Restitution (The Edge of Darkness, #3)

by Leigh Rivers

The warm blood of my best friend seeps through my fingers as I keep pressure on the gunshot wound in his chest.

We aren’t together – haven’t been for a while – but Stacey is my girl. Mine. And people don’t fuck with what’s mine.

Tobias Mitchell.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re okay. You’re safe with me,” he says softly as he strokes my hair, letting me cry into his chest. “I found you, little one.”

“You are also my priority. I would have always hunted for you to the ends of the fucking earth, little one. I know you didn’t have the best relationship with your father, your brothers are useless pricks, and my son is shackled to a bitch on an insane power trip, but you have me.”

My dad never protected me. He loved me, but as soon as Nora came into the picture, I was a second thought to him.

I was alive when I was around Kade. And now I’m alive because of his father.

“You did not need to pull my hair.” “I like pulling hair.”

I accidentally forget to hold a branch, and it slaps Tobias in the face. I cringe and glance over my shoulder, mouthing an oops. He looks like he wants to stab me.

I love Kade more than anything in the world. He was the only person who kept me breathing. He was the air to my starved lungs.

If Stacey ever lets me hold her hand again, will she feel all the death I’ve caused?

I try to think of a time when I had everything. It used to make me feel better, to think of her and what we had together; to think of the feelings that rushed through me when I was falling madly in love with Stacey Rhodes.

My girl. Even when faced with the worst kind of horror, she fucking fought. I didn’t think it was possible to love her more than I already do, but I do.

“You die, I die.”

And I fucking miss Stacey more than I can explain.

“Tell me about her.” “You know who Stacey is,” I grumble. “Don’t make me talk about her.” “We have fuck all else to do,” he replies, the mattress squeaking as he lies down again. “Come on. I’ve sucked your dick, for fuck’s sake. You can at least appease me by telling me who actually made you hard.” I grimace. “If you ever speak of that again, or any of the other times, I’ll put a bullet in your heart.”

Do you think your dad will snap me in half when he finds out I’ve made both his offspring come?”

How can you lie there and declare war on the world when you treated her like that?”

Base doesn’t speak for a few minutes. My eyes are burning. “I take it you loved her.” Loved. Past tense. The way he says the word almost makes me flinch. We’ve been split up for three years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever stopped loving her. I don’t know how to not love her. Not a day goes by that I don’t despise myself for leaving her.

“The next time you see Stacey, you better apologise and promise never to be a cunt again.” “No shit,” I retort, my voice hollow. “I’ll fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness the next time I see her.”

“You need to assassinate one of them, Kade.” She opens the first one and pushes the file towards me. It opens, and my eyes widen as she says, “Your father.” She does the same with the next. A picture of Base. “Your best friend.” My eyes lift to her, and I glare as she opens the third. “Or your lover.”

But only because Base gave up his entire life to save her.

In another life, they would make the perfect couple, but in this one, they love each other so dangerously there’s no chance of ever being together.

The person answers on the first ring, but they don’t speak. “Um, hello?” “Ah, Freckles. It’s been a while since I heard your voice.”

“You know the best part about accepting kill contracts? It’s the chase. The adrenaline that comes from knowing someone is terrified, running, hoping they see the next day. I’m going to make you run. And I don’t mean the way I did before you whored yourself for me at the party.” He inhales deeply, taking a drag of his smoke. “I’m giving you a day to run. Make it exciting for me. Because once I find you, I’m not going to bury my cock inside you – I’m not going to kiss you until we can’t breathe.” I go pale as he deeply chuckles, inhaling smoke. “I’m going to fucking kill you, Freckles.”

“I don’t know what’s happening with you, but if you need to do this assignment for your freedom, I’m willing to let you do it. I…” Her voice breaks, and so does my heart. “I don’t have anything to live for, but you do.”

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

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.

I nearly drop to my fucking knees, staring at her little dimple and the freckles dusting her cheeks and nose. She’s truly a work of art. A masterpiece. And I’m proud to say that I was her first love.

“That I’m still in love with you.”

Stacey shakes her head. “Then she’ll kill you.” “I’m aware.” She flinches as I tuck a curl behind her ear. “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.”

“Then live. Finish your assignment.” Her breaths are uneven as she shakes. “Please live for me.”

“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.”

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.

“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.” On the last word, he puts a bullet in Chris’s knee, and I close my eyes at the sound that comes from him. “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.”

“I’m going to make you come in front of this piece of shit.”

“Hurt him with me, Freckles. Make him pay for ruining our lives.”

“Don’t be afraid of me, Freckles,” he calls, spitting out blood that’s leaked into his mouth. “This is for us.”

I don’t want him to hide.

“She’s not there. She’s not there. She’s not fucking there.” They’re uneven, his face red as he forces each one out. “Stop looking. She’s not there. She’s never there. Not there. No. She’s not there.”

“I’m here. It’s me, Stacey. I’m not going to hurt you.” He slaps the side of his head, his mutters growing louder, and my eyes burn while I watch my first and only love try not to destroy himself.

My voice cracks. “I’m your Freckles, remember?”

“We have two dogs. Milo and Hopper.” They’re with the manor staff, waiting patiently for their master to return. “Do you remember when we used to walk them on the grounds, and they’d get us all muddy when they dragged us through the woods? You always held the leads because I let them go when they ran, and you’d need to chase them through the manor.”

“You always loved my singing voice, even though you said you didn’t. It made you laugh. We laughed a lot. When we were drunk and singing karaoke in Greece, or even when we were just lying in bed and talking. We always had that, you know? We kept each other smiling. You gave me a reason to live when I felt like I was already dead inside.”

“You still make me smile. When I think of you, I feel alive. I think of our first date a lot. London. Dinner. Hotel rooms and more firsts. They’re ours. All of those memories are ours. Kade and Stacey. Stacey and Kade. What we had was special.”

“I haven’t been able to watch The Greatest Showman without crying. I don’t even sing during ‘From Now On’ – can you believe that?”

“I’m glad you designed some tattoos for me. I still have them,”

pull my hoodie down at the back, showing him our initials warped together with the design he made. “I’ll never cover this one. It’s my favourite.”

“She’s not there. Don’t talk to her. She’s not there. You aren’t crazy. We aren’t crazy. Because she’s not there.”

“And when we got dared to kiss, I got butterflies. I fancied you, and I really didn’t want to embarrass myself during my first kiss.”