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No one speaks, and not a sound is heard while they stand there, two survivors silently expressing their relief that they are both alive. Tears track down my face, and when I look around me. I’m not the only one affected; we all are. Even hard-ass Diego has tears in his eyes.
“We need to move and get them to safety.” Diego’s words break the spell we are enveloped by. He’s right; of course, we are exposed here, and Vincent could attack us. Theo and Mateo break apart, and he steps back with a nod to June. There’s a sense of deep understanding, remorse, and sympathy when he looks at her. More than anyone, Theo would understand what his father is capable of doing to a young woman. Horrors that I don’t even want to imagine.
We all step back, letting Mateo and June walk toward the waiting vehicles. Their gait is slow and painful to watch. I want to ask him to sit with me, to let me hold him, but I bite my tongue. His hold on June hasn’t diminished, and right now this is about them feeling safe. They feel safer together. I have to respect that she was his lifeline and he was hers.
Carter opens the door to the Escalade and jumps in the very back row, Theo doing the same on his side. That leaves the middle row for Mateo, myself, and June. It’s awkward as we make our way into the vehicle. I want to help him and her. It looks like it causes them agony just attempting to get into the car, but I’m afraid to touch either of them.
Mateo slowly helps June into the middle, ensuring that he buckles her in tightly before sliding his long thin body inside and allowing Diego to close the door. The minute he’s inside and has his belt strapped, June shifts her body to drape herself as close to him as possible and as far away from me as the seat belt will allow. You can’t tell where one of them begins and the other ends. I watch in silence as he wraps his arms around her tightly in comfort, and her head lays on his chest, their eyes closing like they have done that same action a hundred times.
Dread and unease fill me, but I push it down and ignore it as the vehicle rolls forward and Diego takes us away from this hillside. I pull my eyes away from Mateo and June and their tight embrace, leaning my forehead against the cold window and thanking God for his safe return. I’m so relieved that he’s alive; everything else is secondary.
We can get through anything if we are all together. Haven’t we already proven that when Theo and Carter were tortured and returned to us half-dead? Theo and Carter survived unimaginable savagery, and Mateo will make it too. I’ll make sure of it. Nothing can break us apart. They are mine, and I am theirs, and together we are stronger.
When we return to the estate and are behind secured gates, Mateo and June are quickly taken charge of by a waiting Mary and the medical team. The rest of us wait restlessly in the family room to hear if they will need to head to a hospital.
Diego is pacing back and forth in front of me, and it’s starting to grate on my nerves. I know he’s anxious to know the extent of Mateo and June’s injuries, but he’s also waiting to question them. Diego wants to know if they have clues on Vincent’s current whereabouts. If before he wished Vincent Saint-Lambert dead so he could claim me as a wife, now he wants to terrorize and murder him for what he’s done to Mateo. I do not doubt that if Diego gets his hands on Vincent, even the devil himself won’t be able to stop him from taking him apart piece by painful piece. The thought brings me joy and almost makes it worth having to endure his miserable presence all these weeks.
I’m sitting here with Raegan holding me tight, her arms like octopus tentacles refusing to let me move even an inch. On my other side is my sister, gripping my hand tightly and giving Diego death glares from across the room. I don’t even have the energy or mental bandwidth to deal with whatever is going on with those two right now.
“Miss Stratford,” Mary walks into the room with a small smile that doesn’t reach her eyes and nods towards the kitchen area. Fear fills me; what is Mary going to tell me? Has Vincent done irreparable damage to one or both of them? Do they need a hospital?
I pull away from Reagan’s tight grip and release my sister’s hand. I rise from the sofa and follow Mary out of the room and down the hall, past a pacing Theo and into the office. Once we reach the space, I close the door behind us. Getting the sense that whatever Mary wants to tell me is for my ears only. Fear slithers down my spine at just the thought of what she will reveal.
“Miss Stratford…I don’t even know where to begin. I…I’m…I.” Mary blows out a harsh breath and runs her fingers below her eyes, swiping away the tears that have already made their presence. For Mary, a hardened nurse on my grandmother’s payroll, to be this affected, it means whatever she is about to tell me will be horrific. I brace myself for the impact of her words.
“It’s alright, Mary; please just tell me.”
She sniffs back tears and then raises her eyes to mine. “That girl, June. She was gang-raped by five men viciously and repeatedly over the weeks they were held captive. There’s so much damage to her internally that I’m not sure she will ever heal completely. She’s extremely malnourished; they starved them almost to death. She has pneumonia from them being left naked and without heat in a cold, damp room. There are various lacerations on her body that someone stitched up but are infected. She’s covered in cigarette burn marks along her shoulders and collarbone. There’s at least one broken rib and a broken wrist. We can’t tell if there are any others until she has an x-ray.” I watch as Mary swallows hard, looking shell-shocked and clenching her jaw to be able to continue. “They also gave her Gonorrhea. I won’t know what else until the blood work and urine come back. Mia, I…I don’t think she will ever be able to have…kids based on the damage they’ve done. That poor girl!”
Puke races up my throat, and I shift away from Mary, rushing towards the garbage can under the desk. I barely manage to get my hands around the can before vomit spews out of my mouth. When my body has purged itself of all its contents, I wipe the back of my mouth on my sleeve and lean against the desk.
That poor girl, the horror she has gone through at the hands of those monsters. What they did to her. How is she even still alive? “Do we have everything we need to treat her, or does she need to go to a hospital?”
A sigh leaves Mary, and she runs her hands down her dark blue scrubs. “We will have to order more equipment. Even if I thought it would be best for her to go to a hospital setting, they won’t go, Mia. Mateo wouldn’t even let me examine her without being right next to her.”
“I see.” Mateo is obviously very protective of her, and now hearing what the poor girl has been through, I can understand that. “What about Mateo’s injuries?”
“Oh, lord. Where to even begin, Mia? He was shot at close range in the chest, luckily for him, the bullet seemed to miss vital organs, and his blood loss was contained. Someone managed to get him patched up. His wound is infected and has not healed properly. His shoulder has been dislocated and put back, but there’s swelling and inflammation. He’s just as dehydrated and malnourished as June. His body is covered in oozing infected sores, and he has two large lacerations to his lower back and abdomen that weren’t stitched closed completely.” She takes a deep breath and then braces her hand on her upper thighs like she, too, might be sick. “They tore out the nails on two of his fingers. A few of his fingers have been broken and have not healed correctly. Mia, he…he too has Gonorrhea. He wouldn’t answer me when I asked him if he was sexually assaulted, but tears ran down June’s face at the question. I’m going to guess that whatever sexually transmitted diseases she has, he has them too.”
There’s nothing left in my stomach, but that doesn’t stop it from lurching again. Sweat breaks out along my neck and down my back. Everything I’m hearing Mary describe seems inconceivable that they are both alive. How did they survive all that? How did they even manage to escape with all those injuries and make their way to us?
Vincent Saint-Lambert better pray that he dies somewhere out of my reach. If I ever manage to get my hands on him, he will suffer painfully for everything he has done to Theo, Carter, Mateo, and June. Not to mention all the other countless victims of his terror.
“Get them whatever they need; no expense is to be spared.”
“Mia, I…I have to report their injuries to your grandmother.” Mary stares at me with shame on her face. I can see that she’s feeling guilty about divulging what they have gone through to anyone else. Fuck, I feel like shit, too, about anyone else knowing what they have been through without them authorizing it, but my grandmother is a force to be reckoned with, and she needs to know what we are dealing with here. Vincent is still out there somewhere.
“I understand. Do what you must, Mary.”
“For what it’s worth, I believe those two only survived because they had each other.” She nods, opens the door, and leaves the room.
Her words play over and over in my mind. All the injuries that they both had to endure. The suffering and torture. Mateo and June both having Gonorrhea and who knows what else. Mateo refusing to answer if he was raped, but June’s tears all but confirming it. The gunshot that could have ended his life but somehow missed his vital organs. I brace myself on the desk, letting my head hang low between my shoulders.
How much more can we endure at the hands of the demon psychopath? Look at all the terror he has spread, all in the name of what? Getting his hands on me. He tortured and almost killed Theo and Carter. Now he has nearly killed Mateo and June.
I should have never come back to Casbury. I am their destruction, after all.
Chapter 40
