Page 19 of In My Heart
I had worried him and I knew it, but I also hadn’t wanted to lie to him. I didn’t want to promise him I was okay, when I was so far from it.
“Fresh air would be good,” I agreed with a nod.
“Good. Put on a jumper and some warm socks,” he told me as he nodded to the leggings and t shirt I wore.
The t shirt was Arran’s and it dwarfed me, but I felt comfortable in it. He and Cal had given me a pile each of their clothes when I got back from the hospital. They didn’t say if they found it odd how much I liked wearing their things over my own. They just did anything they could to make me feel comfortable.
“I just need to grab my crutches and maybe a jumper too,” he added.
I nodded and pressed a steadying hand to the wall knowing he was going to let go of me.
“Will you be okay? How lightheaded do you feel right now?” he asked.
“I can get to the closet,” I assured him.
“Okay, but sit on the bed to get dressed, then wait there for me. I don’t want you falling over and hurting yourself further.”
I just smiled as much as I could and nodded. I didn’t feel like smiling, but Cal needed something from me. He was trying so hard to make me feel better, all to no avail. A forced smile and my agreement was the best I had to offer him right then.
CHAPTER 6
ARRAN
I stood back, blood dripping from my hands as they hung at my sides, just watching Rafe slit the throat of what remained of our last prisoner.
We’d held those sick, rapist fucks for three days, and they had been beaten and tortured almost to their deaths over and over, given just a taste of the agony they had caused, and still caused Cara. Rafe had even gotten his hands dirty multiple times, breaking fingers, pulling finger nails, and beating the fuckers unconscious more than once, all in a bid to get just a taste of the revenge he was seeking for his sisters.
The first had died the day before, the cuts I carefully covered his body in putting him into shock eventually, and his heart gave out. It had pissed me the fuck off and I’d taken that out on the others who remained.
Torture and interrogation were a kind of speciality of mine. My father had been muscle for the street gang he worked for in Glasgow when he was younger, then later, an even more ruthless monster running the family company when I was a bairn. One of his main jobs had been cracking skulls when the situation called for it, and he had started to train me from a young age, determined to pass on the family legacy. I’d love to say it appalled me and made me want better for my life, but it didn’t. Itgave me a thirst for violence, and as I got older, I learned to use that ingrained violence to combat my deeper issues.
But I was also damned good at what I did. I got results when Rafe needed them, and in that situation, I had caused unspeakable pain to those bastards, that I had been forced to watch rape and beat the woman I loved. And I had enjoyed every single minute of it, because those bastards deserved it, and so much more. Now I just wanted to get my hands on Mikhail Kozlov too.
“Dante’ll be pissed he didnae get to play, when he gets home and finds out about this,” I sighed as the last fucker swung limply from the chains that were tethering him by his wrists to the restraints above.
“Tough shit. That’s what he gets for taking a fucking holiday when we need him back here!” Rafe snapped.
The boss was definitely pissed that Dante had just disappeared on us all. Since I couldn’t explain what really happened without breaking my word to Cara, I had tried to cover for Dante by saying I thought he’d gone to catch up with some old army acquaintances. Rafe had been pissed as hell about it, but he ultimately agreed that Dante had a right to take a break, seeing as he never had, not in all the years he worked for the family.
I just hoped the fucker planned to come back, because his phone wasn’t taking calls and I had filled his voicemail box with messages already. I had no clue where he was. But we needed him back. Cara needed him. It was going to take everyone she had to get her through what she had suffered, and even then I feared it wouldn’t be enough.
The lass was barely holding herself together as it was. She didn’t sleep, barely ate. You couldn’t leave her alone for a moment,because she just panicked and started to slip into a panic attack if you did. And even when you were with her, she wasn’t truly there. She stared into space a lot, the agony playing through her mind so clear to see on her face. It was killing me to see her that way and not know how to help. It was killing all of us. But we were doing what we could – showing her that we were there for her.
“Any word on Kozlov?” I asked, changing the subject.
“I’ve put the word out. He won’t be able to hide for long, and when I get my hands on him, what we did to these pieces of shit will pale in comparison to what I do to him,” Rafe seethed.
“And Adamian? Any word from him about Cara?”
“Nothing. I doubt Kozlov even told him anything. Either that, or he did and Adamian doesn’t give a shit about Cara. I highly doubt my mother was the first bit on the side he got pregnant.”
“So you really think the Armenians just went after Cara to use as leverage to get hands on the docks?” I questioned.
It was the theory we had come to, but it didn’t sit right with me. The Armenians had gone after Cara before she even left the States. How could they even have known about her then? And why go after her there when they were ready to go after her in London too, that day they shot up Dante’s car?
“Fuck knows. I’m working on getting some answers, but right now all I care about is making sure our home, our family, and especially Cara are all safe. That’s what matters until I get to the bottom of the rest.”
“Aye. Yer right,” I agreed. “Let’s clean up and get back home. I’ll call a clean-up crew in here to handle this.”
