Chapter 37 #2
Cade’s expression hardens. He looks wounded. Deep. Like this version of her doesn’t fit the memory he’s been holding onto.
“And in case you somehow forgot, Zeke was murdered. Dylan took his own life all because of that man.”
She steps toward Cade, gaze locked. No more fear. Just fury and grief and that terrifying strength that only comes from surviving hell.
“And Carlos? He laughed when he found out Zeke was dead.”
A beat passes.
“So yeah,” she bites out, “I got my revenge.” Her breath shakes, but her spine stays straight. Her eyes never leave his.
“And you want to know something, Cade?” she says, softer now, deadlier. “I fucking loved it.”
She leans in. “Do you even know what revenge looks like? It’s a girl with a gun in her hand, a body full of trauma, and not a single soul left to stop her.”
“You talk about revenge like it’s survival,” he says quietly. “And maybe for you it is. I get that. I do.”
He runs a hand through his hair, that old nervous tic. “But for me? It’s… it’s a darkness I don’t know how to live in. I don’t know how to love someone who doesn’t want to come back into the light.”
Her whole face crumples. Like he just proved her worst fear, that the second she handed him the truth, he’d flinch.
He’d flee.
He takes a breath like it hurts to speak. “I just… I need some time, Bella.”
And fuck me, I want to kill him for that.
Her phone rings.
“What Nate?” she literally screams in the phone. “Ok, yeah. I’m sorry… No, I’m fine… Yeah, I’m on my way out.”
She puts her phone back into her pocket. “I have to go.”
Cade steps up like he’s finally decided to grow a pair, “Now? Bella, we need to finish talking about all of this. We still haven’t even started talking about Luca.”
“No, Cade. We don’t.” Her voice is steady. “You said enough. You want time. I get that. Take it. Do what you need to do.”
She turns, grabbing her bag. “But what I need to do right now, is to go do my job.”
“Bella, please wait.”
“Look,” she says, stepping closer, fire trembling beneath every word. “There’s no version of this where I’m the girl you thought I was.”
I see it then, what he sees.
The girl who used to pass out on the couch next to him watching old movies with Ellie. The one who used to give him shit about his sketchbooks, but stay and watch him draw anyway. The one he never touched back then because she was young and hurting and off-limits.
“I’m the girl who grew up in hell,” she says.
“Who clawed her way out with blood under her nails and no map to follow. I tried to give you the version of me that wasn’t soaked in all of it.
The version who smiled easier, laughed louder.
The version I used to be when I was fifteen and stupid enough to believe I could somehow be normal. ”
Cade’s still not talking. Just staring at her like he’s watching her slip through his fingers.
“But she’s not all of me,” Bella continues, voice breaking and fierce all at once. “And the part you don’t want, the part you looked at like it might burn you alive? That’s the part that’s saving kids, Cade.”
She looks at him one last time. “So, take whatever time you need. But I have to go. Those kids need me more than you do right now.”
She looks at me, tears staining her steel eyes as she nears the exit. “I’m sorry I messed this up, Lex. I know you had your hopes up.” She turns and walks out.
“What the fuck, Cade?” My voice comes out low and dangerous, laced with disbelief. “You’re really just going to let the best thing that ever happened to us walk out of this fucking Pit?”
He turns, his jaw tight. “What do you want me to do, Lex? Just pretend none of this happened?”
“I want you to see her,” I snap, stepping into Cade’s space without even realizing it. “See her the way I do. The way you used to before she ripped herself open to give you the truth you demanded.”
His jaw clenches, but he doesn’t speak. So, I keep going.
“You asked for this, Cade. You. You pushed. You kept digging, kept prying, like you needed to see how deep the wounds went. And now what, you just shut down?”
My voice drops, rough and razor-edged. “Don’t stand there like you’re the victim in this. She trusted you with the worst parts of her and you looked at her like she was a stranger.”
“I just wanted the truth, Lex,” he says running a hand over his neck.
“Well congratulations, you got it. Now tell me, is this something you’re gonna get the fuck over? Because everything she’s done, everything, has been completely fucking justified.”
“Justified?” he snaps, eyes wide. “She killed a man, Lex. She let him burn like it was nothing. That’s not normal. That’s not just some dark secret she forgot to mention.”
“And how the fuck is that any different than my family?” I step in, heat rising. “You know what my mom and uncle do. You know about the guns they bring in every goddamn week, whats hiding in all the Barinov bunkers.”
He says nothing, chest rising and falling like he’s trying to find the right words and keeps choking on them.
“So what now, Whitmore?” I throw the name at him like a challenge. “You gonna let your pride fuck this up? You gonna walk because she isn’t your picture-perfect fantasy anymore?”
Silence. He doesn’t even blink.
I lean in, deadly calm now. “Do you love her?”
“What?”
“Do you love her, Cade?” My voice cracks like a whip through the space between us.
“Because she just stood there, shaking and falling apart, admitted she loved you and you said nothing. Nothing. Just whined about the fact that she shot a guy in the dick who, by the way, absolutely had it fucking coming.”
He doesn’t respond right away. Just stares at the floor like it might hold the answers he’s too afraid to say out loud.
And I can’t take it. I step in, furious now, voice low and cutting. “You were the one who said she was it for us. You’re the one who got my hopes up, Cade. Not just for her, but for the family that you and I have wanted for a long time, babe.”
Cade’s throat works around a breath. “Yes.”
My chest goes still.
“Yes,” he says again, firmer this time. “I love her. But—”
“No buts, Cade!” I cut him off, stepping forward, fury and heartbreak coiled in my throat.
“If you love her, prove it. You already love me with all my darkness. Now it’s Bella’s turn. Jesus Christ Cade, you don’t just get to fucking cherry-pick which parts of her deserve your love. You just love her. Darkness and all.”
He doesn’t argue.
Doesn’t move.
So, I do. I turn and storm toward the exit.
“Where the hell are you going?” he calls after me.
I look over my shoulder. “To get our fucking girlfriend back. You may need time, but I don’t, Cade. Figure whatever it is you need to figure out, but I’m going after her.”