My lip trembles again, and I get annoyed with myself for being so weak. I handed that boy my heart when I was a teen, and even now, years later, he still holds it. But this time, he’s crushing it with vengeance, for things out of my control.
I wasn’t lying when I said that what happened wasn’t my fault. I had no idea what I was doing or what goddamn reality I was in. All I knew was that I’d never felt that level of panic before. I’d just wanted my boyfriend and only found out the following morning that I wasn’t in my boyfriend’s bed.
I’ve no idea what happened to him since we split up, but I’m not sure the Kade I fell for still exists.
I curl into the bed and attempt to relax my thoughts. It takes me nearly four hours to feel less on the verge of a breakdown. When I do, I pull my phone out of my leather backpack and turn it on.
My notifications go wild. Most are from an unknown number – Chris on a burner.
In one text he describes in alarming detail what he’s going to do to me when I get home, but instead of feeling fear, I swipe and delete the chain then block the number.
Kyle tells me to have a safe flight.
Lu informs me she is never surviving this trip with Base. They went out last night for drinks with her mum and Ewan. Base had a threesome in the room beside hers then asked if she wanted to join in.
I’m tagged in a few videos and pictures from the studio. My girls are practising for the competition coming up soon. A few others are pole and hoop stunts, stretches and dance moves.
Once I respond to some of my students, my phone beeps with illegible messages from Kade.
Kade: Stcy Awke?
Kade: Goooodnghjt freecks.
20
KADE
“How many do you think are inside?”
Barry sits beside me in the car, which is parked across from the building Stacey and I left two hours ago. Three SUVs are parked up too, keeping an eye on the surroundings as I strap the ammo belt around my waist and fill each compartment with magazines and daggers.
I look over and tilt my head from side to side as I contemplate my answer. “Maybe fifty.”
“Easy then,” he says in his Geordie accent.
I huff a laugh at his sarcasm. “They’re all armed, so probably not.”
“Are you sure they know her name?”
“Do you not listen?” I snap, scowling at him. “I’ve gone over the exact conversation five times.”
“I just find it a little dramatic to be doing this over a name.”
“You’ve been working for me for over a year and you think this is dramatic?”
He grimaces. “There was that time you tried to burn someone’s house down. For the same girl, may I add. Is this not a step too far?”
I stop loading my belt and pinch the bridge of my nose. “If they tell Bernadette her name, she’ll track Stacey and then probably manage to dig up our past. I don’t want to imagine the shit she’d do to her to make me more compliant.”
Barry knows everything. I had to tell him, or he would’ve thought I was just stalking some innocent girl. He sends reports to me when I haven’t the time to watch her. He thinks, as a twenty-one-year-old, I should find another obsession that doesn’t drive me to murder.
Am I extreme? Yes. But for my own fucking sanity, I need to know what she’s doing. Is that weird? To hate her yet need to know what she’s doing? Even though she’s a snake?
A snake who still belongs to me.
“You plan on killing an entire gang for a girl who apparently cheated on you?”
I grit my teeth and try not to smash his face in. “Yes,” I reply as I throw open the door. “Did you manage to find out who called her back at the hotel?”
“No. The phone has a fucking steel barrier around it.”
“Keep digging. ”
Barry doesn’t respond as he, too, gets out of the car and checks his ammo belt, hidden under his suit. I made him wear the same one as me, since the material takes most of the power from gunshots.
Fifteen guys follow us, but I have three more on standby and a sniper on the roof of the building across from the warehouse. Heavy-metal music plays from inside as we hack the gate.
Our steps are silent in the warehouse, our guns aimed as we take the stairs. I send some guys left, another group right, and Barry and three others follow me.
“Clear,” someone says through my earpiece as another says, “One down.”
I keep my gun raised, aiming forward as I side-step from a corner, the silencer muffling the shot I take. The bullet sinks into the man’s skull, killing him instantly. Four more go down, and we stick explosives to the walls.
Bernadette sent me to Russia for intense training with their armed forces, a group of soldiers working under her pay who didn’t hold back on torturing me while I learned how to fight, shoot, stab and resist interrogation tactics.
Barry stands beside me as I put away my gun and grab two blades, fisting the handles and signalling for my team to follow me.
I shove a knife under someone’s chin, ripping his jaw clean off, then stab him in the eye while covering his mangled mouth with my palm.
“Go to sleep,” I whisper in his ear as I yank the blade from his eye and slice it across his throat.
His body drops at my feet, and I step over it as I wipe my knife on his denim vest .
“The leaders will be in the basement,” I say to Barry. “Leave Crawley for me.”
As the elevator lowers, the rest of my team take the stairs down. I check my pistol is loaded then flip a blade in my hand while I wait. It was only hours ago I was in this shaft with Stacey, holding her in my arms to try to calm her down.
Now I’m covered in blood, adrenaline in my veins like a kid at Christmas Eve.
As soon as the elevator reaches the bottom, the sliding metal doors creak open, and gunshots are fired from both sides. The impact of a bullet hitting my armoured vest throws me into a wall, the searing pain stealing my breath away.
Before the dickhead can finish me off, I launch a blade at his face, and Barry breaks his neck.
We set a few more explosives as we run through the basement, shooting anyone and everyone. I dodge an axe coming straight for my chest.
Through my earpiece, one of my guys says, “Fuller is injured.”
I swear to myself and head towards them to find Fuller with a bullet wound in his chest.
“Keep pressure on it.” I point to one of my newest members. “Take him to our medic. Do not go to the hospital.”
He agrees and heads off as Barry and three others stay on my left. We dodge and shoot, killing at least twenty gang members before we plant the last explosive.
The heavy-metal music is still playing, and as I load my gun, I absently nod along and whistle to the tune.
I grin at Barry like a crazy person. “Ready? ”
“You’re insane – do you know that?”
“Yep.”
Blood stains my face, and Barry is almost unrecognisable under the crimson splatters on his. I signal for everyone to follow us out, and once the elevator has taken us back up – the metal doors barely stopping the bullets from penetrating them – I cut the power.
A fist flies at me from behind, the burn on my cheek welcoming through all the adrenaline pumping in my veins.
Crawley limps to the side and grabs hold of the wall, evidently trying to flee the place and leave his men behind. I order my team to lower their aim.