“Izzy, the man would like you to accept his apologies,” Cade said softly but firmly as he slid his phone out.
My heart stuttered, and then I was sure it crumbled right there in that room at his words. He expected me to do the one thing I thought he was always pushing me not to do. Bury my damn emotions, bury my anger, just take it.
I cleared my throat as I felt the tears pricking my eyes. “You’re forgiven.”
“Oh, good. Good. I thought—” Aleks never finished.
The lights went out, and with no sunlight in the room or the hall, we drowned in darkness.
And screams. Painful, wretched, torturous screams. I fell to the ground as gun shots went off and I heard men running in.
It was only a matter of fifteen seconds, then the lights were back.
In front of me stood a man who strongly resembled Cade. He looked calmer, though, at ease. My brother-in-law stood with him.
Dante Armanelli nodded at me with those green eyes full of concern. “You okay?”
I nodded back.
Yet, Cade was the one who held all my attention, his knife at Aleks’s throat.
Aleks had his hands in the air. “Please. Let’s calm down. I didn’t know she was your Untouchable. If that’s what this is about . . .” He chuckled nervously.
“I’ll nuke your whole goddamn country if any of you come near her again. How about that for her being an Untouchable?” Cade growled, and I saw the way his whole body shook in rage, veins popping on his forearms, like a pressure cooker about to blow.
Aleks didn’t move a muscle, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “Bastian, your brother.” He gave Bastian a look like Cade was insane. “Let’s be reasonable now, huh? We didn’t know her and—”
Cade didn’t give him time to finish. He stepped close and shoved the knife harder into his throat to break skin. “You’re talking to my brother as if I’m not here, Aleks. You think he can stop me? You think if I really want to, I won’t just slit your throat? That I don’t rule whatever the fuck I want?”
“Mr. Armanelli, please—”
“Yes. Start with begging,” Cade commanded and shoved him back. “Get on your knees to do it too.”
He chuckled like he thought Cade was joking, but the beautiful man who I knew I loved right there and then, in all his crazy glory, in his madness, his fury, lifted a brow.
Aleks nodded fast then. “Of course.” He got on his knees. “I really meant no harm, and my country is innocent. I have a wife.”
“What if I gave her a dose of what you gave my Untouchable, a dose that was almost lethal?”
The man started to sob. He knew he wouldn’t live, that he probably wouldn’t be spared. “She’s just a woman.”
“Don’t women rule us? She owns my soul. I can control every computer you log into, the technology that protects your country, and I can control if you live or die. But she controls me. She says kill you, and I ask how she’d like it done. Do you understand? Take a look around you.”
We all glanced around the room. It was very clear that Cade had used his blade on Dion. There was the fresh smell of blood in the room. He’d been gutted, and Aleks’s knees were soaked with the evidence of that.
“Turn to her and plead,” Cade commanded.
Aleks didn’t even hesitate. He pivoted to me immediately with tears in his eyes. “Please. Spare me. You’ll make an enemy of the nation. Albania is mine. My family rules it. Think of your nation, how we could be allies. Please. Please.”
“Those were the words I used before Dion took my sobriety,” I whispered, holding his gaze.
Dion was bleeding out on the floor already, the thick liquid flowing from his stomach as he rolled around in pain. I crumbled to the floor as I let the fear wash over me, the pain of the loss of my sobriety, and the relief that I could get out.
The man begged, and I tried my best to think beyond what I felt then, tried my best to understand that alliances would be broken if I acted with my gut and emotion. “Cade, you can do what’s best for the nation.”
Cade searched my eyes. Then he shook his head as his tattooed hand, the one that read CHAOS on it flexed hard. The room faded away as he held my gaze, as he seemed to look in my soul, dig around and find my heart, my emotion, and my pain. He didn’t blink or break eye contact, his eyes dark and haunted, as he slit the man’s throat.
I turned away as Dante came to stand beside me and asked if I was okay. Cade was there a second later. He scooped me up even as I said, “I’m fine. I can walk.”
“And I can carry you,” he murmured into my neck. Then, he yelled for the guys to figure out this shit show we were leaving behind.
No words between us were exchanged as he set me gently into a black SUV and then we drove into the night silently.
I thought we were in the clear, that he’d come for me, and I’d figured out I loved him. We’d find a way to get over this and be together. I thought that everything was going to be okay.
Except Cade wasn’t. That night altered something in his mind, something I wasn’t sure I could ever get back.
28
Cade
It was seeing her broken—the quiver in her voice, the bruises on her body, the blood from her mouth—that changed something in me. I’d pushed her buttons before, tortured her a little, fucked with her because she was mine, but this was different.
No one got to torture her but me.
No one got to mark her but me.
Izzy Hardy had been mine for a long time, but it took this kidnapping for me to realize it. My bracelet shined as if untouched on her wrist, but it hadn’t protected her. Nothing I’d done so far had protected her enough.
That was going to change.
“I’d corrupt the whole world for you. Have them bleed out and suffer for attempting to hurt you,” I murmured as our driver turned a corner to make it back to my place. I couldn’t take her home, where she needed to be, because they’d drugged her there, tainted the place she should have felt safe.
“I don’t want the world corrupted,” she replied. “I only need what you give me. A place to be free, a place to let go enough to be myself.”
I pulled her close, grabbed her thighs, and had her straddle me so I could kiss her gently, so I could hug her and smooth my hands over her back, like I needed to check her and make sure she was really with me.
I barked at our driver to stop and get her some food, never letting her move from my lap. I hand-fed her without a word. She opened her mouth and chewed every bite, staring at me with tears in her eyes. She needed nourishment. I made a promise to myself, as her lips brushed my fingers with each bite, that I’d nourish her for the rest of my life.
When she’d finished eating, she nestled into my neck and was asleep in seconds. I told the driver to go until I said stop. How I hadn’t given her love without fucking and torture before, I didn’t know. Because there, in that SUV, I fell in love with loving her. I wanted to fuck her slow, with the night’s city lights on her, and see how she melted into my gentle touch. I wanted her to feel safe and loved and treasured. I wanted to see the tears in her beautiful eyes. I wanted to see the love I felt for her right then in her eyes for me always.
After an hour or two had passed and she stirred, she peered up at me. “I have to get home. My cat’s probably scared and starving.”
“Bug is fine.” I cut her off. “She’s at your parents’ house. Does she always look at everyone like we’re stupid?”
Izzy snickered. “Yes.”
I readjusted my damn trousers because staring at her smiling, breathing her in, feeling her pussy so damn close, proved I couldn’t resist her even in the worst of times.
When her hips rolled into me, though, I growled. I met her gaze and found her biting her lip. “Izzy, don’t fuck with me right now.”
“I could have died, Cade. And if I’m starting over, maybe I’m not going to bury this feeling. Maybe I need to accept what I want right here and now.”
“You want this?” I narrowed my eyes, trying to make sure she could handle it. “Now? Because I’m still on edge, Izzy. Someone fucked with what was mine.”
“Show me I’m yours, then,” she said, her gaze unwavering as she leaned to press the partition button on the door.
I didn’t even wait for it to be all the way up. I couldn’t. I grabbed some of her hair and pulled her head back to expose her neck. I licked and bit every part of it before making my way to her mouth. I tasted the blood on her lips still, and my dick got harder as she ground her pussy there, riding my lap like her control was about to snap. “This is never going to happen again, Izzy. You’re my Untouchable, and I’ll destroy the world before they come near you again.”
She whispered okay over and over, but I was going to make her see. I spun her around so she was sitting on the seat, and I kneeled before her.