Chapter 21 - Kaia
KAIA
“Vic?” Scrambling onto shaky legs, I throw myself forward and trip over my own feet.
It can’t be him because Vic is dead, my brother is dead. Flynn even told me so.
Yet he sits before me, propped up against the wall with a lopsided smile that widens when our eyes meet.
Did I die?
Did Flynn kill me and this is some kind of hell?
“Vic! Oh my god!” I throw myself into his arms and the tears pour harder, soaking into his neck while I hug him as tightly as I can.
I can’t believe it.
He’s really here, somehow, he’s really here.
The hug lasts until a grunt of pain escapes Vic, so I pull back and hastily wipe my eyes to get a better look at him.
He’s dressed in jogging pants with most of his upper torso wrapped in thick, white bandages.
Even in the low light, burns are visible from the edge of the bandages and up his neck to where half of his beard is replaced by pink, scarred skin.
“Kaia.” He speaks slowly with every word being slightly breathless as if it’s taking a great deal of effort to speak. “You’re alive. I’m so glad.”
“Me?” I gasp as tears continue to pour. “I can’t believe you are!
I don’t understand.” Tucking up next to his legs, I take his hand between both of mine and clutch tightly.
“How are you here? How is this possible? Flynn told me you were dead! I’ve b-been mourning you for so long and you’re here. How are you here?”
Vic’s lips twitch into a half smile and he blinks slowly.
From the color of the bandages, it’s clear Vic’s been getting treatment, although I can’t imagine why.
Given everything Flynn’s said about me and our family, there’s no reason I can think of as to why he’d lie about Vic’s death or why he’d work so hard to keep him alive and hidden down here.
“Uncle Antov is going to be so delighted,” I whisper, shaking my head. “He thinks you’re dead. I thought so too but you’re here. I can’t believe it.”
“I’ve been here so long,” Vic says slowly, choosing his words carefully.
“That night, the ceiling came down on me. All the fire…” He shakes his head and swallows hard.
“Thought I was dead until I woke up here. Flynn Gallagher…” Anger flashes in his eyes and he grunts, curling his fingers against my palm.
“Told me I was in a coma. His men found me. Cared for me.”
Vic takes so long to speak that by the time he reaches the end of his explanation, my tears are drying and the frantic racing of my heart has slowed to a deep pounding. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you’re alive.”
“Takes more than that to kill me.” Slowly, he moves his other hand over his lap to cover the top of my hands. “How are…you here?”
Thinking back to that night brings a deeper chill to my chest, and I shudder, sending a few water droplets scattering about.
“And why…why are you wet?”
Glancing down at myself, my stomach lurches.
If I had played along with Flynn for longer, would I have learned Vic was alive all by myself?
If I had focused on the warm feelings that bloom inside me when Flynn smiles at me, or when he fucks me like he wants to own me, would I have earned this information through trust?
Instead, I’m back behind bars and have no one to blame but myself.
“That night, I ran outside but I didn’t make it to your car.
I ran into Flynn and the next thing I knew, I was waking up here.
I tried to escape and ran all the way to a neighboring house, but surprise, it was a guard house, and he was there waiting for me.
He told me—.” The words catch briefly in my throat and I sniffle.
“He told me you were dead. And Aunt Kara is dead.”
Hot tears well back up in my eyes as Vic’s brow deepens into a frown. “She died?”
I nod. “I think so. I mean, I never saw her body or anything and now that you’re here, I don’t know what to believe but…he told me and then he made me call Antov and tell him. He was so angry, but we couldn’t talk for long. I’ve been here ever since. The weeks have just been melting past.”
“Doing what?” Vic locks eyes with me, and guilt warms my gut.
I can’t tell him I’ve been living here, painting sceneries and enjoying nature, spending time with Angie and fucking Flynn’s brains out.
Those words cannot come out of my mouth so I force myself to shrug. “Just…being a hostage,” I murmur. “He took me once to some sort of exchange or meeting with Antov, but he wasn’t there and the warehouse blew up instead. It was…terrifying.”
“An exchange?” Vic laughs once and coughs weakly, sounding more like air rushing through a tunnel.
“Flynn said that Antov was clearly trying to kill me too and I—.”
“No,” Vic says. “You know uncle. He never would have thought Flynn would agree to an exchange.”
“I know, but…” It clicks in my mind that Vic doesn’t sound surprised to hear about an exchange. I’d have thought his first question would have been an exchange of what, something that’s still a mystery to me, but instead he seems to already know. “Vic?”
“Mhm?”
“Have you been here all this time?”
He nods slowly.
“I can’t believe this.” Shuffling closer, I study everything I can see from the burns to the bandages down to our clasped hands. “You’re being treated.”
“Yeah,” Vic croaks. “The fool.”
Despite the immense relief at seeing my brother again, along with an odd wave of exhaustion from realizing my weeks of grieving were for nothing, something sits unsettled in my mind.
“I don’t understand why,” I murmur. “Why he would come to our house to kill us but then…treat you like this. As if he wants you to live.” On top of that, he kept me alive too.
He fed me, put a roof over my head, and tended to my own long-healed injuries. “Why would he do all this?”
Vic snorts and ends up coughing deeply. “Because I’m the only one who knows what he wants. Without me, he’s got nothin’, so he got no choice but to lock me up and keep me alive.”
“The only one?” I repeat softly. “So this entire time that Flynn’s been dealing with uncle…it’s been for nothing?”
“Not exactly,” Vic chuckles and he removes his hand from mine to then rest it on his chest. “Uncle knows what Flynn’s after, he’s just unable to give it to him. Only I can. So uncle is acting more like a distraction.”
“I don’t understand.” I blink and my wet lashes cling briefly to my cheek. As I wipe them away and sniffle, the events from the past few weeks take on a different light now that Vic’s been alive this whole time.
Does that mean Flynn didn’t come to our house that night with the intention of killing us?
Is Vic the reason that Flynn’s retaliation against me for both attempts on his life have been so docile?
The way Vic speaks it’s as if he’s got Flynn by the balls and has done since the beginning.
It slowly starts to make sense.
Each time Flynn casually brushed off my attempts to kill him, from the hairpin to the poisoning, it wasn’t because he didn’t see me as a threat.
It must have been because of Vic, and whatever Vic has or knows that Flynn desperately wants.
Instead of being the target, perhaps I’ve been an insurance policy that no longer has value after what happened with Angie.
“Aren’t you worried?” I ask softly. “About Uncle? Flynn is a dangerous man.”
“He’s a pussy,” Vic scoffs. “A soft-hearted cunt. Uncle will be fine. He’ll keep stringing Flynn along for as long as he can, until that bastard is so desperate that he comes crawling back to me because he’s realized I’m the only one that has what he wants.”
“Which is?” All this time, it’s remained a mystery to me.
The exchange.
Flynn’s constant struggle with his moods. Everything has been tied to a mystery Flynn refused to shed any light on and now Vic is here, alive and with answers.
“He didn’t tell you?” Vic laughs again. “What a cunt. I suppose he knew I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Tell me what, Vic?”
“He wants his kid back,” Vic snorts. “But I ain’t giving her back.”
My heart skips a beat. “His child?”
“Mhm.”
“But his child…Angie’s fine, Vic. She’s upstairs. That’s actually why I’m soaked because I…I tried to take her and use her to escape but I only made it as far as the lake and it…” Angie suddenly fills my head as I remember how she threw herself in front of me. I didn’t deserve that at all.
A soft, weak laugh escapes Vic and he shifts against the wall. “Not that one,” Vic says. “The other one.”
Our eyes meet and a cold, sharp sense of dread suddenly ignites under my ribs, taking my breath away. “The other one?” I repeat.
“Yeah.” Vic rolls his eyes. “You know his kids are twins, right?”