Kade (NSC Industries) (13 page)

A relieved sob ripped up my throat when I spotted the two
backpacks and the laptop bag, “Thank you, dad.” I blew a kiss to the ceiling as
I hoisted both bags on my shoulder, took hold of the laptop and my own laptop,
and making sure I had removed the USB, popped it in my bra along with my gun
into the back of my jeans; I went in search of the man who would drive me crazy
on our journey into extinction.

***

“Tell me again why we are suddenly upping sticks and
hiding from your boss, the man who has nearly brought you up as his own?” Kade
asked as he peered out of the car window and hunted for road signs or anything
that would tell him where we were or where we were heading. He was angry and he
had every right to be.

“There’s things you don’t understand Kade, please, just
trust me.”

“But, how can dragging me away from the whole protection
of the Security Service, and isolating your intelligence help safeguard me?”

“My God, are you always this damn awkward?”

“No,” he turned to look at me and I could see the
struggle as well as the apprehension on his face. “No Beaumont, I’m not always
this awkward. But when you are being hunted like a damn hare at a greyhound
track and have bullets fired your way, not to mention a gun thrust an inch into
your face. Then watch as someone puts a hole in the back of an old woman’s head
and the woman you are supposed to trust, suddenly changes momentum and thrusts
you into a car and won’t give you any bit of information as to what is
happening, then maybe I have every right to be bloody awkward.”

I sighed and glanced at him, “Okay. We’ll find somewhere
to stay for the night and I’ll tell you as much as you need to know.”

He smiled softly and nodded, “Thank you.” His tone held
genuine gratitude and I smiled unsurely as my stomach flipped with what I
would, for the first time, divulge to someone other than Liam what I had
discovered six years ago. Would I be able to handle it and would the grief of
the situation destroy what little spirit I had left, as I opened the can of
worms I had padlocked shut years ago, once again?

I watched as she flung the bags on the bed and started to
pull things from one of the backpacks; a couple of guns with ammunition, knives,
medical equipment and my favourite – rope, amongst other things, until she
found a disc and inserted it into the laptop she had fired up ready.

I frowned at the screen when a shit load of data scrolled
up and then a log in screen appeared. Grace closed her eyes, blew out a steadying
breath and blindly keyed in a password. My heart stopped when what I presumed
was her father filled the screen.

I watched her throat constrict as she opened her eyes
slowly and sank her teeth into her lip as a shiver ravaged her body. She seemed
to be struggling with herself before she moved her finger over the enter key
and clicked the still image.

Her father spluttered to life as he smiled softly at the
camera, the skin beside his eyes crinkling lightly with the love openly relayed
in his expression.

“Hello, my darling.” He said with sadness as Grace
reached out and touched the screen lightly, her fingers stroking across the
image of the man she obviously loved dearly. “I presume he has succumbed and it
has started if you are watching this.” He sighed and reached out to the camera,
his fingers resting on the screen as though he was touching his daughter. Grace
shifted her own hand until her fingers were covering her father’s exactly and I
swallowed as a wave of grief flooded my heart.

“Hey daddy,” she whispered back, the tightness in her
tone showing every bit of her sorrow but her face held a faint pained smile.

“First, before we get you out of there I need to tell you
I love you Grace, as does your mother, above and beyond.”

“Above and beyond” Grace echoed quietly as a stutter
broke her voice but she shook her head as I watched her physically fight the
tears back.

“Right,” he said determinedly as he removed his hand and
squared his shoulders. “Marcus will be safe, he has nothing to do with this,
darling, so don’t you go worrying about him. Secondly, you need to go to Grant.
He will know what to do.”

“Ahh shit.” she moaned but continued to listen as her
father nodded his head and fixed her with a stern look.

“And Grace,” his brow creased with his anguish and he
exhaled heavily. “Don’t hate him for this, darling. We all feast on the Devil’s
temptations once in a while. He loves you, don’t ever forget that.”

“Oh, daddy, if only you knew.” She sighed and looked to
her lap as the video stopped and a message to tell her that the footage was
auto-deleting worked its way across the screen.

She sat silently, her thoughts lost elsewhere and I left
her to sort through them but suddenly she shot up, picked up her gun and stood
beside the door as she gave me a hand signal to go into the bathroom.

“What, there’s no-one…” A knock sounded on the door and I
rolled my eyes, blowing out a defeated breath as I went to hide like I’d been
strictly told.

“Yes?” Grace said through the door.

“You ordered fresh towels, ma’am.” A male voice on the
other side informed her.

“Okay, thank you. We’re both naked at the moment; can you
leave them there please?”

“Uhh, sure, can I get you anything else?”

“No, we’re good, thank you.”

She sighed and rolled her head around her shoulders as
she moved back to the bed and tilted her head to tell me it was safe to venture
out.

She gave it a few moments then unlocked the door and
reached out for the towels, dragging them inside before she closed it and
secured it once more.

“Are we going to talk?” I asked her as she shook out a
towel and placed it across the bottom of the door. I frowned at her but she
didn’t give any reason for the action so I sat on the bed and tapped the space
beside me. She stared at me for a moment but took the small wicker chair in the
corner of the room.

We both sat and gazed at each other for a while until I
thought she’d changed her mind but she took a huge breath and looked out of the
window beside her, her eyes lost in the outside world as her memories shifted
her to a place she obviously didn’t want to be.

“You know,” she started then paused as a deep frown
covered her face. “I haven’t cried for seventeen years.”

Wow, I didn’t really know what to make of that. Seventeen
years was a long time.

“Okay, why did you cry last time?” I felt she needed
this, needed to let it out and take me on the journey with her, so I encouraged
her, helped her along with the questions we both needed answering.

She turned to me, a haunted expression marring her face. The
grief that settled in her eyes burrowed deep inside me, and I knew it would be
a long while before it would ever leave, however, she sighed and rolled her
lips and then began.

“My father owned, or rather, developed his own company.
He was involved in numerous things; pharmaceuticals, banking, technology, stuff
like that but his main area was software development.”

She smiled softly as if remembering and her eyes lit with
a flame that had most definitely died many years ago. “God, he was a great man.
He loved us all with every breath, my mother especially. She was his heroine.
She lived through a torturous childhood, fought breast cancer and nearly died
when she got hit by a truck one winter and to him, she was a blessed angel.”

I smiled with her, to have parents that loved each other
so extremely was a blessing, and mine were also the same.

“Marcus came along when I was around five, I don’t really
remember much but I remember the huge arguments. The house was suddenly filled
with them, vicious ones that frightened me.”

She shivered and I watched the single tear track her
cheek, its solitude was so soul destroying I had to fight not to give her
others to accompany it. “I would take Marcus and hide. We were young and didn’t
understand what was happening to our, once incredibly happy, family. My dad
started going missing for days on end; working, drinking, womanising.”

I stood and walked over to her as the tears now flowed in
huge waves, each stream dripping from her chin and onto her chest as she
purified herself with the release. She frowned at me when I settled on the
floor at her feet but I don’t think she saw me. She was lost to the past as a
choked sob tore up her throat and broke from her with so much desolation; I was
frightened she had fractured something within her.

She shook her head firmly when I went to hold her. “No,
please. Let me get this out.”

I nodded and settled back down but took her hand and gave
it a soft squeeze, “Go on.”

“I didn’t know it at the time but he started working on
something that would one day take him away from us ultimately.” I watched as
she rolled her tongue around her teeth and mirrored the action with her neck,
rotating her head to stop her muscles from aching. I gathered she wasn’t the
kind of person to sit for long periods of time.

“He came home one day when I was around thirteen, full of
everything. He was jubilant. Happy, so happy.”

She chuckled as these memories comforted her. “He picked
us up and spun us round, God I can remember the day so well. After four years
of turbulence and tension, he was finally happy and to witness that was awe
inspiring.”

Then her face clouded over and darkness filled her eyes.
It was so raw I had to gasp in a breath with the intensity that flowed from her
and she snatched her hand from mine as she stood up briskly, her whole body
stiff with her wrath. “A year later, my fourteenth birthday, I came home from
school ready for cake and singing and partying, and found them, my mother and
my father, both of them… slaughtered in the entrance hall. They had both been
shot through the head and they had been beaten unrecognisably. The blood was
everywhere and I can remember wondering at the time how it had managed to spray
the ceiling, but…” She squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled heavily as she opened
them and pinned me with a stare, “What I can’t forget, what refuses to leave my
fucking mind. What constantly tortures my days, over and over and over, is the
sight of a five year old Marcus sat rocking my mother in his lap, his hands and
face covered in her blood. His tears washing pools of the fucking stuff along
the floor in long, pink rivulets towards the front door. His quiet humming
still slaughters my dreams, Kade…”

She collapsed and I dragged her over and pulled her onto
my lap as I held her tight and just rocked her, just fucking rocked her as she
screamed and sobbed for the next hour. She tore at me with her fingers. She
punched me repeatedly. She vomited violently but worst of all, she just fucking
sobbed; just sobbed and fucking sobbed until she passed out with exhaustion.

Then I cried for her.

Bloody hell, my eyes were like frosty letterboxes. They simply
wouldn’t open. They were sore, heavy and felt like they’d been sandblasted but
the loud laughter echoing around the room saw me forcing them into an open
position.

Kade was sat on the twin bed opposite me and I shot
upright when I noticed the duvet under him covered with money. “What the hell?”
I scoffed when I realised he’d emptied the contents of the second backpack.

He looked at me, his face full of humour and laughed
again. His bright blue eyes were utterly stunning when he laughed and I
swallowed harshly at the slight clench in my chest. I was just overtired, that
was all.

“I presume your dad left this to help with your…
going
on the run
?”

I frowned at him but nodded, unsure of what was so funny.
“There’s twenty thousand pounds here.” He added as he smirked at me and I
shrugged, wondering if he had gone crazy over a bit of cash.

“Yes, he left it with the other things, knowing I
wouldn’t have access to other funds without alerting… people to my
whereabouts.”

He nodded and stared at me then laughed again. By now, I
was starting to get pretty riled and I glared at him as tears started to roll
down his face with his amusement. “Bloody hell, Beaumont. When did your father
tell you about this?”

I shifted my legs and planted my feet on the ground, twisting
my bare toes into the semi-thick carpet for a sensation to concentration on and
waken myself further as I struggled to focus on what Kade was finding so funny.
I searched my memories as I blinked at Kade and shrugged, “Um, probably around
six months before he died.”

He nodded and shook his head humorously, “And that made
you what? Thirteen?”

I nodded, sarcastically pleased with his maths proficiency,
“Yes, well done.”

“Eighteen years ago,” he stated as he quirked an eyebrow,
unaware of my mocking as he just held me with awaited expectancy in his gaze.

What the hell was he getting…?

“Oh bloody hell!” I groaned as I shot off the bed and
went to take a note from him.

He nodded slowly and grinned at me, “Now you get me.”

I picked up more twenties and studied them before I flung
them back on the bed, rubbing my forehead in frustration as I groaned deeply.
“Shit!”

“Each and every one is out of date, sweetheart. They
haven’t made twenties like this for years. You won’t be able to spend it.”

I flopped beside him as he picked up the bundle of rope
and started to unwind it from its coil, and then proceeded to wrap it around
his other hand in a sort of pattern unconsciously. “Shit!” I repeated with a
sigh. “We need cash, Kade. I need to buy our way where we’re going.”

He glanced at me with a puzzled expression but I sighed
again and shifted from the bed, making my way into the tiny bathroom and using
the toilet.