“How do I look?” I said stepping in front of him and doing a pirouette. “Am I suitably pure and innocent enough to be Blane’s fiancée?” I smiled wryly at the joke, since the last thing I felt was pure and innocent.

The look on Kade’s face was enough to wipe the smile from mine.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, my heart plummeting. “What’s happened?”

Kade didn’t answer for a moment, then he said, “Your friend Tish called you.”

I frowned. “She did?” That reminded me. “Where’s my cell?”

Kade pulled my phone from his pocket and handed it to me. “She wanted to let you know that your boss, Romeo, was going to go to the cops with something he’d found.”

I looked up from the phone, alarmed. “What did he find?”

“Apparently, unbeknownst to you or the other employees, he’s had video cameras installed for monitoring. And one of them is located in the storeroom.”

I stood in shock, staring at him.

“In reviewing the footage,” Kade continued, “Romeo felt it should be turned over to the police, but he thought you should make that call. He felt uncomfortable, given the content, about talking to you himself, so he had her bring this by.” He picked up a DVD that I hadn’t noticed was on the table.

Shit.

“So does everyone know?” God, that would be awful. No, James hadn’t raped me, but the realization that everyone I worked with might know I’d been cornered like that—attacked like that—made me want to crawl into a cave and not come out.

“I have no idea,” he said. “She didn’t say.”

I eyed Kade. “So what’s the matter?” I asked. “You already knew what happened between James and me.”

Kade stood, coming so close to me that I had to tip my head back to look him in the eye. “Arriving after the fact,” he said stiffly, “or hearing about it from someone else, isn’t the same as watching every moment on a fucking video.” The anguish was stark in his eyes. “Blane should have killed him.”

“No, he shouldn’t have,” I said. “Or else that would be on the video, too, and then where would we be?”

Kade turned away and I caught sight of the television. William Gage’s photo had flashed on the screen and I frowned, reaching for the remote control and unmuting the TV with a sinking feeling.

“… found deceased in his home this morning,” the voice-over was saying, “from an accidental fall down the stairs while in his wheelchair. He’d been ill with terminal pancreatic cancer…”

I muted the television again, not wanting to hear any more. Kade had completely ignored the story, pouring himself another cup of coffee from the carafe on the sideboard.

I thought I knew what had happened and who had done it, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel remorse, only relief.

“Did you do that?” I asked. “Did you kill him?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to,” Kade said.

I swallowed hard. While I didn’t regret William Gage’s death, I did regret that Kade had killed him because of me, but I knew that was the last thing Kade would want to hear.

“If James gets arrested for what he did to me,” I said, changing the subject, “won’t that provide a pattern of behavior that will help us prove what he did to Kandi?”

“Yes, but you’d need to file a complaint.”

“I can do that.”

Kade turned around, fixing me with a piercing stare. “You’re going to file an assault charge… against the district attorney? Don’t you realize what they’ll do to you? The press will rip you apart. They love James, and now his poor daddy just bit the dust. As Blane’s fiancée, they’re going to paint you as the conniving slut, no matter what that video shows.”

I raised my chin and squared my shoulders. “If it’ll help Blane, then it’s worth it.”

Kade shook his head. “Your loyalty is admirable… and stupid.”

“I don’t ditch my friends just because it’s convenient,” I said, stung.

“Is that what you and Blane are? Friends?” He walked over and grasped my left hand, holding it up so I could see the diamond sparkling on my finger. “Is this just for show, or is that just what you keep telling yourself?”

“Are you two ready to go?”

I turned to see Mona peeking in the doorway. “Gerard and I are heading out now.”

I pulled my hand from Kade’s. “We were just leaving,” I said, picking up my purse and tucking my phone inside.

“We’ll see you there.”

I turned to Kade. “Are you driving me or what?”

He was and we pulled up to the courthouse thirty tense minutes later.

My stomach was doing flip-flops while we waited inside the courtroom. Reporters had snapped photos of me and shouted questions outside, but Kade had hustled me past them, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes.

Charlotte had stopped briefly on her way to the front of the courtroom to tell us not to worry, that she was sure the arraignment would go fine and the judge would set bail.

There were several other cases ahead of Blane’s and I grew more anxious as we waited, chewing a nail and shifting in my seat. Kade took my hand, lowering it to my lap and holding it there. He was a solid presence at my side and I gripped his hand tight with both of mine.

When Blane at last stepped into the courtroom, my breath left my lungs in a choked gasp. His hands were cuffed in front of him, which seemed incongruous with the suit he wore, but the bruises and cuts on his face were what caught my attention.

“It’s okay,” Kade whispered to me. “He’s all right.”

“But… he’s not,” I whispered back. “Look at him.”

“A few bruises, that’s all,” Kade said. “He’s alive and nothing’s broken. He’s fine. Trust me.”

As though he felt my gaze on him, Blane glanced up and our eyes met. Something close to shame crossed his face before his expression smoothed and he turned to face the judge.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him as the hearing commenced. Charlotte entered a plea of not guilty and the judge initially declined to set bail. Charlotte argued the point, citing circumstantial evidence and Blane’s place in the community, and the judge relented, setting bail at five million dollars.

Blane didn’t look back as they led him away, and I realized I was squeezing Kade’s hand hard enough to leave fingernail marks, though he hadn’t said a word.

“Now what?” I asked Kade.

He was already on his cell phone. “Now we post bond and get him the hell out of there,” he said. “I’ll be just a second.”

Kade left the courtroom so he could hear on his cell while I paused to hug Mona, who looked as relieved as I felt, though I was working hard to hold it together. I assured her we’d bring Blane home. Gerard put his arm around her shoulders and led her out the doors.

I picked up my purse and turned to go as well, only to find James standing much too close.

He grabbed my arm and jerked me toward him. “That getup isn’t fooling anyone,” he hissed in my ear.

A few people stood talking nearby, but I didn’t want to make a scene. I could imagine how my attacking the DA prosecuting Blane’s case would play in the news, and it wouldn’t be good or helpful to Blane at all.

“Let go of me,” I gritted out.

“You were supposed to suck my dick, bitch,” he hissed. “Now I’m going to put Kirk away for life. You can count on it.” His grip on my arm was painfully tight.

“Is that what you said to her? Because I was real curious.”

James turned to see Kade behind him. Though Kade’s lips were twisted into the semblance of a smile, the look in his eyes was deadly. His gaze fell on James’s hand on my arm.

“Let her go, dickhead.”

“Dennon,” James sneered, “on bodyguard duty?” He let go of me and got in Kade’s face. “You know, she’s a real spitfire, but her tits are fantastic.”

I was absolutely sure that if we hadn’t been in a public place, Kade would have killed James right then and there. As it was, I could already see James’s death sentence in Kade’s eyes. He was just biding his time.

“It’s a real shame about your dad,” Kade said with mock sympathy. “Fell down the stairs, didn’t he? Such a tragic… accident.”

The subtext of Kade’s comment seemed to slam into James and his face turned red with rage. “You motherfucker,” he spat. “You killed him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kade said with a shrug. “Accidents happen.” His voice matched the ice in his eyes when he said, “You should be real careful one doesn’t happen to you.”

It was unmistakably a threat. James seemed to know it, too, because he shut his mouth, the red in his face fading.

Kade placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me out of the courthouse and to his car.

“Thanks for your help,” I said, still shaken from the unexpected confrontation.

“James is like a rabid dog,” Kade said. “He needs to be put down.”

“Not by you,” I said quickly. I couldn’t shake the feeling that with each person Kade killed, a little of his soul was eaten away by darkness. I was afraid that eventually the darkness would consume him.

“If not me, then who?”

Kade’s eyes met mine, but I didn’t have an answer.

The police station was only a couple of miles away and we drove there quickly. “How are you going to pay them five million dollars?” I asked as we walked inside.

Kade snorted. “It’s not five million. It’s ten percent of five million.”

Oh. In defense of my ignorance, I’d never had to bail someone out of jail.

We’d arrived before Blane had even been brought back and Kade went to pay the bail while I waited in the lobby. The blue plastic chairs were no more comfortable than the other times I’d sat in them. The minutes seemed to crawl by as I watched the clock.