Chapter 118: I look Hideous
Bianca
I found him lying in a pool of his own blood.
Honestly, I had been surprised to find him alive at all.
By the time my men tracked down his location, half of me had already prepared myself to receive his body in a box instead. In my world, people disappeared all the time. Most never came back.
Still, I wasn’t foolish enough to reject luck when it finally favored me.
The moment Kade was returned, I immediately ordered additional guards from the Venom Cartel. They provided them without hesitation once I informed them about the mivite.
That alone made it obvious what my enemies had truly been after.
Not money. Not revenge. Information Or leverage?
And Kade had simply been the easiest target.
He had been tortured badly.
The scars stretched across his hands, his back, even parts of his face. Some wounds had healed into angry pink marks while others still looked raw despite the weeks that had already passed.
Two months.
Two entire months, and several injuries still hadn’t healed properly.
That worried me.
But not nearly as much as the silence.
Kade had always been loud. Carefree. Reckless. He talked endlessly about parties, women, expensive cars, and stupid things that barely mattered.
Now he barely spoke at all.
And when he did, every word sounded rough, like a wounded tiger.
If I hadn’t known my own son, I might have believed someone had replaced him entirely.
"Kade, sit down," I ordered sharply the moment I noticed him trying to move again. "You just returned from the hospital. Surely you don’t intend to leave this house anytime soon."
I meant every word. If necessary, I would chain him inside this estate myself.
A selfish part of me almost hoped he still carried enough fear from the kidnapping to avoid stepping outside willingly.
At least then he would stay alive.
Kade slowly lowered himself onto the couch with visible discomfort tightening his expression. He carefully avoided leaning too much against his left side, pain flickering briefly across his face.
No bones had been broken. Physically, he was mostly intact. Apart from the missing pinkie finger on his left hand.
That, unfortunately, was permanent.
"You still haven’t explained exactly what they wanted from you," I said carefully.
The reaction was instant.
"What?" he snapped furiously, lifting his head toward me. "You want to know what they wanted? Nothing!"
Rage boiled inside his gaze in a way I had never seen before.
"They didn’t ask me questions," he continued bitterly. "They tied my mouth shut before they even started."
His hands trembled violently.
"They didn’t care about what I had to say. They didn’t care about me at all. They were trying to make a point." He said his voice trembling ever so slightly as he spoke.
His eyes shifted briefly toward his heavily bandaged left arm before quickly looking away again.
Silence settled heavily between us afterward.
Uncomfortable.
Tense.
I adjusted slightly in my chair before speaking carefully.
"I... understand."
But the words barely left my mouth before he exploded.
"You understand?" he scoffed.
The bitterness in his expression sharpened instantly.
"You understand?" he repeated louder.
Then louder still.
"No. No, you don’t!"
He pointed suddenly toward his damaged hand.
"Because unlike me, you still have all your fingers!"
His breathing became uneven.
"You weren’t tortured for hours!"
Then he pointed toward his mouth with shaking fingers.
"They ripped my teeth out!"
There was something almost manic in his eyes now.
But I said nothing.
Because pointing out the obvious would solve nothing.
His teeth could be replaced.
Therapy could be paid for.
The scars would eventually fade.
That was what money did.
Money repaired damage.
Maybe not immediately, but eventually.
Nico hadn’t built this empire without sacrifice. His father had suffered. Nico’s grandfather had suffered even more.
Pain was part of survival.
I had always known I spoiled Kade too much.
But I had done it intentionally.
I wanted him to enjoy life while he still could. I wanted him drinking, partying, wasting money, chasing women—anything except involving himself too deeply in cartel affairs before twenty-one.
I wanted him soft for just a little longer.
But clearly life had made that decision for me.
"I was nothing but a tool," Kade continued bitterly. "Something to use and throw away."
His voice deepened with anger.
"They only took me to get to you."
This time I remained silent because I already knew that.
And judging from the way he looked at me, he knew it too.
Most of his anger wasn’t truly directed toward his kidnappers.
It was directed at me.
"If you knew I was in danger, then you should’ve protected me better!" he shouted. "But you couldn’t even do that!"
I let him speak.
Sometimes rage needed room to breathe before it could be controlled.
I had dealt with enough men in my life to understand that.
Nico’s father had tried to control me once.
Kade’s father had tried after him.
The first had been hell to escape from.
The second dying had practically been a blessing.
So no, I would not tolerate being spoken to disrespectfully forever.
But right now Kade was broken.
And broken people lashed out.
"What exactly can you do, Mother?" he demanded bitterly. "You should’ve just given them whatever they wanted! Isn’t my life more important?"
His voice cracked slightly near the end.
Tears threatened his eyes even though he clearly fought hard to suppress them.
That alone irritated me more than I cared to admit.
Nico was my son too.
And yet Nico had never reacted this way to hardship.
Sometimes I wondered if raising Kade away from Castillo influence had weakened him somehow.
Nico’s father had been cruel.
Brutal even.
But perhaps some of that brutality had shaped Nico into the man he became instead of this trembling figure sitting in front of me unable to accept scars.
Kade looked shattered by things that should have strengthened him.
And yes, I was his mother.
But what kind of grown man sat crying over scars?
He was no longer a child.
"I didn’t even think I was going to survive," he whispered suddenly.
His gaze dropped toward the floor.
For the first time since returning home, genuine fear crossed his face.
"At one point, I heard them talking about killing me."
His voice sounded distant now, like part of him was still trapped in that room.
"I’m never getting my finger back," he muttered weakly.
Then his hand moved toward the bandage running along the side of his face beneath his ear.
"And my face..."
He inhaled shakily.
"I look hideous."
That was when my patience finally ended.
Hideous?
Was he serious?
The scar could have been worse.
They could have removed his ears entirely.
His eye.
His tongue.
There were countless worse possibilities.
And yet here he sat mourning his appearance like a vain child.
At that point, I was done listening to the self-pity.
I turned fully toward him, leveling a cold stare in his direction.
"Are you done?" I asked calmly.
My tone was cold enough to cut through steel.
And finally, silence filled the room again.
