CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘Tell me who hired Iron Star seven years ago.’
He’s looking at Riley, but it’s Lachlan who answers.
‘I don’t know who it was.’
Kade frowns at him, impatient. ‘I’m pretty sure it was you.’
‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Look, maybe it’s hard for you to accept given the… outcome, but it makes sense that you did it to try and get the kids out.’
‘I didn’t,’ Lachlan tells him flatly. ‘I think your boss knows, though.’
Riley rolls his eyes. ‘I was trying to tell him earlier when you bust in with your little demonstration, you prick. And it’s hard to explain, like I told you before. There’s things I can’t say.’
‘You owe it to me,’ Kade says quietly. ‘Please.’
Lachlan’s thumb is pressed against Kade’s wrist, making gentle circles.
‘Here’s what I can tell you,’ Riley says, after taking a few beats to think. ‘I can tell you that the hire came from within the Penhalyx Estate. I can tell you it was for kidnap and hold. I can tell you—’
‘Am I him?’ Kade can see when he’s being handled, hates it. ‘Yes or no, Riley.’
Riley’s mouth opens and closes.
No words come out.
But he nods.
Kade’s heart plummets. ‘Say it then.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Tell me to my face.’
‘I can’t say it and neither can you.’ Riley’s hands flex by his side in a rare display of frustration while Kade’s own anger within spirals so fast that it’s briefly debilitating. He can hardly think straight. ‘Go on, try it.’
‘I’m…’ Kade’s throat sticks. He knows the name. Jules. Julian, Julian Sael Penhalyx. ‘I’m… J… fuck, what the fuck is happening?’
Lachlan watches with a dented brow. ‘You can’t say it?’
‘I explained this to you,’ Riley complains while Kade tries again under his breath, even attempts mouthing the words, but they won’t come together, some strange muscular spasm prevents it. ‘It’s the fucking curse.’
‘What curse?’ Kade asks sharply.
Riley tips his head back like he’s asking the sky for strength.
‘There are things I can’t tell you, but I’ve done my best to—’
‘To what? To lie to me all this time?’
‘I’ve never once lied to you.’
‘Riley, you’ve lied to me my whole life! Seven years and you knew I was him the whole time?’
Riley’s jaw works, he nods. ‘I’m sorry.’
Kade makes a noise he’s not proud of, shoves away from the seat and walks to the walls, forehead against the stone.
It brings him comfort.
The Tower is home.
It’s always been home.
He breathes slow, eyes closed.
‘Céliane needs the book back,’ Riley tells Lachlan. Kade can tell who he’s speaking to just by the tone. ‘Do you have it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you give it to me?’
‘No, but I’ll trade it.’
‘For what?’
‘Let him go. I mean it this time.’
‘I told you, I can’t let him go and besides, he wouldn’t leave—’
‘I will,’ Kade says, pushes away from the wall, adrift and unmoored.
Riley seems shocked. ‘Kade, wait.’
‘I’m leaving,’ he says, headed for the door. ‘You’ve lied to me and now you won’t even explain to me why.’
‘I can’t explain,’ his boss says with emphasis. ‘Don’t you think I want to?’
‘Then why haven’t you? Seven fucking years and not a single word? My whole life… all this,’ he says, casting around, tears in his eyes. ‘You locked me up and lied to me, Riley. You never even told me my name!’
‘I couldn’t even say your fucking name when you asked,’ Riley tells him, as worked up as Kade’s ever seen him, which isn’t much except for the desperate shine in his eyes. ‘You chose Kade.’
‘Then why did you make me your fucking bodyguard?’
‘You chose that too. It was all you said for a year. Bodyguard, bodyguard, bodyguard. You built this place around yourself and I couldn’t correct anything, I still can’t. I know how it sounds but try saying it yourself.’
‘So you planted some subliminal block in my brain or whatever?’
‘I’d never do that.’
‘You let me think I had a disorder, Riley. You let me—’
‘I kept you safe!’ Riley barks, and all Kade’s air leaves him in a swift, involuntary rush, shocked. Riley never raises his voice. ‘You have no idea what I had to do to keep you safe. You think I like living this way?’
‘You’re the boss of Iron Star,’ Lachlan points out coldly.
Riley ignores him, speaking only to Kade. ‘You think I don’t miss it?’
‘Miss what?’
‘Fighting.’
‘You don’t fight. You never fight.’
Riley looks away, mouth twisting bitterly. ‘You think I relish having to hide away upstairs like a coward just to keep you safe?’
‘You haven’t kept me safe. You’ve kept me prisoner!’
‘I kept my promise!’ he yells.
It rings in Kade’s ears, headache blooming instantly, pressure cranking behind his eyes. ‘To who?’
‘You know what, you wanna go? Go. Leave.’
Riley’s swift return to his calm demeanour hurts so much, worse almost than learning this new, hideous truth Kade doesn’t even know how to swallow.
‘Why did you call me Kade? Tell me that at least?’
But for whatever reason, his boss remains silent.
It’s Lachlan who tells him. ‘Your codename in the Estate was Cascade.’
It’s just a codename, Jules.
…and I’m a clusterfuck, is that right?’
Kade winces hard, head pain flaring bright and loud.
His world is disintegrating, cracking apart.
The ground is opening.
Strange, pale blue hell lurks beneath.
He reaches blindly for Lachlan. ‘Get me out of here.’
?
They head out via the grounds, and no one tries to stop them.
Kade slows when he sees the typical limit ahead, the line of no return where, usually, he’d experience a brutal, agonising turnaround.
This time he makes it through with no issue, only his own apprehension, which calms when he massages his wrist. Lachlan waits for him up ahead, standing between the trees. The sun will set in a few hours. The skies are at their most lovely, gold and lavender.
‘Good job.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Where do you wanna go?’
‘Away.’
‘You got it.’
‘Is your car nearby?’
‘No.’
‘You walked here?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Fucking hell, Bodyguard.’
‘Walking’s good for you.’
Kade shoots him a withering look. ‘I hate you.’
‘I’m used to it.’
In sulky silence, Kade makes it farther than he ever has before, and after a few minutes, the roiling fear within dissipates. He’s on new earth, under new skies. The grounds give way to a path. The path leads to a sidewalk.
They seem to be in the bad part of town, but that’s fine.
Kade likes the look of the grimy buildings, the trashed streets, condoms in the gutter. It’s thrilling. Vibrant. Gross.
‘You’re still watching me,’ he points out when they head towards taller buildings and brighter lights.
Lachlan ignores the observation. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like shit.’ Kade shoots Lachlan a resentful look. ‘Any new information would be gratefully received unless you’re also “cursed” like Riley claims.’
‘What do you wanna know?’
It’s such an enormous question. Everything. Kade wants to know absolutely everything that he doesn’t already know.
For now, though, he asks, ‘Tell me the history of you and me.’
‘In a sentence?’
‘Just tell me things. Anything. Not about the little girl,’ he adds quickly, can’t process that yet and it stirs too much pain inside, right behind his navel. ‘You and me.’
‘I don’t know where to start.’
Irritated, Kade rolls his eyes. ‘My father, then, or Blaire.’
‘Why do you want to know about Blaire?’
‘She gave you the book, right? She’s Lee’s sister, apparently.’
Lachlan frowns. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Lee told me.’
‘Jolene was here?’
‘Céliane. Lee.’
‘Sly little bitch,’ Lachlan mutters under his breath, but levels out soon enough. ‘I never knew they were sisters until the end. Blaire was right, I was blind to so much. She betrayed me.’
‘Lee?’
‘Blaire.’
‘So you two were friends?’
‘We were very close.’
‘Were you involved?’
‘No.’
‘But you loved her?’
‘I did, but everything in the Estate was so complicated.’
‘Why?’
‘Because Alistair Penhalyx didn’t fire people, he killed them. Burned their bodies in the sub-levels and hid the remains away. I was afraid he’d do the same to her if he ever knew I cared about her.’
‘Did you know a lot of people he killed?’
‘The household manager position seemed particularly cursed. Clara was the first to go. He shot her in front of me, left her to die. Fenwick was the second. I was more involved with that death, but the third,’ Lachlan says distantly, ‘was hard to swallow.’
‘What about other bodyguards?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said he… I had a tendency to go through them.’
Lachlan shutters his expression. ‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘Were they all killed?’
‘I think so.’
‘Yes or no?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did I know they were being killed when I got them fired?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Although you actually killed one of them yourself, but trust me,’ Lachlan says, taking a turn towards a noisier part of the city, ‘he deserved it.’
‘How did he die?’
‘Poison.’
Kade frowns. ‘I didn’t know how to kill yet,’ he guesses.
‘You learnt.’
‘And you taught me the basics, right? That’s how you anticipated my moves.’
‘I told you this before.’
‘Yeah, but I didn’t fucking believe it.’
Lachlan stops and looks at him. Kade does the same.
‘Really? Seven years and nothing before. I tell you about Jules Penhalyx and his sister dying seven years ago. I show you a photograph—’
‘That doesn’t look like me.’
‘You were a kid. You’re an adult now. You’ve had your nose broken. Your jaw filled out. But I still see you in there. I still…’ Lachlan shakes his head. ‘I don’t understand how you can’t see it. Harker must be right.’
‘Oh don’t fucking start.’
‘Start what?’
‘Maybe I’ve lost my memory, and maybe some deeply buried trauma is stopping me from accessing anything beyond seven years ago, but this curse bullshit is nothing but Riley’s fondness for Paranatural-adjacent crap.’
They make a sharp left into a noisy bar. Kade smells cheap beer and sweat.
‘You know, it’s pretty fucking rich to hear you talk that way about Brightlings,’ Lachlan tells Kade as he holds the door open for him, ‘considering you are one.’
?
‘You’re lying.’
‘You’re in denial.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Oh no, what else is new? You still like tequila?’