“I promise, pretty, everything is going to be just fine.”
“If you believed that, then you wouldn’t be asking questions about trusting Cade this deep into it,” I grumble back.
Marcus sighs and nods towards Tristan. Tristan nods back, and just like that, Marcus puts the car in reverse, and we start a very long, very quiet drive out to the middle of nowhere.
If I thought shit couldn’t get any shadier than it already was, the fact that the GPS leads us to an abandoned farm that’s so far removed from civilization I don’t even know how the GPS knew this place existed makes this so much worse. I don’t know if this is Cade purposefully being as creepy as humanly possible, or if this is really a glimpse of how shady he can get. Either way, the–at least fifty years past due for a fresh coat of paint–dilapidated–looking barn in the middle of an overgrown field that looks reminiscent of every horror movie I’ve ever seen has my skin crawling and the hair on the back of my neck rising.
Cade is the picture of ease as he strides out of the barn before Marcus even has the car in park. With his crisp sense of fashion and his infamous vanity, the fact that he looks calm here is unsettlingly out of place.
The only thing that has me following Marcus out of the car, rather than dragging him back in and making him turn tail and head back home right now, is that it’s Cade. I’ve known Cade for years, and I trust him. Even if this whole setting is about as un-Cade-like as possible, knowing he set up whatever is going down here keeps the full-scale panic that’s threatening to come up at bay.
“You guys are just in time. I had to scramble, but I’ve got everything under perfect control. In less than an hour, Sterling will be done,” he says to Marcus and Tristan.
He turns to me with eyes full of concern. “I promise, little pixie, they’ll pay for what they’ve done to you,” he reassures me, and the level of care and friendship that exists in that alone has a hitch in my throat.
Fucker and I may only be friends, but sometimes I forget, with how distant of a person he is, how much his friends mean to him. He may not be loud with his feelings, but it doesn’t mean they don’t run as deep.
I suddenly feel Marcus’s arms wrap around me just before his chest presses against my back and I’m practically encased within the bracket of his arms.
“Stop it, you jealous brute,” I hiss quietly in Marcus’s ear.
Marcus just responds by leaning in and nipping playfully at my neck. Cade snorts with amusement at my attempt to look like I’m put out by Marcus’s possessiveness, but the fact that I’m burrowing deeper into him isn’t exactly convincing anyone.
And just like that, Cade’s mask of neutrality slips back on, and he focuses back on Marcus and Tristan as if that little moment hadn’t happened at all.
“Let’s go,” he says, motioning his head towards the dilapidated, freaky-ass barn.
“What if he escapes?” Marcus asks, as the rest of us follow Cade’s lead.
Cade shakes his head. “No chance; even if he managed it, I have a backup plan that will take him out completely if necessary.”
“Completely, as in…?” I ask to clarify that he’s saying what I think he’s saying.
Cade turns to me with a maniacal gleam in his eye I’ve never seen before, and I realize, for the first time, how shady he reallycanbe. Not sure how I feel about that, but then again, if anyone deserves to meet an unnatural end, it’s Sterling Adair.
But then, when we walk into the barn, my eyes pop wildly. Kingston istied–to–a–motherfucking–chair. Like, creepy illegal-interrogation-room tied, with his chest bound to the chair, his hands pulled back and tied behind him, and duct tape across his mouth. Kingston’s eyes land on mine, and he starts yelling, his words getting muffled by the tape.
Marcus’s arms tighten around me while he and Tristan exchange uneasy glances before turning towards Cade.
“What the fuck did you do, Cade?”
Cade looks completely unbothered as he straightens the sleeves of his shirt.
“You said you wanted him safe, that you needed to question him and make sure he has an alibi while Daddy goes down. After your party, he went to a club and drank ‘til he passed out. I just snagged him while he was compliant and secured him for when he woke up. Safe, interrogable, and a room full of fucking alibis, it’s exactly what you asked for,” he shrugs as if it’s the most natural fucking thing ever.
Kingston’s eyes flash in my direction as he screams, and it’s not fear there. Instead, it’s rage. He’s totally pissed, which is fair; if I’d had a day like he’s having, I’d be pissed too. But I think I’d be a bit more scared than pissed if I’d woken up tied to a chair in a barn in a place so far removed from society, I’m not even sure time exists here anymore. Not to mention being in a room of people who are most definitely not his friends. Not this guy, though.
“Should we untie him?” Tristan asks quietly.
Qi scoffs at that. “Fuck no, let the fucker piss himself for a while,” he says harshly.
“Qi…” I chide quietly.
“You know what, no, Qiang. This guy was in our house last night, calling you a whore after everything he’s already done to you. Let him fucking sit there and suffer over it for a minute. It’s not like he’sactuallyin danger here. No one here isactuallygoing to kill him,” Qi rants out angrily, making me swallow the rest of my words.
Qi is like the nicest person ever, to everyone, all the time, except Kingston. Kingston broke the one rule Qi can’t forgive. He hurt me, maliciously and cruelly, and while I know Qi’s only being cruel because he trusts that everyone here will be safe at the end of the day, it still breaks my heart to see him this angry, even in a way that will ultimately carry no long-lasting harm.
“Well, hypothetically–” Cade drolls lazily in response to Qi’s assumption of not killing Kingston tonight.
