Chapter 18 #3
She lay still, unable to do more than breathe and think.
A long while later, the SUV made several turns and stopped.
Both men got out, the doors slamming behind them.
She struggled to sit up and spotted the lights of a private airport hangar.
She squinted, trying to get a better view of the small private plane that looked like it was being made ready for travel.
A pilot climbed up the stairs to the plane and disappeared inside.
The two men who’d driven her here were talking in front of the car.
Then one turned to face the car as the lights from the car struck his face, she gasped.
Those eyes… It was the man who’d attacked her in the alley, the man who had attacked Angelo in the hospital.
He came toward the door nearest her and opened it.
She didn’t fight him as he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the car.
She tripped and nearly fell as her legs gave way beneath her, but she stayed upright, dragged forward with her hands still bound behind her.
Kara was so tired, too tired to fight, too tired to think.
She felt like she was going to throw up.
But with the tape around her mouth, she knew she’d choke on it.
“Get up!” The man jerked her back up, holding her more forcefully in the air which twisted her right arm sharply.
Somehow, she managed to get across the tarmac and up the narrow stairs into a private plane without falling again.
She paused just inside the plane, taking in the sight of half a dozen empty seats and two men who were speaking at the back of the plane.
When they spotted her they both stopped talking and came toward her.
The man with hazel eyes and a cruel twist to a once handsome face was the one who approached first. She knew by the possessive gleam in his eyes that he was Cormac Callahan.
The other man behind him had to be Jim O’Leary, his second in command.
He had a less certain look about him, as though he didn’t entirely like her being here but wasn’t going to say anything.
“Kara O’Brien.” He smiled but no emotion other than possessiveness touched his eyes. He reached up and ripped the tape off her mouth, making her gasp in pain.
“Why is she wet?” Cormac demanded of the man who’d escorted her from the car to the plane.
“Your men crashed my car into a lake… with me inside,” she answered. “I almost drowned.” Her tone held a mixture of contempt and hardness she’d never thought she’d be capable of.
“What?” Cormac glared at the man behind her. “Get out. Now.” He barked.
Cormac lifted Kara’s chin up to stare into her eyes, and she twisted her still bound wrists, wishing she could push his hand away or step back, but there was nowhere to go.
“Ye have his eyes…yer father’s eyes,” Cormac declared, his lips twitching. “I never thought they were pretty… until now.” Then his gaze moved to her mouth and then down to her breasts.
His fingers beneath her chin slowly trailed down her neck, pausing between her breasts before he let his hand drop to his side.
“My name is Cormac,” he said with a crooked grin.
“I know,” she replied, her tone full of ice.
She wasn’t afraid anymore. The fear she had carried her entire life was gone.
She hadn’t outrun the bogeyman of her father’s past, and she’d lost the only thing she couldn’t afford to lose.
Angelo was dead, and she… she was hollow inside.
There was nothing left to fear, nothing left to be afraid of. This was the end.
“We are going to rule Ireland, sweetheart,” Cormac said.
“I’ll be right behind you…” Angelo’s voice was soft in her head, like a half-remembered dream, tugging her away from reality. “You aren’t leaving me… You’re just going ahead.”
Her cold, dead heart gave a painful lurch in her chest.
“I love you, Kara. I love you with all that I am. You understand?”
She briefly closed her eyes, fighting back fresh tears.
You went on ahead with me, Angelo… To a place I can’t follow.
“What’s the matter with ye?” Cormac’s voice broke through her thoughts and she opened her tear-filled eyes to meet his gaze.
“You don’t need me, Cormac. You have all of my father’s businesses. I don’t want any of it.”
He shook his head, almost ruefully. “But… that’s just it, I do need ye, love. The Westies in New York want to see ye, want to know your mine so they’ll agree to work under me.”
“But I’m not yours.”
Anger sparked in Cormac’s face. “But ye will be. I have a priest ready in New York to marry us.”
“Over my dead body,” Kara replied, her tone still calm.
“If it comes to that,” Cormac said with a shrug. “But hopefully it won’t. Yer too pretty to kill.”
She didn’t flinch when he caressed her cheek, even though she wanted to.
“I won’t make this easy for you,” she warned.
“Now there’s your father’s fire in you.” Cormac chuckled, then he turned to the man who was standing behind him. “Jim, tell the pilot we’re ready to leave.”
The other man brushed past them and headed to the cockpit.
Kara turned to face the windows of small plane, staring out into the dark… into the bleak night that matched her own soul.