Page 133 of Kade

My stomach twisted. I covered my mouth as vomit churned up my throat.

Dear Lord.No.

My sister quieted as she watched me. As I pieced things together, her smile only grew.

Her face wasn’t even human right now. If I’d been told a demon possessed her, I would’ve believed it. Her eyes were bone chilling. She was so eager. Her head inclined toward me, and she tucked some of her hair behind her ear. “Did you figure it out? Are you there yet?” She was so breathless from her excitement.

I couldn’t voice it.

I couldn’t put into words what I was thinking because it would’ve been a nightmare come to life. I couldn’t do that to Mason. To Logan. He’d been their father. My children’s grandfather. But he would’ve been vulnerable.

Analise died and he’d been lost, missing her.

“You’re there, aren’t you? You can tell me. Give me a hint. I don’t want to jump ahead if you’re not there yet. It’s best if you got there on your own. More fulfilling that way.” She took two steps my way, the exhilaration vibrating off her body. Her eyes were wild, gone, as if she were on drugs. “Give me a hint. Come on. Something.”

I shook my head, taking a step away from her. Wrapping my arms around myself, I couldn’t stomach being around her. She wanted to boast about it. She was begging for me to let her spill all the horrible details.

“Sam,” Mason murmured, starting for me.

“Don’t!” I held up a hand, stopping him. I bit out, “Don’t. What they did—” I couldn’t finish. My throat spasmed, choking me. “It was them, Mason. They did it.”

“I know.” His words were quiet.

This was what he was referring to when he said we hadn’t learned it all. This was the rest.

I couldn’t handle it if there was more.

I was going to snap. My sanity would shatter, and I’d be like my mother. It was genetic. I was predisposed. Just needed the right type of environment and I could follow in her footsteps.

“You’re there. Aren’t you? Come on.” She was writhing, whining as if we were having sex and she was pleading for more, more, more. “I already told you about Maddy, but there’s one more. Can you guess? I need you to guess. He told me I couldn’t say anything until you brought it up. He said that’d be burying the lead, whatever that means. So. Come on. Puh-lease. Just say his name—”

I couldn’t give her the satisfaction.

Holding Mason’s gaze, seeing the sadness and yearning in him, he wasn’t going to say his father’s name either.

“Okay. I know. I’ll give you a hint.” She clapped and bounced. “Oh! This is so exciting. So, first hint is that we never thought we could get him to kill himself—”

“Shut up,” Mason wrangled out in a menacing warning.

It was enough to silence Sabrina. Her face went blank. She blinked a few times before she tipped her head back and laughed. She laughed and laughed and no one could say anything to stop her.

What she just acknowledged was—I didn’t have the words.

She took away a person’s life.

“How?” I didn’t recognize my own voice. It was animalistic. Wounded.

Her laughter dried up abruptly. She gave me a slow blink, assessing me calmly before a pitying grin took over her face. “How did we get him to take his own life, you mean?”

I flinched, hearing it put into words again.

She migrated to me, one step. “I never thought he’d do it, not that quickly. We hoped. It’d been in the works, but then we heard the news that the great Mason Kade was retiring and his family was moving back to Fallen Crest. It was all lining up. The time was perfect. James was sixty-eight. Guess how many members from The Network killed themselves from the email you leaked?”

What?

She leaned into me, breathing on me as she whispered, “Sixty-eight. Sixty-eight people took their lives because of something you did. That’s your destruction. One email got sixty-eight people killed. It was only fitting if we sent James the same type of email, right? Guess how many emails we needed to send him?” The ends of her mouth curved up in an impish grin. Her eyes were sparkling. She was loving this. “We sent him sixty-eight emails. Though, I don’t know if he opened them all, but we felt it was symbolic. Sixty-eight people died. James was sixty-eight. Sixty-eight emails, all laying out how someone that terrified Mason’s daddy was coming to hurt his family. Course, we made it about the company, but Park helped me with the wording. There was an undercurrent threat that Kai Bennett was coming to take his family away.” She cast a look over her shoulder to him, her tone turning coy. Almost seductive. “It worked. We couldn’t believe it.”

My mind was spinning. Sixty-eight people killed themselves because of the email we leaked? That… Was that on me? The information on there had been their secrets, but it was leaked to the other members. We only wanted to have them turn on Park, which they did. We were told they did. Clearly they hadn’t stopped there.

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