I feel Kade's pulse through his fingers on my neck. I feel the all-consuming rage building like pressure in a sealed container, threatening to spill over and burn through him. My own heart hammers against my ribs, some animal part of my brain screaming a warning that somethingveryfucking bad is about to happen.
"A joke," Kade says, and his voice is eerily calm now. Almost conversational. He moves his hand from my neck to cover my eyes. "Close your eyes and hold still, Princess."
The darkness is immediate and disorienting. I can't see anything, just feel the heat of his scarred palm against my face, the chain pulling taut as I instinctively try to pull away.
Then the gunshot.
The sound is impossibly loud in the enclosed space, ringing in my ears like a bell that won't stop. My whole body jerks, a scream tearing from my throat before I can stop it. Kade's hand stays firm over my eyes, keeping me blind, keeping me from seeing what I already know happened.
The wet thud of a body hitting the floor confirms it.
"Fuck!" Jinx's voice cuts through the ringing. "Kade, what the actual livingfuck?—"
"What the fuck did you do?" I scream before he can finish. My hands are shaking. Actually shaking as I pry Kade's hand away from my eyes. He finally lets me, but he grips my chin before I can turn my head to look at the body Iknowis on the floor.
"Look at me," he orders, the command in his voice anchoring me in my body right when it feels like everything is flying apart. All I can do is stare into those unfeeling gunmetal eyes, frozen. "You aremine," he continues calmly as if nothing remarkable just happened at all. "No onedisrespects what's mine."
His words make me shudder and I have to clench my jaw so he doesn't hear my teeth chattering.
For years, I've lived with the leering of Todd's donors. Danced with wealthy men with wandering hands and roving eyes and been expected to smile and pretend like I don't notice. I can still feel the sting of Todd's backhand slap when I told him his campaign manager had made me uncomfortable.
That night, I learned there was no one coming to save me. No one who was going to protect me, except me.
And as I stare into the eyes of this psychopath who shot his own man dead simply because he uttered the wrong words in my direction, I realize it's the first time anyone has stood up for me, protected me, in years.
And it makes me feel…
Safe.
That's the most terrifying part of all of this. Not the gunshot. Not the body on the floor. The fact thatthisis the only time I've felt safe in four years.
Since I left them.
Kade releases my chin and turns to Jinx, breaking the spell. I almost fall over trying to scramble away from him. Not that I'm getting further than five fucking feet.
"Clean it up." Kade's voice is still that same eerie calm, like he just swatted a fly instead of executing a man. "Get Casey and Reese. Tell them to make it look like the Southside did it. Dump him in their territory. We'll use it to bait Carson. But take her home first."
Before I can make the mistake of looking at the body on the floor, Jinx is blocking my line of sight, his hand gentle but firm on my elbow. There's a click at my neck and I jolt again, every nerve ending bunched up and ready to fight or run or both, but then I see the chain dangling from Kade's hands, both ends unclipped.
"Come on, Princess," he mutters, whisking me out of the room before I can get a good look.
My feet move on autopilot, adrenaline flooding my body and making everything move too quickly around me.
"What thefuck?" I choke out as soon as we're on the other side of the throne room. I wrench myself out of Jinx's grasp and spin to face him. The words burst out of me, permission be damned. "What the fuck just happened?"
"Someone got shot," he answers matter of factly. "Happens all the time."
"Because he said he wanted tofuckme?"
"People have died for less," he says, arching an eyebrow.
I stare at him in disbelief, my adrenaline-addled brain trying desperately to reconcile this version of him that's standing here, completely unaffected by a man getting shot in the face in front of him all of two minutes ago. This isnotthe boy who used to lie and say he wasn't crying during romcoms.
We were each other'semotional supportduring zombie movies, for fuck's sake.
"And you're okay with this?" I demand. "You don't see how completely and utterly fucked all of this is? That Kade fuckingshotsomeone, because of me?"
Even if that's exactly what all this is about. And what I'm asking him to do myself. But Todd Waterson has done a hell of a lot more to deserve it than that creep did just now.
