I stare at Stacey. “I told you not to worry about me.”
“Well I’m going to!”
Someone’s radio beeps, announcing that four SUVs are trying to enter the area.
I briefly close my eyes; I hate that my team is dying. “You need to leave. Now.”
Barry takes her things, standing beside her. “Miss, if you’d board the jet please.”
Another radio goes off. A casualty. Two. Three.
Bernadette’s army is coming.
When Stacey takes a step back, ready to leave, I snatch her wrist and pull her to me, crashing my mouth down on hers with my hands on each side of her face. It’s not deep or passionate but enough that I won’t regret watching her walk away without kissing her.
And fuck me, feeling her lips on mine is a dream, especially when she kisses me back and the world ceases to exist.
I’m no longer standing in the airfield. I’m playing dares in a tent with the girl I’ve fancied since I was fifteen. Her lips are on mine, and I’m no longer in darkness, swallowed by the shadows of my wrongdoings.
The butterflies are still there. The nerves and the shake of my hands.
She told me not to kiss her, but she isn’t pushing me away either.
I taste her tears as she whimpers against my lips. “Come with me.”
I release her and step back, putting distance between us, and shake my head. “I can’t.”
Another gunshot, and I turn to Barry. “Get everyone on. You included.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“Because they’ll kill you all, and I’m not letting that happen. Get on the fucking jet – that’s an order.”
He nods, but I see his hesitation over leaving me.
“Miss Rhodes,” he says to Stacey, trying to usher her on.
She shakes her head. “Please, Kade.”
“Go,” I tell Stacey. “Don’t reach out to me. They’ll have my phone.”
She looks broken as she nods in agreement, taking a few steps towards the stairs, then stopping and running back to me.
Time stands still as our mouths collide in a deep, desperate kiss as she throws herself into my arms. I pull her to me as her lips move, part, and we open to each other, letting our tongues finally taste. I lift her off her feet and walk towards the steps. Her legs wrap around me, and I revel in the softness of her mouth.
It’s like I’m visiting heaven while living in hell. But I want to steal her and bring her to my chaos, set fucking fire to her world and keep her in mine.
Not even the devil could take this moment from me.
This is what I wanted to do earlier. I wanted to taste her moans and suck on her tongue, to swallow her gasps as I pushed into her.
Instead, I’m tasting her tears, swallowing her inconsolable sobs as she begs me to come on the plane with her.
“I’ll tell you everything,” she says. “I promise I’ll tell you everything.”
I’ve no idea what she’s talking about. Everything?
“We can make it work,” she adds. “We can help each other.”
“Sir, we need to leave right now.”
My nose nudges hers. “It’s over. It’s been over for two years. If we keep doing this, you’ll be killed.”
She sobs and shakes her head. “No.”
I press my mouth to hers again as I lower her to her feet. “I can’t be selfish.”
Stacey takes a step back, covering her mouth with the back of her hand, tears falling down her face, and I don’t want to let go of her other hand. A lump is in my throat, my chest is tight, and I want to keep kissing her. I want to go with her.
But then our fingers separate, and she turns away.
It’s over as soon as it starts – I let go of her forever, and she’s vanishing into the jet, not daring to give me one last look. Everything else is done. We’re done. And that’s how it needs to be. I’ll stay away from her. I’ll do anything to make sure Bernadette never finds her.
Barry stands at the top of the metal stairs, looking behind me, and I know I’m screwed. “Keep her safe,” I say. “Don’t worry about me.”
The door of the jet closes, and I blow out a breath and shove my hand into my hair. I can hear all the cars now. Speeding. I guess the team I had on the gates is dead. Everyone who was on shift and didn’t make it to the jet is dead. So many innocent lives lost, all because they were loyal to me .
At least Stacey is safe.
I light a joint and watch the jet back into the runway, and relief fills me as it takes to the sky, carrying Stacey away from trouble. I blow out toxic smoke as a gun is pressed to the back of my head.
Everything goes dark as pain smacks into my skull.
39
KADE
My body jerks as frigid water splashes over me. “Wake the fuck up.”
I gasp and try to catch my breath. I’m strapped to a chair in front of a table. Archie is sitting opposite me with a folder, ankle to his knee, dressed in his usual navy suit.
A guy with an empty bucket is standing beside me, bulletproof vest and all, and I make sure to remember his face, so I can fucking mutilate him.
“You’re a sneaky son of a bitch,” Archie says, getting to his feet and leaning his hands on the steel table.
“My dad would have your tongue for speaking about my mother that way,” I reply with a smug grin. “But you’re too much of a pussy to say that to his face, aren’t you?”
Archie argued until his face was blue that it was stupid to be involved with the son of Tobias Mitchell and they should stop messing with me before my father retaliated, but Bernadette, being the horrible bitch she is, convinced him to keep going.
He started watching me with her, with others. Then he took his turn.
It was sickening. I’d broken up with Stacey weeks prior, and the sting from her betrayal was still there. I just wanted to get drunk all the time, but they introduced me to ecstasy, cocaine, acid and whatever the fuck else they pumped into me.
Then the violence started. They made me strangle someone to death. My first kill. Then they sent me to other countries to be trained. Russia. Poland. France. Latvia. Spain. Italy. Austria. Brazil. Beijing.
When I attended private parties with Bernadette on my arm, other women began inquiring about me. My bank account started filling up, surpassing one million, then two, three. Kill contracts amped it up to eight figures.
As rich as I was becoming, I was an empty vessel. I still am, but in the past week or so, I became that teenager again, who had no idea how to use a gun or the deep horrors of the underworld. Just the nervous kid who fancied his sister’s best friend.
Archie punches me out of my trance.
“Your father is nothing but a mindless drone. Can he even speak with all the medication he’s on? Does he even remember who the fuck you are when he spaces out?” He scoffs. “Fucking Tobias Mitchell. You’re just like him. Useless, pathetic, pieces of shit.”
I smirk. “Sure. And that’s why you need to beat me while I’m tied to a chair, right? I’m a piece of shit like my dad, yet you can’t take me one-on-one. You’re an embarrassment, Archie. Your wife got so bored of your dick that she had to fuck a teenager for excitement.”
I tip back as he boots my chair, and the air rushes out of my lungs as I hit the ground.