KATE: MADISON KATE #4

by James Tate

  Samuel Danvers was drunk already, apparently. Chances were, he'd been drinking on the flight. The glasses of champagne in everyone's hands as I joined them in the deserted bar area were just decoration.

  I didn't even bother faking a smile. Why fucking should I? I had to admit to a small amount of perverse pleasure as Samuel's smile faltered when I just glared at him blankly.

  Cherry cleared her throat, so incredibly out of the loop it hurt. "Madison Kate, you look lovely," she told me in a dazed voice. "You and Archer make such a beautiful couple; I'm so happy for you both."

  I couldn’t help noticing how gazed her eyes as I moved closer to her son, letting him pull me close as his arm wrapped around my waist. Did she really have no clue that we were already married? Had Samuel kept her that heavily medicated, or did she do that to herself?

  Archer let out a breath, his fingers flexing against my waist. "Mom, did Sam tell you that he's broke? Last I checked, he had less than a million dollars to his name. Not quite up to your usual standards, is he?"

  Wow. We were really just... going for it. Cool.

  Cherry blinked at her son like an owl, but there was a glimmer of clarity in her wide blue eyes. Yeah, I was willing to bet she drugged herself to suffer through these painful, loveless relationships.

  "Is that true?" she asked Samuel, her startled gaze jerking to her so-called sugar daddy. "You're broke?"

  I wanted to roll my eyes so fucking hard at a million dollars being considered broke, but I guess Cherry was fishing for a whale, not a snapper.

  Samuel's smile turned brittle, and I could practically see him gearing up to lie.

  "Cherry, I suggest you cut your losses and leave," I told her in a cold voice. "I see you've picked up a souvenir for your troubles." I nodded to the sparkling engagement ring on her finger. "But that's probably all you're getting out of this."

  Her lips parted, and she flashed me a terrified stare, like she was scared what I might do now that I'd outed her as a gold digger.

  "Just go, Mom," Archer told her in a tired voice, like this wasn't even remotely the first time he'd saved her from her own greed. "Trust me when I say you're better off walking away from this one."

  Samuel's brow furrowed, and his face pinkened. He was a man not used to being dismissed so easily, and sitting there quietly while Archer spoke like that? It wasn't sitting well with his inflated ego.

  Too bad for him, his time was up.

  "Save it, Dad," I sneered. "We'll deal with you in a minute." I looked at Cherry and jerked my head to the exit.

  She didn't need any more encouragement than that, rising from her seat on thin heels and giving us all a tight smile. "Well," she said in a breathy voice, "I think I should be going. Congratulations again, you two. I do hope I'm still welcome at the wedding tomorrow?"

  "I wouldn't advise attending," Archer replied, his voice glacial.

  Cherry flinched like she'd been slapped but jerked a nod. "I understand." Her whisper was sad, but she didn't argue any further as Kody escorted her out of the restaurant, using his set of keys.

  "What the devil do you think you're playing at, boy?" Samuel spluttered the moment Cherry was gone. "We had a deal." He rose out of his seat as though he was more imposing while standing. News flash, he wasn't. "A deal that you're clearly enjoying the benefits of." Samuel sneered at me, at Archer's hand around my waist, like I was some kind of paid escort.

  Archer was far from rattled, though, and I didn't react. It was exactly what I'd expected from the man who'd sold me on a dark web transaction.

  "We did have a deal," Archer agreed, sounding bored. "And now I find myself changing the terms."

  Samuel blustered. "Y-you can't do that. Contracts were signed. The deal is done."

  Archer's arm tightened around me, and his tone turned deadly. "Contracts are only worth the price of paper and ink when one of the parties is dead, Sam."

  A shiver ran through me, but it wasn't fear.

  "Shall we head on through to the private dining room?" Steele suggested, standing up from his seat with a deliberate flash of the gun holstered under his arm.

  Samuel Danvers nervously eyed the three boys—I still wasn't a threat in his eyes—and licked his lips. "You know what?" he said with a weak smile. "I think I should be going."

  He started to move in the direction of the exit, but froze when Kody's gun pressed to his temple. "Steele wasn't making a request, Sam."

  Finally, my so-called father turned his panicked eyes to me, seeking help. What a joke.

  I just gave him a doe-eyed smile back. "What's the problem, Daddy? I thought you liked playing gangster."

  His glare darkened as understanding dawned. I wasn't some dumb pawn in all of this, nor was I a victim.

  "Move it," Kody prompted, giving Samuel a solid nudge. Reluctantly, the older man did as he was told, walking ahead of us through to the private dining room. Only when he crossed the threshold did he balk.

  "No, I think we've had some sort of misunderstanding here." He tried to backpedal, but with Kody blocking the doorway, there was nowhere for him to go. "Archer, come on. You're a businessman; we can come to some arrangement that suits us both."

  "It's Mr. D'Ath to you, Sam," Archer told him in a bored voice as he entered the private dining room and indicated to the solitary chair. "Please, take a seat. We would hate to be bad hosts and leave our guest of honor standing at his own execution."

  Samuel's face turned ashen. "Wh-what? No. No, that's not... We had a contract!" He sputtered his defense like that would even remotely save him. But he’d sold my last fuck on the dark web eighteen months ago. What a shame.

  "Sit down, Dad," I ordered, folding my arms over my chest. My dress was long sleeved and jet black—to hide the blood—and I felt like a pink-haired Morticia Adams. "I have a couple of questions for you."

  Samuel's eyes darted from me to the guys and back again. "Why should I answer anything for you? You're going to kill me anyway, that much is painfully clear." He gestured to the fact that the whole room was covered in plastic sheeting.

  He wasn't wrong.

  "Of course we are," I murmured, cocking my head to the side. "Did you expect anything less after you sold your daughter on a human trafficking site?" Snapping my fingers, I gave him a tight smile. "Oh wait, you didn't do that, did you?" I stepped closer to him and felt a spark of satisfaction when he took a step backward. "No, you never sold your daughter. You don't have a daughter, do you?"

  His eyes widened and his face grayed even more. All it took was a firm push to his shoulder and he stumbled into the chair we had set up and waiting for him.

  "What my beautiful wife is trying to say, Sam," Archer added in a smooth voice, "is that whether or not you answer her questions will determine how painful your death is. We could make it so quick; just a pop between the eyes and you're done."

  "Or we could make it hurt," Kody added with a malicious grin. "After all, we were trained extensively in the art of torture. You wanna guess how many bones I can break while keeping someone alive?"

  "Or how many micro cuts a person's skin can handle?" Steele offered, shrugging like he was discussing the weather. "Ever heard the saying, like a death by a thousand cuts?" His lips pulled up in a macabre smile. "I can assure you you'd pass out before we even reached three hundred. Sayings are always so exaggerated."

  Oh man, my guys were some scary-ass motherfuckers. I loved them so damn hard for it too. We were like four pieces of the most fucked up puzzle, clicking together in perfect harmony.

  "What do you want?" Samuel asked Archer. Of course he asked Archer and not me. Heaven forbid a woman ever hold his fate in her hands. Even staring down his own mortality, Samuel Danvers wouldn't drop his misogynistic bullshit.

  Archer knew it too. "Don't ask me," he murmured, placing his hands on my hips and pressing a tender kiss to my neck. "Ask your daughter. She's the one with a score to settle. I simply live to please her."

  I leaned back into his touch without
even thinking about it. Although I knew he was being dramatic, there was all too much sincerity in his words. Too much truth and devotion. It equally warmed my heart and scared the ever-loving shit out of me. More and more I was admitting that this relationship wasn't a question of me giving them my heart. It went both ways, and right now I held all three of their hearts in my hands.

  It was a hell of a big responsibility. One I was determined not to fuck up.

  "Okay, okay, you figured it out," Samuel said with a forced laugh. "You worked it out. I'm not your father. So what?"

  Every word from his mouth stoked my temper and made what was coming all the easier to chew.

  "When did you find out?" I asked, keeping my tone cool and calm. In reality, there had been no dire blow when I found out for sure. Was I shocked that James was my bio-dad? Hell yes. Was I upset or shocked that Samuel wasn't? Not even close. Somewhere, deep down, I'd always suspected there was something amiss.

  Samuel scoffed. "I've always known. I had a vasectomy when I was nineteen to prevent any gold-digging whores from trapping me with an unexpected pregnancy. The only way I could ever father a child is through IVF, which Debbie and I never did. Imagine my surprise when she announces a month after our wedding that she's pregnant. Fucking miracle." He snorted a bitter laugh, slouching in his chair like it was a throne.

  I pursed my lips, mulling over those details. "Then it wasn't your baby she was pregnant with when she died, either."

  Samuel's face darkened, but it wasn't with shock. More like annoyance or disgust. "Doubtful. Debbie tried to pull that one over on me too when she realized she wasn't carrying her gangbanger boyfriend’s spawn. Well, that fucking backfired. Not only was it not mine, that meant there was only one other person’s it could have been." His smirk was pure poison. Fuck, I hated him.

  "Spit it out, Sam," Steele drawled with a bored yawn. "If I get too annoyed, I'll start breaking your fingers."

  A small shudder ran through me at the memory of how he’d snapped Hank’s fingers for interrupting us while we spoke. Archer must have noticed, because he dropped another gentle kiss to the bend of my neck.

  Samuel wasn't watching us, though; his nervous gaze was on Steele.

  "Debbie claimed she was attacked," he told us, licking his lips anxiously. "Came home one night all bloody and bruised up, her dress ripped and shit. Told me she’d been attacked and wanted to go to the police."

  "And did you?" Archer rumbled, his voice threaded with violence.

  Samuel shook his head. "Of course not. She’d probably just pissed off that fucking Reaper, and he taught her a lesson. I wasn't about to drag our family through the newspapers and risk exposing Debbie's infidelity. Any DNA test would have just proven she was a whore. That gangster probably kept her bra as a trophy or something, anyway."

  I froze. "What did you just say?"

  He looked at me in confusion and disgust. "That I wouldn't let her take it to the cops? Bunch of dirty fucks they are, anyway."

  I shook my head. "No. What did you just say about her bra? Why'd you mention that?"

  Samuel wrinkled his nose. "I don't know. She just kept going on about how he’d ripped her bra before she was knocked out. But she wasn't wearing one when she came home." He shrugged, like it was inconsequential.

  But it wasn’t. Because I'd been gifted a ripped and bloody bra by my stalker as my something old for the wedding.

  Fucking hell. My mom had been raped by her stalker. By my stalker. Her unborn baby had belonged to him.

  Horror and revulsion washed over me as I processed all that information. My mom had been attacked and raped and Samuel had refused to report it to the police. What kind of lowlife piece of shit—

  My murderous thoughts were interrupted when Archer pressed my butterfly knife into my hand. I'd had it tucked into the garter of my stockings and hadn't even noticed him pull it out; I was that deep in my fury toward Samuel fucking Danvers.

  "Make him bleed, Kate," he murmured in a darkly seductive voice. "Make him pay."

  I looked down at my beautiful holographic knife, then gritted my teeth and looked back to Samuel.

  "Why pretend to be my father?" I asked him in a hollow voice. "If you knew from the moment my mom told you she was pregnant, why not leave her then?"

  His expression morphed into a sneer. "Because Debbie wasn't as smart as she thought she was. I’d met Katerina; I knew full fucking well that family was hiding something good. They were too damn quick to accept my prenup. All I needed to do was wait it out. Fifteen years of marriage and one child, then I was entitled to half of everything in Debbie's name."

  My brows flickered up. "But she was murdered before you'd even been married for twelve."

  "Exactly why I kept you around, my little meal-ticket. You inherited everything. I just needed to work out how to transfer that ownership to me. Trouble was, Debbie had suspected something was happening before her death and went to some serious lengths to muddy the water." He scowled at that, like he was still pissed off at his dead wife. "Eventually I worked out that no matter what I did, your estate wouldn't pass to me because I couldn't prove I was a blood relation, so I cut my losses."

  Anger burned through my veins like acid. "You sold me."

  He didn't even look apologetic. "For fifty-two million. A damn sight more than I ever thought you were worth, Madison Kate."

  Ouch. Even knowing he wasn't my father—and never had been in the ways that mattered—that comment still stung because it totally summed up his whole attitude toward me my entire life. I was an asset with an assigned value. Nothing more.

  It made sense, though. He’d sold me while I was still seventeen, likely when he'd exhausted all other avenues to get his hands on my money. If I'd turned eighteen, he'd have lost the power to marry me off and lost his chance at clearing his bad debts.

  I looked down at the knife in my hand, then up at Samuel. It was hard to reconcile this revolting man with the one who'd forever been the head of the Danvers household. When I’d been a child, or even a grief-stricken teen, he’d been someone to be respected and awed. Never loved. But now? Now he was simply better off dead.

  "What are you going to do with that?" Samuel taunted with a laugh, eyeing the pretty purple blade in my hand.

  My gaze rose, locking with his as I released the blade with a practiced flick of my wrist. I was rewarded with a flash of real fear across his face.

  "Well," I said with a shrug. "Someone told me recently that I deserve to take my pound of flesh from you. After all, I deserve vengeance for being sold in a slave market. Now that I’ve heard how you treated my mother, how she came to you after being raped and you refused to help her?" I took two steps closer, letting the silence thicken as Kody and Steele moved in on Samuel's chair from either side. They locked his wrists and ankles to the chair with handcuffs before he could struggle or try to run.

  Samuel finally seemed to understand. The danger in this room wasn't from Kody or Steele; it wasn't even from Archer. No, this time it was all from me. This was my story to tell and my revenge to seek.

  "Now, Daddy dearest, I think I might take that turn of phrase literally." I bent at the waist, bringing the tip of my blade to rest on the fabric of his suit pants, just above his knee. Only then did I hesitate.

  Could I seriously do this? Could I deliberately cause so much pain simply for my own gratification?

  Kody shifted in the corner of my eye, and I knew he was silently offering to do it for me. But I gave a small headshake, denying him. I needed to do this. I needed the closure this bloody act would bring, even at the cost of my uneasy mind.

  Drawing a breath, I plunged the knife down into Samuel's leg.

  He howled, thrashing against the handcuffs and dragging my blade all over the place as I held tight. Idiot. Blood spurted everywhere, but I closed my mind to it and focused on my task at hand.

  Several moments later, I lifted a handful of severed flesh and inspected it with a critical eye. "What do you think, boy
s? Is that about a pound?"

  Steele damn near looked like he was about to start laughing—sick fuck—but he nodded his agreement. "I'd say so."

  Samuel was still screaming and crying, begging for his life, but it all fell on deaf ears. I tossed the chunk of his flesh onto the plastic-coated ground beside his chair and eyed him critically. Blood gushed from the mess I'd made of his thigh, and I was willing to bet I'd cut something vital.

  In my defense, I was no trained butcher. Just a pissed off chick looking for vengeance.

  Steele wordlessly handed me a gun, and I took it in my slick, blood-covered fingers.

  "Any last words, Dad?" I asked Samuel in a chillingly cold voice as I aimed Steele's gun at his face.

  He started to curse, but I squeezed the trigger. Fuck his last words, he didn't deserve them.

  30

  I took my time in the fancy restroom at Osso, scrubbing the blood from my hands with their expensive hand soap. It washed off easier than it should have, but I carefully checked around my fingernails, then inspected my face in the mirror. Sure enough, splatters of blood peppered my cheeks and neck like macabre freckles.

  I sighed, then wet one of the fabric hand towels to dab it off. Hazards of murder, I supposed.

  The door opened, and Archer entered, letting it swing shut behind him.

  "You okay?" he asked me in a quiet voice.

  I nodded at him in the mirror. "Yeah. Sorry I'm taking ages."

  He shook his head. "Take as long as you need, Kate. Kody and Steele are taking care of the cleanup."

  "Cool." I dabbed another spot of blood from my neck, then inspected my reflection for any I might have missed.

  Archer just stood there, watching me.

  Eventually, I dropped the washcloth into the dirty laundry basket and turned to face him.

  "What?" I asked, meeting his gaze.

  His brows flicked up. "What?"

  My eyes narrowed. "You're watching me like you're worried I'm going to fall to pieces any second. Well, I'm not. I'm fine. Okay?" And strangely, I was.