The Fortunates (Unfortunate #2) - Skyla Madi Page 0,21

into my chest. No emotion crosses his face. He’s stone, like the first day I met him. That’s what I want, isn’t it? Detachment? I didn’t imagine it feeling this awful. I cross the bathroom and retrieve the shirt Kade peeled from my body.

“I’ll return the shirt.”

I turn around as Kade leans on the basin, his arms locked into a straight line and his large hands gripping the porcelain. His angry eyes meet mine in the reflection of the mirror.

“Keep it.”

My dry throat sticks together as I swallow and nod. I turn away from him and pull the shirt on over my head. The warm cotton wraps around my body, caressing every pore, kissing every hair. It smells like him. Of course it does.

Because ripping my own heart out isn’t painful enough, I have to smell him while I do it too?

“Kade…I’m sorry—”

“Spare me your apology.” He turns around, folding his thick arms against his strong, shapely chest. “You’ve made your decision and I can’t change it. What more do you want from me?”

What do I want? I don’t know. I don’t expect us to be friends. I just…I just want to look at him for a few more seconds.

More bangs echo around Kaden’s room and they shout a name I’m not familiar with. It’s the name of a girl who was born a Fortunate and abandoned as a baby. It’s the name of a girl who had her future taken from her…

…but it’s not me.

“Sorry…” I mutter, turning away from him.

My anxiety spikes. Never turn your back on a Fortunate. Granted, it doesn’t apply to me anymore, but it still feels so wrong.

I can barely carry the weight of my own shoulders as I cross over to the bedroom door. I reach for the handle and as my fingers curl around the cool metal, a loud snarl rips from the bathroom followed by the startling crash of shattering glass. The sound sends my heart catapulting into my throat.

From the moment it was mentioned I would be property of Kaden Sario I had this overwhelming panic that sooner or later, he would destroy me. In the end…I guess I destroyed him.

Chapter Eight

Kade

His chest heaved, crushing his heart on every exhale. From the other room, he heard the door close, sealing every pang of conscience he had about tonight in the room with him. The surge of his regrets was enough to suffocate him.

She was gone.

Kade cursed, clenching his aching fist. Of course she was. Why would she stay? He had nothing to offer her. He looked at his reflection in the broken pieces of his mirror in the sink. They obscured his appearance, deforming his face. He looked like a monster. Is that what she saw when she looked at him?

The look of disgust in her eyes when she realised what he’d done…What did she envisage? Did she seriously expect Kade to act in a non-violent way? Violence was all Kade knew. He couldn’t force Nine to be violent any more than she could force him not to be. They were raised differently. They were polar opposites. She was the calm eye to his ferocious hurricane. She was the trickle to his surge.

Kade huffed and pushed away from the sink. He didn’t need her. All she’d done was distract him from his purpose. Once he made it into the city, this place would no longer matter. She wouldn’t matter.

Nine was a distraction.

A painful, soul-crushing distraction.

Forgoing the shower, Kade tore from the bathroom, half-naked and barefoot. He stormed all the way over to his bottle of whiskey and grabbed it by the neck. For the briefest second, he looked at the crystal-bottomed whiskey glass and then turned away. He didn’t need the glass tonight, not when he planned on finishing the rest of the bottle anyway. Kade cracked open the lid and left no time for it to oxygenate before he pressed it to his lips and tipped it down his throat.

Nine was wrong about him being scared. When the time arrived, and it would arrive, he’d be the first to claim a front row seat to watch the destruction of this twisted society. The difference between him and Nine was that he was smart enough not to admit it aloud. Who knew how long those moderators were standing there?

Nine’s epiphany about Kade not being able to stand up to those of a similar station was wrong. He would have taken everyone on yesterday to save her life. Was she not