Kade – Fallen Crest High Read Online Tijan

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Dark, Suspense Tags Authors:
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Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
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“I love my goddaughter, but you’re wrong about her.” Logan inclined his head, holding my gaze. “Maddy’s coming alive since you’ve been here.”

“What do…” I stopped, though, because I knew. I knew what he was going to say.

“It’s the same for us,” he continued. “Fallen Crest is like a fire. Normal people learn to stay away from it, to circle it with caution. But not us. You. Me. Sam. Maddy has it too. The fire draws us closer. It demands that we change, morph into who we need to be—not to survive, but to thrive. Maddy doesn’t know she’s changing, but she is. You can’t snuff out that fire because it’s already gotten inside of her. The same thing is going to happen to the twins. If Taylor and I move back, it’ll happen to Sammy. And my next kid, I’m sure.” He grunted. “You saw Max. It’s in Heather and Channing. Their kids. Max knows it’s in him. I think that’s why he tries to be a good kid. You saw him fight the other night. He became who we are when he fought.”

That grim feeling deepened in me. “He has his own monster inside.”

“No. I don’t think it’s a monster. It’s like a bloodlust not to submit, not to just survive, but to become who we need to be so no one rules over us.”

I shrugged. Maybe. Maybe not. I didn’t know what it was, but something affected all of us. And maybe we were normal after all, this would change anyone…

Just then a truck pulled into Zeke Allen’s driveway. He was home.

As he drove into his garage, Logan and I moved as one, pulling black ski-masks over our faces. Getting out of the Escalade, we darted across the road.

Everything had been planned to the last detail.

Zeke’s wife was invited out with Heather and Taylor. The kids were offered to be babysat by Malinda and David since they were already watching the other kids. And for Zeke, Nate called him for a job—a request to look into Quincey’s father’s files because Nate wanted to make sure her father couldn’t make trouble for them again.

It was a lie, but it would get Allen where we needed him. Home and alone.

We’d considered questioning Allen as ourselves, Mason and Logan Kade. Logan was for that. I wasn’t. Zeke Allen put me up on a pedestal. He didn’t see me as a person. He saw something else. That meant I wouldn’t get the version of Zeke Allen everyone else got. And if we were going to do this—question him, blackmail, threaten, whatever we would end up needing to do—I wanted to meet the Zeke Allen everyone else knew.

I wanted the real Zeke Allen. So that meant we’d do this as strangers.

He was already inside as Logan and I rolled under his garage door, right before it clicked into place.

A weird sense of déjà vu settled over me, and I saw it in Logan as well. It was that part of us that rose up when we were in Fallen Crest, that needed to do things like this. The fire to thrive, how Logan had put it.

No matter what I thought before, this wasn’t normal. We weren’t normal.

Logan and I both rose to our feet and started for the door, about to slip into our old ways.

Nothing about this that should feel right, but it did.

25

MASON

We waited inside the garage. The lights went out, and still we waited a little longer. I figured if Zeke was coming back to hack, he’d need to do some things to get situated. Food. Drinks. His favorite clothing. I didn’t know, but within ten minutes, it grew silent on the other side of the door.

I nudged the door open. People didn’t typically lock the door between their house and garage. Some did, but most didn’t. It was a calculated risk. If he came home, thought he was secure, we could sneak in.

I turned the handle, holding my breath, and it went all the way.

The door opened.

No alarm sounded.

I eased inside with Logan moving silently behind me.

We moved like breaking and entering was something we did on the daily. It wasn’t, and we were committing a crime, but my heart had no idea. My pulse was calm and steady. My mind was focused. I’d been more nervous before a professional football game.

Only a single light was on over the stove. The living room was dark. Kitchen. Dining room. We could see enough to know when to step over the kid’s toys. As we worked our way through the house, clearing the first floor before heading to the second level, I went over what I’d been told about this guy.

Fallen Crest born and bred. His dad had been on the Kade Enterprises’s board for a few years before something happened and he sold his shares. He and his wife began traveling after that. I wasn’t sure of the timing or the reason, but I wondered if something had happened with their kid? There were quite a few reports of his run-ins with Channing’s sister. He went to school in the same timeframe. Then Zeke Allen did a one-eighty. There were no notes about what happened or why, but suddenly he was considered a good guy.


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