More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“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.” “I wasn’t with anyone,” I breathe. “But continue with your threats.”
“The fuck do you want?” Kade snaps as he cocks the gun. “Bernadette Sawyer was taken to hospital and is in a critical condition.”
“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 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.
Kade Mitchell is the haunting definition of darkness.
“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.”
Kade stops scrolling and opens Cassie’s file. “Why do you have a folder on your—” He pauses, narrowing his eyes at the screen, then glares at Archie in disgust. “You fucked your own daughter?” Archie spits at him, uncaring. “She was a good girl.”
He types on the computer, and within a few minutes, it’s done. The incriminating files have been sent, and nothing will ever be the same.
“I’m going to make the world a safer place for you. Let me do this.”
“They’re loud,” he says, fighting the excessive blinks, his right eye twitching. “So damn loud, Freckles.” I nod, knowing that the version of him that thirsted for revenge and pain and blood has gone to sleep in his mind, and the voices are taking over. The ones that mock him and make him freak out. I’ve no idea what they’re saying right now, but Kade screws his eyes shut and drops his head to my shoulder, wrapping his strong arms around me.
“I love you,” I tell him, my voice cracking. “No matter what happens next, please know that.”
You don’t want to have a kid with someone who’ll be an absent father.” I narrow my eyes at him. “You wouldn’t be.” He rests his back against the cold tiles, one of which is cracked, still shaky on his feet. “You know I will be, Stacey. I just killed a man live, outed over half of the underworld and exposed Bernadette’s empire. If I’m not arrested, I can assure you there’ll be a number of pissed-off people hunting for me.”
“I want to sleep with my girl in my arms one last time.”
“I’m staying here. We’ll wait for you.” “I’ll be in for life, Stacey.” “Then so am I,” she replies, chewing her lip, and I want to take it between my teeth as I palm her
I’d burn the universe just to see her smile at me the way she is now. She’s my entire fucking world.
I already know what she looks like with a small bump. I know the way her tits feel when they’re heavy, how much she glows and the way she smiles talking about becoming parents. I could fill her with my cum, impregnate her and she’d be tethered to me forever.
“Not yet. Reality can wait.” Her voice is quiet as she looks down. “Reality scares me.” “Then ignore it with me. Hide with me until reality slams through that door and takes me away from you.”
Luciella speaks next. “There’s been a huge social-media outpouring – reports of corruption in both the police and armed forces from the file you released. Victims have come forward and given evidence. Everyone is backing you, Kade. And I mean everyone.”
I press my hand to the pillow beside her head, leaning up to watch her. “I love you,” I pant. “I’m going to prove to you every day for the rest of my life just how much I love you.”
“We have years. Let’s make it up to each other until we’re old.” Kade takes my hand and presses his lips to the top of it. “Years.”
“Before anyone else, love yourself, Miss Rhodes. You cannot give your all to someone if you aren’t doing the same for yourself.”
“I didn’t fuck her,” he says quietly so the other Russians don’t hear. “I swear I didn’t. I told you I wouldn’t touch her.”
“We are providing you with protection. You and your family, your friends and your partner, Miss Rhodes. No one protected you before, Mr Mitchell, and we understand you went through a lot of traumatic situations and were let down by the system. You were attacked. Blackmailed. You were used as a weapon. And we want to do what we can to show our support.”
Now Base is trapped with a wife he doesn’t want, in a family he hates, to protect the woman he loves. Their story has the potential to be more disastrous than my parents’.
“Because you’re going to be my wife. You’ve already taken my heart, my body, and my butchered soul, so you’ll take my fucking last name too.”
The fucking war is starting, but all I can focus on is sprinting through the burning manor, trying not to breathe in the toxic fumes to find my girlfriend and pregnant sister.
“No time for dramatics,” Tobias Mitchell says in a deep voice, standing above the dead body. He’s wearing the same uniform as his victim. He nods to the door. “Let’s go. The building’s on fire, if you didn’t notice.”
An evil smile crosses Tobias’s face. “Because, son,” he says, raising both brows, “I have Bernadette Sawyer.”
“Well – you are. The sooner you believe that, the better. You’re my other half, and one day, you’re going to be the best father in the world.” I cup his cheek and stroke it. “One day at a time. You’re not a bad person, Kade. You’re everything to me.”
“When we thought you were dead. You’re like a dad to me. And… and you were the first person to believe me. I told my own dad when Chris started abusing me, and he said I was just a hormonal teenager seeking attention. But you didn’t even hesitate to offer me support. It took me so long to find my voice, and it was you who got that voice to work. Thank you. Truly. You saved a little bit of my sanity that day.”
“Fuck you for trying to take him away from me. You failed. You’ll always fail, because he’ll always be mine.”
“I’d be surprised if he didn’t try to fuck me in front of you. How jealous would you get, huh? To see him actually enjoying it. I might suggest it.”
“I hope it kills you a little inside to know that Kade Mitchell will always choose me.”
We went through the wringer with that woman, and she probably thought she’d break our friendship, but in all honesty, I trust Base with my life now more than ever.
But regardless of the scene, Base walks straight over to the stove and looks down at the meat. “Where’d you pull that from?” He reaches for a piece, but my dad snatches his wrist. “Unless you’ve decided to take up cannibalism, I highly suggest you keep your filthy paws off.” It takes Base a second to click, and then he backs away in disgust. “Oh, what the fuck? You’re cooking bits of Archie?”
“You’ll see. Can you bring Bernadette up?” I flatten my lips as Barry huffs and goes to the basement. “You’re going to feed her Archie’s body parts, aren’t you?” “She won’t know until after. A little surprise for her,” he says,
“Bernadette is in the kitchen,” I say to him. “Come watch her eat Archie.” “Fuck,” he replies, spitting into the toilet bowl. “I have a strong stomach, but fuck.”
For two days, Bernadette is forced to eat her husband until we decide what’s next on our let’s-torture-Bernadette-until-we’re-bored plan.
Base hums. “Did you know she thinks she’s enough for him, Stacey?” Stacey glances between us. “How silly.”
“I don’t belong to you, and you don’t belong to me.” Kade lets go of his throat and grabs the back of Base’s head. “I fucking love you, but you need to stop. You’re with my sister.”
The devil trapped me, but I got myself out of her hold. She’s gone, and I’m fucking free.
He sets aside all the drawings of me, the dogs and what he thought our daughter would’ve looked like, then lifts the princess dress with a shaky hand. “I thought it was all gone,” he says quietly. “Everything’s here.” Aria lowers her head to Ewan’s shoulder. “Your little girl will be proud of you,” she says, and it stabs me right in the heart. “Both of you.”
My heart feels like it’s splitting in two. I don’t have enough time to change his mind. I’m the only one begging him to run. Why has everyone given up? Why is no one else yelling at him to get the hell out of the house while he has the chance?
their faces. “I love you,” he says, breathless from running after me. “I’ll love you for the rest of my life. I love you more than fucking anything, but I need you to walk to the porch.”
“We don’t have time to debate this. It’s done. You’re going to kiss me, then you’re going to go to your brother and go live your life. You’re going to dance. You’re going to fall asleep next to the dogs every night, and you’re going to be there for my sister and my niece or nephew. You’re going to live, Stacey. Fucking live for me.” “I can’t live without you.” “I love you. I’m so proud of you,” I say, my eyes burning as I hold her against me. “So, so fucking proud.”
“Kade Mitchell,” she says, reaching up on her tiptoes and kissing me again. “Don’t you get it? You are my life.”
“I think I’ll die if I come again,” I gasp. He yanks me to him by the throat and kisses me. “Then I guess we’re both dying. Because there isn’t a life for me without you.”
