Chapter 9 Chiara
Chiara
Dogs bark in the distance, but I don’t open my eyes. I can’t figure out what’s going on, but I’m no longer freezing to death, and that’s all that matters. My cheek rests against a slab of muscle. Whoever this is, they smell fucking amazing. Of pepper and musk.
I feel safe and cared for.
An irritating voice in my head keeps prodding me to open my eyes, but I ignore it. Surely, I reason, if this person cradling me like I might break wants to hurt me, they’d have tossed me onto the floor by now.
I’m jostled around as the man hands me over to someone else temporarily, and then I hear more voices. Lilting Irish voices.
The voices get louder, and there’s some kind of argument, so I crack open my eyelids. It’s a tortuous process. They feel like they’re glued together with something sticky. In fact, all of me feels gross. And I can smell blood.
“Fuck, Ronan, did you really have to string up those men from trees?”
“What? It’s an art installation.” The second man huffs while the first looks pissed. Then he notices me watching.
“Little rabbit’s awake.”
The phrase little rabbit has me tensing. It’s a reminder of the hunters. Fuck, is this guy one of them? I peer at him, but his beard is black, and he has a skull mask pulled up over his messy hair. He’s also fucking huge. Way bigger than the men I saw back at Castle Dracula.
“Let’s go.” I’m gently lifted and deposited on someone’s lap. Kane. He holds me tight while the other man who held me climbs in next to him. For the first time, I focus on his face, and then I freeze.
Angelo stares down at me as the engine roars to life and we bump along a rutted track.
“You’re safe now,” he tells me. I blink. Is this a dream? Am I stuck out in the forest, hallucinating because I’m dying from the cold? I’m pretty sure it can happen when a person’s body temperature gets too low.
“You’re real?”
“Yes, princess. I came for you.”
“We came for you,” Kane mutters.
“We broke the game!” chuckles a manic Irish voice from the front seat. “Fuck Panem!”
Now I’m confused. Panem?
The car speeds up as we reach an actual road. Snow buffets the car windows, but in here, I’m warm and snug.
I close my eyes.
Water cascades over me. Hot water. Each droplet stings my chilled skin, but I welcome the heat. It reminds me I’m safe.
Gentle hands massage shampoo into my tangled hair as the water runs down the plughole, pink, stained with the man I stabbed a million times. Honestly, I have no regrets about that. He was a rapist bastard who deserved it.
I’m still wearing panties and a bra. I don’t care about being naked with Kane, but surprisingly, it’s not Kane cleaning me like he cares about my safety.
No, it’s my husband.
He’s being very careful not to cross any lines. Under different circumstances, I’d have punched him, but I can’t summon the energy. The trauma of recent events has wiped me out, physically and emotionally. I don’t have the spoons to kick off.
He’s still dressed. The long-sleeve tactical top he wears molds every delicious dip and plane on his body. Not that I’m checking him out. No, not at all.
Another set of hands scoops me from the shower and wraps me in a thick, fluffy towel. Kane carries me into a small bedroom and places me onto a soft bed covered in a quilt. Floral paper covers the walls. There are matching flower-patterned drapes, and paintings of roses in vases hang on the walls.
It’s…very floral.
Kane catches my horrified expression and smirks. “It’s a rental. Declan made a last-minute booking for us. He needs a couple of days to sort you a new passport.”
My brain refuses to work. “Passport?”
“You arrived here illegally, kitten.”
“There’s too much attention on us to risk taking you back to the States without a passport,” Angelo adds from the doorway before he leaves.
Of course. The English fucker drugged me before he smuggled me out. I have no recollection of the journey or the steps he took to conceal me from the authorities.
Kane says nothing more while he gently combs my wet hair to remove tangles. It takes a while. My stomach rumbles loudly. When was the last time I ate an actual meal? I can’t remember.
Also, I must have burned a ton of calories while out in the open, evading capture.
“Let’s get you dressed in some warm clothes, kitten, then you need to eat something.” He places the brush down and reaches for some boxers, sweats, and a thick fleece top.
My panties and bra are still damp, so I awkwardly peel them off, taking care not to put any weight on my ankle. It’s sore, but I remember Kane checking it when we arrived and saying it’s a sprain, not a fracture.
I wiggle on the bed as I pull the sweats and boxers on. They are massive, and I have to fold the waistbands over several times to prevent them from falling down. The fleece is warm and cozy, though, and I’m definitely not handing that back ever.
Kane averts his eyes while I get dressed, which I appreciate. Once I’m ready, he picks me up again and carries me downstairs.
The ground floor of the cottage is compact, with a small stone-flagged living room where a fire blazes away, and a tiny attached kitchen.
Angelo stands at a stove, his back to me. He looks out of place here. They both do. The ceilings are low, not much higher than me, and both men are tall. I wonder how many times he’s banged his head on the door frames and smirk.
A memory of the man I killed floats into my mind, sending my mood plummeting.
Will there be any repercussions from that?
I know the hunters wore body cams, so whoever watched the footage must have seen me attack him.
“Sit down, Chiara.” Angelo’s order makes me jump. He’s staring at me in concern as I stand frozen. When I glance at the small, scrubbed pine table, there’s a stack of pancakes on a plate and a pot of what smells like coffee.
Not needing to be asked twice, I pull out a chair.
“Where’s Kane?” I shovel scrambled eggs and chunks of pancakes slathered in syrup into my mouth.
“Collecting some more firewood.”
“Where are we, and who’s Declan?” I should have asked when he mentioned the guy’s name earlier, but my brain wasn’t back online.
“We’re north of Glasgow. Declan is Irish mafia.
He’s connected via marriage to Kyril Orliov, head of the Russian mafia.
Milo, Orliov’s wife’s other husband, is a tech genius.
He helped us track you down, and because we didn’t have time to waste, he got Declan and his guys on board.
It made sense, as they were already in the country on other business. ”
From Angelo’s sour expression, I have a feeling he’s not happy about having to work with this Declan guy. No doubt favors were called in or asked for. That’s usually how it works with the mafia families. Favors are valuable currency.
I process what he’s told me.
“I want to meet Thea Orliov,” I mumble with a full mouth before swallowing. My stomach feels like it might burst, but I’m determined to finish all my food. Angelo might be an annoying asshole, but these pancakes are too good to waste.
Angelo’s eyes narrow. “Like I told you before, not going to happen.”
My eyes roll. The sweet man who washed the blood from me in the shower has disappeared, replaced by a controlling dickhead.
By the time I’ve stuffed the last fluffy pancake into my mouth, my eyelids are drooping. Angelo notices because of course he does. The fucker notices everything.
But before he can move in my direction, Kane’s there. He picks me up from the hard wooden chair and lifts me bridal-style. I don’t miss the murderous expression on my husband’s face, but he nods.
“I need to make some phone calls anyway. If I can get a fucking bar of reception in his fucking place.”
“Come on, kitten,” Kane says. “Let’s get you tucked in.” The gleam of amusement in his eyes tells me he’s well aware of how much Angelo hates that, but neither acknowledges the tension between them.
I yawn widely and snuggle into Kane’s chest. He’s warm and smells so damn good.
Angelo’s dark eyes follow me as Kane climbs the stairs toward the bedrooms. There are two, I’ve realized. Both small but cozy.
Kane takes me back into the room with the double bed. He tucks me in and closes the drapes.
“Sweet dreams, kitten.” Panic surges through my veins. I don’t want to be alone. What if the men who kidnapped me come back?
“No, can’t you stay?” I hate the way my voice catches at the end. I’m not weak. Hell, I killed a man! The food I ate curdles in my stomach as my brain conjures up the smell of blood, even though there’s not a mark on me anymore.
Kane’s eyes soften. “I can stay.” He lifts the covers and slides into the bed beside me.
With him here, the bed isn’t large enough; he’s a big man, and this is a small double at best. But I don’t care.
I need to feel safe, and for all his faults, like the time he stuck a hypodermic needle in my neck, he makes me feel safe.
He hooks his arm around me, and I rest my cheek on his chest. I know he won’t let anything happen to me.
It dimly occurs to me to tell him about the man who betrayed them. The guy who ended up shot in the head in the warehouse, but that can wait.
When I wake next, the room is semi-dark. I’ve rolled over at some point and am now facing the window. The drapes are open, and it’s snowing outside. A thick white crust has formed on the windowsill, making me very glad I’m not still out there in the bunny suit.
What happened to the other women?
God.
Kane’s scent has faded, but when I try to move, I realize I’m not alone. There’s a male body wedged in behind me. A hand slides over my hip, and I freeze.
“You’re awake,” a low voice rumbles. Angelo.
I want to shove him away, but I don’t. The why of that isn’t something I examine too closely.
“Where’s Kane?”
“He’s making more food.” Now that he’s said that, I realize I can smell something savory. My stomach rumbles again, even though I ate my body weight in eggs and pancakes earlier.
“What time is it?”
“Late afternoon. You’ve been asleep for nearly twenty-four hours.”
“I have?” He pulls me closer, and I feel a hard length pressing against my ass. Part of me hates that he’s pushing the boundaries between us, but the rest of me is definitely on board.
Except I really need to pee.
“Bathroom, now,” I say while squeezing my thighs together. Sadly, that has the unwelcome effect of putting pressure on other parts of me. I bite back a moan.
Angelo sits up and crawls out of bed. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of sweats, which do nothing to hide the monster erection he has going on.
A polite, well-bred woman would look away, but I’m a red-blooded female, and he’s a tall glass of water in a desert, even if his personality sucks.
He smirks at my shameless ogling but doesn’t comment. It’s not until he scoops me out of bed and strides into the bathroom that my brain fires up.
“Stop! I don’t need help to pee!”
“Calm down, Chiara. You need to rest your ankle, so no walking on it for a few days at least. I’ll have our doctor check it once we get home.”
“It’s fine,” I huff irritably. No worse than the previous time I sprained it, when an asshole drunk shoved me over in a shitty biker bar in New Mexico.
He folds his arms across his chest. “It’s not fine, Chiara! Nothing about this is fine!”
I’m stunned into silence at the rare display of emotion. An emotion other than anger, that is.
“No, it’s not,” I agree as my mind takes a wander down memory lane and I recall the other traumatized women.
“Piss, and then we need to talk,” Angelo says, scrubbing his jaw. Once again, my eyes drift south. Disrespectful, maybe, but meh.
This time he ignores my ogling. The door slams shut, and I’m left to empty my bladder in peace. When I hobble back out after washing my hands, he’s waiting for me. I’m picked up and cradled against his chest.
I could get used to this, I think. Only I can’t because although Angelo might be putting on his best knight-in-shining-armor act, we both know he’s the devil incarnate, and if I lower my guard, he’ll ruin me.