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If Base dies and I don’t find my sister and Stacey, Bernadette better hide on a different fucking planet, because nothing, and I mean nothing, will stop me from ripping that rotten bitch to shreds.
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.
Hands grab at my face, forcing me to look up into the eyes of my new master. Tobias Mitchell. My lips part, all my fear washing away as I manage, “To-Tobias?” Kade’s father grabs the blanket right next to us, wraps it around me, then pulls me in for a hug I didn’t realise I needed. “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.”
“What about Luci—” “Sebastian Prince’s uncle won her auction.
“You didn’t come for visitation, and I got bored.” “Bored…” “I’m a little irrational and impulsive. Plus, I had a feeling something was wrong – call it a sixth sense.”
I know your children are your priority, but I appreciate that you’re here for me.” “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.”
I was alive when I was around Kade. And now I’m alive because of his father.
still can’t believe you’re here. You escaped and—” His phone rings, cutting me off. Tobias silences it as he says, “You can yell at me later. I did what I had to do for my family, and you” – he flicks my nose – “you are part of it.”
I watch in horror as Tobias drags the man towards the rack of blades and starts smashing his face into them so fast, blood splatters everywhere, cutting himself in the process.
Little did I know, when he helped me off the bridge and drove me home, that would be the last time I’d see him. He broke his promise and, along with Kade, vanished from my life in the process.
Archie had ordered that I be tied to a chair, then his fucking asshole guards made me watch the recording of Stacey being raped. Every second of it was replayed and replayed. Me and four of their guys watched her be abused over and over while Archie made comments that resulted in me biting his ear off.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to go look for her. I’m livid. I want to rip these walls down and blow the entire world up for her, to snap the neck of the guy who has her. I’d burn him first but keep him alive enough to feel every agonising second. I’d carve the name of every victim who’s fallen by my hands into his skin – the ones I remember anyway. I’d cut his eyeballs out, snap each finger then pull up each nail. I’d drill into each thigh and nail him to a chair.
“Tell me about her.” “You know who Stacey is,” I grumble. “Don’t make me talk about her.”
“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.”
“You have to admit, it’ll make for awkward dinner-table chat when I’m married to your sister. Do you think your dad will snap me in half when he finds out I’ve made both his offspring come?”
“I’m going to fucking kill you, Freckles.”
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’m sorry,” I whisper, the two words broken. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”
“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 it. The scream – it’ll be burned into me forever.
Chris is thrashing again as Tobias holds his wrist to the wood, and Kade saws off four of his fingers. The digits drop to the floor like bullet casings, and I nearly vomit everywhere. Chris sounds like an animal being slaughtered. “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.” 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.”
“She. Mine.” “Yours?” Kade wipes blood from his eyes with the back of his hand. “Everyone, get out.”
Barry gestures for me to follow, and when I take a step, Kade says, “Not you.”
I want the real Kade back. This Kade Mitchell is a glitch in the universe. But he’s my glitch, not Bernadette’s, not Archie’s, not the men and women who paid for his forced services and punctured him with needles to dope him up. Under the skin of the devil they created, buried in the fucking void of the darkness he’s trapped in, I will find a glimmer of his humanity. Why? Because he’s mine.
Survivors deal with abuse differently, and not everyone can speak up. I don’t want to hear that from you again.”
Tobias leans down and picks up the severed foot. “Think fast,” he says as he throws it at Barry’s face.
There’s a tattoo over it, and something in my chest twists as I make out what it is. A bunch of dead roses have been inked across his ribs to hide an injury. I have ones that look the exact same on my back.
“Moya vechnost
My eternity
“Are you going to keep being a shitty friend, or are you going to get ready and welcome my daughter home?” “Sometimes I struggle to find reasons why we’re friends.” “We aren’t friends. We’re family. Now – out of bed.”
“Sebastian Ivanovich Prince,”
“Kade’s gone! He ran out the back door five minutes ago!”
“It was never going to be an easy road. At least now I can do something good for my family. Live your life the way you were supposed to without me, Doctor.”
Everyone dies at some point. It’s inevitable. Death is strange and unavoidable. The endpoint to every living thing. There will be a quiet moment in our lives when the world stops moving, our lungs stop working and we close our eyes for the last time. And that terrifies me.
People die every day. Every hour. Every minute. Every second. One moment, we’re here. Next, we’re not. Where does one go when they pass? Their memories stay with us, their lifeless bodies waiting to be buried or cremated. But what truly happens? Do they become stars? Are they ghosts who stand by our sides when we need them the most? Are psychics legit, and do the dead communicate during readings?
One blink, we have a life and a future and a purpose. We can breathe fresh air into our lungs and listen to the rain pattering against a window. We meet someone amazing, go on dates and get to know them until the butterflies are unbearable. We buy books that sit on our bookcases and gather dust. We can listen and sing along to our favourite songs until our throats get sore. Watch movies and cuddle on the couch until we fall asleep. We can walk our dogs under the pale moonlight and laugh with our friends while living in the moment. Make plans for the future and celebrate milestones. Study and
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Even if that means taking a bullet for you… Jason kept his promise.
