“Let’s get the both of ye out of here then,” Arran said, and with that he leaned in and gently scooped me up from Cal’s lap. Hestood with me in his arms with such ease, and that helped me to feel safe with him.
He settled me so I was almost sitting on one of his arms and holding onto his neck. He’d looped my tied hands over his head, and though it had hurt to move that much, I felt safer holding onto him in that way. My body was pressed to his and my head was resting against his shoulder while he readjusted the clothes around me to keep me covered.
“Cara? How bad’s the pain there?” Cal worried.
I gave him a shrug. I was in a lot of pain, but the physical was outweighed by so much deeper pain right then. The fear and horror was drowning me from the inside out, my whole body shaking constantly. There was no coming back this time. I had been destroyed. That was all I could think.
I didn’t even look to Cal, not wanting him to see the darkness raging inside me. Instead, I kept my eyes closed and my head lowered against Arran’s shirt, in an effort to stop the dizziness the movement of being lifted, had caused.
“Come on, brother.” As Arran moved, I opened my eyes, just a slit, to see him clasp Cal’s arm tight and pull him up easily. Cal wobbled a little at first, but Arran put his brother’s hand on his shoulder to steady him. “Alright?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just keep hold of Cara. Try not to jostle her too much,” Cal demanded with a grimace of what I knew had to be a lot of pain.
“I’ve got her.”
Arran wrapped his other arm around me and held me securely as we started to move out of that place that I knew would haunt my nightmares for a long time to come. I knew as we exited into thebitter night air, that I was leaving behind huge pieces of myself in that building, pieces that had been torn from me, and that I would never get back again. Pieces that, after the life I had lived, I could not afford to lose, and yet they were gone, and there was nothing I could do.
CHAPTER 3
ARRAN
I couldn’t be still. The rage and blinding fury inside of me was a living and very volatile thing. All I wanted to do was go to the office building in the city and start very slowly torturing those fucking bastards I’d been forced to watch hurt Cara. They’d destroyed her. I’d sat there, powerless to do anything, despite my hell-like fight to escape and get to her, as the light that I so loved about her left her as she was violated and hurt, over and over.
But I wouldn’t leave. I had put Cal and Cara straight into one of our cars as soon as I got them out of there and driven to the private clinic that we had an understanding with, in the rare case Doctor Barnes couldn’t handle our injuries. They had a private wing where we would be taken care of without paperwork and for cash payments.
I was worried sick about Cara and how much she was struggling just to breathe. She also had what looked like a nasty head injury, and I didn’t even want to think about the bleeding I had seen coming down her legs. I knew she was likely going to need internal stitches, and maybe even surgery.
And Cal’s foot was a mess too. I worried he’d lose it if it weren’t set and full circulation restored soon.
I’d been right on both counts. Cal needed pins inserting into his ankle and was in surgery. Cara had a concussion, and she was currently in the room, which I was pacing outside of, with a doctor who was doing a pelvic exam to check for internal injuries. I hadn’t wanted to leave Cara for a second – Cal had made me swear that I wouldn’t – but I knew she wouldn’t want me there for such an intimate procedure. It didn’t make it any easier to be separated from her though, when I knew how afraid she was and how much pain she was in.
I had left Rafe and Dario at the warehouse, with the rest of our men. They had sent a team after me, who were now outside the doors of the private wing, keeping guard, but otherwise they were needed to clean up the mess.
The police would need to be called because of Gia’s death. It would all need to be registered through official channels so Rafe and Cara could bury her and her death would be registered, but it needed to be handled carefully too. The last thing we needed in all of this mess was for the police to be sniffing around our business.
Luckily, Rafe had some contacts on the force. They’d likely stage Gia’s death with the Russian Dario took down when he and Rafe stormed the place, make it look like a robbery gone wrong or the like. But to make that work they would need to clean that whole warehouse of other evidence first, hence why I was the only one with Cara and Cal right then.
I didn’t even know where Dante was. I hadn’t heard a word from him since I sent him to the airport in Chicago to get a commercial flight. I had considered ringing him, but it seemed like a bad idea. The first thing he’d do is storm in there demanding to see Cara, and she didn’t need that. She wasterrified after what happened, and she had lost the trust she had in Dante after what he did to her.
“Mr. MacQuaid?” I turned and saw Cal’s surgeon coming towards me.
“How is he?” I asked.
“Sleeping. The repair went fine. We had to insert two large pins into your brother’s ankle. He’ll need to be in a cast for at least six weeks, and will likely need some physiotherapy, but I don’t foresee any major complications.”
“Thank you.” I shook the man’s hand. “Where is he?”
“In recovery right now. As soon as he comes around from the anaesthetic, we’ll move him to the room up here, beside Miss De Santis, if that’s agreeable?”
“Aye,” I nodded. “That’ll be fine. Thanks.”
“Of course. I’ll be close, so just have one of the nurses contact me if you have any further questions,” he offered. I nodded, then watched him walk away.
I dropped down into the chair a nurse had put outside Cara’s room for me and let out a sigh of relief. At least Cal was going to be alright. That was something.
I rested my head in my hands and took a deeper breath than I had since the minute we stepped off that bloody plane hours earlier.
My head was throbbing something rotten. I’d gotten twenty stitches in the back of it, and been advised to take a bed for the night so they could keep me under observation, but they’d done a head CT, and found nothing worrying, so I refused. Apart from the splitting head, I felt fine, and I needed to be there for Cara.
