Corrupt

Chapter Thirty Six

Kade

Vengeance ran in my veins.

It was part of me. My thirst to kill and punish is what started everything. I was trapped in my own head, scheming one revenge plot after the other.

Yet, there was something I hadn't planned. Something I never thought would cost me more than I had bargained for.

I'd seen and done enough fucked up things and ended more than a few miserable lives to realize that when you found this, you had to snatch it up and keep it. My one shot at happiness. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by beauty and light, free from the heaviness of my tainted life—and possessed by nothing but her. She was my once in a lifetime chance at keeping humanity in my soul. My guiding light in the darkness of my underworld.

If there ever was a defining moment in time that had the power to pull my world from its axis, it was now. This was the moment I had dreaded more than I feared the eternity I'd spend in hell one day.

I should've known villains didn't get a happy ending.

With every step I took, the confusion and this sense of foreboding and fear kept on gnawing at my bones. The kind that brought news that changed you forever. It took hold of my throat in the sort of chest-constricting terror I hadn't experienced in a very long time. My vision blurred and a red haze descended over everything.

Blood.

The blood was the first thing I saw when I shoved the front door open. It decorated the walls of the foyer and down to the floor, leaving tracks on its path, only to stop where a body lay crumpled and unmoving. I recognize the body to be Nate's. Fear was like a chain around my heart, squeezing harder and harder.

I rushed forward, and the sight that greeted me will forever be engraved in my mind.

There in the hallway, lying in a pool of blood was my Ayla.

Ever since I'd come to realize that I love her, there hadn't been a second that I felt as though I'd taken her for granted. I'd loved her, I'd treasured her, and worshipped every fucking inch of her, but it still didn't feel like it had been enough. I want to prove what I feel for her. All I'd needed was more time...

A small whimper shattered the ominous silence, snapping me out of my trance. My chest was locked in a vise of horrendous pain and adrenaline shoots through my veins as I stagger to my feet towards her, only distantly noting that hers was not the only body lying on the floor.

She was on her back, her head turned sharply to the side, her arms wrapped around her stomach in protection as blood seeped from the dark hole in her chest.

"Ayla, no." I dropped to my knees and pulled her up. Raw sounds of anguish tore out of me as I carefully glides my hand over the curve of her throat and stop at her pulse. A faint beating, throbbing pulse. Another whimper comes from her as she watch me with half-close eyes.

"Kade..." she croaked, and the sound is so haunting and pained, it rips through me.

For the first time in my life, I began to pray. For her life or my death, I didn't know. I would have taken either just then.

How had it come to this? I wondered wretchedly.

I held her hand, and tried to fight the tears that were building up in my eyes, "I'm here, baby. Please stay with me."

"Everything hurts..." It's barely a whisper, but it hits me straight to a sombre corner in my soul. "Sorry I couldn't keep my promise.." Her breathing more erratic, like she was fighting for every breath.