28. BUNNY
“Stand.”
The order is given in the same restrained tone as before, but unlike the first time, Nathan does what he’s told immediately.
Resignation is the only emotion I gather when looking into Nathan’s gaze—acceptance of his inevitable fate. Although I still don’t know what his fate entails, I stand back and watch, avoiding the blanket-covered heap that lies beneath the foot of the bed.
“Now tell me why you chose me.” We’re back to this question, this time with no interruptions.
Don’t look at her, I remind myself. Don’t look at her.
Sighing, Nathan hangs his head, understanding there’s no way to escape the truth. “You fit the profile I was given.”
“And what was that?” Cade asks, fists clenched to stop the trembles that run across his muscles.
“Handsome,” he starts, shame the only emotion poking through, “strong. Someone the men wouldn’t mind betting on and who the whores wouldn’t mind fucking. Yes,” he stills, then with a shaky breath, adds, “there were tons of you, but you were perfect. You were who Marone picked out of the litter.”
His prize dog.
Cade absorbs all that’s said, face growing harder, body turning to stone. He doesn’t utter a word, but falls into position. I’ve seen it all too many times down in the fight room, hands protectively braced at his sides, twirling his beloved blade between skilled fingers. I hold my breath once his knees start to bend, finally realizing what he plans on doing.
And he does so without a word, striking his fist directly into the center of his face.
“Get up,” Cade commands, circling Nathan as he falls to the ground. Tears pour out from swollen lids, flowing into the mass of blood that spurts from his crooked nose. The downpour is vicious and outright savage, but it does not deter My Blade.
“I said get up.”
“Please!”
“Get up,” Cade growls, yanking him onto his feet with a firm grip on the back of his throat. He forces him onto unstable legs, smacking his hand away so we can all witness the gore and gush spewing from his nose.
“Do you know how many times I begged please?” Swinging the blunt end of the blade into his temple, Cade knocks Nathan back to the ground. “How many times I asked them to stop beating me? To stop whipping me? You know what they did?”
“Please…”
Hunching low, Cade waves the blade in Nathan’s line of sight, ensuring he captures the blood that never washed clean. “They took this from my back and forced it into my hand. This blood,” he emphasizes by tapping it against Nathan’s coated knuckles, “is on your hands as much as it”s on mine. Can you live with that?”
Nathan wheezes and sniffles unintelligible words, his entire body quivering and shaking with uncontrollable panic. Beneath his flaccid, bobbing cock, urine floods the floor, seeping into the bottoms of Cade’s shoes. He does not back away, hardly even glances at the ever-growing puddle while his face draws closer to Nathan’s weeping one.
They may share a space, but Cade reigns control.
“Can you live with that, Nathan? Those men—those kids—deaths on your hands.”
In the end, at least they’re honest.
“Y-yes…I can.”
Smirking, “And because of you, so can I.”
I don’t see the blade sink into Nathan’s abdomen. I only hear the sickening squelch of guts and muscles being torn open. Pieces of him splash onto the soft floor while Cade jerks the blade higher.
I sense my stomach churning when Nathan spits up blood, splashing it along Cade’s cheek and the seam of his lips, but Cade is undeterred. He smiles with the crimson staining his teeth—a clear image of the man Nathan helped create.
When the knife sticks between the ribcage, Cade palms the handle with both hands. Nathan weakly attempts to keep him from progressing by pushing down on his wrists, but his life is leaving him too quickly to do much.
With a gasp and a nauseating crunch, Cade rips through his sternum, stopping Nathan’s heart and stealing his final breaths. For a moment, all the oxygen in the room is sucked away. I stand against the wall, hand pressed against my taut stomach, waiting for Cade to do anything but stay as still as he is. I can see his shoulders rising and falling in a steady, controlled fashion that tells me he isn’t descending the same hole I was, but still, he remains as statuesque as ever.
Boot lifting, I move for him, but stop myself before my other foot can leave the ground.
When I was ten, I lived with this woman, Mrs. Abrams, who had a revolving door of men coming into our home. I don’t think I ever saw her without a man attached to her side. It didn’t matter how they treated her, if they cheated on her or beat her to within an inch of her life. None of that ever mattered because she said it was better than being alone.
There was a moment on a Sunday night when Mrs. Abrams begged her newest man, I called him Dave because he looked more like that than an Edgar, to stay. She pleaded for him not to go home to his wife and stay because she just hated to be alone. He told her no over and over, but she wouldn’t stop begging.
I was sitting on a kitchen stool when he threw a glass vase of dead flowers at her head.
“I said no!” he shouted before slamming the door on his way out.
Watching from my seat, I silently implored her to stop, and let her bleeding face be the end of it.
Mrs. Abrams knew no logic and followed him out anyway.
Thirty minutes had passed before I gathered enough courage to slide from my stool and go after her. I found her in the middle of the street, leg smashed as if the car had driven over it. I had to explain to the police dispatcher that I didn’t know what happened, only that her boyfriend was upset and he hurt her…again.
A paramedic was sent immediately, a kind, petite woman with too tight of a bun. She pulled her ambulance into the space beside the curb where I sat. While her partner, an older man with a thick, broomy mustache, went to my foster mother, she kneeled before me and uttered advice I’ll never forget.
“Take this as a lesson, baby girl. Never chase a man. You’ll suffer for it every time.”
Her words hit me now as I survey Cade. So I stay in place, knowing when he’s calm and ready, he’ll come to me.
A couple of minutes later, that’s exactly what he does. Cade walks away from the carnage, blood soiling his entire front, without so much as a sound. I know he doesn’t mean to grab hold of my wrist as hard as he does while pulling me out of the room, but I can’t stop my wince once he crushes the delicate bones in his grip. There’s no audible apology, but his touch becomes gentler, almost adoring, as we step into the main room.
Immediately, we’re assaulted with the booming notes of a saxophone. The rich, soulful sound is unfitting for what just occurred, so I switch off the stereo as I pass by, drowning us in vulnerable silence. Cade leads us to the black leather couch pressed against the wall with the window, face devoid of any emotion as we fall into the seats.
So many words lie on the tip of my tongue, but it doesn’t feel right to speak when there is so much heaviness sitting in the room. It leaves a weighted trail behind, leading to the door at the end of the hall. That’s where we look, together, replaying all we’ve done.
While he’s turned to the side, profile examining the darkened hallway, I study him. Every blink, every twitch—every dim flicker in his stunning blue eyes, I inspect it all, trying to find even a speckle of guilt. I’m hoping to find not an ounce. At least then, I’ll feel less guilty about having none of my own.
Swiveling around, he finds me staring and keeps me locked in his gaze. I wait for the words then, sure they’re coming now—but no. Instead, without ever breaking eye contact, Cade reaches for the table and plucks one of the long-stemmed champagne flutes from its coaster. He hands it to me with the softest of grins on his lips. It”s tired and broken, but at least it’s there.
We clink our half-drunk glasses and down the liquid, finishing the remaining bottle before taking the tiny plates of food for our own. We burned off our bagel in the bedroom, leaving space in our starved stomachs for the miniature dishes of Bruschetta. They’re gone within minutes. Each piece of crunchy, garlicky tomato bread cleared from the table with no trace of them left behind. We’re left with nothing to do but figure out how to dispose of Colette and Nathan and leave.
“What do you want to do?” I ask, finally breaking the silence. I expect him to know I’m asking about the bodies, but instead, he has other ideas. Taking my hand once again, he leads us through the same hallway as before, only this time, we slip behind another door.
The bathroom smells overwhelmingly of pine and cologne, making my eyes water the second we step inside.
I’m still stuck in my thoughts when Cade’s fingers brush the ends of my dress. I inhale a long breath as the blood crusted on the tips of his nails flakes off against my skin, sticking to me as the dress inches higher and higher. My chest is stained with Colette’s pigment and crusted with Nathan’s, but it doesn’t stop Cade from leaning over and licking the iron from between my breasts.
I can’t stop the shivers erupting over my flesh as his tongue brushes over the sensitive skin of my nipples. They pebble beneath his attention, straining to the point of pain.
“Oh, God,” I cry when he takes my left breast in his palm, kneading and squeezing the swollen flesh while his other hand dances down the slender curve of my waist. For a moment, he holds me just like this, hands on two of the softest parts of me while gazing into my love-drunk stare.
“We got three, Bun,” he says happily, taking my bottom lip between his teeth. “They can never get us again. They can never get you again.” He emphasizes me, as if I was the only one affected, but staring into his eyes, drowning inside their depths, I see I’m the only one who matters to him. Everything he’s done?—
He”s done for me.
“You’ve given me everything.” It’s as close to I love you as I’ve ever gotten to saying, and the biggest thank you I can squeeze out through my strangled throat, and it”s not enough. There are no words or actions that could even come close to repaying what he’s done for me—what we’ve done together, for each other.
Pressing myself into his blood-soaked shirt, I wrap my fingers around his neck, leaving no space between us. I say I love you with the motion of my lips. I need you with every undone button. I can feel his promise in return, the same vows sinking into my core with every caress.
I moan in his mouth as he grows into my palm. We will never go through this world alone, we solemnly swear, falling into each other”s arms as swiftly as we fall deeper in love.