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“What happened?” I demand. “Are you okay?”
Standing, I start pacing as Patricia pours herself a fresh cup of tea and sits back to sip it, like we’re out for a picnic in the Hamptons. Not at all freaking out that my insane father called in a favor to get me back and that Cade might be forced to give me up to a murderer.
“I’m fine. I want you to go stay with Ma, okay? Until I come back. Do you hear me, Belle? No wandering around.”
“I understand. I’m at your mom’s anyway.” I rub my hand through my hair and try to steady myself. “Did you tell Aidan everything?”
“Yes. He says you’re free to return to L.A.” I hear cars and horns so I know he’s in the city but, and I have no idea why, his words are a cold comfort. “Everything will be over tonight. I need you to trust me. I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be, but I will make it up to you. I promise.
“I’m so fucking sorry, baby. Every step of this has eaten at me, torn at my instincts, but I’m a soldier and I obey orders.” He sucks in a breath. “I let you down, Belle. I know I did. I meant it when I said you were safe with me, though. No one will ever hurt you. Not even if you decide to cut and run back to L.A. I won’t let Davis get his hands on you, do you hear me?”
I close my eyes at his admission of guilt, and his promises whisper reassurance through me… I haven’t been safe since the day I was born.
“What about Aidan?” I ask softly, wanting to believe him, but life has taught me otherwise.
“He doesn’t like being lied to, which your father did. Trust me, Isabelle. I’ll make this right. I fucking swear I will,” he growls.
As the line goes dead in my ear, I turn to look at Patricia, who arches a brow at me over her teacup.
“He said for me to trust him.”
“And do you?” she asks, her tone neutral as she sets down her cup. “I can’t blame you, dear, if you say you don’t. Cade hasn’t shown you the best side of himself today, has he?”
Her candor makes it easy to admit, “Before today, I felt like everything was too perfect. Likehewas too perfect. I think I’ve been waiting for it all to come crashing down around me.” I take a breath. “Now that it’s hit me and the worst has happened, I don’t feel as scared as I thought I would. I’m literally in New York when I promised myself I’d never return. I did that because I trusted Cade. I trusted him when he said he’d never let me get hurt. I guess when I thought he was talking about muggers, he was talking about Father…”
“Cade’s very protective of the women he loves,” she says easily. My eyes widen at that, but she just smiles. It’s a knowing smile. That “mom thing” again. “He’s had his ways, and he’s been looser than a whore’s knickers, as my grandmother would say, not in company, mind, but I’ve never seen my son like he is around you withanyone.
“But you need to trust yourself first, Isabelle. Both of you deserve to have this if you want it, and while he’s let you down, I know he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to make things right if you choose to have a future together.”
Her insight into her son paints the world in brighter shades—maybe things aren’t so bleak?
It makes my eyes fill with tears and my heart, which has been beating in terror, suddenly slows.
“Thank you,” I breathe. Like he knows, my phone starts ringing again. “Cade, I trust you.”
But then, there’s silence.
Cold, stark silence.
“Cade?” My blood turns cold. Teeth chattering, I stutter, “H-Hello? W-Who’s there?”
Patricia’s eyes connect with mine as she grabs the phone from me. “Hello? Hello? Private number.” There’s nothing private about it—call it instinct, or a goddamn guardian angel, but I knowwhothat was. How the hell did he get my number? “This, dear,” she declares, straightening her shoulders like she’s preparing for war, “is exactly why I’m always ready for anything. Now, you take a seat and finish your scone. It’ll settle your stomach.”
For a second, I don’t think I heard her right, but she pushes the plate at me and stares me down until I pick up the baked good and take a bite. I thought it’d make me puke, but it doesn’t. Oddly enough, itdoessettle my stomach.
When she starts to talk about her children when they were kids, I’m able to concentrate. I do exactly what she said—I listen to her stories and finish my scone.
She’s prepared. I’m not. But that’s okay. The monster’s out. He might know where I am, but there’s a Glock set amid the crockery and I’m not a child anymore—I know how to shoot that gun and I won’t miss.
I won’t.
21
CADE
“She’s with Ma,”I tell Lucas, ducking down to stare at him through the passenger window.
He arches a brow at me. “She didn’t hightail it out of there the moment you left?”
