Chapter 16
KAIRO
She’s trembling. Shaking violently. Sobbing. Begging me to bring her home. Everything inside me wants to tear this cage open and bring Lucy into my arms to take her out of this nightmare.
I can’t. That’s not the plan. There will be far too many questions about how I found her, and I’d be risking an investigation on my crew. My whole family.
Leaving her will be the most difficult thing I ever do.
“Listen to me, Lacy.”
She growls at me through her sobs.
“I can’t take you out of here, but I promise you, it’s over. The police will come, and they’ll let you out. They’ll bring you home. But I need you to promise me something.”
“What?”
“Don’t tell them who found you. I wasn’t here. Can you do that, sweetheart? Some stranger found you and called the cops. Can you promise me that’s all you’ll say to the police and anyone else who asks? Even Momma.”
She nods. “I promise.”
“Don’t say my name in here. No one can know I was here. Promise me, Lucy.”
Lucy pulls her face back to look at me. She’s covered in dirt with mud smudged on her cheek. Her hair is a wild mess. Her knees are scraped. She’s in nothing but a shirt and her underwear.
“You called me Lucy,” she whispers.
I brush her tears from her face. “Honey, I’ve always known your name.”
Fresh tears run down her cheeks.
“Boss,” Tony says from the hall. “We need to go. There are some… people who desperately need medical attention.”
“I swear to you, it’s over. Okay? I need to leave, but I won’t leave the area until I’m positive without a doubt that you’re taken out of this building and brought back to your mother. Can you trust me?”
Lucy nods, but I don’t miss the tremor in her little body now. “Yes, Mister.”
I smile. “I’ll see you at home, Laney.”
She huffs, but there’s laughter in it. “Goodbye, strange man.”
Getting to my feet and trudging my way out of that room is literally the most difficult thing I’ll ever do in my life. Then again, as I meet Malcolm’s eyes, I think maybe it’s tied to other things that I struggle with.
Silently, we leave the building. No one speaks.
As soon as we’re in the vehicles and pulling away, a text comes through that the cops have been called.
Once we’re far enough away that I have to circle back around and hunt down a hiding space so I can keep my promise to Lucy, I see Malcolm send my nephew a text from the corner of my eye.
My stomach flips. He’s right. I know he’s right.
Lucy would still be beyond my grasp had he not called Voss.
I was gambling with her life by not calling my nephew.
I can’t even say why I refused so vehemently.
Why am I so angry with him? Why does my gut twist when I look at him now?
Not in the same way. This feeling is sick and scared and… and… devastated.
Because I trusted him, and he called my family after I told him not to.
It’s a fucked-up tornado of emotion in my chest because Malcolm is right.
There’s a very big chance that we still wouldn’t have located Lucy had he not called Voss behind my back.
She’d still be in that cage, terrified. Listening to people scream.
Knowing that whatever was happening beyond the walls of the room she was held in, she was next.
We’ve barely parked in an alley when sirens fill the air. A dozen police cars, two ambulances, and a fire truck surround the building. We can’t really see what’s going on. I can’t see when they have Lucy specifically.
We wait in silence, watching more ambulances arrive, and the loaded ones drive away. More than an hour passes as I try to concentrate on nothing but watching for Lucy. I wish I had some damn binoculars.
It isn’t until I get a call from Maria telling me that she received a call from the police that they’ve recovered Lucy and she’s at the hospital that I decide it’s safe to leave. The drive back to my office is still silent. Malcolm hasn’t said anything since the drive here.
He doesn’t speak when I park the car. He doesn’t speak when we climb into the elevator with members of my crew. He doesn’t speak when I assure Carlotta that Lucy is safe. He doesn’t speak when he follows me into my empty office and leans against the door.
Like nearly every fucking time I speak to this man, I can’t control the words that come out of my mouth. “You need to leave now.”
My heart races. Bile fills my throat. Tears sting my eyes.
“Is that what you want, Kairo?”
I clench my teeth because I know he’s right. Calling Voss was the right thing to do. So why do I feel like he stabbed me in the chest by calling him? What’s wrong with me that I feel so… so…
Like he shattered my trust. Like he chose loyalty to my family over loyalty to me.
“Go back to my brother,” I say, voice low and strained. “I don’t need you here. She’ll be home soon, and she’s safe. You have no reason to stay.”
Malcolm stares at me, and I can’t meet his eyes.
If I do, he’ll see far too much in mine.
He’ll see the tears that I’ve managed to keep from my voice but can’t shove down.
He’ll see how hurt I am. He’ll see that what I actually want is for him to take me in his arms and refuse to leave me.
He’ll let me rage and be upset and let me work through it in the safety of his arms.
He can’t see any of that. It’s too dangerous.
I’ve let him get too close. It already hurts.
This little bit fucking hurts. Even though I know he’s right.
Everything in me knows he’s right. I’m relieved that he called Voss when I couldn’t because now Lucy is safe and reunited with her mother.
We saved lives. We ended something dark and disgusting, all because he called my nephew when I refused.
As much as I know he’s right, there’s no erasing the betrayal that makes breathing a struggle. I don’t understand it. I don’t know why it’s so strong and refusing to let me be a fucking adult and admit the truth.
He’s silent. So silent that I eventually brave looking up, but… he’s not there. He’s not in my office. Not standing by the door. He’s gone, as if he were never here to begin with.
Before I burst into fucking tears, I cross the room and shut the door. Part of me wants to slam it, but I don’t. That would call attention to me, so I shut it with absolute silence and then lock it before I drop to my knees and let my forehead rest against the door.
In my solitude, with no one to witness, I let my tears fall. He left. It feels as if he tore me to shreds by walking out. Leaving me. Just as I asked him to do. No, I didn’t even ask. I told him to. I demanded. I didn’t tell him the truth about what I wanted; I told him to leave.
The despair that fills me is choking. I try to keep my sobs quiet, but I think I fail. I think they’re loud. I think they fill my empty office and make me shake. I vomit into the trash bin. It’s bile. Only bile. My muscles ache from crying so hard.
I open my eyes to my phone ringing. The room is dark. I’m curled up on the floor in front of my door. Swallowing the disgusting taste in my mouth, I force myself to sit back on my haunches and dig my phone out.
Maria.
I answer.
“She is okay,” Maria says through tears. “Will you come? Lucy wants to see you.”
“Sim,” I answer and wipe my face. “I’ll be there soon. Don’t let her go, senhora.”
“No. No, never.”
For a minute, I remain on the floor. I’m relieved to be able to see Lucy, but otherwise, I feel listless. I want to stay on the floor. Sink into the floor. Cry until I drown in my tears.
Is he really gone? Please tell me I dreamed it. Please tell me he saw the truth and stayed. He’s in the lobby with Carlotta.
There’s no hope in me. I know the truth. Still, I struggle to my feet, reminding myself that Malcolm always knows what I feel. He doesn’t make me fight through my emotions to get words out. He always sees the truth in me and holds me while I work through it.
The hall is empty when I open my door. Carlotta’s reception is empty; the lights off. Malcolm is not there.
His absence sits heavily on my chest. Not in the comfortable way his body weight feels when he blankets me. This is filled with darkness. Sorrow. Hurt.
I stop in the bathroom and wash up. It takes some convincing to get my hair to look like I wasn’t caught in a storm. In the end, I don’t completely succeed, but I can’t seem to find the energy in me to care.
Because I need the fresh air, I walk to the hospital, taking public transportation when I need to. It’s almost half an hour later when I’m giving my name at reception, and they direct me to Lucy’s room. I knock on the door and let myself in.
Lucy’s face lights up, even as big tears fill her eyes. I cross to her bed, fighting my own, and catch her when she throws herself into my arms. Picking her up, so I’m holding her more firmly, I stand just to the side of her hospital bed and hold her to me tightly.
She cries, arms shaking as she clings to me, and I try not to cry with her. Not just in monumental relief that she’s alive and relatively unharmed, but because I might not stop crying if I begin again. I feel far too full of pain.
Anger at myself for letting the one person who gave a shit about me walk out of my life.
That’s not fair. I didn’t let him walk out.
I told him to. I pushed him away when it was the very last fucking thing I ever wanted.
I don’t just want someone to see me and all my jaded pieces. I want Malcolm specifically.
It’s too late now. I fucked up. Not just a little, but a whole fucking lot. I made him leave. I told him I didn’t need him. I lied through my fucking teeth, all because I’m not mature enough to deal with my own fucking emotional issues.
And now I’m alone again. Being alone has never hurt this much.
I recognize that the solitude I’ve created for myself was to protect myself from this situation specifically.
I’ve built more than a barricade around myself, filled with spikes and barbs.
I’ve dug a moat to drown everyone in before they reach that far.
I cling to Lucy as tightly as she does to me. We don’t speak. She doesn’t mention my being at the place where she was found. When I meet Maria’s teary eyes, I think we both know she understands that Lucy is safe because I found her. I kept my promise.
Except I didn’t. If it were left up to me and my family issues, she’d still not be found.
Instead of acknowledging this, I pushed the one good thing in my life away because the hurt I felt toward him scared me. I’m scared of hurting. Keeping people away is so that I never have to hurt.
The pain of being without him, even for these few hours he’s been gone, is far more than I ever imagined. I cling to Lucy and let my tears fall onto her neck.