The Deception series boxset: FaCade, Cadence, Beneath Innocence (37 page)

“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.

I COULD FEEL HIS QUESTIONING eyes on me, his pity a filthy stench around me.

“What do you want, Jenson?”

I continued to pummel the bag, relishing in the sweat that stung my eyes, each pound on the stuffed leather causing a pain to shoot through my hands and triggering a fresh outpour of blood. I needed the blood; I needed to know I could still bleed. I wasn’t sure I was living anymore.

“Where is Faye, Cade?”

I winced when my teeth sank into my bottom lip and I closed my eyes for a second, catching the bag as it swung back at me. I straightened my shoulders and ran my tongue over my retreating gums. “Home.”

He paused, taking a step further towards me. “No she’s not. I’ve just come from upstairs.”

I laughed, shaking my head at his stupidity. “Not my home. Hers.”

“What?”

His shock matched mine when we’d flown back home and Faye had told me she needed to go back to her place. Needed space and time, she said. Still loved me, she said. Fuck, if she loved me, why did it feel so damn agonizing?

His silence was loud, his unsaid words expressive. “Cade.”

“Don’t!”

Ignoring him, I turned to the punch bag again, savoring the pain that overruled all other senses. I needed it to hold me up. Without the stimulant of agony I knew I would sink to my knees and let the grief consume me.

“You let her go?”

I turned on him so fast his eyes didn’t have time to widen before his back hit the floor and my fingers clawed his throat, my thighs trapping his chest tightly beneath me as I leant within an inch of his face. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do, Jen. Lock her up again? Hold her here even if she doesn’t wanna be here? That would make me as bad as him!”

He didn’t fight me. And it wasn’t because he knew he could never take me on. It was because he hurt for me. He was my best friend and he desperately wanted to take all this away from me. Just like I wanted to for him whenever life took him down.

He nodded, understanding. “But you’re gonna fight,” he choked out around my hold, making me realize just how tight my grip was on him. “You’re gonna bring her back?”

“I can’t not. I need her to breathe. To live.” I closed my eyes to the sound of my own despair. I would only allow Jenson to witness it. And he was the only one who wouldn’t judge me for it.

“Is she safe?”

I stared at him. “You know me better than that. Of course she’s safe. I have Grant and Sed ghosting her. And she has Frank.”

The door opened and we both turned. Amy’s eyes widened and she slammed to a halt when she found us in what must have looked like quite a romantic moment.

“Oh my God,” she screeched, backing out of the door with her eyes screwed shut. “I’m so sorry!”

Both Jenson and I stared at the door when it closed again. I couldn’t hold back my own laugh when Jenson spluttered out his. “Jesus H Christ. That is one ditzy bitch!”

Our hysterics died and I lifted myself off the floor, my fingers squeezing my temples. “I need to get drunk!”

“And I know just the place.” Jenson grinned as he slapped me on the back.

“YOU NEED TO BANG THAT!” I looked at Jenson through hooded eyes, pointing vaguely in the direction of the stripper flouncing her huge tits on the stage, her shaved pussy right in line with our eyes.

He nodded then sighed sadly. He was as drunk as I was. “I miss the fun we had in college, Cade. You remember that stunning Chinese girl we spit roasted. Fuck!” He held both hands up, curling his fingers into imaginary tits.

I scoffed, shaking my head and blowing out a breath at the sudden rise of nausea. Shit, I’d had way too much. “Chen!” Her name burst into my mind for some inexplicable reason. I hadn’t thought of her since I was eighteen.

Jenson nodded, pointing a finger at me. “Yeah, that’s her.” He sighed contentedly. “Chen!”

We both shifted in our seats as visions assaulted us of that conquest many years ago. Fuck, I was horny.

“But you know, no bitch comes anywhere near Faye in the sack. Fuck, she’s incredible. Knows how to move those sexy little hips she has. And Christ, when she palms her tits and rolls her fat nipples in her fingers. Makes me shiver, man. I swear she does it to torture me. She uses her pussy to get her own way.”

“That’s a bitch thing,” Jenson slurred, trying to take a sip of his Jack but giggling like a girl when he missed his mouth and it trickled down his chin.

I nodded, agreeing with him.

“Most women want commitment. I offered that to Blue and only asked for loyalty and orgasms in return. That’s all I asked for!”

“And to put it up her ass.”

“Up the ass is a given in relationships.” Snorting, I knocked back a shot and chased the burn with a cold mouthful of whatever the bartender filled my glass with. “Cade? It is, right? Don’t be playing with me.”

“I need Faye.” I groaned, shifting on my stool to accommodate my hard dick. “Fuck, so bad. I haven’t felt her sweet pussy in so long. I’m so hard I’m gonna knock some fucker out if I stand up.”

Jenson reared back, staring at me with narrow eyes. “You need to do something about that!”

“Yeah but it’s not the same. I can’t even jerk myself off as good as she does it.”

“Pfft,” Jensen grumbled, nodding his head sadly. “Then get round there and fuck your girl!”

“I can’t just turn up and fuck her.”

“Why?”

“Because . . .”

“She’s your fiancée, damn it! It’s a given right that once you slip a diamond on her finger, her sweet little cunt should be paying you back for that rock in installments.”

My head bobbed manically as my eyes followed each stab of his finger in the air with each word. “What? That’s shit. I gave her a ring ‘cos I want to marry her! She’s my everything. I nearly lost her. Why does it feel like I still have?”

“Yes. But,” he pointed to me again, the tip of his finger catching my eyeball and making me blink and squint at him, “A ring is a symbol, man. A ring for a ring.”

My face screwed up in bewilderment. He’d completely ignored everything I said about the ring. “What the fuck are you on?”

“The ring. You give her a ring; she gives you her ring back! It’s how it works.”