64. Kade
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
KADE
O NE HOUR AGO
I force calming breaths into my lungs despite the unfamiliar emotion that tries to drag me under.
Panic.
My hands shake as I pace back and forth on the street corner, trying to figure out what my best play is here.
He has them both. My brother and my woman. The only two people on this godforsaken earth I care about, and I have no fucking idea how to get them back.
I’ve always prided myself on my self-control. It’s what got me through years of my dad pitting Emmett and me against one another, and it’s how I stayed in the shadows for as long as I did with Waverly. But right now, it’s so thin it’s bound to snap any second.
“I need a plan,” I murmur to myself.
I can’t just stand here. I need to do something, but I’m not sure what.
My father’s call came seconds after I realized Waverly’s tracker was gone, but Emmett’s wasn’t. The asshole that raised us is too cocky to think I wouldn’t track my own brother, which means I have a lock on their location.
The issue is that I have no clue what I’m walking into.
The business employs hundreds, and there’s no telling how many he brought with him to New York.
My phone vibrates in my hand, and I glance down to see a number I don’t recognize. “Kade,” I answer.
“It’s Elias. Waverly was dragged out of the club about ten minutes ago. I’ve been trying to get a hold of Emmett, but the calls are going straight to voicemail.”
“My father has them both,” I say and almost immediately regret the words. I can’t get them involved in this because I swore black and blue that our presence wouldn’t impact the Syndicate, and Elias and Wyatt helping us would be exactly that.
“How can we help? Wyatt and I are dropping Leighton off with Camilla and the guys, and then we can help bring them back.”
“Why?” The word slips from my lips before I can think twice about it.
“Because Waverly is part of the family, and our wife will be really pissed if we let something happen to her new friend.” It’s meant as a joke, but there’s no humor in his words. The situation we’ve found ourselves in doesn’t allow for it.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Send us the address, and we’ll be there as soon as possible.”
P RESENT MOMENT
“Get on the fucking ground!” Elias shouts as he and Wyatt step into the warehouse. Their semi-automatic rifles are expertly positioned on my father because no one would dare to shoot at them while there’s the risk of the boss being killed.
I draw my own gun from the back of my jeans and train it on him as well. He needs to die for an array of things, but most recently for putting hands on my girl.
I want to cut his fucking fingers off one by one for ever daring to touch what belongs to me, but something tells me Waverly wouldn’t be all that partial to the idea, even if he is an evil son of a bitch.
Emmett catches my eye, and I tug my knife from its holster, making quick work of the zip ties around his wrists before handing him the knife.
“Couldn’t bring me a gun?” he asks.
“I didn’t exactly have a lot of time,” I snap over my shoulder as I move toward my father.
Waverly’s body crumbled to the ground when he hit her, and my teeth grind painfully at how tiny she looks beneath the blanket they wrapped around her.
It’s a damn good thing too because if I had to watch the guards leer at her for another second, I would have started tearing eyeballs out.
Hell, it’s still on the cards.
“What the fuck are you doing, Kade?” One of the assholes who touched my girl growls. I never cared to learn any of their names and I’m glad for it now that they’ll be dying any minute now.
“Something I should have done a long time ago.” I press the barrel of my handgun to the back of my father’s head. “Step away from her.”
“You too?” he growls. “I thought you were stronger than to get swept up in some pussy.”
“Step. Away. From. Her.”
He hesitates for another second, his eyes scanning the room for an escape route, but there isn’t one. He didn’t bring nearly enough men to the warehouse with him, but he probably didn’t think he’d need them to deal with one of his sons and a woman he stripped and bound.
I walk him further away from her. As much as I hate that he hurt her, part of me is glad she won’t have to watch me like this. I never want my girl to realize just how much of a monster I am.
“On your knees,” I command.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?”
I slam my foot into the back of his knee, and he topples over with a grunt of pain, but it has the desired effect when he scrambles up to his knees.
I step in front of him, my gun trained on the center of his forehead. I’m vaguely aware of Elias and Wyatt rounding up the guards while Emmett looks after our girl, but right now I need to be in the zone. I want to enjoy this.
“I think I’m going to kill the man that caused my brother and me endless pain,” I tell him. “I think I’m about to end the life of the man who thought he could take my woman and get away with it. And I think I’m going to enjoy every fucking second of it.”
I smack the butt of the gun into the side of his head, my body vibrating with rage.
“Think about what you’re doing, son,” Dad pleads. “Without me, this business is nothing. You’re nothing.”
I chuckle as I crouch down in front of him, allowing the gun to drop for a moment. Blood drips from his hairline down his cheek, but he doesn’t seem as worried about that as he is about his most brutal son turning against him. “The business you worked so hard for is about to cease to exist,” I tell him with glee. “It turned you into a monster, and neither Emmett nor I want to become you, so I’m going to burn it all to the ground. Part of me wants to keep you alive long enough for you to watch me destroy your legacy, but I can’t have you breathing the same air as Waverly, so sadly you’ll have to watch from hell.”
“Don’t do this, son. I gave you everything. Everything you ever asked for, I provided. That has to be worth something!”
A laugh escapes my throat, and I meet Emmett’s eyes across the room. “The fact you think that just proves how fucking deluded you are. You never gave us a damn thing we wanted. Do you think we wanted to fight each other? Do you think I wanted to make my twin, the literal other half of me, bleed? Do you think either of us wanted to learn to kill someone before we even knew our ABCs?”
Every word is filled with more rage than the last, my hand trembling as I poise my finger on the trigger.
I have one of the best shots in the country, but right now I’m too fucking angry to steady myself. Years of abuse. Years of hatred. Years of no autonomy over our own lives. Years I missed with my brother.
I fucking hate the man in front of me. The kind of hatred that simmers deep in your gut until you can barely breathe past the mass. The kind that can eat you alive if you let it.
But I refuse to let him have another moment of our time.
He dies today, before he can take anything else from us.
I take a deep breath and squeeze the trigger.
“See you in hell, Dad.”