Chapter 4 Flynn
FLYNN
Kaia Yudkin turning up in the guard house was not on my list of expectations for the day.
I’m well aware of how resourceful the Yudkins can be, but last I checked on Kaia she was still unconscious in the guest bedroom.
Now she’s here, standing in front of me with the color draining from her beautiful face as she looks me up and down with those gorgeous green eyes of hers.
I didn’t recognize her a few nights ago when we raided the Yudkin Estate, but after my medical team cleaned her up and treated her it was impossible not to recognize Kaia, the Yudkin princess.
Hidden away for most of her life by her uncle, people spoke of her and her beauty as if it were some kind of fairy tale.
Or a sad story.
Rumors spread like wildfire that she was horrifically scarred as a child after what happened to her parents and that her uncle was hiding her away for her own safety and well-being.
Those rumors are clearly fake given that the woman standing before me is beautiful and healthy.
“Well?” I say as she struggles to find her words. “Why the cops and not your uncle, hm?”
Kaia trembles as if she’s about to fall apart right in front of me. But despite the visible fear taking over her body, a spark of defiance remains in her eyes as she sets her jaw and glares at me.
Her full peach lips part, but whatever words are about to come forth are immediately swallowed as Frank rushes into the kitchen holding a small pair of scissors aloft in one hand and a medical kit in the other.
“I swear to fuck if you don’t sit down and let me finish this,” Frank snaps. “I’ll give you another wound ten times worse and make you stitch it yourself!”
Kaia’s eyes dart between the two of us and she takes this opportunity to step back. I allow it, moving to sit on the nearest stool with a quiet wince.
“Fine,” I reply, setting the gun down on the counter and raising my arm. “Stitch away.”
“Fucking Christ,” Frank mutters and he moves around me, setting the kit down on the counter and leaning closer to me. “Do you know the shit I’d be in if you bled out here?” Frank completely ignores Kaia, much more concerned about the several deep lacerations along my ribcage that require stitching.
“They were healing,” I reply, not taking my eyes off Kaia. “You could have left them.”
“Having them clot because you’ve been running around like a fucking headless chicken for two days does not count as healing,” Frank grumbles as he sets to work. “Now don’t fucking move.”
She’s looking. Despite the fury burning in her glare, Kaia’s eyes drift down to my bare chest more than once, and definitely more than can be explained away as a curious look at my injury.
With Frank busy, all my attention locks on Kaia and part of me hopes she reaches for the gun. Grappling with her would be more fun than I’m willing to admit.
“Who are you?” Kaia demands with a trembling voice.
“Do you really not know?”
“I know you’re a Gallagher.” Her chin juts out slightly. “You’re brutish enough to be one.”
“Not one,” I reply smoothly. “I am the one.”
Her brows twitch slightly.
“You’re a Yudkin. Are you going to stand there and tell me you don’t know the heads of families?”
There’s still a glimmer of uncertainty in her eyes as she glances down at my chest once more, then across to my shoulder where several black lines swoop and blend together in the form of a Celtic Knot. “Flynn?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
She doesn’t respond.
“Seems you’re as thick as all the other Yudkins then.” Pain blooms at my ribs and I wince, but just as I move away from it Frank slaps my waist and forces me to remain still.
“You came to my home.”
The night in question floods to the front of my mind, along with a pain in my chest greater than anything I’ve experienced before.
It’s a familiar pain by now, fury mingling with grief and disappointment.
Burying myself in work is the only time I get respite from drowning in the sensation and, for a moment, here with Kaia where curiosity burns hotter than my despair.
“I did.”
“You blew up my home.”
Recalling the series of car explosions, I nod. “Technically. I suppose.”
“Why?” Despite the tremble in her voice, her word comes at me like the lash of a whip.
“You know why.”
“No, I don’t.” Kaia crosses her arms over her chest, and I’m suddenly struck by a sudden moment of awe.
She escaped the house and ran here all in her sleepwear, sleepwear that barely contains all the soft curves of her large chest, wide hips, and mouth-wateringly thick thighs.
I’d aimed to get her more size-appropriate clothing when she woke, but the sedative we gave her kept her under for longer than expected.
“You should know one thing about me, Kaia, and that’s I do not like getting lied to.”
“I’m not lying,” she snaps. “You came to my home and started a fire, you burned my home to the ground, and attacked my family! You attacked my brother and—.”
“Killed,” I correct immediately.
She freezes before me and her eyes slowly grow wide. “No…”
“Yes. And your aunt, too, I believe. Took us a moment or two to identify her.”
“No.”
“Yes,” I reply, mirroring her distressed tone.
“The only reason you’re alive is that I still need answers, and the only reason you’re not starving in the dungeons is that my wife, god rest her soul, would be ashamed of me for treating you like that, but I’ll be damned if you don’t fucking deserve it. ”
The awe fades, replaced by the fury that’s been consuming me near daily. I watch as tears flood Kaia’s eyes while her face crumples and I can almost visualize how the gears must be rapidly turning in her mind.
Sympathy for a Yudkin is at the bottom of my infinite list given everything they’ve done to me.
I take cold enjoyment when Kaia blinks and the tears roll down her cheeks.
“You-you can’t be serious. They’re not dead, they can’t be because—.”
“Because why?” I snap slightly as Frank moves around me for a better angle.
“Because your family has all the power? Is your family the only one allowed to stamp someone out under your heel? All your decades of turning this city into a sewer for the rest of us and you dare stand there playing victim?” Poison laces my words as I rise in my stool.
“That sensation you’re feeling right now in your chest? That’s nothing, nothing compared to—.”
“Flynn!” Frank cuts in with a sharp warning and grabs my arm, forcing me back down onto the stool.
“Sorry,” I bark out, struggling to rein in the desire to keep yelling until she’s left cowering on the floor under the weight of her family’s crimes.
A strangled sob escapes past her lips and she covers her mouth, stumbling backward.
“Don’t believe me?” Reaching for the phone dangling from the cord on the wall, I place it back on the receiver and nod to it. “Call your uncle. He’ll tell you.”
Her shining eyes dart to the phone.
“Go on,” I urge. “Call him.”
I want her to.
I want him to know I have her and that there is only one thing in the world he can do to get her back.
If he cared enough to hide her from the world for so long, then he’ll definitely care enough to get her back.
While Kaia picks up the phone and dials, my attention drifts to Frank who is finishing up his stitches. “Satisfied?” I ask as he finally leans away.
“No,” Frank sighs, rubbing at his bald head. “But it’s the most you’ll let me do, so I’ll have to be.”
“Thanks.”
Frank’s eyes meet mine and a faint smile flickers at the corner of his mouth. “I know.”
“Uncle,” Kaia suddenly gasps. “Oh my god, tell me it’s not true!
” She pauses and sniffles, clutching the phone with both hands.
“I-I don’t know where I am, but Flynn is here and he says…
Uncle, he says Aunt Kara is dead!” Whatever answer Antov gives causes Kaia’s face to crumple, and tears pour down her cheeks.
“And Vic?” She chokes on the name of her scumbag brother and sobs as her uncle delivers the truth.
Kara and Vic Yudkin are dead. Less than they deserve given the stain the Yudkin’s have been on this world, but I would have let them have their piece of the pie if they had just stayed away from me.
“But why?” Kaia gasps wetly. “I don’t understand. You can fix this, right? You can fix this. No, I don’t know where I am, I’ve told you! It’s a house and there’s a l—.”
Frank swiftly cuts the phone cord before Kaia can reveal any details and she flinches in fright at the sudden silence in her ear.
Slowly, she lowers the phone down to the counter, and when she looks at me, there’s a renewed hatred burning in her tears.
“You killed them,” she croaks.
“Yes.”
“You killed my brother.”
“Yes.”
“And my aunt.”
“Yes.”
“And my b-best friend!”
My head tilts and I glance toward Frank who, for a moment, looks as confused as I am. Then his brows lift. “The woman in the lounge?” he asks.
“Her name was Anya!” Kaia screams suddenly and she lunges toward me with both arms outstretched only to be met by Frank’s arm sweeping around her waist to hold her back.
“Anya was good and kind and decent! My brother was the best, my aunt w-was the sweetest person alive! You monster! You fucking monster!”
Soft, cold laughter rises in my chest as I stand from my stool and lean forward, close enough to antagonize the tearful woman but far enough to avoid her furious clawing hands.
“I’m not the monster here, Kaia. And until your uncle meets my demands, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, so you might want to rein in that attitude of yours.”
“You bastard!” Kaia screams, flailing with all her might to reach me against Frank’s hold. “I’ll kill you!”
“I’d like to see you try.”
Night falls and I’m no closer to the truth. Tucked up in my office, I’ve spent the past five hours pouring through Vic’s phone, the GPS logs we salvaged from his car and the vehicles driven by his men, as well as the phone records of all the guards we killed inside the Yudkin Estate.