Page 29 of Insatiable

I stay silent. Tap my fingers on the armrests. I should’ve killed him like I killed the last guy she slept with.

No one fucks Stacey and gets away with it. I can’t have her, but nobody else will.

“I can’t keep covering for you when you go off course. I tell you who your targets are. I don’t need to make sure things like this aren’t happening.” She points at the paperwork, teeth bared. “You weren’t trained like this. You had no reason to break into his house and hold him at gunpoint, and you certainly had no reason to beat him until he was nearly unrecognisable. This could have easily been an attempted murder case. What if one of my colleagues got the report instead of me?”

I shrug.

That pisses her off enough to grit out, “Why. Did. You. Do. It?”

I lean back in the chair, resting my ankle on my knee. “I had my reasons.”

She raises a perfectly plucked brow. “Care to explain them?”

“Nope.” I’m unhinged – that’s the only explanation. “It’s none of your business.”

She snarls, leaning forward. “Careful, Kade. I can easily hand over your file and have you locked up for the rest of your life. They’ll stick you in a facility like your father.”

When I stare at her, attempting to tamp down my anger, she smirks and closes the file. Not the first time she’s said something along those lines, and she has enough power to do just that. She does run an entire empire in the underworld and holds a senior rank in Police Scotland.

I have nowhere to run.

“However, you are going away for a while, and as much as you’ll be doing work for me in America, I’ll miss you dearly.” She walks around the desk; pulls herself onto it in front of me. “Archie will be home in an hour. Will we wait for him to join us, or will I show you our new pet now?”

My eye twitches. “New pet?” I don’t like the sound of that. “Meaning?”

Bernadette grins, kicking off her heels and settling her feet right between my legs. Her dress rides up her thighs, showing me that she’s bare beneath. No underwear. No boundaries. No fucking shame.

I fight a grimace and look away.

“You’ll like her.” She hops off the desk. “Follow me.”

On the third floor, she chuckles and turns to me. “Remember when we had Rachel join us? Well, she’s even prettier. And more adventurous.”

I might just shoot myself in the head right now. The gun is burning into my back, begging to be used.

But if I kill her or myself, my entire family will be obliterated – Bernadette’s annoying tripwire if I ever turn on them.

If I refuse to do certain work, Luciella gets threatened. If I refuse to fuck someone, then Dad doesn’t see my mother for weeks.

No one in my family knows the reasons behind their bad luck. I’m apparently a university student, living his life in Stirling.

But that’s far from the truth.

One day, I’ll get away from her; I’ll escape this life.

When she opens the door to reveal a blonde fingering herself on a four-poster bed, moaning and writhing on the velvet sheets, Bernadette tells me to unzip her dress, and I pray this will be a quick night.

But then she pushes the needle into my neck and any chance of that goes out the fucking window.

8

KADE

FLASHBACK 1

THREE YEARS AGO

Three tents are pitched. One for me and my friends. One forLuciellaand hers. And far away from the group of eighteen-year-olds– bar Base andDezbeing twenty – are Mum andEwan.

---