CHAPTER 6
ARRAN
I stood back, blood dripping from my hands as they hung at my sides, just watching Rafe slit the throat of what remained of our last prisoner.
We’d held those sick, rapist fucks for three days, and they had been beaten and tortured almost to their deaths over and over, given just a taste of the agony they had caused, and still caused Cara.
Rafe had even gotten his hands dirty multiple times, breaking fingers, pulling finger nails, and beating the fuckers unconscious more than once, all in a bid to get just a taste of the revenge he was seeking for his sisters.
The first had died the day before, the cuts I carefully covered his body in putting him into shock eventually, and his heart gave out. It had pissed me the fuck off and I’d taken that out on the others who remained.
Torture and interrogation were a kind of speciality of mine.
My father had been muscle for the street gang he worked for in Glasgow when he was younger, then later, an even more ruthless monster running the family company when I was a bairn.
One of his main jobs had been cracking skulls when the situation called for it, and he had started to train me from a young age, determined to pass on the family legacy.
I’d love to say it appalled me and made me want better for my life, but it didn’t.
It gave me a thirst for violence, and as I got older, I learned to use that ingrained violence to combat my deeper issues.
But I was also damned good at what I did.
I got results when Rafe needed them, and in that situation, I had caused unspeakable pain to those bastards, that I had been forced to watch rape and beat the woman I loved.
And I had enjoyed every single minute of it, because those bastards deserved it, and so much more.
Now I just wanted to get my hands on Mikhail Kozlov too.
“Dante’ll be pissed he didnae get to play, when he gets home and finds out about this,” I sighed as the last fucker swung limply from the chains that were tethering him by his wrists to the restraints above.
“Tough shit. That’s what he gets for taking a fucking holiday when we need him back here!” Rafe snapped.
The boss was definitely pissed that Dante had just disappeared on us all.
Since I couldn’t explain what really happened without breaking my word to Cara, I had tried to cover for Dante by saying I thought he’d gone to catch up with some old army acquaintances.
Rafe had been pissed as hell about it, but he ultimately agreed that Dante had a right to take a break, seeing as he never had, not in all the years he worked for the family.
I just hoped the fucker planned to come back, because his phone wasn’t taking calls and I had filled his voicemail box with messages already.
I had no clue where he was. But we needed him back.
Cara needed him. It was going to take everyone she had to get her through what she had suffered, and even then I feared it wouldn’t be enough.
The lass was barely holding herself together as it was.
She didn’t sleep, barely ate. You couldn’t leave her alone for a moment, because she just panicked and started to slip into a panic attack if you did.
And even when you were with her, she wasn’t truly there.
She stared into space a lot, the agony playing through her mind so clear to see on her face.
It was killing me to see her that way and not know how to help.
It was killing all of us. But we were doing what we could – showing her that we were there for her.
“Any word on Kozlov?” I asked, changing the subject.
“I’ve put the word out. He won’t be able to hide for long, and when I get my hands on him, what we did to these pieces of shit will pale in comparison to what I do to him,” Rafe seethed.
“And Adamian? Any word from him about Cara?”
“Nothing. I doubt Kozlov even told him anything. Either that, or he did and Adamian doesn’t give a shit about Cara. I highly doubt my mother was the first bit on the side he got pregnant.”
“So you really think the Armenians just went after Cara to use as leverage to get hands on the docks?” I questioned.
It was the theory we had come to, but it didn’t sit right with me. The Armenians had gone after Cara before she even left the States. How could they even have known about her then? And why go after her there when they were ready to go after her in London too, that day they shot up Dante’s car?
“Fuck knows. I’m working on getting some answers, but right now all I care about is making sure our home, our family, and especially Cara are all safe. That’s what matters until I get to the bottom of the rest.”
“Aye. Yer right,” I agreed. “Let’s clean up and get back home. I’ll call a clean-up crew in here to handle this.”
We both picked up the bags of clean clothes we had brought with us and headed for the showers.
We were covered in blood and it all needed to be gone before we went back home.
There was no way we could risk triggering Cara with anything when she was so fragile right then.
It had killed me to leave her, and I couldn’t wait to get back and see for myself she was safe.
***
“I’ll check on Cara,” Rafe announced as he set off running up the stairs the moment we walked into the house.
I wanted nothing more than to follow him and see her for myself too, but I knew I was treading a fine line with Rafe.
It was fucking dangerous for my life to be falling in love with the boss’s sister and I knew it.
It had become very obvious there was something going on between Cal and Cara, but Rafe seemed okay with that, and why wouldn’t he?
Cal was a good kid. He was going to be a doctor.
He had brains and looks, and he had stayed on the right side of the law his entire life – at least as far as anyone knew, anyway.
If, or hopefully when. Cara learned to handle what she had been through, I was confident Rafe would accept her being with my brother, because he was right for her. Me, however? Or both of us, more specifically? Rafe was not going to be alright with that, and I knew it.
Not only was I older, but I had also been around a bit when it came to one night stands.
It was how I had operated for years. Pick a woman up, make sure she understood the score, then fuck her once and gone.
I never wanted commitment, and I didn’t believe in love.
Until Cara. She had changed everything for me.
She was the only woman I could ever see myself with now.
No woman before her, or any who could possibly come if I lost her, would ever even begin to compare. Cara was special.
But that was why Rafe wouldn’t want her with a man like me, one who had blood on his hands and scars on his soul.
He wanted better for his little sister, and he should.
I should. But I couldn’t walk away from her.
I was falling so fast in love with her, that it scared me and thrilled me in equal measure.
I already knew Cal was on board with us sharing her.
We had briefly touched on it, after Dante started mouthing off about Cara wanting all of us.
As in him and Dario too. And maybe she did.
I wasn’t sure how I would feel about there being four of us claiming her, but it would be better than me walking away from her all together.
But if Cara wanted all four of us, there was no way on this Earth Rafe was going to be on board with that. No, I foresaw a shallow grave in my future for sure, but it wasn’t enough to stop me fighting for her. She was worth it. Cara was everything.
“Cara?” Rafe called as he came flying back down the stairs and past me towards the living room.
“What’s goin’ on?” I demanded as I followed him.
“She’s not up there. Dar and Cal are gone too,” he gasped.
“I’ll check the kitchen!”
I was already running down the hall. I burst through the kitchen door and winced as it bounced hard off the wall behind it.
Inside, the lights were off, Terza likely gone home for the night.
I was about to leave, my adrenaline kicking up as I mapped out all of the possible exit and entry points to the house in my head, when Cal’s laughter stopped me.
I moved towards the sliding doors that led out to the small back garden, and peered out.
“It is not!” Cara laughed as she hit out towards Cal weakly.
They were both laid out on the sun loungers, mounds of blankets over their laps.
They looked comfortable, their heads leaning together as they looked from one another, and to something on the screen of Cal’s phone.
The best thing of all though, the part that was making me smile and my heart skip a beat, was the fact that there was a smile on Cara’s face – a real smile.
“It’s true!” Cal laughed. “Look it up. Maybe they just don’t have it in America.”
“Get lost!” Cara cried animatedly. “ It’s the same bloody sky, you idiot!”
“Arran, where are they?” Rafe demanded as he stormed into the kitchen.
“Sshh,” I rushed to quieten him. “Come see.”
I beckoned him over and he stopped beside me with a glare. But his head shot up when Cara laughed loud enough for him to hear.
“And you’re at university?” she scoffed, turning her head enough for us to see almost all of the smile on her face.
“She’s talking,” Rafe gasped. “…and laughing.”
“Aye. She’s smilin’ too.”
“How? Did Cal do that?”
“Probably,” I shrugged. “Let’s just leave them for now,” I added, not wanting to break the bubble of contentment that Cal seemed to have built around Cara.
“Yeah, okay. You’re right,” he agreed, and we both quietly moved away, leaving Cara and Cal in the bubble of calm and peace they seemed to have somehow found.
Cal was going to need to do much more of that in the coming weeks and months, and teach me how the fuck to do it too.
Making Cara laugh like that again, the way she used to, had just become my top priority.
CARA