Chapter 43
Kade
Edwin was sitting, having a drink, waiting for his meeting, when I walked in and took the seat across from him.
He looked up and then jerked back.
“Kade. What are you doing here?” He shifted in his seat, looking at the door and then me.
“Had some business to take care of.”
“It’s great to see you, but I’m actually waiting for someone who should be here any second. I’d love to catch up with you later, though.”
Liar. Ten years ago I’d been instantly in awe of him. Now? I spotted a rat trying to scurry out of a trap.
He’d known I was onto him since the wedding, but he wasn’t sure how much I knew. I was here to tell him exactly what I had on him, and it was a mountain of information.
“ I’m your meeting,” I said.
He laughed for a second, his hands trembling a bit as he took a sip of his drink.
“I’m not joking. I’m your meeting. Your associate won’t be arriving.”
His face fell, his skin blanching. “Are you having me watched?”
“No. I stopped doing that after I gathered everything I needed from you. Boy, did I learn a lot. You got the woman I love in a whole lot of trouble, and then as if that weren’t enough, you tried to get them to cancel her loan?”
“You’re making some pretty damning accusations. I’d watch what you say to me.” He was scanning the surrounding area, frozen, stuck, not sure whether to run or stay seated. I could see the wheels turning as he tried to figure a way out of this situation, but there wasn’t one.
I’d covered every base and I had documentation. The only reason he wasn’t in prison yet was that I hadn’t decided quite yet what I wanted to do with him.
“Or what?” I said. “You’ll make me prove it in court? You’ll never make it there. You’ll be dead first.”
He was sitting there, his eyes shooting around the room still as if he were trying to figure out a way out of his mess.
“You wouldn’t.”
“For Leah? Try me.”
He lifted his drink with a shaking hand and downed the rest of it. “She’s too good for you.”
“That might be true, but you know what else is true? She’s with me, and you’re going to pay for what you did. Now here’s what’s going to happen.”
* * *
Leah
Kade walked into the living room, where I was going through the stuff in the apartment I needed to either box up or get rid of. He walked over and wrapped his arms around me, as if he hadn’t seen me in days, when it had only been hours.
“How’s it coming along?” he asked.
“Okay. I’ve got a lot sorted.” It had been a month since we’d gotten together, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to being able to call him mine.
“When’s the realtor putting it up?”
“Two weeks from today,” I said.
“You sure you want to sell it? We could keep it. Stay here when you want to visit your family. I don’t want you to give up something you love.”
The only way that would happen was if I lost him.
“This place isn’t what I want anymore,” I said, smiling up at him. “How’d your secret meeting go?”
Monroe had called me the second he spotted Kade. He’d said that, from the look on Edwin’s face, he thought it best to keep on walking.
“I guess not so secret, but pretty good. I think we have an understanding. How did you find out?”
“Monroe happened to walk past the restaurant you were at. He thought it best not to intrude.”
“I was going to tell you, but I thought after it was done might be better.”
“So what did you talk about?” I didn’t like that man anywhere around the people I loved, but I’d also learned Kade was more resourceful than I’d ever known.
He tugged me over to the couch, pulling me into his side. “He’s going to be signing over all his accounts to your mother, whatever stolen art he currently has is going to show up at a local police department, and he’ll be taking an extended leave for mental health on a small, isolated island no one has ever heard of.”
“He agreed to all that?” Didn’t sound like Edwin, but Kade tended to get what he wanted.
“It was the lesser of two evils. After all, I can’t let a man like that around my wife.”
“Technically I’m still just your fiancée.”
“Not for long. Cassie’s already been hard at work.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes. She was already calling me this morning. I’m sure whatever she plans will be perfect,” he said, leaning over and kissing my head as he pulled me closer.
It didn’t matter what the wedding was like, or where we lived. I was with Kade and I didn’t need anything else. Life was already as perfect as it could get.
Alec and Leah’s story coming at the end of 2025.