CHAPTER 4 #3
I should have been more upset about it all, but I had cried my heart out the night before, and that day I was just back to numb again.
I took what Rafe told me to take, and held on to him or Cal as they told me to, while nurses prodded and poked, trying to find veins in my apparently veinless arms, to take blood.
I just wanted it all to be over, so I could go home, and I selfishly left Rafe to make sure everything important was handled. Cal helped, obviously knowing the procedures for a rape victim from his studying, and between them and the doctors, I was sure they covered everything.
Rafe and Dio had helped me to change from the crappy hospital gown into the clean clothes, which Terza had brought for me. I was still in too much pain, and too exhausted to stand for long, and any time I tried, my head would start to spin and pound in tandem.
“Come here, Cara. You can ride with me,” Cal said, startling me from where I had been staring blindly at the ugly blue floor.
I looked up and found him dressed in the long shorts and hoody Terza brought for him too, seated in a wheel chair.
Arran was at his side, with Cal’s crutches in his hand.
Cal was patting his lap and clearly wanted me to sit there.
I shook my head, too afraid to sit on him in case I hurt his ankle.
“You won’t hurt me. I’m fine. Come on,” Cal argued, like he could read my mind. He lifted his arm and beckoned me over, so I moved slowly towards him, Rafe moving with me every step. I knew he was afraid I would fall over, as I had when I tried to use the bathroom earlier.
When I got to Cal I perched tentatively on his good leg, but Cal wasn’t having that. He held me under my arms and moved me easily until I was right in his lap and pressed against his body, sat sideways across his thighs.
“There. That’s better,” he told me with a smile as he wrapped his arms around me and leaned in to kiss my temple. “Are you okay there?”
I nodded, snuggling deeper against him, as Rafe fussed, wrapping a blanket around me.
“I’ve brought more of my men in to escort us home, Cara, so I just wanted to make you aware. They’re going to be all around as we get to the cars, but they’re only there for our protection, alright?”
I nodded and tried not to allow my mind to run wild with questions about what exactly, or who, they were protecting us all from. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know if I were honest. Maybe it would be nice to bury my head in the sand for a while.
“You can just hide against me if that helps, babe. You don’t even need to see any of them if you don’t want to,” Cal told me quietly, and I nodded as I pressed my face against the soft fabric of his sweater and decided to do just that – hide.
“Do we have men watching over Brax?” Dario asked.
“Aye. I’ve arranged a schedule until he gets released, then he’s going to one of our safehouses to recover,” Arran replied.
Brax had been shot in the mess outside the plane.
He was the only one of all of the men who were with us in Chicago, and there to meet us off of that plane, who had survived.
He’d lost a lot of blood, but the doctor, who Rafe had called in, had been able to stop the bleeding until they got him to the clinic and into surgery.
Now he was on the mend, apparently. I was relieved about that, but so many lives had been lost that night, and for no real reason really.
Gia’s plan had been half baked. I didn’t know if Mikhail contacted my supposed bio Dad to try and get what he wanted, but no one had reached out to ask about me, so either they didn’t, or they did and ‘daddy’ didn’t care.
Either way, he wasn’t going to give Mikhail a thing to save my life, and the plan was a bust.
So many lives lost. Cal, Arran, and Brax all badly injured. Gia gone. All for what? Money? Power? A botched plan?
Mikhail had gotten away from the warehouse, but I knew it was only a matter of time before Rafe tracked him down.
The Russian was an idiot, trusting the word of a messed up kid and enacting a whole plan on it?
He wouldn’t last long, and I knew when Rafe got his hands on the bastard, he would make him pay for taking our sister from us.
I may have been angry with her for what she had done, but that didn’t change the fact that she hadn’t deserved to die that way, as young as she was.
“Cara?” Cal swiped a tear from my cheek with his thumb, and when I lifted my eyes to look at him, he was watching me with worry.
Gia, I mouthed, by way of explanation. I was grateful when he didn’t say anything, just held me tighter.
“Let’s get her home,” he said after a few moments, and I realised they all must have seen the exchange, and were waiting because of me.
I missed Dante as we all started to leave the private hospital.
What had happened between us, the way he’d hurt me in his drunken state, it all seemed so stupid after what had happened since.
I just wanted him to be there with us. I wasn’t ready to forgive him for breaking my trust, but I also didn’t want him away from us when so much was going wrong, and we seemed to be in danger.
I cared about him, loved him even, and I wanted him home, safe, with the other men I was in love with.
I missed him, even while still being angry with him.
Arran had told Rafe that Dante had decided to take some time off to visit an army buddy who needed him, and Rafe had agreed it was better to leave him out of the mess for now.
In reality, Arran had no idea when Dante planned to return, or if he even did, when I questioned him earlier that morning, and that hurt.
I was being irrational and I knew it. I wanted Dante home, just so I could be mad with him, but at least if he were home, he were safe and I would know that I hadn’t lost him for good.
I couldn’t lose anyone else. I’d already lost my baby sister, and myself.
That was enough, wasn’t it? How much more could I be expected to endure?