Chapter 41 It’s Giving Male Rage Masking Abandonment Issues #2
“You wanna know what I think?” My voice steadies, courage mixing with adrenaline to help me refocus.
“I think you’re having a temper tantrum because one of your employees decided he wanted a life outside of whatever sketchy bullshit you’ve got him doing.
And instead of, I don’t know, respecting that decision like a good manager, you decided to kidnap his wife.
” The rope begins to loosen. “Which, by the way, is giving major male-rage-masking-unprocessed-abandonment-issues energy.”
His jaw clenches. “You talk too much.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot. But this isn’t going to end the way you think it is. If Kade really is Chad, then he’ll be here.” The second rope gives way completely.
The man laughs. “You think he’s coming for you? You think he even knows you’re gone yet?”
“Even if he doesn’t, are you really sure this is going to work?
That killing me is going to make Kade fall back in line?
Because if you knew him at all—and I mean really knew him, not just the professional mask he puts on for work—you’d know that hurting someone he loves is the absolute worst way to control him. ”
“He doesn’t love you,” the man says, but there’s less certainty in his voice now.
“Seems like you’ve spent eight years being pissed off about how much he loves me. Eight years watching him choose me over you, over the job, over whatever twisted loyalty you think he owes you.”
“He left you.”
“Yeah, he did. And I’m betting that had a lot more to do with you than it did with me.” The rope around my left wrist finally gives way. I keep my hands in position, not wanting to tip him off.
“Can someone do something to shut her up?” he calls out to whoever else might be in the building.
That’s my cue.
I launch myself out of the chair, diving toward the table where my purse sits. My fingers close around the familiar weight of my Glock just as strong hands grab me around the waist, trying to haul me back.
“Oh no you don’t, you chatty little—”
That’s when the first shots ring out somewhere in the building. Loud, in rapid succession, professional.
The hands holding me freeze. Then the door implodes.
And there he is.
Kade.
Not Chad. Kade. My husband.
Standing in the doorway in black tactical gear, no helmet hiding his face this time, and—
Oh God.
It’s him. It’s really him.
Eight years older. Harder. More dangerous. But still him. Same dark hair I used to run my fingers through. Same intense eyes that used to watch me sleep. Same sharp jaw I traced with my fingertips when we were tangled together in hotel sheets in Vegas.
The air leaves my lungs.
He’s alive. He’s here. He’s real.
And he’s lied to me for eight years.
His eyes find mine across the room, and the world narrows to just this moment. Just us. Just the weight of everything that was and everything that could have been and everything we lost.
For one second—one perfect, terrible second—the cold mask cracks wide open.
I see relief flood his face. Raw and desperate.
Like finding me alive just saved him from drowning.
Then fear crashes in behind it. Real fear.
The kind that says he’s terrified I’m hurt, terrified he’s too late, terrified of what he’ll see in my eyes when I look at him.
And underneath it all? Love. So much love it physically hurts to look at. Love that doesn’t fade with time or distance. The kind that survives eight years of separation and lies and pain.
But there’s guilt, too. I see it in the way his jaw tightens.
The way his hands flex at his sides like he wants to reach for me but doesn’t know if he has the right anymore.
He shouldn’t look at me like that. Like I’m the only thing that matters.
Like seeing me is both salvation and damnation.
Like he’d burn the world down if it meant keeping me safe.
Not after what he did. Not after the lies.
My eyes burn with tears I refuse to let fall. My chest is caving in, and I can’t breathe, and I don’t know if I want to run to him or run from him. Don’t know if I want to kiss him or kill him or scream at him until my voice gives out.
Maybe all of it. Maybe none of it.
Because he left me. He left me broken in a hospital bed.
Watched me try to put myself back together when the only thing I managed to build were walls so high and so thick that I forgot what it felt like to let anyone in.
Watched me talk to an AI version of himself while he knew—he always knew—who I really was.
And I didn’t recognize him. Didn’t see through the helmet and the voice. Because I’d convinced myself so thoroughly that he was gone that even when he was right in front of me, I couldn’t see him.
But now I can. Now there’s no helmet, no screen, no barrier between us.
Just Kade. My Kade.
Except he’s not mine anymore. He stopped being mine the moment he walked away.
“Let her go, Bergen.” His voice comes out deadly calm, but I can hear the tremor underneath. The fear threatening to crack through. “Now.”
“Kade,” Bergen says, and I can hear the false confidence in his voice. “I was hoping you’d—”
“I said let her go.”
The arm around my waist tightens. “I don’t think so. We have some things to discuss first.”
I feel the cold press of metal against my temple. A gun. Of course.
But Bergen made one crucial mistake.
He’s never seen me really angry before.
And today I’m fucking furious.