Chapter 16 #3
Bren obviously wanted to give her a piece of his mind, but he yanked out his phone and called. “Where’s Kaitlyn?” After a pause, he said, “Go find her. Violet Castanega has some cockeyed idea that she’s in danger.” He aimed his narrow-eyed gaze at her. “Among other cockeyed ideas.”
They all waited for Bren to find out that Kaitlyn hadn’t been seen since that morning. A minute later, Bren said, “Well, go find her. That kid runs all over the place.”
Violet recalled the Carnelian’s hungry, vicious smile when the Slade girl had come running to Paul’s side.
She slid her phone from her pocket and looked at the missed call information.
Not a number she recognized. “I have to go.” She took them all in again, putting every bit of emotion in her eyes.
“Please don’t be rash. Give me time to figure this out. ”
Violet walked out, calling the number and watching her back at the same time. “It’s Violet. Someone from this number—”
“This is your fault!” a woman screamed, tears thickening her voice.
“Who is this?”
“Mia Kavanaugh. I don’t know what you’re up to, but you got what you wanted.”
“Whoa, what happened?” Her chest was already tight, because it wasn’t good, not if Mia was calling like this.
“You made him crazy. He doesn’t care about his career, me, or his life. He threw it all away for you! And now they have him, and I can’t even see him, and—”
“Slow down. The Guard has him?”
“He tried to kill his boss, just…snapped. That’s what Ferro said. Snapped. But he was fine when he left here to, um…”
“Kill me,” Violet finished quietly, hardly able to push the words out. She leaned against her car, her body sagging.
“For whatever you’ve done. Then he spends time with you and throws everything away. I can see how dangerous you are, why they want you dead, you manipulative, evil—”
“No, you don’t see at all. Kade didn’t throw you away.
He just didn’t want to involve you.” She needed to get Mia on her side, and to do that she had to calm her down.
“Listen to me, Mia. He realized Ferro was involved in something devious, and that the order to kill me was only because I had figured it out. Once he killed Dune—”
“He killed Dune! Oh, my gods, oh, my gods.”
“Dune was sent here to execute him. Kade had no choice. And once that happened, he knew he couldn’t go back.
” She swallowed hard, because everything she said rang true.
“He told you he’d fallen for me to piss you off and thus push you away, so you wouldn’t be dragged down like he was when your father tried to break that woman out of prison. ”
“You know about that? He told you?” Mia’s outrage rocked the airwaves. “He didn’t tell me, but he told you. No, he’s crazy.”
“Mia, everything he did was to protect you. He was devastated by his father’s supposed betrayal.
I could see it in his face, hear it in his voice.
He was only trying to spare you the fallout by turning you against him.
You’d then take the Guard’s side and be spared any retribution.
I was mad at him when he did that, but I understand it now.
My brothers would probably do the same for me. ”
A moment of silence. “He is in love with you,” she said quietly. “He’s never shared his feelings with me about anything. Not our father’s death, not about everything he’d gone through.”
Violet let those words sink in. Was he in love with her? She was so turned around as far as Kade went. “Ferro is going to kill Kade because he knows too much. Did they hurt him?”
“Ten officers dragged him out of here, and now he’s in the psych ward. Ferro promised I could see him later, when they had him…sedated.”
Violet didn’t like the sound of that, though the promise meant he would be alive for Mia to see. “Mia, I need your help. You have to get me the layout for the Headquarters building. I’m going to break in and get him out of there.”
“You’re going to do what?”
That came from behind her. Violet spun to find Jessup and Ryan approaching.
“I’m breaking Kade out of prison. They will kill him in there, just like his father was killed. They’ll make it look like Kade snapped, and it’ll be shoved under the official carpet.”
“I’ll meet you,” Mia said, her voice stronger now. “And sketch out the floor plan.”
“Where’s a safe place to talk?”
“Kade’s boat.” Mia gave her directions and disconnected.
“No way,” Jessup said.
“She’s going to do it,” Ryan said. “She’s got that fire in her eyes, like she used to get right before she drove off with the swamp buggy when Dad said she couldn’t.”
“’Cause she was only eleven.” Jessup studied her. “You were such a spitfire. Then you got so practical.”
“Someone had to be the level-headed one,” she said.
“You’re not being level-headed now. Breaking into Headquarters.” Jessup shook his head, making a hank of his hair swing with the movement. “You gotta be crazy to even think it.”
“I’m not letting him die in there.” She put her hands on their backs and pushed them to the truck. “You stay out of this. I don’t need you badgering me or trying to talk me out of it.”
Jessup stopped and turned to face her. “Uh-uh, little sister. We’re going with you.”