Page 124 of Restitution

He sighs and pulls me into his lap. “Don’t think any differently of me.”

“Never.”

As Kade tells me from the very beginning, I feel bile rising up my throat. The terror he went through is unimaginable. Bernadette lured him in, saying she wanted to help, only to groom him, turn him into a monster, and force him to kill and fuck and be their lapdog.

Tears flow down my cheeks when he tells how, one time, hewas late for an assignment and Archie drugged him up so badly, he didn’t wake for days, and when he did, he just knew the man had violated his teenage body.

He’s shaking beneath me as he keeps going, telling me story after story. Bounty after bounty. How many people he tortured – how he tried to save as many as possible – and the number of people he had to perform for.

His words are spoken against my skin, his head buried in my shoulder, as if he’s too ashamed to look me in the eye.

“How many clients did you have?” I ask, because by the sounds of it, there were loads.

“Please don’t hate me,” he says, lifting his head. “I don’t know. Way over a hundred. You should know, she made me do shit with Base too. You might see the photos. It was only, maybe, five times.”

I’ve already seen the proof, but I didn’t want to ask him about it in case he was triggered by the memories. The amount of torture he went through, I didn’t want to bring any of it up.

“You and Base are okay though?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “If anything, it made us closer. We knew we had to play along to make sure you and Luciella were safe. We didn’t have full sex, but he did stuff to me while I…” He pauses. “Sorry. I really don’t want you to hate me.”

“I could never hate you for that.” Despite Kade being forced into that line of work, I have so much respect for sex workers. I’ve had many students who trained with me so they could apply to clubs, or webcam or gain confidence for lingerie modelling. “Did any of them ever hurt you?”

He laughs. “Yeah. I think Bernadette chose them for that exact reason. Someone actually stabbed me when I was—” He stopsand groans. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear any of this.”

“It’s okay; stop apologising. Is it helping? You talking to me about it?”

“Yeah,” he replies, sighing and massaging his thumbs into my sides. “But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’m not,” I say truthfully. “I want to help.”

“You did help. The memories of us kept me going. I was always in subspace, reliving the times we had while stuff was happening to me. I never stopped loving you, Stacey, even when I was a dick to you. I’ve always been yours.”

I sniff, my eyes burning. “And I’m yours.” I wipe my cheeks. “What age were you when you had your first client?”

He grimaces. “Nineteen. Like a month after we split up.”

“I didn’t think it was possible to hate Bernadette more than I do,” I hiss, raking my fingers through his hair, not bringing up the scars on his scalp. “I think I might help you kill her.”

Kade laughs and snakes his arms around the small of my back, resting his forehead against my own. “Not a chance. As soon as I sort this shit with the police and find out if I’m actually getting charged, and Base arrives with his army of Russians, you’re going to the safe house and taking the dogs with you.”

I frown. “No. I already said I’m staying with you.”

Sighing, Kade easily stands with me wrapped around him, like I’m a featherweight. “I have no idea how to explain this more clearly to you. According to Barry, I have fifty million on my head.Fifty. Do you know how many people are probably rounding up to attack the manor? If the other underworld assholes aren’t already on their way. You staying here is out of the question.”

I fold my arms, and he holds me up. “Why are you changingyour mind? You were agreeing with me earlier.”

“I was blinded by your pussy on my cock. I would have agreed to anything.”

My eyes narrow. “That’s irresponsible.”

Kade turns, lowering us onto the weight bench and pushing me to lie back. “No. What’s irresponsible is how many times I’ve been inside you while you’re not on birth control. For that fact alone, you’re going to the safe house.”

“You’re sending me away so you don’t fuck me again?”

It annoys me that he’s grinning, but my annoyance is extinguished as he settles on top of me, causing his top to ride up my body.

“No. I’m sending you away because if I’ve knocked you up, I’m not losing the two of you when they eventually come for me.” He lowers his mouth to mine, softly kissing the corner of my lips and trailing down my jaw. “But seeing you dripping with my cum, knowing the probability of you falling pregnant, makes me fucking hard.” He punctuates the last word by grinding against me once, and I gasp. “Even thinking about it makes me want to fuck you.”