CHAPTER 2 #2
It remained quiet as Arran slashed the first few deep cuts across the chest of the rapist, but it didn’t take long for Arran to get pissed with that, and he started cutting deeper.
The screams and wails began finally, as blood trickled, then poured.
The piece of shit beneath Arran writhed and put up a weak fight to escape, but he was no match for Arran’s fury and vengeance driven mania.
“Just fucking kill me!” the fucker growled, pain clear in his trembling voice.
“Way too soon to be fuckin’ beggin’ yet, pal!
I havnae even gotten started.” Arran grinned dangerously, swiping a blood covered hand across his forehead and leaving behind a trail against his pale skin.
“I’m gonna take my time removing every single piece of ye that touched her. Every fuckin’ part,” he hissed.
He moved his knife to start taking fingers from the bound hands, and his prey screamed piercingly, the sound filled with the terror Arran was looking for.
While I took immense pleasure from the sound too, it also jolted me to awareness. Cara could hear all of this, and Cal was right—she had endured way too much already. I took a deep breath and stepped forwards, putting my hand on Arran’s shoulder and squeezing tight.
“No more, at least not here, Arran. Not with Cara so close. She’s been through enough,” I told him calmly.
“She needs vengeance!” he growled as he turned to me with rage radiating from every inch of him.
“She’ll get it. We’ll make sure of that, but she doesn’t need to see it or hear it. She just needs to feel safe right now.”
“No one touches them. I’m gonna make every fuckin’ one of them pay!” he raged as he got to his feet, and swiped the blood covered knife, which he held tightly in his hand, against his jeans.
“Was it all of them?” I asked as I looked over to Cara briefly, and then back to Arran for the answer I dreaded.
“Yes.” He nodded and glared all around him at the bound fuckers with a look that promised them so much more than just death. “Yeah, all except Mikhail Kozlov, but that bastard’s no’ here. He must have got away,” Arran explained.
“We’ll find him,” I pledged. “Anyone who touched her is going to die.”
“Eventually, but no’ until I’m sure they’ve felt every bit of pain and fear Cara was forced to feel!”
“They’re going to feel a hell of a lot more pain and fear than that,” I promised as I looked around between the terrified-looking prisoners myself.
“Get them out of here!” I barked at the men guarding them.
If they stayed within my sight any longer, I’d make what Arran had started look like child’s fucking play!
“Dar,” Rafe called. I hurried back to where he and Cara were. He was on his knees again, looking to me with fear and desperation when I got to him. “I’m getting nowhere here. What can we do?”
I glanced behind me to Cal, who still stood unsteadily where I left him, then back to Rafe again.
I felt sick about what I knew I had to tell him.
Losing Gia was going to break him. No matter what, she was his sister.
Even just finding out what Gia had done would break him, but to know she was gone too, along with what Cara had been put through that night, and how I knew it would set her back, I worried he wouldn’t be able to come back from it all.
“Let Cal try. We need to talk,” I told him, and his face dropped further as he read my expression.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded as he rose to his feet and stared at me.
“Come over here. Cara doesn’t need to hear any of this,” I told him. Cara had already been forced to watch Gia be gunned down. She didn’t need to go through Rafe being told the news too.
Cal and Arran—who had returned to help his brother stand again—crossed with Rafe as they all moved. Rafe was obviously reluctant to leave Cara, just as I had been, but he had seen enough on my face to know what I had to tell him was bad.
“What’s going on, Dar? I need to stay with Cara,” he told me as soon as he got to my side.
“You can, but I need to tell you something first,” I told him, my heart racing, and my stomach in knots.
I was about to tell the brother I loved and always wanted to protect, that one of his worst fears had been realised, and for the first time in my life, I doubted I was strong enough to face the task.
CARA
“Hi, beautiful,” I heard Cal say.
I knew he was close, because as he spoke his breath moved the wild strands of my hair. The relief that rushed through me at hearing his voice, just knowing he was safe, was the first thing that I actually allowed to penetrate my numb thoughts.
“I know that you can hear me. I also know that you’re really scared and hurt right now though too.
I want to make it better, but I’m not an idiot.
Nothing can make what you just went through better.
I…I’m so sorry I c-couldn’t stop it, Cara.
If there had been a way…any fucking way…
” Cal sniffled, and I was pretty sure from his shaky words that he was crying.
He sniffled a few times, then seemed to take a deep breath.
“I’m here, okay? That’s what you need to know now.
I’m here beside you, and I won’t leave you.
If you need some time, we can stay here.
Rafe and Dio won’t like it, but I’ll deal with them.
Whatever you want, we’re going to do. And when you’re ready to leave here, I’ll be with you then too.
Alright? I’m not going anywhere, babe. You’re stuck with me and no matter what, I’ll be at your side. ”
I let out a shaky breath. Just to hear him say that, and know he meant it – that he would stay with me. I needed that. I didn’t want to be alone.
“I’ve taken my jumper off, Cara. It’s not exactly clean, but it’s so cold in here. I want to just lay it over you, okay? I won’t touch you.”
He waited a moment, probably for me to protest, but when I didn’t, I felt the heat of his knitted jumper brush over my chilled and raw skin.
A shudder ran through me as the heat started to seep through.
The shudder hurt, but the heat helped, as did the feeling of being covered up.
The idea of Rafe having to see me that way, it had been heartbreaking, but I hadn’t been able to move or speak to ask him to go.
I felt like I was frozen in place. Numb.
Cal had barely settled back at my side when a deafening roar echoed through the space. I jumped hard, terrified, then I heard Rafe’s voice.
“No! Dario, no! You’re wrong! You’re fucking wrong!”
There was so much pain in his voice and I knew Dio had told my brother about Gia.
More tears slipped down my cheeks as the scene played out behind my closed eyes again.
Mikhail firing two shots into her chest. She’d slumped to the floor instantly, but I had seen her face.
She’d been looking right at me as the life left her.
She blamed me in that moment. I knew it. I felt it.
“It’s okay, Cara. Arran and Dario are with Rafe,” Cal whispered.
But he was wrong. It wasn’t okay. Nothing would be okay. Gia was gone and Rafe was broken. Our mother had poisoned her with hatred and lies. She’d destroyed not just Gia’s young life, but Rafe’s too, all in her search for her next fucking fix!
What Gia had done hurt. She had hated me enough to enjoy me being kidnapped, and spurred on my attackers because she loathed me so much.
She had told a madman to put a gun to the head of a man I loved.
She had done so many things since I found her again, but part of me knew most of that was on Isabella and her bullshit.
Gia had been a kid – sixteen years old. She had been brainwashed with lies and bought with false promises of fairytales that would never come to fruition.
Maybe she’d been ill too – mentally ill.
I’d never truly know, but a huge part of me would blame what had happened that night, and for the weeks before, on my mother, so much more than I would ever blame Gia.
The blame lay on my shoulders too, and I knew it.
If I had never come back into her life, she would still be breathing right then.
She could have been spared what she had been through in the last months.
My mother’s lies and vitriol likely would have died with her, and Gia would have moved on.
She could have been happy, and lived the life she deserved, but because of me, that would never happen now.
Rafe would never forgive me. I had gotten his real sister killed.
“The men who hurt you…they’re gone now, Cara.
Arran and some of Rafe’s men took them away.
They won’t die easy, I’m sure of that. They’ll pay for what they did to you,” Cal told me.
“It’s just you, me, and a couple of Rafe’s men, keeping us safe, in here now.
One of the men gave me his coat, so I’m going to lay it over you too, okay?
It’s too cold in here and you’re shaking so hard. ”
I felt him drape something heavy and much bigger than his sweater over me.
“Not ideal,” he sighed as he dropped back down to the floor beside me. “But it’ll work for now. When you’re ready we can get you wrapped up in it and into a warm car, okay?”
He was steadier now, sounding more like himself.
That helped – to have a piece of normal.
I wanted more and I found myself lifting my head just slightly so I could see through my wild hair.
Cal was laid on the freezing ground opposite me, leaving just a small gap between us.
His head was resting on his arm against the ground and as soon as I met his eyes, he forced a shaky smile.
“I’m here,” he told me gently.
Tears filled my eyes again at the sight of all of the blood on his face. There was a bruise on the left side of his jaw and a cut on his forehead. He was hurt, but he was still there, with me, refusing to leave me.