“Take my belt off, Tessa, and get the gun,” Kade said in a rush. Tessa hurried over to help, and Kade tied Doug’s wrists tight enough to cause pain. “Put your foot against his wrists to make sure he keeps his hands down.”
Tessa did as she was told, and he took the gun back from Tessa. Without hesitation, he put it to Doug’s mouth. “Open, motherfucker.”
“Please. Don’t.” Doug’s eyes were huge, true fear there, and he shook his head frantically. Kade tapped Doug’s teeth with the gun and got a whimper of pain. But he also got compliance.
He shoved the gun into Doug’s mouth. “I wonder if this is what I looked like, Doug, when you raped me? Are you giving me the look that you got off on?”
Doug mumbled around the gun, some kind of plea, and drool leaked out the side of his mouth. But pure fury was filtering through Kade’s blood, all the memories of that night fueling him, and he couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t stop the rage.
“Suck it, Doug,” Kade—or rather Kaden—said. Because right now that boy from the woods was rising from the ashes and getting his revenge. “Take it down your throat and make it come. Or maybe I should turn you over. Because that’s what you did to me after I passed out wasn’t it?”
“Kade,” Tessa said, fear in her voice. “We’ve got him tied up. We need to just call the police.”
But Kade wasn’t ready to listen to reason right now. He pushed the gun to the back of Doug’s throat and Doug sucked.
“You said we weren’t very different.” He moved the gun in and out. “If that’s the case, if you were right, then I guess I should pull this trigger. Because you would. Then you’d probably defile the body afterward. You certainly deserve no better after what you did to me and all those people in the photos.”
Doug mumbled something that sounded distinctly like fuck you.
Kade yanked the gun from Doug’s mouth, put it into the earth next to Doug’s head and pulled the trigger. Screams—both Doug’s and Tessa’s—filled the night and dirt flew.
Kade climbed off of Doug in time to see the dark stain appearing on the front of Doug’s pants as he wet himself. Sirens sounded in the background.
Kade crouched down to Doug and patted his cheek, which was wet with tears. “Guess it’s a good thing for both of us, Douggie, that I’m nothing like you.”
Doug spat at him. “I’m going to tell them you two attacked me. That you were trying to break into the house.”
“And I’m going to show them the video of what really happened,” said an unfamiliar voice.
A woman stepped out from the shadows by the fence. She was in a robe, her dark hair twisted on top of her head, and looked vaguely familiar. In her hand was a cell phone.
Tessa stepped away from Doug and looked to the woman. “I hoped you were still an insomniac.”
The woman nodded grimly. “I got the photos you texted me. I was coming over to rip his computer out of the wall but when I saw what was going on, I called the police.”
Tessa blew out a breath. “I prayed it was you moving in the shadows. Thank you. The video will help.”
“You know me, always the reporter,” she said without humor.
Kade realized this was Marilyn. The woman in the photos. Doug’s mistress and Tessa’s former best friend.
Doug rolled over, no doubt one last-ditch attempt to escape, but the police were pouring into the yard a moment later.
And this time, Kade was the one pressing charges.
But he couldn’t feel triumphant about it. He felt sick. Because for those few moments when he had the gun to Doug, he knew he’d been far too close to crossing the line. The I’m-past-this bullshit had lost all validity. And it had put doubts in the head of the one person whose trust he’d worked so hard to get.
He’d scared her.
He’d scared himself.
THIRTY-THREE
Kade was quiet on the plane ride home. They’d spent the previous night in the hospital to get his leg treated—luckily, the bullet had only grazed his thigh. Then they’d spent the morning in the police station giving statements. So they hadn’t had any time to talk. And once they’d gotten on his company’s private jet, he’d closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. She could tell he was faking because his breathing never turned even.
He was beating himself up over how he’d tortured Doug at the end. He hadn’t said so, but she knew that’s what lurked behind the dark shadows of his expression. After the police had come into the yard, Kade had stood to the side, stricken. When he’d looked to Tessa, it was as if he was looking through her. Empty. Gone. And when she’d gone to stand with him, he hadn’t reached out for her. There’d been this invisible steel shell encasing him.
And part of her had been scared to embrace him in that moment. It had been frightening to see the cold hate in Kade’s eyes, the capacity for true violence. Something had overtaken him there in the backyard, morphing the kind and loving man she knew into one with single-minded vengeance. But knowing what he’d been through in the woods, how Doug had violated him so viciously, she couldn’t blame him for his instinctive reaction. She’d been most afraid that Kade would do something he’d regret, something that would land him in jail. But through the rage and trauma and all that memory, he’d been able to pull back and walk away anyway.