Chapter 45: Chapter 45

CASSANDRA BATES

STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES.

You know I never thought about that expression at all but isn’t that how we humans were programmed? To live life by the book.

Education being the most important, a good job, a solid career, marriage, kids then death. Everyone had that dream and maybe I did too.

Maybe I spent most of my time in high school nose deep in a book, googling the most profitable careers and all that paid off when I shipped off to college, worked my butt off for a job that now that I stopped to think about—I didn’t really give a shit about.

Point was, everything happening to me maybe it was God trying to seep a little bit of coke in my life, a little bit of changes instead of the same old same old shitty lives people lived.

And thus, here I was stopping to smell the roses.

No job, frankly maybe I didn’t even have an apartment to go back to either.

No expectations, no stalking people on Instagram and later questioning how other women maintained slim bodies while I could hardly get my body to go on a diet.

This was me putting a pause on everything and you know not overthinking about stuff actually made life easier, made you look at the world with a different perspective.

Who would have thought huh?

I didn’t even like plants as a matter of fact I was never a nature girl, my home town being a big influence. You live around too many plants and horses and you become sick of it.

Yet here I was, my dress tucked between my legs, my knees dug into the ground, my hands busy with the digging and the pruning.

I brushed the fluffy flowers in my hands, putting the garden shovel next to me and picking another one of my handy shears to cut them.

“Ma’am, I can do that if you like”, the maid---Gill, Jill, some name with the letter G, asked and I waved her off with my hand.

It had been two weeks since I saw Kade having a threesome in his living room, I’m not going to lie it didn’t sting a bit but I was over it.

Kade had disappeared after that, I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. Ice rarely came around and to top it all off, they had hired maids to cater for my every need.

I wasn’t complaining, God knew the last few days of gardening, binge watching sloppy tv shows, playing foosball in the game room, had all been therapeutic. Plus, the last time Kade had lashed out on me in the car, I had been close to tears.

Kade away was a good thing, right?

I was happy. I was settling. I was adapting.

By the time evening knocked, I had already made supper courtesy of Gordon Ramsey’s master chef videos. Fried chicken, a side of risotto, honestly, I was so proud of myself even as I sat on the carpeted living room turning the tv on.

The fact that I was even in the living room after everything that happened that night showed that I didn’t give a fuck about Kade and I was moving on.

Not that there was anything to move on to. What? He bought me dresses; we had a good laugh over some jokes and that was it and I felt like slapping myself twice in front of a mirror for even thinking of an engaged man possibly liking me.

Sweeping my comforter over my body, my knees close to my chest, I scrolled through the options for the ‘movie or series’ of the night.

Top gun was a good choice, I mean who didn’t have a crush on Tom Cruise, the guy was hot but then again, I had had enough of guns and gore in my life so that was a hard pass.

What about the Witcher? I mean Henry Cavill was hot, so fucking hot I would be lying if I said I didn’t have sex dreams about him when I was seventeen. But sadly, Henry Cavill or in this case the character he played, ‘Geralt of Rivia’ looked a lot like Kade.

A striking resemblance, some would say.

They had the same scowl, the same handsome sculptured face, golden brownish eyes kinda like a cat’s. The only thing they differed in was the white hair.

Kade had his dark brooding hair going along and Geralt of Rivia had his white ghost hair and that wasn’t enough to make me watch the Witcher either.

I settled for Zoe Saldana’s From Scratch. It was the second time I was watching it and the first time I watched, it was back at work.

I was working late, thought of taking a break and let’s just say I ended up sobbing on my way out of work, on my way home driving and when I went to sleep too.

I needed a good cry today. Something to pull my heart strings and make me cry like a toddler till tomorrow.

“Fighting some nameless, faceless thing that wants to rob you of your love”

Preston told Amy, I clutched the comforter harder trying to shove down the tears down my throat. The second time watching this hit me even harder.

I was on episode three, about three and more episodes to go and I was a sobering mess which was why I wasn’t prepared for the screeching sounds of a car halting in front of the mansion to ring louder than the tv’s volume.

“Fuuck!”

The sound of a car’s door getting slammed reverberated in the air, I pressed pause on the remote, my heart pulsing its way up my throat.

Was that—

“Ice?”

I called out into the darkness, getting up on my feet and gazing at the dark foyer.

“Get Sammy asap. He’s—cornered—a trap, the feds involved-“

Ice’s voice came from outside muffled, as if he were struggling.

The comforter fell from my body, my short shorts giving way for the cold air to slap me together with the reality that something had happened.

Was Kade with him? Why wasn’t I moving?

Why was I glued on the spot gazing at the direction where the main door was located?

The lights were off, the only thing providing light in the house being the tv. I didn’t know what was going on but I figured I might as well have switched the lights on for them.

I wouldn’t want them to bump into anything even though they kinda deserved it for disappearing on me.

I had hardly moved around the couch to the wall afar off where the switch was when the sound of heavy boots patted the ground, I flinched.

“Hold on”, Ice’s voice became clearer now, I stilled all the hairs at the back of my neck standing.

That gut feeling that something was definitely wrong ate me but I shoved it down my throat.

Nothing was wrong, nothing was-

“Cass?”

Ice’s blue eyes landed on me, I returned the eye contact standing still with equal disbelief and fear.

His ash blonde hair fell on his head, the Kevlar vest he had on seemed…wet? I shook slightly as my eyes moved to the man beside him…the man whose head hung low, the man who could barely stand on his two feet, the man whose suit jacket looked smeared at the shoulder.

Darkness or not, something—something was not right.

Kade wasn’t moving next to Ice. Kade could barely hold his weight next to Ice. I rushed to the wall, my hands shaking as I flipped the lights on.

“I need help”, Ice spoke, I spun around.

“Oh God!” I screamed, my fist on my mouth.

Ice exhaustedly moved Kade to the couch, I couldn’t calm the hard pitter patter of my heart.

Kade. Shot.

Blood all over him and by the look on his face, that was Kade’s blood in his hands, wasn’t it?

“W-What happened? He’s shot, that’s—that’s a—he’s shot! He needs help, he’s losing a lot of blood. He’s—he’s—”

Dying.

“Keep him awake, Cassie. Do what you can to keep him awake”, Ice ordered, I leaned over to Kade’s body on the couch, afraid to even tap him, afraid to even look for a pulse.

“What? He needs a hospital! He is fucking shot, Ice!”

“I know. I know but I take him to the hospital and they will finish him off. Fuck, I should have seen this coming. I have to get Sammy”

What? Just what the heck?

“Who? Sammy who?”

“The doctor. I have to get him”

Ice disappeared the way he came, a few seconds later, the sound of wheels making a speedy exit from the driveway followed.

No. No.

This wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening—

My hands frightfully found their way on top of Kade’s chest that was covered by the suit jacket and the white office shirt beneath.

Fuddling with the buttons, tears burning the back of my eyes, my hand found his chest feeling for any sign that I wasn’t hovering over a dead body.

The pulse was faint until I sunk my hand deeper on his chest and his heart started moving or it was already moving and I hadn’t felt it the first time.

I could do this. Years of watching Grey’s anatomy, Chicago Med and the Good Doctor might have instilled some medical knowledge in me, right? Enough knowledge to keep a man from dying until the doctor made an appearance.

I unbuttoned his shirt all the way, sidetracked by a few tattoos until I swept his clothes off his bleeding shoulder.

The image that met me was horrific than I COULD HAVE imagined. A small bullet hole oozed spurts and spurts of blood like that hole that let out ketchup from a ketchup bottle except this one took the nausea out from me.

I stumbled back, terrified.

At the rate he was losing blood, God, he could be dead by hours. Was the bullet still inside of him, ouch that must have hurt.

Regaining the little bit of courage in my body, I knelt next to Kade raising my voice.

“Gill! Gill!”

“Hang on, o-okay? Please hang on”, my voice broke.

Gill and the rest of the maids came flooding the living room in seconds. My eyes were on Kade as they all gasped at the situation.

“I need a bowl of warm water…disinfectants, needles too if Ice doesn’t show up in time”

Gill, bless her soul, didn’t say a word or ask me the most trivial question of the night.

Why were we not taking him to the hospital?

The maids disappeared to the kitchen each one getting anything medicinal they could find in the house.

My right hand brushed his dark hair from his forehead, his temperature a tad bit high it made me recoil.

“You are burning up”, I whispered.

“Red”

“Oh my God, Kade!”

He opened his eyes; those dark brown orbs calm as ever as if he hadn’t gotten himself shot in whatever fucked up mission he was at.

We hadn’t seen each other for so many days and this was how our little reunion was going down?

Him shot, me playing doctor?

“I should get shot more often-ah---it’s a first seeing a woman cry for me”

He smiled.

I slapped his chest regretting it when he let out a pained groan.

“Sorry, sorry, w—what happened? How did—Ice had a Kevlar vest why didn’t you wear one?”

“No one wears a bulletproof vest at a party”

“You got shot at a party?”

He didn’t reply, instead he closed his eyes as if he was trailing all the pain up his spine to his mind.

“Kade?”

“Kade?”

“Jesus Christ, I’m alive Cassie”, he groaned just in record time before the maids showed up.

One with a first aid box, the other one with warm water in a bowl and a clean rag and Gill with—I don’t know what she was holding.

I took the bowl resting in next to my knees before I dipped in a rag squeezing it.

Kade opened his eyes again meeting with my concerned ones.

“I have to apply pressure on it, to at least stop the bleeding”

He didn’t say anything but I took that as a ‘yes’.

Hovering over the wound, biting my bottom lip between my teeth, I pressed down the rag on his wound, he huffed out a displeased growl, the veins in his neck nearly popping.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry—“, I repeated, the maids standing behind the couch looked like they were all on the verge of fainting.

“Tell me…tell me about your garden”, he puffed, my hands stark still on his shoulder, my head moved slightly watching him underneath.

“You know about the garden?”

“It’s my house, Red, I know everything about it”

Right of course.

“The maids told you about it didn’t they?”

I asked, it was so obvious they were like my little bodyguards reporting every little detail about me to their master.

“You don’t like the maids?”

“I don’t like being watched like a dog”

“No maids, got it”

No, I didn’t mean it like that. I didn’t want them-

“I don’t mean you fire them, Kade”

“You are uncomfortable with them”

“This whole situation is uncomfortable!” I exhaled; his cocky grin didn’t subside from his face.

“Because of blood?”

“Because you left!”

CONNOR/KADE HAWKINS

SAMMY MIGHT have patched me real good but he didn’t leave without throwing reprimands my way.

“Michael Markovich was supposed to be the new alpha in the organization, he’s dead now. All of them are except Callum. He doesn’t want any war, frankly the fucker is on his way back to Italy as if nothing happened”

“Amato?”

“DEAD”

“The daughter?”

“Under witness protection with the Feds”

I fucking relaxed, my shoulder stinging than the sting of the whiskey down my throat.

“I should have killed the bastard myself”, I complained.

Michael Markovich had sent bloody assassins to kill me way before I got to Amato’s house for the party. Sure, I managed to evade some, killed some by crashing my car into theirs but one uncalculated fucker had shot me from behind.

The bullet went straight through before I eliminated him with my working arm.

“Yeah well, someone got to him first. Lucia is safe and well, no harm, no foul”

“We still have the issue about the Zetas”, I reminded standing up from the bed and placing my glass on the coffee table in my room.

“I’m still working on it, they’ve changed tactic. They are not hiding in the docks anymore; they are not leaving traces of their whereabouts as they move across town but we’ll get them. Eventually they’ll slip and we’ll get them”

“Okay”

He turned to leave but not stopping before he said,

“Talk to Cass, she’s not too happy with the situation”

I know.

I knew but I didn’t tell Ice that as he slipped from my room with that look of ‘I know something’s up between you two’.

I poured myself another drink. Call it liquid courage before I confronted Cassie.

She was mad and while she didn’t know it the days, I spent away from here were shitty too, fucking sad and pathetic too.

They said the best way to get over a man was to get under another yeah well, I tried getting under a woman—women being the right term but the sex felt sloppy, felt dirty and that was a new for me.

I couldn’t fuck right because of Red haired Cassie.

I couldn’t even drink this shitty thousand-dollar bottle of whiskey knowing she was upset in the other room.

“Oh fuck me!” I cussed.

Few minutes later, I was standing outside her door, not really sure whether to walk away or to knock and apologize?

My hand was up, inches away from her door, if I moved slightly, I’d touch it but I stilled like some coward.

But then the door opened relieving me of my burden but at the same time adding to my agony.

Her hair was damp. Like sharp red streaks against her head, her face was devoid of makeup, not a touch of lip gloss or whatever shit women applied on their faces, she was just her.

Beautiful, possibly the end of me, Cassie.

“Kade? Should you even be moving around?”

“The doctor said you need tons of rest but you are too much of a big boy to listen to anyone, aren’t you? I really can’t believe you. Do you not understand how serious the situation was?”

She was speaking, my eyes lingered on her lips.

Jesus Christ, they looked tasty.

They were like one opposite side of a magnet pulling me, the other opposite side to them.

I didn’t think for a fucking second, she was there, so close, her scent so intoxicating, I breached the space between us, my lips neared her but the kiss never came.

She took a step back; I opened my eyes flushed with craziness and disappointment.

“Don’t you want a kiss, Red?” I mocked, sounding hostile. She’d kissed her brother adopted or some shit of the sort.

Was I not up to her standards?

“You are unbelievable, you know that?”

I was unbelievable? She was the one fucking driving me insane by kissing random people.

“How did he taste like? Better than me?”

Her nose scrunched; her eyes dilated.

She acted stupid.

“Who are you talking about? What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play the innocent act, Red, it doesn’t suit you. That guy in the mall, your brother, how long have you been in love with him?”

I neared her, crossing the threshold of her door.

She didn’t move, she didn’t flinch but I’ll tell you what she did, she stood her fucking ground, her anger simmering low across her red cheeks and it turned me on.

“I don’t see how that is your concern”, she quipped, I trapped her against the door.

And if one arm wasn’t in a sling right now, I’d fucking corner her with both hands she would have nowhere to escape to.

“You live in my house”, I retorted, eyes meeting hers, my head hung low to reach her height.

Five-foot tall, red hair, angry as hell she was too hot to look away from and I knew it and I hated me, my dick, and this fucking heart that enjoyed this.

“I’m not your property though, I’m not your servant and I’m not one of the women you fuck downstairs, Kade”

She saw us. I smirked.

I was angry and that was me letting out tension loud enough for CASS to hear, like a kid throwing a tantrum.

“You could be. My property. My woman. If all you want is for me to bend you over the couch and fuck you till you can’t walk for days, I’ll give you that Cassandra”

I was riling her up but I couldn’t deny the fact that I wanted everything I had mentioned in that statement. Her lips parted, her throat moved, her breathing turned a little shallow but heaven forbid she showed how affected she was by me.

“And if I don’t want that?”

“I’ll bend you over a different couch then”, the reply came as easily as my smile.

She didn’t say anything, I resisted the urge to touch her.

“Do you love him?”

I needed to know so that I could back off. So that I could squash the desire coursing through me right this second.

“Is that the reason why you lashed out at me the other night? Why you—you brought women to the house? You were jealous?”

Damn right I was but she hadn’t answered the question.

“Do you love him?”

“I don’t want a man like you, Kade. You are difficult, you are trouble, you are closed off and the most trivial thing is you’ll hurt me. If I give you my heart you’ll break it and I can’t do that”

Translation for she didn’t love him. She might have liked me a bit and hated herself for it.

“Okay”

“Okay? Just okay?”

“You don’t want a man like me, Red so let’s change that. The man standing right in front of you right now wants to know how you taste,

I want to kiss those damn lips so hard till they ache because of me, I want to bunch that short down your legs find out for myself if you are still wearing the cotton undies that drove me insane the other day or if you wearing nothing underneath but the man you want…the man you want will tell you goodnight and prepare a date for us tomorrow”

I was fucking high.

Fucking mad.

My lips touched the top of her head, the smell of her shampoo making me want to reconsider my decision.

“GOODNIGHT CASSANDRA”