Restitution (The Edge of Darkness, #3)

by Leigh Rivers

I raise a brow as he looks up. “And what is it you want?” “You. I want to be the person you think of when you wake up, when you go to sleep, when you slide your hand between your legs and find pleasure.”

“Your body. I want to be the only person to touch, kiss and fuck you. I want to claim all your emotions. Fear. Anger. Misery. Happiness. Love.”

“I want your heart, every single fucking fragment that I’ve broken over the years. I have your past and your present, and I want to be a selfish asshole and have your future.” “You already have it,” I breathe, letting out a quiet whimper as he pinches my clit.

“The monster in me wants you to be terrified. I want you to run to the other side of the world again and stay there.” He pulls his thumb away, leaving me panting with need. “I want you to be scared of me.”

He snatches my wrists and presses my hands back to the desk. “You should be scared of me. I might worship the ground you walk on, but you don’t have the faintest idea what I’m capable of. I could snap your neck without blinking, mistaking you for a client. I could fuck you so hard you pass out. I could really hurt you, Stacey.”

He sighs and slides his palms up to my thighs again, pushing them further apart. “I did say that, yeah. What’s your point?” “You survived.”

“You’re here,” I say, lowering my hand between us and palming his thick length through his trousers, making his fingers dig into my skin. “You’re alive. You’re fighting back. That’s survival, Kade.” I smirk as his pupils dilate. “Now you’re mine and only mine.” It’s been so long since I felt him. All of him. I forgot how large he is. He’s thick, long and veiny. I might actually die if he pushes inside me.

“What will you do with your freedom?” Kade stares at me for a long moment, breathing the same air while I touch him through his clothes. “Win my girl back.” My heart sings at his response, and I grin. “Yeah?” “Yeah.”

My hearttt

He lowers his head and drags my bottom lip between his teeth until it snaps into place. When he pulls back, I chase his lips and grab the back of his head, forcing him to stay as I devour his mouth with desperation.

Kade slips his tongue against my own; he tastes of smoke and mint and something that’s wholly mine. The grip on my thighs turns painful, but I revel in it. It makes me breathless as he kisses me like he’ll die if he can’t taste my tongue with his. “Fuck,” he mutters into my lips.

“If you keep touching my dick, I’ll screw your plan of going slow and fuck you on this desk until we crack the wood.” He lets go of my wrist and steps back enough to hook his fingers under my panties and slide them down my legs.

“I dream of you,” he says in a deep voice, his eyes darkening as he pulls his belt from the loops of his black trousers. “Every night, I dream of you.” “Seems very psychotic and obsessive of you,” I say, using his own words against him, flinching

“What happens in these dreams?” Everywhere tingles as he bends forward, breathing against my pulsing centre. “Everything.”

He thrusts his fingers all the way in and out while circling my clit. “Whoever touched you while you were in America, I’ll kill them.” He speeds up, fucking me harder, and I have to cover my mouth to stop the entire manor from hearing me moaning on his mother’s desk. “I’ll track them all down and make them wish they’d never laid eyes on you.”

When he shoves his tongue through my entrance and devours me, I tug at his hair, pulling him firmer against me, grinding against his mouth as he switches between sucking, licking and biting, driving me to the edge.

He mutters something in a different language against my pussy, and it almost sounds like praise from the tone he uses. Then his gaze clashes with mine, and I watch him lapping every inch of me as my lungs give up.

Someone knocks on the door, and Kade moves his face away, keeping his fingers inside me and making my eyes roll. “What?” he calls out abruptly when the knocking sounds again.

“We have some information, sir.” He licks his glistening lips, and, instead of stopping, he keeps finger-fucking me then pulls out, yanks me off the desk and bends me over it. “Give me an hour.”

He reaches in front of me and rubs my clit, the head of his cock pressing between my legs. “You see that gun there?” he says quietly so the guard doesn’t hear, and I nod, frowning as he grabs it a...

“Don’t make a fucking sound,” he warns, speaking in my ear as he throbs inside me.

“The fuck do you want?” Kade snaps as he cocks the gun. “Bernadette Sawyer was taken to hospital and is in a critical condition.”

In the recording, we see a bedroom, and Tobias is walked in with guards crowding him. He’s only in a pair of boxers, and when he elbows one of them in the face, they all attack him with batons and the butts of their guns.

He laughs maniacally as his face fills with blood, then he grabs a guard and sinks his teeth into his cheek before kicking another in the face and knocking them clean out. One of them injects something into his neck, but he doesn’t flinch until a second dose is administered.

She tries to kiss Tobias, grinding in his lap, but he stands abruptly and knocks her on her ass. He’s heavily drugged, but he still has control. I shouldn’t be surprised, considering he’s Tobias, but I am. He should be knocked out by now.

No one enters in time to stop Tobias from lifting her from her knees by her shattered jaw and slamming her back into the wall with brutal force. Once, twice, three times. Blood marks the wall where her head’s smacked into it. She’s out cold as Tobias punches her right across the face and throws her on the floor.

“Officials have recovered a body from the car. The individual has been identified as convicted killer Tobias Mitchell. He escaped his institution in the US not long ago and has been on the run ever since. It seems the hunt for the psychopath has now come to an end. There will be more information in the coming days.”

The footage Tobias and I saw of Kade draws my mind away from the present, and I feel like throwing up. I see him stalking his victims in alleyways and dragging them into darkness, stabbing them, leaving no trace behind so he’ll never be caught. Driving over someone’s skull repeatedly because he stepped on his foot. Tying rapists to chairs and carving the names of their victims into their skin.

Putting bullets into a man to finish a contract before fucking me beside the dead body. Shooting a gang leader for touching my ass. Pulling the trigger and nearly killing me. Strangling. Smashing his lethal fists into a face until its owner is unrecognisable. Driving a knife into the skull of a woman for giving him a dirty look then leaving her body in a Russian river. He’s unhinged and completely off the rails when mad. And he’s thinking.

If it wasn’t for his love for me and how much he cares about his family, I’d say all of the trauma and abuse had made him sociopathic.

The sound cracks my chest open and painfully squeezes my heart, knowing that I’ll never see Tobias again or hear him call me little one. No. Tobias Mitchell cannot be dead. I refuse to believe it. He took two doses of something that should’ve knocked him out cold, yet he still managed to push through and attack Bernadette. There’s not a chance in hell his end comes from crashing a damn car.

I see him pulling a black hoodie on, his face covering in place to hide the scar. It matches his gloves, boots, combat trousers and hair. Kade Mitchell is the haunting definition of darkness.

He grabs a blade from his bedside unit and slots it into a leather strap on his thigh, then fits a gun into his holster under his hoodie before pulling a second weapon from his dresser and settling it into another holster on his thigh.

“They took everything from me. Everything. We had a chance, but they took that as well.” He presses a firm kiss to my lips then shoves himself away, backing to the door while putting a fresh magazine in his gun and loading it. “Watch me destroy every last one of them, Freckles.”

He lets out a strangled scream as Kade sinks the blade further. The void of his eyes is the only thing we can see with his hood up and his mouth covered. “I wouldn’t try that again if I were you.” Then he pulls the blade free and wipes it on Archie’s chest, slicing the skin there.

Kade pulls me away from him as I scream bloody murder. “You piece of shit!” “Stop. I’ll make it hurt,” Kade whispers into my ear. “I promise.”

“No,” I say, moving forward. “Kade. Don’t send yours.” “I’m in hundreds of those folders, Stacey. Who do you think killed them all?”

I worry my lip. “Kade.” “Don’t cry.” He takes my face and wipes a lone tear from my cheek. “Stay here. I can’t focus when you’re around, and I need to focus. Do you understand?”

I nod, and he presses a soft kiss to my forehead. “I’m going to make the world a safer place for you. Let me do this.” Everything cracks inside me, and I release a sob. “Okay,” I croak as he pulls away from me.

The screen comes to life on the main computer, and I gasp when every single one of the screens lining one wall turns on, showing Kade and Archie. He’s live-streaming this to the world.

“She wanted your father,” he says, choking on his own slobber. “We watched him for years, and then we watched you. You were twelve.” Jesus. “I already know I was fucking twelve. I saw all the surveillance photos.”

“To use you. You looked like your father, and he was untouchable for us.” Aria covers her mouth, and Luciella scowls at the screen. “What the fuck?” she snaps.

Kade has had enough. He pulls a grenade from his bag, and his eyes stare into the camera. “Watch your husband die, Bernadette.” My eyes widen as he grabs Archie’s jaw and pries it open, his gloved fingers curling around his top and bottom teeth and separating them with force. His gums split first, and blood pisses from his mouth, then the bones crack at his jaw, so it’s wide enough for Kade to jam the grenade into his mouth.

He mentions four prime ministers, two presidents and various other world leaders who have their hands in the underworld. He talks about the files that have been released worldwide to every news station, law-enforcement organisation and social-media platform, explaining how everyone else can access them too, if they dare to look.

“I was nineteen when they first abused me. I was threatened to do things or my family would be targeted. I was trained to kill mercilessly and fuck like a monster, and they ruined my life in the process. My name is Kade Mitchell, son of Tobias Mitchell, and I will not be fucking silent anymore.”

He just told the world who he is. In the middle of committing a murder.

But before he can unlock it, Kade says, “Let’s see you get yourself out of this, Bernadette. And if I find out my dad is really dead, you better hide, because nothing will stop me from breaking every bone in your body.”

My eyes find the screen again, just as Kade pulls the ring on the grenade and kicks Archie in the chest. He starts walking backwards as he spins it on his middle finger. “Die, you little bitch,” Kade taunts as he hides behind a large tree trunk. “I’ll make sure your beast of a wife sees you in hell pretty soon.” Archie’s eyes go wide, and the recording ends just as the explosion flashes, a roar of something like thunder following right after.

Most of them had no idea what Kade had been through. They must’ve thought he was just a rebellious kid who wanted revenge on someone who’d wronged him. They were paid to guard, to debunk, to hack and to fight, and now they know. I can see the respect they have for him. None of them move to leave; they just lower their heads, showing their unmoving loyalty.

“After what I just did? Have I not made you afraid of me?” I shake my head. “No. Archie deserved it.” He chuckles deeply and shakes his head, his eyes so, so tired. “My little sadist.”

“I was terrified I’d hurt you, so I held back, especially when I kissed you in bed,” Kade replies, resting his forehead on mine. “But when I heard you saying you’d just be my friend, I couldn’t think of a worse sentence to hear.” He nudges my nose with his. “I had to reclaim what was always mine, even if I blacked out for most of it.”