Page 115 of Kade

After a moment, he began coming around, coughing and moaning. Then he seized, twisting in the air, and a scream ripped from him.

I rolled my eyes and stood, grabbing his shoulder. “Stop whining.” I left the cage, dragging him behind me. He bounced on the steps, and I let go when he hit the bottom so he landed with a good, hard thump. He looked around, then at me, blinking.

“Relax. I didn’t go to town on your ass like you did on that kid.”

He groaned, rolling over. He coughed up some blood. Nope. He looked at his fingers. It was just saliva.

Grabbing his ankle, I continued dragging him out the door.

“Wait! Wha—” He twisted around. “Is anyone here? Help?Help!”

I walked to the middle of the parking area and dropped his ankle.

He continued to look around, panicked. “He-help!” He coughed again. More saliva. “Help!Help me! He’s going to kill me.”

I squatted again.What a shitshow. “You’re so fucking dramatic.”

He just kept looking around.

“No one’s here.” I shook my head. “Or at least no one who’ll help you. No one’s coming, Moreaux. You’re all fucking alone. Are you hearing me? Alone.”

Wariness tightened over his face. He lifted himself to sit cross-legged, still coughing. “What do you want, Kade?”

I sighed. “That’s what I keep asking myself.” I studied him.Maybe…I tried a bluff. “We called you the night my brother and I crashed your kid’s party. Remember that? We called all of those kids’s parents, and we waited until each one showed up to pick up their child. Except you. You never showed. Since it was your house, your kid, there wasn’t much more we could do, but then we tried your wife. The number your kid gave us was out of order, and the number Logan found in the kitchen didn’t work either. But my point is, we were in your house.” I tilted my head to the side. “We wereinyourhouse.”

I waited. I wanted to see what his reaction would be to that information.

His eyes narrowed.

Finally some reaction.

He was thinking. His mouth opened. “Wha…” He shook his head and blanched.

“Yeah. I hit you hard. I wouldn’t make sudden movements with your head like that. If you’re concussed, you don’t want to make it worse.”

“What?” He coughed again and moved slowly, lifting his feet so his knees were bent. He braced himself, hands curling around the front of his legs.

Smirking, I stood up, just to make him hurt more.

He cursed under his breath, paling. “Wh-what are you inferring? What about that party?”

“That we were in your house.” I raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. So?”

Fuck. He really didn’t get it. Or there was nothing there he cared that we might’ve found. Still, I had to play my card. I wanted to see if there was something there. I lifted an eyebrow. “Do you think when we got to your house, we immediately went to where the kids were?”

“They would’ve been in the basement. Bell knows to only have his parties there. Everything else is off-limits…” He went rigid, his voice trailing off.

“We were in your house, Phillip. Me and my brother.” I lowered myself to his eye level. I was nice like that. “You think this is the first time we’ve had enemies like you? Granted, high school enemies were a little different. It was simpler back then. Whoever beat the others up the worst was usually the winner. Then there was the guy who wanted to rape my girlfriend, so I set that fucker up. Got him sent to prison. We’ve had other enemies—took down a secret society and put it all on one guy. That worked out. Turned out he was a serial rapist. But here’s the thing. My woman wanted me to change. We couldn’t keep going the path we were going. That’s what I did. I changed. Gota career. Grew up. Became an adult. I was a different person. I am a different person, but here I am, back in Fallen Crest. Back where I’m doing everything I can not to keep beating the shit out of you, even though that’s theonlything I want to do.”

The bloodlust was stirring. “I want to make you bleed, and I want you gone. You’re a cancer. You’re the kind that won’t go away. You’ll keep eating away until you’ve rotted everything that’s good. That’s what you’re going to do to your kid. You’re going to infect him until he’s just like you.”

Shit. The way he was glaring at me, if he’d had a gun on him, he would’ve already shot me. Point blank and right between the eyes.

My amusement died.

Just like my fucking dad.

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