Chapter 12 – KADE
KADE
The world tilts off its fucking axis.
Ellie Riggs stands in front of me, and I know it's her even before she lifts those green eyes that have haunted my every nightmare and fantasy for four fucking years.
I'd recognize her anywhere.
It's the way she holds herself like she's trying to take up less space, the nervous tap of her fingers against her thigh in that same five-count rhythm.
One, two, three, four, five.
Always five.
I know what she looks like now, of course. I've spent enough nights scrolling through her Instagram like the stalkers we hunt for sport, memorizing every fake smile at those charity galas, every designer dress that hugs her curves as tight as I grip her throat in my most twisted dreams.
Sometimes I even follow her in person, keeping to shadows like the ghost she's turned me into. Watch her walk across campus with that hollow look in her eyes that no amount of privilege can fill.
We all do it.
Tank, Cyrus, Jinx.
Every one of us has our own brand of obsession with the girl who ripped our hearts out and used them as stepping stones to her new life. But none of us calls the others on it. Don't ask, don't tell. Some wounds are too raw to acknowledge, even among brothers.
But I wasn't expecting this.
Wasn't expecting her to walk into our throne room, our little corner of hell where we play gods.
Wasn't expecting her to be even more beautiful than she is from a distance and in carefully curated photos.
The pink streaks in her blonde hair catch the low light like rebellion against whatever gilded cage she's living in now.
And fuck me if the sight of her doesn't make my cold, dead heart stutter back to life before I remember why I killed it in the first place.
The love I had for her—that pure, desperate bullshit that kept me breathing through juvie, through the trailer park, through everything—floods back for exactly three seconds before I drown it in the hate I've been nursing like a sick fuck ever since.
Had to turn all that love into something else to survive her rejection. Had to make it poison instead of medicine or it would've fucking killed me.
Tank shifts in his chair, and I know without looking that the big softie is about to run to her like a lost puppy finding its way home. His whole body leans toward her like she's magnetic north and he's a broken compass that only ever points to one thing.
Her.
I throw my hand up, sharp and commanding. "Don't."
For the first time in four years, Tank hesitates. He freezes mid-rise, his hands tightening on the armrests of his chair, torn between the girl who owns his soul and the brother who's kept him alive since she threw it away like it was worth nothing to her.
I'm not sure if he stops because of me or if it's because his own shock has him paralyzed.
Eleanor's eyes dart between us, confusion bleeding into horrified recognition that hasn't quite clicked. "You—"
I rip the mask off my face and let it clatter to the floor. The voice modulator dies with it, leaving just me.
Just Kade.
Just one of the boys she left behind.
But we've both done a fuck ton of growing since the last time she saw me.
"Don't you recognize your best friends, Princess?" The nickname tastes like acid and honey as I sneer around it. "The boys you left behind like the gutter trash you fucking swore we weren't?"
Her face goes white. Those green eyes I used to draw all over my notebooks back when I thought she'd be mine someday—or at least one of ours—go wide with shock.
Tears make those green eyes even greener, and for a second, she looks exactly like she did that night at the overlook.
That night she promised nothing would change.
Lying. Little. Bitch.
"Kade?" Her voice cracks on my name. "Oh my god, Kade, I—"
She reaches for me, and something snaps in my head. I'm moving before I can think, grabbing her wrist before she can touch me.
"Don't." The word comes out more growl than speech. "You don't get to fucking touch me."
"Let me explain—"
That cracks me the fuck up, but there's nothing funny about this. "Explain what? How you traded our kingdom for a mansion? How you forgot we existed the second you got a taste of the good life?"
This has to be a setup.
Has to be someone fucking with us. Our enemies know our weakness somehow, know about the girl who broke the Kings before we became them.
Someone's using her against us. There's no other explanation, because even fate isn't that cruel. Or kind. I'm too fucked to figure out which right now.
Cruel. Definitely fucking cruel.
I spin her around and push her up against the one-way glass hard enough to rattle it.
The dancers on the other side keep grinding, oblivious to the drama playing out inches from their drugged-out revelry.
How fast shit can go sideways. My hand flies to her throat, not squeezing, just pinning her in place as a reminder we're not those starry-eyed kids anymore.
"Who the fuck put you up to this?" I snarl in her ear, pressing my body against her back. She's soft everywhere, curves fitting against me like she was made for me. "Who sent you here to screw with our fucking heads?"
Tank snarls behind me, a warning sound that would make anyone else piss themselves. But I know Tank won't touch me.
Then again, she's in the mix now.
Eleanor's pulse hammers against my palm, quick as a hummingbird's wings.
But she doesn't smell like fear. She smells like expensive perfume layered over something painfully fucking familiar.
Vanilla and that floral shit she always wore that made me want to breathe in and never stop, because it was hers.
"Kade..." Jinx's voice sounds wary. He's pulled his mask off too, and even in the dim light, I can see the conflict on his face. Part of him wants to rip me off her. Part of him wants to help for entirely different reasons.
"Nobody sent me," Ellie spits. That defiance that made me fall head over heels with her in the first place hasn't been completely ground down by the good life after all. "What the fuck is wrong with you? What are you doing? What is this place?"
I laugh against her neck and she shivers, her skin prickling with goosebumps. "You don't get to judge us, Princess. Not when you're the one crawling in here begging us to kill someone for you."
She goes rigid against me, and I spin her back around, ignoring Tank's increasingly threatening rumble. Keeping her pinned but needing to see her face. Needing to watch her realize what we've become.
What she made us.
"Things not going so well in your perfect little world?" I sneer, taking in the designer clothes she tried to dress down. "What happened? Get tired of playing senator's daughter? Miss slumming it with the trailer trash?"
Her eyes flash.
And there she is. A ghost of the old Ellie.
"Fuck. You," she hisses.
"You already did that, Princess. When you left."
I let her go, stepping back because if I keep touching her, I'm going to do something stupid. Like kiss her. Or kill her. Haven't decided which. Tank might decide for me for all I fucking know.
"So. Tell us," I continue, gesturing at the three Kings in stunned silence behind me.
"Who does the senator's precious daughter want dead so bad she's willing to crawl in the filth with the rats?
The leading rival for homecoming queen? Maybe a trust fund jock who cheated on her with another debutante? "
She straightens her spine and lifts that chin the way she always did when she was about to say something important.
"My stepfather."
The words drop like bombs in the silence. Even the music from the club seems to fade to a low, distant hum.
Cyrus pulls his mask off. I hear Tank's sharp intake of breath through the vents in his gas mask. Jinx gives a low what the fuck whisper that has an appreciative lilt to it.
Even I'm at a loss for fucking words for once. "You mean Senator Todd Waterson?" I ask when I find my tongue, laughing in utter disbelief at the insanity of what she's asking for. "The golden boy of politics? The family values candidate? That stepfather?"
Her jaw tightens. "Yes."
"Why?"
"Does it matter?" She crosses her arms, defensive and defiant. "That's what you do now, isn't it? You kill people?"
"For a price," I confirm, circling her like a predator. She turns to keep me in sight, those green eyes warily tracking my every movement. "Thirty grand doesn't even cover our bar tab, Princess. And you want us to take out the fucking senator?"
Her eyes narrow. I wonder if she's calculating just how long it would take to steal more from Daddy Dearest's wallet.
"If thirty thousand isn't enough, I can get more," she says carefully. "It'll just take time—"
"We don't want your money," Jinx interrupts, standing from his throne. That fancy ass mask is dangling from his fingertips now and his blue eyes are locked on Ellie like she's the morning sun and he's trying to go blind.
So is Tank. I can feel his eyes burning into her even through the fucking mask, his bass growl a constant sound blending in with the pulse of music from the dance floor.
Ellie's eyes flick to him like she's not sure whose side he's on. Fuck if I know.
"Jinx is right, you know," I say, stopping directly in front of her. Close enough to see the flutter of her pulse in her throat. Close enough to smell that perfume that's trying so hard to cover up the girl underneath. "We don't want your money."
She swallows hard, and I track the way her throat bobs. "What do you want, then?"
I reach out, catch her chin between my thumb and forefinger. Tilt her face up so she has to look at me. Has to see what her betrayal created. Her skin is soft, pampered, nothing like the girl who used to get scraped knees and splinters running wild through the woods.
"Isn't it obvious? We want your fucking soul, Princess."