Chapter 29 Kaia
KAIA
It takes a day for Flynn to get everything together, which gives me time to somewhat recover from the best sex of my life.
After a shower and some sleep, everything starts to move really fast and I’m called back into Flynn’s office a little after evening.
“Are you ready?” Flynn asks when I’m barely through the door.
“No,” I reply immediately, “but I’m willing.”
Frank’s nearby with his phone, and he glances up then toward Flynn. “Last chance to back out of this.”
“No,” Flynn replies. “As much as I hate it, Kaia’s right. She’s our best and safest way into Antov’s home. Anything else risks Eva and can only be a last resort.”
It warms me that he’s come to see things my way, but once again I’m struck by the very real notion that he doesn’t want me to go. I’m still not sure the issue between us was trust.
“What’s the plan?” I ask, stopping at Flynn’s desk.
“We’re on Long Island,” Flynn says. “Which means we need to get you from here to there without making it like you could get caught. So for that, we’re going to make it look like you stole a gun from one of the guards, killed a few people, and jacked a car.”
“Okay.” I nod along as he speaks. “That sounds doable.”
“We’ll tail you until a few miles of Antov’s estate, then you’ll be on your own,” Flynn continues, not looking at me as he walks around his desk. “But we will be watching from above, and once you’re inside, we’ll be watching the perimeter near the entrance and exit to the tunnels.”
“Okay.” Again, I nod. Sending any kind of signal will be impossible, knowing Uncle’s security, but all I need to do is get to the tunnels, find Eva, and escape. It should be easy. “So how are we doing this?”
Flynn suddenly hands me a gun. “Here. Fire that a couple of times just in case Antov decides to test you for residue.”
“Makes sense.” Turning away from Flynn, I walk to the open window and shoot multiple times into the flowerbed just outside. “I don’t know how to jack a car, though.”
“The car has the keys, so as long as he believes that you stole them there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Okay.” Walking back to Flynn, my heart begins to race as he finally looks at me.
“One more thing,” he says. “We have to make it look like you had a hell of a time breaking out of here. It’s the only believable way that you’d choose your own life over rescuing your brother.”
“So you have to hit me.” I expected it. We have to sell this plan as hard as we can, and if I don’t look like I’ve been through war then Uncle will smell a rat immediately. “It’s okay, I can take it.”
Flynn hit me before when he sent me back down to Vic with a bloodied lip, so this will be just the same. But as he stares at me in silence, something’s different. He doesn’t lift his hand, doesn’t lash out or anything even as his fingers twitch.
“I can’t,” Flynn says suddenly and he sounds pained. “Frank, you and the others need to rough her up. Make it look believable.”
Frank hesitates before stepping forward. “No problem.”
He takes Flynn’s place beside me and winces slightly as our eyes meet. “Sorry.”
“Has to be done,” I reply with a weak smile, but most of my attention’s on Flynn as he walks away and turns his back.
He’s hit me before when he needed to, why can’t he do it now?
What’s changed? Those thoughts linger momentarily in my mind before being dislodged completely by Frank’s hand slamming into my jaw.
Twenty minutes later, I’m in the “stolen” car and racing away from Long Island and back toward New York City.
For weeks I had no idea where I was. It turns out I wasn’t that far from home after all.
My face throbs, blood trickles down from a cut to my eyebrow and my ribs tense and ache with every breath.
It was hard to take a beating. Even though they were pulling their punches and leaving just enough for show, it was brutal.
Flynn didn’t look at me once during it, as if he couldn’t stomach the sight.
When it was over, he took my hand and thanked me for doing this as if his threat yesterday no longer mattered. In the end, it doesn’t matter if he believes me or not.
I know my truth.
Eva is all I care about.
The disease of my family has to end, and if I can prevent them from scaring one more girl and save Eva, then no matter what happens to me, it will be worth it.
As I drive recklessly, my thoughts turn over everything that’s happened and how the revelation from my brother’s thrown everything about my family into doubt.
Is it right to mourn Aunt Kara or was she just as twisted as my uncle?
And what about Anya?
She was my best friend and now she lies dead somewhere.
It hits me that I have no idea what happened to her body or if her family were told about her death.
Such a small note in such a grand scheme, but suddenly it’s all I can think about.
Was she innocent?
Or was she a plant by my uncle and brother to keep me on a leash and under their control?
The lack of answers pains me, as does knowing my family has traumatized two innocent children and sold countless others.
Maybe coming out of this without my life won’t be a bad thing.
It’s not like the name Yudkin deserves to continue.
But Flynn.
A man I hated, a man I tried my hardest to kill, turned the other cheek and put up with all of my murderous intent and anger because of his daughter, a man who even treated me kindly and cared for my wounds, fed me and clothed me, when he could have just as easily treated me the same way he treated my brother.
Why was I different?
I should have asked him before I left. I expect I won’t ever see him again.
The car skids to one side as I wrench the wheel and turn onto the long road leading to Antov’s private estate.
Over a month ago, this was where I was supposed to end up after Vic dragged me through our burning house.
When I woke up with Flynn, I never thought I’d see this place again.
Tall trees line either side of the road on the lead up to several stone statues that frame the last mile toward towering black walls that enclose the entire grounds.
I carefully slow the car just enough to keep my driving looking desperate while maintaining control over the vehicle and soon the glowing lights of the gate come into view.
My heart starts to pound.
One mistake and I’m dead.
One wrong word and all of this completely fails.
I have no one to turn to and no one to lean on.
This really is all on me.
Sucking in a deeper breath, I slam the accelerator to the floor as I race up to the gate and then slam on the brakes just in time to bring the car to a screeching halt with only a light crash into the gates.
Already, bright lights along the wall beam down on the car, blinding me as several armed men pour out of the guard house yelling at me and thrusting their assault rifles into the car.
“Get out the car!”
“On the ground! On the ground!”
“Motherfucker!”
“Bitch’s got a death wish!”
“On the ground! On the ground!”
Everyone yells deafeningly loud as I’m dragged from the car and I lean into the terror that grips me, immediately bursting into tears when I’m thrown to the tarmac and pinned there by boots and rifle barrels.
“Stop!” I cry out, leaning into the pain radiating through my body. “It’s me! It’s me!”
“Shut the fuck up!” one yells.
“Gun in the car! Rest of the car’s clear!” yells another.
A fist shoves into my hair and drags me up onto my knees, where a blinding light is thrust into my face.
“Who the fuck are you?” screams a man whose face hovers so close to mine that the bristles from his beard scratch my chin.
“I n-need to see my uncle! P-Please, please let me see him, please!”
The grip in my hair tightens for a second and the world falls quiet.
I continue to beg, tripping over my words as tears pour down my cheeks and my heart pounds like a drum in my ears.
Each breath I drag in flares the pain across my ribs and my head throbs constantly.
Then the light’s removed and the hand in my hair moves to my arm.
“On your feet,” barks a different voice and I’m hauled upward.
Radio crackle reaches my ears, then the sharp whine of the gates being swung open.
Blinking through my tears, I force my eyes closed to try and shake the imprint of the bright light that clings to my eyelids, but each time I open them I’m still half-blind.
I’m dragged by my arm onto a gravel path that crunches underfoot, with someone on either side guiding me so I don’t fall.
Gravel gives way to stone steps, then the creak of a door hinge and the clatter of a knocker signal I’ve reached the manor.
Again I try to open my eyes.
I’ve traded the night grounds for a warmly lit foyer where the sound of running footsteps echoes above.
I track them by footfalls and jerk my arm out of the hand of one of the guards, still letting my tears fall.
Then he appears.
Uncle Antov stumbles at the top of the stairs and runs down a handful of steps before he stops as our eyes meet.
“Kaia?”
“Uncle!” I surge forward with a wail and the remaining hand on my shoulder from a guard falls away.
Antov sprints downward and meets me at the foot of the stairs just in time for me to dramatically fall into his arms. “It was awful!” I sob loudly. “Oh my god, oh my god uncle! Oh my god!”
“Kaia!” His disbelief is vivid. As he gathers me into his arms, embracing me to his chest, I almost give in to the warm feeling of him.
His scent of wood and cigar smoke is achingly familiar, and my tears come thicker and faster.
“I-I ran,” I choke out, coughing on my tears. “I-I killed a man and there was so much blood and I ran, I ran and I ran—!”
Antov suddenly cups my face and turns my head up into the light. Given how clear Vic made it that Antov wants nothing more than to fuck me, I swallow my bile and lean into his touch like it’s the best thing I’ve ever felt.”
“Tell me everything,” he says quickly. “Is your brother with you? What happened to you? Who hurt you? Is the Gallagher bastard dead?”
Question after question that I’m far too scared to answer in the foyer surrounded by his guards.
So, with a weak whimper, I feign my collapse into his arms and keep my eyes firmly closed.
“Call the doctor,” Antov barks, holding me close. “Call the fucking doctor!”