CADEnce (Deception Book 2) (9 page)

Grabbing the soap from a shelf behind me he began cleaning my body, his touch soft like a whisper, an echo from a firmer touch I was used to. “I missed you so damn much. I missed these dimples.” His hand brushed over the dimples in my lower back. He dropped to his knees, soaking his jeans and creating a red torrent with the water rinsing away the blood. “I missed this tiny scar here from when you threw an empty bottle in temper and felt so guilty when it smashed that you ran over to scoop the pieces up and kneeled on a piece.” His lips kissed my knee. “I missed your unruly hair when you first wake up, the glint in your eye when you’re turned on.” He inhaled against my mound. My back arched and then shame made my entire body lock up. “I’m sorry, Faye. I shouldn’t be touching you, I know, but I fucking died when they told me you had. I need to know you’re really here. Come lay on the bed with me, please. Let me hold you.”

“I need you to hold me,” I whispered. “More than anything, Cade.”

The sorrow in his eyes darkened and I gasped when he reached down and scooped me into his arms, water dripping a trail from the bathroom back to the bedroom where he lay me down gently on the bed and curled beside me.

MY HEAD THROBBED, PAIN EXPLOSIVE in both palms, but her scent saturated me and faded everything else. It wasn’t her pillow or her memory, it was her. Her silky strands fell in layers over my chest, her soft cheek resting on my ribs. The curves of her naked body curled around my own. She was home.

I couldn’t breathe from the pure elation of having her in my arms. Nothing would ever erase how I found her. Knowing what he’d been doing to her. I wasn’t prepared for the outcome I got but I should have known not to underestimate the bastard.

“He has your tattoos.” Her voice was so small I was sure I’d imagined her words. Her body shifted from mine until she looked up at me. “He even has your tattoos. How did I break him so fully, Cade?”

Dante was a twisted fuck who dabbled in what he made. Even drug dealers never sampled their own product. Dante was creating his and it put him on the path of destruction. Faye didn’t know I once kept tabs on him. I wanted to find him when he disappeared and cut us all out of his life. When he broke her heart. I needed answers and instead found him in a volatile mood, with some whore in his bed. He didn’t want to talk or listen to me. I followed him around for a week before I determined he was never like us and would never come home. If I’d known how much of a dark path his soul had gone down I would have stepped in but I wasn’t a fucking saint. I had my own dark corners and questionable patches in my life; I never let any of it touch Faye, though. How could I let him do this to her, to us? I needed answers. I needed to know what he put her through and why.

“Faye, can you tell me what happened?”

Her whole frame stiffened against me. She pulled away and rushed to the bathroom, slamming the door closed. I heard the taps turn on and what sounded like whimpering.

A loud knock on the bedroom door startled me. I didn’t want whoever it was to hear my girl breaking, so I wrapped the sheet around my waist and went to the door, slipping out of the room.

“Hey,” Amy said, looking over me, a worried frown marring her pretty features. “How is she?”

I swallowed the scream threatening to tear me apart and shrugged my shoulders. “I’ve never felt this helpless before. How do I get her through this?”

“Patience.” Fucking patience? I wanted to fix her now, erase every bad thing he ever did to her. Amy reached onto her tip toes, slinging her small arms around my shoulders and hugged me to her. She had been a Godsend over the last few months.

The door clicking open and then shut with an “Oh, sorry” made Amy pull away. I opened the door and found Faye in a dressing gown. “I didn’t, I should have . . .”

“What, baby?”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.” She shook her head and lowered her eyes to the floor.

I marched over to her, raising my hand to cup her chin. She flinched, shattering my soul. Amy’s gasp brought my eyes to her. She was looking at the bruises coloring Faye’s neck.

“You never have to fear me, baby.” I pushed past the hurt and anger simmering under the surface of my façade. I needed vengeance.

“I’m sorry.”

Fuck, I couldn’t handle this.

“Cade.” Amy said my name with caution. “This was delivered to the room, it’s for Faye.” She opened her palm which had a cell phone in it. I snatched it from her.

“Who the fuck delivered it?”

“Someone left it at reception. I went down to collect it. I didn’t tell Frank, I came straight to you.”

The phone sparked to life in my hand.

Incoming call from Dante

That motherfucker! Pressing end, my eyes went to Faye who stared at the cell like it was about to explode and kill us all. Silent seconds passed as I tried to comprehend that he knew exactly where we were and was contacting Faye like he hadn’t kidnapped her at all.

Beep, beep.

Multimedia message.

The phone disappeared from my hand in a flash. Faye took off running and locked herself in the bathroom with the phone. My head felt too heavy for my shoulders; the room was spinning. Amy’s hand curled around my bicep, guiding me to sit on the bed.

“I’m going to get Alex.”

I SAW THE DESTRUCTION OF his heart flicker in his eyes as I snatched the phone from him. My own heart was about to implode. I would rather have died than let him see any video Dante had of me.

I clicked the video and muted the sound. It was of me naked and bound in red fabric. It lasted only seconds.

The phone rang in my hand and I answered it.

“I fucking hate you!”

“Keep telling yourself that, Star. You belong here with me and I’m already having withdrawal symptoms. I will give you a month! And Star . . .”

“What?”

“I know everything. You never know who is really working for me. You let him fuck you, even touch you and I’ll know . . . and I’ll kill him.”

“You’re killing
ME,
Dante. Please untouch me, unlove me, unhate me; delete it all. Erase us and let me do the same. Let me go. Please.”

His bitter laugh echoed down the line, stabbing the knife already burrowed in my heart further in. “I could never do that! You have my baby inside your womb. Things are how they were always supposed to be. You belong here with me and you’ll come home and play your role.”

“This is not a fucking game!”

“You’re right about that! I only play with my prey and you, my Belle, want to be with me, want me to punish and break you down just as much as I want to do it. You crave the hunger I elicit inside you! I’m your prey and we both know it.”

He was so wrong. I only craved Cade. He fulfilled everything I ever wanted and Dante had destroyed us.

“See you soon, my Belle.”

The line went dead.

I caught sight of my own reflection; I couldn’t bear to look at myself. Anger, grief and self-hatred bubbled to the surface. I threw the phone into the mirror, shattering it into a million pieces that could never be fixed. Just like me.

The door crashed open from the weight of Cade’s shoulder ramming it. He reached for me but I stepped back, raising my hands to stop him.

“Don’t touch me,” I begged. Ignoring the verbal bullet killing him, Amy ushered him out and reached for me. Her soft warm hand curled around my own, pulling me from the bathroom and leading me to sit on the bed.

“You’ve cut your feet. I’ll clean them up for you.”

I didn’t answer. I just stared into space, everything disappearing around me as I retreated inside myself.

I needed a little time to breathe. I believed I knew what grief was, what lonely was, heartbreak. I’d lived at the height of love, and at the bottom, and this was the most brutal pain I had ever experienced. It was like someone was sitting on my chest, sucking out my soul from the inside. I wanted to be with Cade, I wanted to be wherever he was. I wanted to marry him and bear his children, and live the life we planned but Dante took an eraser and scrubbed out that future. He wanted me and I would never be free of him. Cade would never be safe. This baby would never be safe.

“I know everything. You never know who is really working for me. You let him fuck you, even touch you and I’ll know . . . and I’ll kill him.”

I closed my eyes to the relentless replay giving me a headache. I couldn’t do this. I needed space.