makes it all worth it. “I’ll kill you if you have. She’s mine.” “She doesn’t belong to anyone,” Tobias says. “Are you done? Your voice is going through me.” Chris scowls. “I will kill you.”

I move forward and go to turn on the light, but he snatches my wrist. “No.” “Why?” “No.” I blink and swallow, nodding. “Christopher Fields,” he says in a quiet tone. “Where is he?” My breathing halts. “Why?” “Is he here?”

Slowly, in the darkness, I pull my PJs back on. “He’s tied up in the basement. We wanted you to get⁠—” He’s out the door before I can finish, obviously fuelled by adrenaline. I swear under my breath and run after him.

Tobias, Aria, Ewan and Kyle stream into the kitchen, and we all follow him as he hammers downstairs and heads straight to Chris, slamming his fist into his face; he comes to with a pained cry. “Wake up, motherfucker.”

We all stand at the wall near the stairs, watching Kade blinking uncontrollably and screwing his face up like he’s trying to rid voices from his mind. “You have no fucking idea how long I’ve waited for this. Do you know who I am?” He points at himself. “I’m the father of the child you killed.”

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Kade snatches a blade from a nearby table, flips it in his hand to catch it by the handle and plunges it into Chris’s shoulder. He screams so loud my ears ring. “You fucking⁠—”

Kade covers his mouth and leans in, yanking the blade out. Chris looses a harrowing gasp against his palm then silently screams as he sinks it into his other shoulder and twists it. “How does it feel? Huh? How does it feel to be helpless? To not be able to control your pain? To receive and not give.” He pushes the blade further, and Tobias ...

Kade pulls the blade out again and slaps him across the face, wiping the bloodied knife on his trousers. “You were full of words in that little recording you took. Why so silent now? Because you don’t have my girlfriend or my brother drugged and at your mercy?”

I’m hauled from the memory when Kade pulls away and heads to the table filled with devices. Tobias set up when we first got here. He grabs the hammer, flips it in his hand like he did the blade then grabs some nails and strides towards Chris like a panther stalking its prey.

“You see her?” He grabs his head with one hand, his fingers and thumb at his temples, and turns him to look at me. “This will be the last time you see her.”

Chris must think that means figuratively as he laughs through his pain, but Tobias moves behind him and pries his eyeball open. I quickly turn away as Kade hammers a nail into i...

I keep my back turned as they do the same with the other eye, blinding him. I can tell he’s shaking from the rapid gasps he lets out, and when I turn to face him once more, bile rises in my throat. He’s crying tears of blood, and it’s a horrifying sight.

Kade stares at me, snarling and blinking. So much blinking and pacing and muttering under his breath. I’m more concerned about his mental state than taking revenge on my abuser. Then he grabs a small hacksaw and stops in front of me again. “The first time he touched you, what did he do?”

Kade’s eyes darken even more, something I thought would be impossible.

frown as Kade turns to his dad. “Hold his hand still. The left one first.” Tobias doesn’t seem to enjoy taking orders, let alone from his chaotic son, but he obeys anyway. Chris is thrashing again as Tobias holds his wrist to the wood, and Kade saws off four of his fingers.

“Now you won’t be able to look at her or fucking touch her.”

“I won’t kill you,” he tells him in a bored tone. “I want you to live and know you can never see her beauty or touch her perfection. I want you to be helpless and unable to walk.”

“I’ll leave your hearing, so I can tell you when I win her back, so you can hear her moaning my fucking name. When I marry her. When she births my fucking children. And guess what? I’ll have all of that. You won’t. Because Stacey Rhodes has been mine since the day I fucking met her.”

SCREAMING

Chris has saliva dripping from his mouth, his face red with pain and rage. “She. Mine.” “Yours?” Kade wipes blood from his eyes with the back of his hand. “Everyone, get out.”

Kade grabs another chair, settling it in front of Chris before sitting down on it, his eyes flickering over to me. He holds out his hand. “Come here.” I hug myself and step forward, and my breathing pauses when Kade pulls me into his lap.

“Do you trust me?” Kade whispers in my ear. I give a slight nod. The arm wrapped around me slackens at the same time his lips press to my nape. His hand slides up my bare legs to my PJ shorts, not stopping as he reaches my inner thigh and keeps going.

My heart races from his touch, a tingling sensation working its way to my core just as his fingertips brush over my underwear. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been touched in so long, or maybe it’s because it’s Kade, but I instantly part my legs to give him better access while I watch blood trailing from Chris’s eyes and hands.

Kade’s lips lightly graze across my nape to my ear. “I’m going to make you come in fro...

“You hear that?” Kade taunts as he works his fingers in and out in a rhythm. My body reacts the only way it can, and I rock my hips; feel him growing hard against my ass. “You hear the noises I can pull from her pretty mouth?” Chris pulls at his restraints. “Don’t fucking touch her.”

But this isn’t romantic or anything other than Kade claiming me for Chris to witness – showing him that no matter what, I’ve always been his. Not Chris’s, not the men he made rape me – two of whom are still walking around freely. Though Tobias has already said he’ll deal with them if his son doesn’t.

Teeth sink into my neck, and he sucks my skin harshly, causing me to cry out. “Tell him who you belong to,” Kade orders. “Tell him.” “You,” I breathe. “Don’t fucking say that!” Chris yells.

“He killed our daughter,” Kade says as he slips a blade into my hand. “Hurt him.” My eyes close momentarily, my high building, and I grit my teeth, remembering everything he ever did to me, to us, while Kade keeps touching me, his other hand sliding up my chest, between my breasts, until he’s holding my throat.

“Hurt him with me, Freckles. Make him pay for ruining our lives.” I barely register the blade lodging in Chris’s thigh, or Kade’s fingers wrapped around mine, both of us holding the blade’s handle now. My stepbrother cries out then grits his bloody teeth, unable to move from his restraints.

I’m not strong enough to kill him with one hand, but the pressure building in his face brings me joy while Kade grinds his cock up against me through his trousers, dropping a “fuck” and a “keep going”. My hand cramps, so I let go of Chris’s throat. He gasps for air, his entire body trembling as his blood pools beneath the chair.