The Deception series boxset: FaCade, Cadence, Beneath Innocence (30 page)

I needed Cade.
Cade!
Emotions overflowed in me, buckling my legs. My heart fractured inside my chest. He loved me . . . what did he think happened? The reporter mentioned a plane crash. Oh, God! Dante was so twisted!

“Plane crash?” I hiccupped on the sorrow crawling up my throat. His answering smirk caused goose bumps to scatter over my pale skin. I looked and felt like a ghost. He had sucked the life from me. The pain was so explosive it ricocheted through every fiber, destroying me. I loved this man. I gave him seven years. I knew he was possessive, but cruel? Evil? No, this wasn’t the man who left; this man had fed on hate and spite and morphed into a monster.

“Poetic, no? You all thought I had died in the plane I should have been on. My own family just accepted the loss! No surprise they accepted yours too!” Leaning down he palmed my face in his grip, forcing me to stare into the angry black abyss of his gaze.

“He just accepted your death! The fucking weasel was always the weak one! He doesn’t care about you. He just wanted what was mine! He hated that I was superior to him.”

“Cade loves you, Dante! You’re his brother. He never once made a move on me when we were together!”

His features contorted into a sneer and he pushed me away from him. “He always looked at you like a lost puppy! He planned to take you from me. Acting all fucking whipped and coming to your aid WHEN YOU SHOULD HAVE COME TO ME!”

His anger ignited the atmosphere, every hair rising on my body. My instincts controlled my movements making me back away, one arm wrapping around my stomach to protect the life inside. His eyes flared as he stalked towards me. “You don’t need to protect my child from ME!”

Malik grasped Dante’s shoulder.

“Take your fucking hand off me if you want to keep it.”

“The press will be here any second. That reporter was just the start,” Malik warned.

My insides churned and my head was fuzzy with the overload, too much happening and too much knowledge suddenly available at the same time. I couldn’t process everything.

“This isn’t real.”

I laughed. I couldn’t stop it from pouring out of me, my hysterical cackles loud in the mounting silence. Tears stained my cheeks and my stomach muscles tightened and ached.

“Shit, she broke.” Malik sighed, making me laugh even more until my giggles became shattered sobs.

“This isn’t real. I died, or I’m dreaming. Argh! Wake me up!” I dragged myself to my feet; both men were looking at me with furrowed brows but they weren’t real. “Cade! Wake me up! Wake me up!” I crashed my fists down on the chest of the man wearing Cade’s beautiful face. “Wake me up!” My screams left my throat burning.

The hit to my cheek shocked me silent. The knuckles from his backhanded slap impacted my cheekbone, leaving a violent throb. He caught me before I could fall.

“Calm down,” he warned. “And Star . . .” I turned my head to him. “Don’t ever call me by his name again. You need to pull yourself together. You have a press release to prepare for!”

My mouth dropped open. There was no way I could do that; I didn’t even know what I was going to say.

“You tell them everything has been a misunderstanding and you took some time off to prepare for a secret wedding. You’ve been on this island off the grid so you didn’t know of any news of a plane crash and have kept in contact with your agent who kept all this from you.”

My head was spinning, my body shaking. His grip tightened on my arms. “You will tell them that or we play them the footage. What would everyone think of their little starlet then? Crawling around like a dog. Pissing herself and then begging me to fuck her. What would Cade think of you getting off on being used and watched like a filthy whore?”

My heart squeezed too tightly, despair gnawing at my insides. “I hate you! I don’t deserve this, Dante! What happened to you?”

“You happened!”

I remembered a different man. A storm had started brewing when we were together, the grey clouds gathered with his moods, but it was nothing compared to the black skies that eclipsed the Dante before me now. A man who broke his friend’s hand. A man who killed.

“I’ll tell the police you killed Theo!”

His hand moved to my throat, his breath heating my face as he spoke in a deathly quiet voice. “Did I? Prove it.” Oh, God. Was he lying about killing Theo? Was that monster still out there? “I’ll let Theo have you if you don’t do as you’re told.”

Bile rose, filling my mouth.

“Dante she’s choking.” Malik’s voice echoed in my thoughts as a fuzzy hue stole my sight. I was released from the deadly grip, vomit spewing onto the floor.

“I warned you.”

My eyes shot up to see Dante grab Malik’s hand from his shoulder and pin it to the table. No one had time to react when the letter opener rose in Dante’s other hand and plunged down into Malik’s.

Then the hue stole me completely.

I FELT JENSON’S EYES ON me as Frank, Taylor and Sed filed into the hotel room. I knew he saw the side of me that had been hidden for years; the monster that resided in the darkest parts of me, slowly peeling back my skin from the inside and crawling to the surface. I didn’t stop it; I needed that side of me for what was to come.

I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but to be honest, I was hoping it wasn’t. My body craved bloodshed, yearning for a reason to rip some fucker to shreds and watch their pain morph into agony. That side of me crept closer and I became jittery with the rage simmering inside.

Dante was the academic and I was more the “rough around the edges” type. I coasted through School I dabbled in drugs and alcohol, partied hard on the weekends with Jenson and our friends. This consisted of bare knuckle fighting, beer flowing on tap, and girls eager to please; sometimes in twos or threes. The thing about teenage boys is when they can’t have the one they want, they have many of the ones they can.

Jenson’s folks were always away, leaving him the keys to their castle. That’s no joke; his place really was like a castle. His family came from old money. They’d nearly stroked out when Jenson came home with a blond Mohawk and told them he’d started his now extremely successful band, Beneath Innocence. I used to play with them but took the acting route like my father. It was an easy path to go down and made me incredibly rich, incredibly fast.

My passion though, was fighting. I held titles in Taekwondo and kickboxing. I nearly followed my dream into ultimate fighting; that was until Faye gave me her heart. I couldn’t risk watching it stop every time I stepped in the ring.

I wanted to fund other young up and coming fighters. Give someone else opportunities they may never otherwise get. I could be around what I loved, with who I loved, and not worry.

Damn, I missed her. My insides were left numb since I found out she was alive. I didn’t want to let myself feel too much until I could touch her again, and wrap her in the safety of my embrace and never let her leave it again.

I greeted the guys, mine and Faye’s personal security, as they prepared their weapons, each of them as eager as me to get Faye back where she belonged. Frank was close to her; she was like a daughter to him and he would have given up his life for her.

“Still no word from Theo,” Frank said without lifting his eyes from his numerous firearms laid out on the bed before him. His tone confirmed his thoughts.

“You think he’s sold her out?”

“Yep.” His usual simple answer made my heart snarl. The fucking cunt! I knew he was a little runt, just in this business for money, not love and loyalty to Faye, but fuck. The bastard. He would also be on the list.

“Then he is included.” I looked at each of them, their simple nods confirming my command. “I don’t care who takes who, but I want Dante. He’s mine. Is that clear?”

A round of acknowledgements announced their allegiance, except for Jenson who was still quiet.

I turned to him, my brow quirked in question. “You need to say something, Jen, then say it.”

“You know I love you, man. You know I would do anything for you.”

“But?” I pressed when he swallowed back what he wanted to say.

“But . . .” He cringed slightly then blanked his face to say what I would allow only him as my best friend to say. “It’s Dante, Cade. You know how she felt about him. What if . . .”

“If she still loves him?” He nodded, watching my face for a reaction. I pulled back the anger; the need to punish him for releasing his thoughts was overpowering. “I know Faye better than anyone in this room, or the fucking world for that matter.” My temper built and I clenched my fists to rein it in. “She would let me know. She’s the most honest person I know. Her guilt was thick when we first got together, even after years of waiting for Dan . . . that cunt. There is no way she would just leave me for him, especially without talking to me first.”

He nodded but didn’t hide his skepticism. “Okay. It’s just . . .”

“I’ve got him!” Kenny shouted from his place at the back of the room, his fingers still thrashing the keyboard of his laptop. Kenny, the lead guitarist for Jenson’s rock group, was a whiz at anything technical, from hacking into the most secret of government files to software programming. He was poached by the CIA straight out of high school but preferred to piss them off rather than help them. He was a complete stoner but also a freaking genius. It had been his underhand dealings with high up people who required bank accounts hacking and altering, secret files discovering or even people finding that had provided Jenson’s group with the money to start up their band when Jenson’s parents stopped funding his lifestyle.

He’d frantically worked for the last two hours, trying to find out where Dante could be.

A map was displayed on his screen; numerous graphical lines criss-crossed over it as multiple coded lines scrolled up the right hand side of the monitor.

Kenny tapped his finger on a small square icon that had zeroed in on what looked like a large building on a remote island south of Cyprus.

“This is the nearest building to the site where Faye was taken from the plane. They could have boarded another plane elsewhere but I wouldn’t have thought so. Taking into account what the tweaker said, I reckon this is it. It has an alarm system that leaves a trace because it’s made by a modest fuck who likes to leave a signature imprint.” He grinned over at Jenson.

“Martha?”

“The one and only.”

Martha, or Blue as she was better known, was a security designer and most of her work wasn’t legit. She liked to dabble in the criminal side of the law from time to time but she was the best at her type of work. She made all of Jenson’s and the band’s security software and it cost a fortune because her systems were supposed to be impenetrable. Fortunately and unfortunately for Jenson, her panties were very much the opposite. He had it bad for her and she had it bad for everyone.

“Can you get her here?” I asked.

He flinched before nodding. “I’ll call her now.”

My stomach jumped in excitement, my fingers itching with the need to touch my woman. I stared at the small icon, knowing she was there; right there. Not buried under plane rubble, not a burnt out corpse, not even drowned in the sea. She was alive, and stupidly, staring at the location even if it wasn’t actually her made me feel as close to her as I had in recent months.

“Cade.”

I turned to Jenson. He was staring at the TV, his eyes wide before they flicked back to me. I followed his gaze back to the screen. My knees buckled as my heart slammed against my chest, the beat soaring into dangerous territory. My eyes burned as they focused on my beautiful fiancé.

I stumbled across the room, grabbing the TV remote and increasing the volume. She sat on a dark leather couch, her stunning eyes sad but her face smiling.

“Miss Avery,” someone out of shot, presumably the interviewer, said. “May I call you Faye?”

“Of course,” Faye smiled softly; the sight made my heart pang.

“Faye, there has been some speculation as to why you disappeared, not least that your plane crashed and you had . . . died. Could you tell us what happened? I take it you are unaware of the media storm around this?”

“Firstly,” Faye said with a sigh, “I would like to apologize sincerely to everyone who thought I had died.” Her eyes held the camera and I knew she was talking to me, hope in her eyes, sadness and despair in her expression. My throat hurt as I battled with the need to cry out, the scream in my gut trying to force itself free.