THE PRISONER RETURNED AS A KING

Chapter 3: PROMISE OF REGRET

Cassandra jerked up from the man's lap on impulse. Her heart slammed so hard her rib vibrated.

"Oh my God.." She gasped.

She wrenched her rumpled skirt down with trembling fingers. She backed the intruder, catching breath lost from panic and interrupted ecstasy. Her face flushed red in anger and embarrassment. She spun back to lash at the staff employee that walked in on her.

"Are you mad? Have you gone nut?! Didn't I tell you I'll be using the office for a private meeting for thirty minut..."

Her voice caught in her throat.

The colour immediately drained from her face when she saw who really was at the door. Her throat refused to work for a short while.

"What..what are you doing here, Kade.." Her Voice cracked.

Killian didn't speak immediately. It all made sense to him now. Margaret's presence wasn't a mistake. Cassandra had welcomed him with a divorce paper while riding another man on the day of his release.

"So, everything was true?" His voice came calmly. The sort of calmness that was devastatingly aching to the ear. "You welcomed me with a divorce paper from your assistant while you were sleeping with another man?"

"Well, well, well." The man rose from the chair, his face red witth love bite, his bare chest filled the room like he owns it naturally. He dragged his pants to his waist lazily and left the belt swinging in the air. He titled his head slightly, an arrogant smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "Look who it is. The ex-con decided to say HELLO immediately he got released. He still got the obedience charm."

He stepped forward standing between Cassandra, one arm draped on her waist possessively, taunting Kade with an arrogant smirk.

Cassandra didn't move away. She stayed in his arm like she belonged there.

"I thought it was supposed to be life imprisonment, sweetheart." He glanced at Cassandra as he said mockingly.

Kade caught the faint smirk, almost imperceptibly at the corner of her lips.

Killian looked at the man now. He really looked at him. His eyes widened in shock as the realization struck him like a physical blow.

Jack Moore.

The man who was supposed to be dead. The man Cassandra murdered.

Jack burst into a sick ugly laughter, his head snapped backward out of sheer amusement.

He looked at Kade with a taunting smirk. "Looks like he's finally getting it." He said and disengaged from Cassandra, circling Kade with a predatory stance. "I wasn't dead. I am very much Alive. Everything was planned perfectly. So perfect. It was all thanks to my sweetheart.." He took Cassandra's hand and kissed the back of his palm longer than normal. He looked at Kade with eyes glinting with mock Satisfaction. "After you were erased, we were finally able to be together."

Kade looked at Cassandra hearing all the confession from Jack. She didn't look at him. She just stared at something on the wall, clinically avoiding his gaze.

Jack continued, still circling Kade.

" The murder was fake. The footage presented at the courthouse was edited. Anything is possible when money is spent right. The world thought I was really dead. Actually, I lived for one month with the best service from one of the luxurious hotels in the city so when I came out, i told the world it was a Miraculous survival. They ate it up. They pitied me. They gave gifts."

He chuckled, laughing at his own smartness.

"..you were nothing to Cassandra. You're just a devoted man she needed for house responsibilities while she built her career."

Kade's fist curled at the side. The urge burst Jack's jaw build up inside but he suppressed his anger. He won't give them the satisfaction.

He stared at Cassandra immensely.

"Is that true?" He asked. "Everything he said. Is it true?"

She looked at him now. Her expression was filled with neither guilt or remorse or something else that could have suggested she regretted her actions. But the expression on her face was worse than the ones alluded to earlier. This was just..pity.

"Kade—"

"Answer me!" Kade snapped, a quiet thunder in his voice.

He just wanted her to say something. To admit or reject everything Jack had said as lies.

Cassandra straightened her back. "Yes, It is true."

The truth was worse than any lies Kade had ever been told. Admitting it shamelessly was even more heartbreaking.

The pity vanished from her face quickly as smoke vanished in the air.

"I outgrow the man you were, Kade." She started humourless. "We were no more in the same league and when Jack returned to my life, I wanted you gone badly so I schemed the accident instead of a divorce that would dent the Mercer's public image and my reputation."

Kade looked at her in surprise, like he wasn't seeing a reflection of a stranger from the image of the woman he knew in the past.

"Jack is everything I need in man. His family is rich, influential and powerful. A woman of my status can't settle for an ex-convict..."

"You schemed everything to send me behind bars and now you're playing the victim?" Kade cut him off with a hard voice, his voice was hurt.

"I never forced you!" Cassandra Snapped back with the same tone. "You went there because you wanted to and you're back now. A simple divorce could have ruined everything for me. Don't be selfish!"

"Selfish?" Kade chuckled, the sound of something bitter and painful. "What is more selfish? Your own husband was the trash you behind bar mischievously for another man's chance into your life. You're shameless, Cassandra!"

Karl stared at her immensely. He held her gaze.

"Did you ever love me? Did you? Tell me."

Cassandra's expression cracked, something flickered across her face that could have been guilt but it vanished as quickly as it appeared.

"We're DONE." She snapped.

Kade laughed, hollow, low and bitter.

He thought he was saving her, but she was the orchestrator of the crime to erase him so she could unite with his ex-boyfriend, the man who left her for a better option when she needed him the most.

"My child." Kade asked, a storm suppressed in his voice. "Where is She?"

Cassandra glanced at Jack before they both burst into a hysterical laughter.

Cassandra planted a palm on her chest out of sheer amusement. She tossed her hair behind her back.

"Child, Really?" She laughed. The sort of cruel amusement crackle. "You really believed i was pregnant? You're even more gullible than I imagined, Kade. I knew you were going to fall for that particular lie."

The reality crashed through Kade like Glasses shattering and inflicting pain. The Mercer ruined his name, he gave away his innocence thinking he was saving her and her family's reputation, he thought he was protecting their unborn child, but it was all a scheme to dispose him off.

Anger consumed Kade Inside. His fist shook at the side but he controlled himself. Something else inside began to fold on itself. He was disappointed in Cassandra and the Mercer family. He wanted revenge on the Mercer family and everyone who played the mischievous game with them.

Cassandra pulled out a cheque book from her drawer and tore a sheet. He wrote on it quickly.

" $5 million dollars." She stretched the cheque to him. " Take it as a compensation for your time in the prison. It is more than you've ever earned in your entire life and enough to start another life for yourself, far away from here."

Kade stared at the cheque. He wasn't looking at the woman he loved anymore. He was looking at a liar, a betrayal and a User. Her face that he could stare at through the entire night made him very angry now.

And Cassandra Mercer didn't realize everything comes with a cost and everyone of them will pay it with interest.

They thought they broke him behind Bars, but they didn't know the man he had become.

Without another word, he pulled out the divorce paper, his finger dug into his flesh, taking blood on his thumb.

Cassandra and Jack exchanged a stunned glance.

"What are you—"

Kade planted the bloody thumb on the divorce paper and allowed it to clatter to the floor.

"I'm done with you, Cassandra Mercer," he said, "you will regret everything you and your family did."

He finished and walked out of the office.

The door clicked shut behind him.