Page 88 of In My Heart
I’d woken from a stomach churning nightmare that had almost had me losing the contents of my stomach and opted not to close my eyes again. Things that day, well – the day before by then – with Arran, what we shared; it had been everything I never knew I wanted or needed. It had left me feeling more positive about the possibilities for my future than anything had for a very long time. I didn’t want to taint that with more of my nightmares.
So I had slipped from my bed and from my room and headed down to the ground floor. I’d grabbed a tub of ice cream from the freezer, a bottle of water, then set myself up in the living room, ready to watch re-runs of my favourite baking show.
I was about an hour in when someone entered the house and it instantly filled me with fear. As I crept as silently as I could from the sofa, muting the television, I knew logically it was unlikely to be intruders. Who would break into a place that noisily? And how would they even get past all of the security I knew surrounded the house? But still I found myself shutting off thelamp in the room as I passed it, then sneakily tiptoeing to the slightly ajar door, which led into the entrance hall.
I peered through the open gap towards the front door but I couldn’t see anyone in the darkened space. My heart was racing overtime, my hands sweating and shaking as I held the door and opened it as carefully and quietly as I could. I had to psych myself up to take a step out into the hall, and as soon as I did, I wanted to run. It was too dark, shadows surrounding me, lit from the small windows at each side of the front door. The silence made my ears ring and my mind worked overtime, telling me I was about to be killed like the idiots in horror films.
“Cara?” The voice scared me badly, then I saw a dark figure approaching from the kitchen and I screamed instinctively. I tried to turn and flee up the stairs.If I could just get to Cal or to Arran…
“It’s me! It’s Dio!” The words hit me as my feet tangled beneath me in my panic and I ended up in a pile on the floor, gasping for breath.
“Dio?” I gasped in fright, then he strode closer to me and I could see enough light against his face to make out his features. “Dio! What the hell were you doing?” I snapped, my overwhelming fear rushing out of me as a barb.
“Sorry, baby. I didn’t know you were up. I didn’t mean to scare you. Did you hurt yourself?” he asked as he crouched down beside me.
“Aside from almost giving myself a bloody heart attack you mean?” I panted. He lifted an eyebrow, awaiting the answer he wanted and I quickly caved. “I’m fine. Just landed on my butt.”
“What are you doing down here? You should be sleeping.”
“Watching television. I’ve had enough sleep tonight.”
“Doesn’t look like it to me,” he pointed out as he cradled my face in his right hand and ran his thumb under my eye. I knew I had dark smudges there. My lack of sleep was an on going issue that I just couldn’t seem to get a handle on.
“What are you doing up? Did you go out?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Where to? Did something happen? Is Rafe okay?”
“Rafe’s fine. I just had some business to handle.”
I wouldn’t have pushed, but something was off in the way Dio avoided eye contact with me after answering that question.
“Tell me,” I ordered as I pushed up to my knees and faced him so he couldn’t look away from me so easily.
“I got a phone call from an associate earlier, a location on Mikhail Kozlov. Arran and I went to take care of it,” he told me reluctantly.
“And did you?”
“Yeah. The bastard’s dead,” he nodded, but he still wasn’t meeting my eyes, and I didn’t understand why he seemed almost upset that one of our enemies – the motherfucker who killed Gia – was finally gone.
“Were you or Arran hurt? Any of your men?” I pushed, thinking maybe there had been losses on our end.
“No. It was pretty easy. Too easy.”
“What does that mean? Surely dead is dead. The bastard is gone, isn’t he?”
“You’re right,” he agreed, but I heard in his flat tone that he didn’t truly agree. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to your room. Is Cal staying with you?”
“No, Dio,” I moved my hand before he could take it and stared hard at him. “Something’s wrong. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me.”
“It’s just my own shit. You don’t need to worry about it,” he sighed as he reached for me again.
“Dio, we’re together, aren’t we? If something is worrying or stressing you, I want to know and I want to help you fix it. Would you let me walk off alone to deal with my bullshit when I’m upset?” I pressed.
He remained silent, his head lowered like he was defeated and I hated it. It wasn’t like him at all. He was usually so sure of himself, and almost cocky.
“Dario,” I uttered as I moved, climbing into his lap and straddling his thighs. I looped my arms around his neck and pressed a kiss to the top of his head, like he so often did to me. “Talk to me, please.”
