Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Cade's hand loosened.
It came back to him. The body under the white sheet. The DNA report. Ren's ashes.
It was all real.
He sat there for a long moment without moving.
Then he stood. He walked.
He went downstairs to the dungeon.
He unlocked the door. The smell hit him first. Vivienne was curled in the corner — hair matted, clothes ruined, covered in filth. A week had done what years hadn't.
She heard him and looked up. Then she scrambled forward and grabbed his leg.
"Cade. Cade please. I was wrong. I'm begging you, let me out—"
He looked down at her. His expression was calm. Dead calm.
He crouched down and pried her fingers off him one by one.
"Let you out?"
His voice was quiet.
"Mara is dead. Ren is dead."
He looked at her.
"Tell me how."
His assistant had brought in documents — statements from the women who had been in the dungeon with Mara. Cade read.
Mara in the corner. Food thrown on the floor. A boot connecting with her shoulder when she reached for it. Then the whip.
She didn't cry. She just pulled herself tighter.
Page after page. From food withheld to sessions strapped in a chair with current running through her. Fevers she survived alone in the dark. Always looking at the door that never opened.
Cade's hands were shaking. His eyes burned.
He grabbed Vivienne's throat and pulled her up.
"You see this? Every hit she took. Every day they starved her. Every time they ran current through her. That was you."
He let go. She dropped.
"Hold her."
Guards pinned her.
The whip came down.
Vivienne went from begging to screaming to cursing.
"You're a hypocrite, Cade Thorne! You're the one who put her there! You locked her up yourself. What are you performing now, guilt? You think this makes you better?"
He didn't stop. He kept watching, cold.
When she had no voice left and was just lying there moaning, he raised his hand.
They stopped.
He crouched beside her.
"Don't die," he said. "We have a lot of time left."
He said it quietly, almost kindly.
"Don't forget — there's a child in my custody. Not Pack blood. But he was born here. I'll take care of him. Good school. Safe life. He'll want for nothing."
He paused.
"But you'll never see him again."
Vivienne's eyes went wide. Her lips moved and nothing came out.
Cade stood. He walked to the door.
Behind him, the iron door slammed shut. Vivienne's screaming started. He heard it all the way up the stairs.
He kept walking.
The Pack Tavern. A corner booth.
Cade sat alone, drinking.
He got up to use the bathroom and heard it coming from the next room over.
"Shame about Thorne's mate. She was something."
"I heard she's dead. If the Alpha hadn't had his eye on her all these years, I'd have taken my shot."
Laughter.
"Could've given her a better life. Maybe she'd still be around."
The door came off the hinges.
The men inside hadn't processed what was happening before the bottle connected with the one who had spoken.
Glass went everywhere.
The man looked up at Cade, saw his eyes, and didn't finish the thought.
Cade picked up a second bottle.