Chapter 7 - Cade
SEVEN
CADE
One Year Later
Freedom doesn’t smell how I imagined.
It’s crisp and rejuvenating, yet chilling to the bone, seeping through my jeans thanks to the frosty bench I’m seated on. A deep exhale sends a cloud of white dissipating into the evening air as I tip my head back and gaze up at the grey sky.
Fresh flakes fall, dampening my face and joining the field of untouched snow spanning all around me.
They remind me of my new beginning. It’s my chance to cover all the past shit and move forward with something—someone—better.
Calla lily white while being as untouched and fragile as the flower—and my girl.
All of this—the smell, the chill, the bustle of noise from the busy street not even twenty feet away—means I’ve won.
The temperature is cold bred from nature instead of stone; the noise comes from normal society, not my cellblock; and the air is fresh rather than tainted by sweat and dirt. It all means I’m free.
Two days ago, I walked away from prison as a free man. Sentence served. Restitution paid and all that bullshit. One of my guys drove me back to the city, and I’d never been happier to see the inside of a vehicle—one that wasn’t a prison van used for transporting inmates.
After a year of planning my reunion with my little obsession, I’m more than ready to put it all into motion, even though my actions may very well get me tossed right back into the same cell. If she were to press charges, anyway—and she won’t. I won’t allow it.
She’ll welcome me with open arms and explain whatever “personal” reason took her away from me.
Months of theories have concluded she was nervous.
It was too much too soon, and she needed time to adapt.
It’s okay. After a year of distance, she’ll now be able to, and all will be as it should have been.
I curl my fingers from where they rest on the bench’s backing, rolling feeling back into them. Numb from winter is better than numb from boredom—which has been years of my life. Prison fucking sucks and can drive a man mad within the first year.
As mad as a five-foot-three decade younger woman named Aspen has made me. Everything I’ve yet to learn about her filled my thoughts during the nights. My mind padded the gaps, inventing facts about her life, only to be annoyed she cut me off.
I draw my right hand back onto my lap and rub my knuckles warm again, careful around the sensitive skin, still a bit red but beginning the initial stages of healing that come with fresh tattoos.
Maybe it’s as insane as claiming a woman I hardly know—one smart enough to protect herself from me—but I decided months ago that after being freed, my second stop will be to my old tattoo artist, Sal, to mark my claim in the only way possible for now.
My thumb lightly brushes against the five letters of her name, each one tattooed on a different finger. When she sees them, she’ll know. She’ll understand.
Once I find her. Not knowing where exactly she works has held me up—annoyingly enough. My crew has kept away from me this week, realizing pretty early on their mugs aren’t the ones I want to see. Hers is, but she feels farther away than ever, even when she’s in the same damn city.
Oh, sweetheart, stop hiding. It’s fruitless.
It’s only a matter of time—especially now that I’ve called in a favour from the man we keep on the inside. A little bribery here, a threat there, and like that, the cop named Miles Moore—because of course he comes with a name like that—becomes a dirty cop in my pocket.
He’s already helped me once. He did a little digging of his own last year and found her address for me. I was able to get one of my trusted confidants to deliver the flowers to her last Valentine’s Day.
Having her address is one thing, but knowing everything about her means knowing everything. And every fucking time I make it to her place, she’s already gone for work. Since Ottawa has too many florists, shy of sending my guys to stalk every single one, Miles is making his badge useful once again.
As the sun dips below the treeline, my new cell phone vibrates with a text.
MM
A year and a half ago, a call was made to 911, from one Aspen Tate in response to an attempted break-in at Petal the appropriateness of her outfit is almost poetic.
She was wearing a dress when we first met, so it’s only right she’s in one now too.
Such clothing in the middle of February isn’t wise, nor are the heeled ankle boots against the icy sidewalks, but I’ll soon teach her to better care for herself.
Her hair’s longer than last year, nearly reaching her waist. It’ll be the perfect handle when I keep her in place and prove why we’re so good together.
I harden as I envision it. How, in only a moment, I’ll cross the street towards her. She’ll turn, spot me, and immediately smile. It’ll be as it always should have been. She’ll apologize for abandoning me in her fruitless attempt to find herself or some shit, and we’ll go to her house.
As she turns away from the shop, I inch towards her, jolted into movement. She’s right there. I can finally snatch her and make my every fantasy come true.
But first, to punish her for her teasing.
She lured me in with sweet letters, sweeter chocolates and homemade cards, and the sweetest face, all to push me away.
She’s a tease, so I’ll teach her the actual definition of the word when I bring her to the edge so many fucking times, the bed will be drenched with need, her sobs her musical apology.
All I have to do is cross the street and make myself known, but as she starts walking away from the shop, I trail her instead, to learn her route. Her head bows against the February bite as she hikes her purse higher up her shoulder, and her steps speed up.
Feel me nearby?
When she turns in the direction opposite of her house, heading down a strip of shops and restaurants, my blood cools a few degrees colder than the weather. If she’s not going home, it means being left to the whims of her adventuring—and that isn’t the plan. She has to go home so we can reconnect.
She walks half a block more until stopping by a restaurant with a red awning.
An evening job? That’s a new development, and something she’ll be quitting soon.
She won’t need multiple jobs when she has me to take care of her, and there’s no point in her being on her feet more than necessary.
Besides, last year she was completing fancy post-secondary education; what happened to that?
Ducking my head, I cross the street to gain a better view and avoid being noticed by her. I melt into the background of a building, disappearing into the crowds as Aspen enters the restaurant.
Well, this is irritating. If she’s working, this could very well be the final time seeing her until later, something I didn’t intend nor prepare for. Crossing my arms, my fingers drum against my coat.
By some cruel or lucky trick of fate, she appears again in the front bay window, being led by a tux-wearing waiter to a candle-lit table situated right in front of the window.
She greets someone with a smile that should only be for me, and my blood hammers harder when a second person comes into view, standing to assist her from her coat.
My arms drop as the need to murder him nearly pushes me across the street.
Her final letter led to pain and devastation and rage, but all that feels like rainbows and sunshine now as my body locks with the instinctual demand to fight—to kill.
My teeth grind with every curse word in my personal dictionary as pure depravity takes hold.
Someone’s getting hurt tonight.
Him for touching her, for taking her coat and draping it on the back of the chair and helping her sit—like he’s some fairy tale prince. He who disappears from view to reclaim his seat, leaving only her in my view. An issue, because she’s on a motherfucking date with another man.
She isn’t his. She’s mine. All fucking mine. He’ll be taught that soon enough.
And then she’ll learn fairy tale princes are a fantasy for a reason. The pretty boys of the world won’t do what’s necessary to protect her. I’d kill for her, bleed for her, become anything for her.
If she wants a fairy tale romance, then tonight I’ll become the monster who locks her in the tower.
Because after dealing with him, I’ll remind her why gifting her smiles to another man isn’t wise.
She gave herself to me a year ago. In a series of letters and smiles and visits, of cards and chocolates and touches, she is mine and mine alone.
Was the reason she ended things with me for him? Had I known this was a possibility, I’d have gotten Miles to do his job sooner, and then sent my crew to stalk her, report back, and end the lives of any man who tried to steal from me.
The murder fuelling me twists in my insides right around on me. Why didn’t I fucking consider this a while back? I could and should have been protecting her this entire time.
It’s okay, I got you now. You won’t need anyone else.
Even speaking to her pushes oxygen through my body.
Enough to help me focus and plan for the dead man walking she’s having dinner with.
I could very well storm in there, drag the pompous ass out by his hair and make him less pretty.
He’s definitely pompous because who the fuck else eats at a place like this?
A few scars, a couple less fingers, a mouth empty of teeth—sounds much better.
Through the red haze, she smiles and flips her hair and immediately the need to commit murder lessens.
Even though she’s smiling, it’s obvious she doesn’t like him.
Even from a distance, her tense posture and forced smile is clear.
If he knew her even the slightest, he’d realize she isn’t his and she’s announcing this very fact.
She was nervous during her first visit to me, but it wasn’t like this. Even then, her smile wasn’t fake. She was tense but eased quickly. I claimed her soul that day, and her body knows it. Now, it won’t ease up around another.
That’s right, sweetheart. Deep down, you know you’re already owned.
She’s made for me. Aspen once told me not to take people at face value; she may look and act like a good girl, but she also hinted towards there being more beneath her bright blues and innocent smile.
Judging by appearance, the fucker looks more suited for her.
Closer in age, able to take her to places like this—a suit versus my leather jacket and ripped jeans.
But if examining her soul, I’m best for her.
Dragging my attention away from the restaurant, I go to pull my phone from my pocket, only for my attention to snag on the date on the lock screen, realization crashing harder than the thin damn mattress that’d been home for years.
It’s February twelfth. Two days before Valentine’s Day.
That means people are picking their “special someone.”
He’s trying to steal my someone. Lessons will be taught tonight.
To them both.