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“Cat.” Her name grated through my sandpaper throat. My heart felt like it was in my fucking toes as I dropped to the floor with her in my arms. “Baby.”
No movement. There wasn’t even a flicker of her eyelids or a change in her breathing. But shewasbreathing, the little puffs of air leaving her lips came faster than normal.
I goddamn knew I shouldn’t have let her see those pictures. It even turned my stomach when I saw what was done to them. Just like their lives were wiped out of existence, their faces were scratched out and marked over with red marker.
Another of Whisper’s games.
Another tick on the number of hours he’ll suffer once I find him.
How in the fuck does he keep getting past the alarm system? Before we left this afternoon for her appointment, I had the code for the system changed. Did he figure out the new code, or is he somehow bypassing it?
One thing’s for damn sure, the alarm company better figure out what the hell is happening and fix it or heads will roll. Quite fucking literally.
While I sit beside the bed, holding Cat’s hand, I don’t wonder what she’s thinking. I know she’s there, her mind filled with memories of that night, unable to escape. Dr. Armani warned me it could happen at any moment, so I knew it was a possibility. Just as her headaches were increasing, her nightmares were becoming more frequent, and she was remembering more than she had since they began. Discovering the truth about her other personalities and the warning from Presley.
All of it led to this.
After she fell, I brought her upstairs to our bedroom and called Dr. Armani. He was knocking on the door fifteen minutes later. He didn’t seem as concerned about her unconscious state as I was, telling me to let her rest, and she would wake up soon. He said her mind was trying to heal and it was up to her whether she allowed it.
For the first time since Cat began seeing the doctor five years ago, I wanted to slam my fist into his face and break the fragile bones.
I didn’t want to wait for her to decide. I wanted him to wake her up. I needed to see her eyes to assure myself that she was okay, because until then, I couldn’t fucking function properly.
That was three hours ago. Dr. Armani left after checking on Cat with instructions to call him when she awoke. My ass hasn’t left this chair and won’t until Cat gives me those beautiful blue eyes of hers.
I pull out my phone to call Silas to inform him we need to find Whisper before I tear the city apart. My phone drops to the floor when a soft whimper has me jerking my eyes to Cat. Her eyebrows are pinched and her face scrunches, as though in pain.
“Cat, baby.” I gently call her name. I move to the side of the bed and grab her clammy hand in mine. “Can you hear me?”
Her eyelashes flutter, and for a moment, I think she’s only reacting to something in her head, but when her eyelids slowly open, her gorgeous blue eyes focus on mine.
“Hunter?” she croaks, like she’s been screaming for hours and her throat is too raw to speak. Her face crumples as tears fill her eyes. A loud wail erupts from her throat. “They’re gone! Our babies are gone!”
I’m lying on the bed and have her pulled into my arms in the next second. Her sorrowful cries and deep sobs of pain break something inside me. She clings to me, her nails digging into my chest so hard they’ll leave little crescent marks. While holding her tightly, her slender body shudders and her sobs fill our room.
I know how hard this fresh wave of hell is for her. I’ve had five years to deal with my own grief. It still hurts as much as the day it happened, but I’ve learned how to deal with it. Cat only had a few months before her mind put up a protective wall. She was never given the chance to heal.
We stay like this for a long time. My shirt is soaked with Cat’s tears, and the only thing I can do is hold her as she wails out her grief. Being helpless isn’t something I’m accustomed to feeling, but when it comes to knowing what to do to help my wife, it seems like it’s all I feel. I can’t take away this pain. I can’t even fucking lessen it.
After what seems like hours, Cat lifts her head. Her face is red and splotchy and her eyes are puffy, her lashes soaked.
But it’s my Cat looking back at me. Not a woman who looks like her, but goes by another name. For that, I breathe a sigh of relief.
“I couldn’t save them,” she says tearfully. “I tried, Hunter. I swear I tried so hard, but I wasn’t strong enough.”
I brush the wet hair off her cheeks. “I know you did, baby. Nothing could have saved them.”
She shakes her head adamantly. “I should have been able to. It’s my fault they’re gone.”
“No,” I bark.
I quickly sit up in bed, plant her ass on my lap, and grab her cheeks in my hands. I force her head up so she sees how serious I am.
“I never want to hear those words come out of your mouth again, Caterina.” I give her head a gentle shake. “There is nothing, absolutely fucking nothing, you could have done differently to save our children. Those bastards broke into our house knowing exactly what they had planned. What was done to them wasn’t random or spur of the moment. They had every intention of,” I grit my teeth and push the next words out between them, “brutally forcing their touch on them and taking them from us.” I bring her face closer to mine. “And I fucking swear to you, I haven’t forgotten my promise to make them all pay.”
“I want to help.”
Her words are spoken quietly, and for a moment, I’m speechless. Cat, my innocent, sweet, gentle wife, wants to get her hands dirty and bathe in the blood of those who wronged us.
