Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
O liver
“Oliver!”
The terrible screams woke him.
Shrill and frightened, the high-pitched cries rang in his ears as he hung immobilized, caught in the car’s seatbelt. Everything was dark, the only light coming from the dashboard’s instrument panel. Various indicators flashed silently, and the stench of gasoline stung his nostrils. A sharp pang stabbed his shoulder, and he closed his eyes against it.
“Londyn...” he groaned.
“Hang on… I’m working on unlatching your seatbelt.” The voice seemed to come from a million miles away.
Oliver’s eyes flew open, focusing on the broad shoulders of the man working to release him from the car. It was Lawson. Why was the man working on him instead of Londyn? Did this mean she had escaped serious injury? Or did her absence indicate something far worse? The excruciating pain of that thought sent daggers stabbing through his entire body.
“Where is my wife?” The question came out in a weak groan. “Where is she?”
Lawson did not answer but continued working. When Oliver slumped into the car’s cabin seconds later, the ex-Marine pulled him free of the wreckage, helping him squeeze through the narrow opening of the mangled door.
“Easy now. You’ve got a laceration on your temple, a possible concussion, and I suspect your shoulder is dislocated,” Lawson rattled off, forcing Oliver to sit on the back bumper of the upended sportscar. With battlefield medical training, he quickly assessed Oliver’s injuries and began cleaning the head wound, sanitizing it, and applying surgical strips to the gash.
“Where is my fucking wife, Lawson?” Fighting the dizziness swamping him, Oliver used his uninjured arm to shove the man. The attention to his wounds irritated him when he had no idea of Londyn’s condition. “And if you value your life, you’d better say you took care of her first, and she’s in your SUV waiting for me.” He tried standing but the agonizing pain in his shoulder made him sway on his feet.
“Fuck, Oliver,” Lawson swore, guiding Oliver so that he was once again half-leaning and half-sitting on the bumper. “They took her. I pulled up less than two minutes ago, and they were already gone. Looks like there were two of them. My guess is one was driving the car there that T-boned you, the other in the patrol car I saw at the nursing facility.” Lawson cursed again under his breath, obviously frustrated by the situation. “No way to know which direction they were headed if they took a side road. I passed no one while driving here, so I doubt they would have returned to town. There’s an intersection a few miles ahead between this point and the airfield. It’s possible they took one of the two roads headed either east or west, or they could have continued northward toward Atlanta.”
Terror welled inside Oliver. It roiled and built into a crushing crescendo that was drowning him. “I can hear her screaming,” he grimaced, “like, right now.”
Lawson’s head tilted. “That’s probably the concussion. Or maybe the trauma of the crash? Regardless, stand up so I can do something about that shoulder right now.”
Grabbing Oliver’s arm firmly, Lawson placed the palm of his other hand against Oliver’s shoulder and gave the arm a quick jerk.
There was an audible pop, and the pain instantly melted away. Oliver could think more clearly, and although he was still dizzy, he knew he must move quickly. His focus, his only thought, was rescuing Londyn. When he walked through the front door of Diamond Lake Ranch, he planned on slaughtering anyone in his way and the men responsible for abducting his wife.
“My guess is they’ve headed north to any one of the smaller airfields surrounding Atlanta. They’ve got to get her in the air as quickly as possible.”
“You think they’ll show up in Colorado?” Lawson asked, already pulling his cell out. He dialed the other half of the security team on standby near Diamondhead Lake Ranch.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I think.” Oliver fought off another wave of dizziness as he turned back to the mangled Bentley. “This must have been planned out in advance. I think they were just waiting for the opportunity to grab her, hoping she would come back here on her own or that I would be goddamn stupid enough to bring her myself, which I was.” He reached down into the car, grabbed his phone, and sent up a silent prayer that it still worked. His first call would be to Kingston. He needed an army of bloodthirsty men, and his brother would not hesitate to assemble them. He would also notify his crew from other locations around the country. Poised to dial his brother’s number, he hesitated when a blue sparkle caught his attention. Digging into the open console, he plucked two rings from the wreckage.
Holding the priceless gem to the light streaming from Lawson’s headlights, Oliver’s heart faltered, the air evaporating from his lungs as though it’d been sucked out by a huge vacuum. It was the blue diamond and matching band of diamonds. He’d slid that set of rings onto Londyn’s hand just twenty-four hours earlier. He remembered how she stared up at him in dazed adoration in the judge’s living room, repeating her vows in the softest, sweetest voice.
A wave of shame washed over Oliver at the memory. He had no right to marry her like that nor to use her in such a heartless, brutal manner over the last month. Londyn deserved the best of everything he could give her. He should have been offering her the moon, the stars, his entire fucking fortune on a silver platter. His knees buckled before he braced himself with a hand against the wreckage of the car.
I should have given her laughter. Embraces. Sweet kisses and whispers for our future. Instead, I gave her nothing but pain. Sorrow. Heartache.
Something was building inside him. A wave of regret and contrition overwhelmed everything he’d once thought important. Money. Power. His brutal reputation. His cruelty. None of it meant anything anymore the longer he stared at the ring in the palm of his hand. The platinum was caked with blood, the sparkling diamonds dulled by it.
Blood.
Londyn’s blood.
An anguished howl erupted from Oliver’s chest, torn from the very depths of his tarnished, tattered soul. It rang out through the trees and the chilled night air; an otherworldly sound so haunting and disturbing that even Lawson, hardened by combat and the loss of fellow Marines and brothers in arms, made the sign of the cross across his chest.
Oliver stared into the dark, hushed forest around them. Rage, unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, seeped through his body in a tide of scarlet red. It erased the pain he felt. The dizziness. The fog. All of it disintegrated into a single purpose. A deadly focus. A bloodthirsty hunger to cause unimaginable suffering to the men who had done this. Death would be the only reward for those who had stolen his wife.
His very heart and soul.
His love.
Oliver slipped the ring onto his pinkie. It was a tight fit, but it would stay there until he placed it on Londyn’s finger once again. On that day, she would smile at him with love and happiness as he swore his life to her.
“Let’s go,” Oliver said to Lawson, looking back at the man over his shoulder. His jaw clenched tight with the need to destroy and exact his revenge, his hands curling into fists as he envisioned all the many ways he would torture those standing in his way. “I have a wife to rescue and a lot of motherfuckers to kill.”
“Tell me what you need, O. Everything we have is available, and I’m headed to the airport now so I can meet you in Colorado.”
Oliver rubbed a towel over his head, wincing when the roughness of his actions caught the sutures of his wound. It would be a new scar to go with the few he already had.
“I need you to stay there with Ava, King. I’ve got it under control.”
Kingston sighed heavily. “You aren’t thinking clearly. Believe me, I know just what you are going through. When Ava was taken, I nearly lost my goddamn mind. You don’t have to do this alone, Oliver. I don’t want you to do this alone.”
“I get what you are saying, but if something happens to me, I’ll rely on you to finish it, King. Besides, I cannot take you away from Ava. She’d never forgive me if you didn’t return. And I sure as hell don’t want her to come looking for me in the afterlife. Stay there, Kingston.”
“Oliver, you can’t expect me to stand by while you blaze your way into the ranch,” Kingston argued. “You had my back with Ava. Now let me have your back with Londyn.”
Oliver twirled his wedding ring around. “You’ve been a good brother, King. You always were. Even when you had no reason to be. Even when I wanted you dead because of what went on with my mom. You watched me like a fucking hawk, expecting to be stabbed in the back, but you were always a good brother. I never deserved you or your faithfulness. I hope you will forgive me for every shitty thing I said or did to you over the years. I hope you can forgive me for trying to steal Ava from you. You would have been justified in slitting my throat that day when you came for her at her parents’ home. I get it now… your need to protect the one you love more than anything or anyone in this world. I understand that now. Because I feel that, God, how I feel that, for Londyn. I will walk through Hell and fight the Devil himself to get her back. And if I don’t make it, I want you to look after her. Will you do that?”
Kingston was silent for a long time, and then his gruff voice came through the line. “Goddamn it, Oliver. You don’t have to ask that; there’s no need for it. You are going to get her back. And you are going to love her for the rest of your days, just as I do Ava. Someday, our kids will be running around this mansion together as we, the parents, watch and swear to each other that they will have a better childhood than we ever dreamed of. And if you insist on keeping me away, I’m still sending Jack in my place.”
“You’re sending him?” Oliver asked in surprise. Jack was his brother’s right-hand man, and he was as brutal as they came. Along with Paulie, who rose through the ranks under their father, the man had devoted himself to Oliver and Kingston. There was no other man Oliver would have wanted beside him. He breathed easier. Between Jack and his crew sitting on go, there was no question of victory.
“Yes, I’m sending Jack. Now, go fucking slaughter every last one of them and get your ass back home so you and your wife can be in our wedding.”
Oliver laughed softly. “That’s the plan. I’ll see you soon, oh, and King?”
“Yeah?”
“It sounds fucking strange to say it out loud, especially since I’ve never said it before, but I-I love you, brother.”
Kingston’s chuckle contained amused exasperation. “Tell me that to my face the next time I see you. Now, go get your wife.”