“Where’s Colton?”
“Headed the same way we are…” Asher studied the tracking app again as they both got into the SUV. “To what looks like a private airport. We have to reach them before they take off.” Asher glanced his way. “You okay? You were dead for a minute. We can take a second if you need it.”
Angelo buckled himself in to the passenger seat.
“Just drive,” he rasped.
Asher turned his focus back to the road and threw the SUV into reverse.
Angelo didn’t dare let himself think about what would happen if they didn’t catch up to her in time. A man like Cormac Callahan would know how to take her away, hide her…hurther. All Angelo wanted was to have her in his arms, kissing her forehead and knowing she was safe. Fists clenching so tight his knuckles turned white, he stared into the dark, his mind racing wildly with thoughts. But one thing was certain. He would kill anyone who stood in between him and Kara.
Kara massaged her wrists after the rope was removed from them. She shot a hard, defiant look at Jim O’Leary who tossed the rope into an empty chair nearby. The pilot had come out a moment ago and told Cormac he refused to take off until he performed safety checks and only after he could see thatallpassengers were seated and unrestrained. The pilot’s eyes had cut to Kara’s wrists with a nervous look as he’d given that order to the men who had hired him to fly the plane.
Kara had breathed a sigh of relief as Jim cut her free. Then she’d been shoved into a seat by Cormac and buckled in. Now she twisted Angelo’s grandmother’s ring on her finger, hiding the pearl and diamonds against her palm. Touching it gave her a small level of comfort. When she glanced up, she saw Cormac watching her, his eyes dark with obsession, so different than the sensual possessiveness she adored seeing in Angelo’s eyes.
“What’s that?” Cormac demanded. His tone held a level of violence that terrified her, but she didn’t dare show it.
When she didn’t answer and kept her face neutral, he bent over from the seat next to her and jerked her hand toward him. She kept her fingers curled into a fist, desperate to protect the ring but he pried her fingers apart to the point of pain. Before she could stop him, he sharply twisted the ring off her fingers and held it up into the light. She pulled her stinging hand back to her chest, cradling it.
“What is this?”
Kara was sick to her stomach as she watched Cormac hold something that mattered to her, mattered so much it nearly made her cry. Then it gave her an idea; but it likely wouldn’t make a difference. Still, she had to try.
“That’s my wedding ring. I’malreadymarried, Cormac.” It was a lie, but it didn’t feel like one right then. She felt in her heart that she and Angelo had made vows, ones that ran deeper than any ceremony. Vows bonded by blood, by love, by loyalty.
It was strange to think that on some level Cormac had lived by a similar code, but his carried dangerous rules and fatal consequences.
Cormac flung the ring across the plane and it hit the back wall with aplink!and disappeared onto the carpeted floor. Then he turned on her, pressing her back against the seat, grasping one of her arms and twisting it tightly as if he needed to cause pain to drive home what he was about to tell her.
“It doesn’t matter now, does it? Vertucci is dead. My men said he didn’t make it out of the lake. Only ye did.”
Only me.
Those two words would have filled her with fear in the past. Those two words held power now. She wasn’t afraid anymore. She was angry. It was a rage that she had only ever felt briefly once before. A rage so pure, so driven by instinct and justice that she actually had to hold herself back. The kind of rage only a woman could feel. One was powerful enough to summon storms, powerful enough to defy all odds and burn everything down in its way. She felt the rage of her mother, the rage of a woman who’d abandoned her life to raise a child on the run, and never once did her mother stop fighting to stay alive. She may have had her father’s eyes…but she had her mother’s spirit.
“You’re forgetting one thing, Cormac,” she said. Her tone was dangerously soft. Cormac turned to face her.
“What’s that?”
“You forget. I’m not just my father’s daughter…” she smiled coldly. “I’m also my mother’s.” In the single heartbeat that it took Cormac to register her words, she unclipped her seatbelt and lunged at him. They collided against the wall by the flight attendant jumpseat at the front of the plane. She swung a hard punch. Her fist connected with Cormac’s jaw and despite the pain that radiated up her right arm, she struck again and again, unleashing her rage. That was her for mother, the woman who’d given up everything. She swung again, landing another blow. That was for Angelo. She screamed, the primordial rage tearing through her eardrums as she fought.
“Bitch!” Cormac snarled as he flung out an elbow, hitting her in the eye.
Jim O’Leary came into her line of vision, dodging her as she retreated back, trying to clutch her face.
“Grab her!” Cormac snarled at Jim.
The other man grappled with her near the front of the plane, and she got in a good punch, making Jim grunt and wheeze as he doubled over but his movement sent her wheeling.
She tried to keep her grip on him, but Jim threw her off, right through the opening to the stairs leading down from the plane. Kara toppled down the steps. Landing with a pained groan, she tried to get up, but her ribs felt like they were broken.
Have to get up…
She half rose on her hands and knees in time to see Cormac at the top of the stairs. He was rolling up his sleeves, his mouth curled into a harsh line. He was going to beat her to death, she saw it in his eyes.
“I’ll teach ye how it’s going to be…” he said. “As my woman, ye’ll?—”
“Sir?” The pilot suddenly stood behind Cormac. “Sir, I really must insist that you sit down before going to take off. If you aren’t buckled in, we can’t fly.” The pilot’s eyes flashed to Kara who was well and truly off the plane now. The man’s eyes widened in surprise and he glanced between her and Cormac.
