Chapter 31
The sound of Ryder's fist slamming into the wall reverberated through the living room, punctuating his rage with a physical exclamation mark. His knuckles left a smear of blood on the cream paint, but he didn't seem to notice or care.
"I'm going to fucking kill her," he snarled, his face contorted into something barely recognisable.
"That bitch is dead. You hear me? Dead!"
I stood with my arms crossed, my own fury a cold, calculating thing compared to Ryder's volcanic eruption.
I'd just walked through the door after a wasted day chasing another false lead in Halifax, only to find Covenant House in chaos.
Cade locked herself in her bedroom. Ryder is on the verge of committing murder.
And Cole, caught in the middle, was trying to maintain what little control remained.
"Ryder, you need to calm down," Cole said, his mismatched eyes tracking Ryder's frantic pacing. "This isn't helping Cade."
"Calm down?" Ryder whirled on him, a twisted laugh escaping his throat. "You want me to calm down after what that cunt did? She showed Cade the fucking videos, Cole! She played them in front of everyone!"
My stomach dropped, the cold rage in my veins crystallising into something sharper, more dangerous. The videos. The ones we'd been frantically trying to scrub from the internet for weeks. The ones we'd sworn Cade would never know about.
"What exactly happened?" I asked, my voice deceptively steady despite the storm brewing inside me.
Cole ran a hand through his hair, exhaustion etched into every line of his face.
"Julia cornered Cade in the bathroom. Showed her one of the videos on her phone.
By the time Ryder and I got there, Cade was.
.." He trailed off, but I could fill in the blanks.
Broken. Shattered. Reliving every moment of her nightmare.
"And Julia?" I asked, already calculating the most efficient way to destroy her life.
"Megan got to her first," Cole said, a grim satisfaction in his tone. "Broke her nose, cracked a few ribs. Security pulled them apart."
"Not good enough," Ryder spat, resuming his pacing. "She needs to suffer. She needs to understand what she's done."
I found myself nodding in agreement, my mind already spinning through scenarios, each more violent than the last. Julia deserved worse than a broken nose for what she'd done to Cade. She deserved to feel a fraction of the terror, the pain, the violation that Cade had endured.
"Where is she now?" I asked, already moving toward the door. "Julia."
"Logan, don't," Cole warned, stepping into my path.
"We need to focus on Cade right now. She's barely holding it together upstairs.
" I hesitated, torn between the urge to hunt Julia down and the knowledge that Cade needed me.
Needed us. But the thought of facing her, of seeing the fresh devastation in her eyes, knowing I had failed yet again to protect her, was almost unbearable.
"Don’t worry," Ryder said, his voice suddenly quiet, dangerous.
"I'll handle Julia." Before either of us could react, Ryder was moving, snatching his keys from the hook by the door and storming out.
The front door slammed behind him with enough force to rattle the windows, leaving a heavy silence in his wake.
"Fuck," Cole muttered, already grabbing his own jacket. "I need to go after him before he does something we can't fix."
"I'll go," I offered quickly, relief flooding me at the excuse to avoid the more challenging task. "You stay with Cade." Cole turned to me, his expression hardening.
"No, Logan. I'm going after Ryder because I'm the only one who can talk him down right now. You're staying here because Cade needs you, and it's time you stopped being a fucking coward about it."
His words hit like a physical blow, all the more painful for their accuracy.
I had been avoiding Cade. Throwing myself into the hunt for Damien, spending more time with my father's security teams than at Covenant House.
Anything to escape the crushing guilt that threatened to suffocate me every time I looked at her.
"She doesn't want to see me," I said, hating the weakness in my voice. "Not after everything that's happened." Cole stepped closer, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
"Grow up, Logan. This isn't about what you want or what you can handle. It's about Cade, who's upstairs thinking the whole world has seen her being tortured and raped, including people she has to face every day. She needs all of us right now, especially you."
"Why especially me?" I demanded, a flare of defensive anger rising in my chest.
"Because you're the one who's been avoiding her like she's contagious," Cole shot back. "And don't pretend it's because you've been so busy hunting Damien. We all know you're running from your own guilt."
I wanted to argue, to defend myself, but the words died in my throat. He was right. I had been running. From Cade, from my failures, from the knowledge that if I had just stayed with her that night, none of this would have happened.
"Fine," I conceded, stepping back to let Cole pass. "Go get Ryder before he kills Julia and lands himself in prison." Cole nodded, already halfway out the door.
"And Logan? Don't fuck this up. She needs you more than you know.
" The door closed behind him with a soft click that somehow felt more final than Ryder's violent exit.
I stood alone in the foyer, the weight of Cole's words settling over me like a shroud.
Cade needed me. Despite everything I had done and failed to do, she still needed me.
I made my way slowly up the stairs, each step heavier than the last. The house was eerily quiet, the usual bustle of housemen conspicuously absent.
Cole must have cleared everyone out, giving Cade the privacy she desperately needed.
As I approached her door, I could hear nothing from within.
No crying, no movement, just a silence that felt more ominous than any sound could have been.
I raised my hand to knock, then hesitated.
What the fuck was I supposed to say to her?
How could I possibly make this better? The image of Cade on the bathroom floor, broken by the knowledge that her most private suffering had been turned into entertainment, haunted me.
Another failure to add to my growing list. Another way I had let her down.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I knocked softly. No response. I knocked again, a little louder.
"Cade?" I called through the door. "It's Logan.
Can I come in?" Still no answer. Worry twisted in my gut.
What if she had done something desperate?
The thought propelled me forward, turning the handle without waiting for permission.
The room was dim, curtains drawn against the afternoon sun.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, to make out the small figure curled on the bed, facing away from the door.
Relief washed over me, followed immediately by a fresh wave of guilt.
She was alive, at least. But the rigid set of her shoulders, the way she had made herself so small, spoke volumes about her state of mind.
I closed the door quietly behind me, uncertain whether to approach or keep my distance.
In the end, I settled for perching awkwardly on the edge of the armchair near her bed, close enough to talk but not so close as to crowd her.
"Cade?" I said again, softer this time. "I... I heard what happened. I'm sorry I wasn't there." She didn't respond, didn't move, but I knew she was awake. The rhythm of her breathing was too controlled, too deliberate for sleep.
"Ryder and Cole told me about Julia," I continued, filling the silence with words that felt inadequate. "She'll pay for what she did. I promise you that." A small, choked sound escaped her, something between a sob and a laugh.
"It doesn't matter," she whispered, her voice raw from crying.
"Nothing matters anymore. Everyone's seen it.
Everyone knows." The defeat in her voice cut deeper than any knife.
This wasn't the Cade I knew, the fierce, defiant girl who had stood up to us from the beginning.
This was someone broken, hollowed out by trauma and humiliation.
"Not everyone," I said, trying to offer some small comfort. "Just a few people in that bathroom. And they won't be talking about it, not if they value their continued existence."
"You don't understand," she said, finally rolling over to face me. The sight of her nearly broke me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, her face blotchy from crying. But it was the emptiness in her gaze that truly terrified me.
"The videos are online, Logan. Julia told me. People are watching them. I saw the view numbers. Strangers are..." She broke off, a fresh wave of tears spilling down her cheeks.
I moved without thinking, crossing the distance between us to sit on the edge of her bed.
"We know about the videos," I admitted, the words like acid in my mouth. "We've been trying to get them taken down. My father's people, the Trivium, everyone's been working on it." Her eyes widened, fresh horror dawning on her face.
"You knew? All of you? For how long?" I looked away, unable to bear the accusation in her gaze.
"About a month now. Damien started uploading them to the dark web. We've been tracking them, trying to contain the spread, but, "
"But you didn't tell me," she finished, her voice flat. "You all knew that videos of me being raped were online, and you decided I didn't need to know. You let me go out knowing that those people could have seen what had happened to me."
Put like that, our decision sounded cruel, paternalistic. But what choice did we have? She had been so fragile, so damaged. How could we have added this new horror to her burden?