CHAPTER 7
CARA
I stared down into the grave where Gia’s casket had just been lowered.
There had been a priest, or whatever he called himself.
I didn’t even know what religion the ceremony had been in.
I just knew some stranger had stood there, and gone on and on about peace, eternity, and God, as my kid sister was lowered into the ground.
All I had wanted to do was scream at the man to shut the hell up!
It had been just as bad in the church before we moved to the graveyard, more religious bullshit.
Why would Gia even believe in a God who had lumbered her with such crappy parents, and then ended her life so young?
Why would anyone when life was so fucking hard all of the time?
“Sweetheart?”
I looked up and found Rafe at my side, where he had been since the moment we left home late that morning.
He was holding an umbrella over us as the rain poured.
Everyone else had left already, and I could see Cal sat in the open door of one of our cars, his ankle, which was causing him so much pain, propped up inside as Dario and Arran waited outside the car for us, both of them getting soaked and not seeming to care.
“I d-don’t want to leave her” I whimpered.
“Me neither,” Rafe agreed shakily. “But she’s gone, Cara. She’s not in that box in the ground. She’s gone, with any luck to somewhere a damn sight better than this.”
“She deserved a better life than the one she was given.”
“She did. We all did, but we can’t change the hand we’re dealt. I tried. I tried so fucking hard to make her life better, To make yours better, but I failed.”
“No,” I shook my head as I looked up at him.
“You did everything you could, Rafe, and you did make things better for a while. This was Mum. She’s the reason Gia died.
Her selfishness has cost all of her children in one way or another, but it cost Gia the most,” I told him, needing him to believe it.
In the week since Gia had been killed, Rafe had spent every spare moment that he wasn’t at my side, chasing Mikhail Kozlov down.
He wanted to make the man pay for taking Gia from us.
But deep down, I knew the only person Rafe was blaming for Gia’s death was himself, and he was beating himself up over it in any way he could.
“No more. This is the end, Cara. Our parents don’t get to take anything else from us ever again, do you hear me? I’ll kill Adamian before I let him anywhere near you!” Rafe declared angrily.
“I know,” I agreed as I turned and wrapped my arms around him, hoping to calm him.
I didn’t bother pointing out that Adamian probably had no idea that I even was his daughter, and that I had no intention of ever telling the bastard either.
Rafe was my family. I didn’t need any big reunions, not that I expected it to go that way anyway. More likely I’d end up being kidnapped again and used as leverage for something.
Just that thought had me tensing up and glancing around me for threats. The funeral was the only time I had left the house all week, and I’d only done it because I knew Rafe needed me to.
“You’re safe, Tesorino,” Rafe promised as he held me tighter, obviously noticing my mini panic.
I knew he was right. His men were armed and posted all around us, keeping watch and ready for anything.
Lots of his men. Rafe wasn’t taking any risks again.
We’d had security surrounding the house discreetly, 24/7, since we all arrived back there, and the security system and cameras had all been updated.
As Arran had explained to me, no one could be sure of what Gia had told the Russians about our home and security, so everything needed to be changed and stepped up.
“Let’s get you somewhere warm and dry, shall we?” he suggested, and I nodded, glancing once more to the casket below me before I allowed Rafe to lead me away.
I had so many mixed feelings about everything that had happened with Gia since I found Rafe again, but regardless of it all, I still felt love for her, and I never wanted it all to end the way it had.
There was anger too though, so much anger at what she did in the end, at the way she had practically thrown Cal and Arran down as collateral just so she could get what she wanted – to see me humiliated and destroyed.
Part of me blamed my Mum for that, for the twisted way Gia had seen me and acted towards me, but a part of me also knew Gia was almost an adult, and should have had some responsibility for her actions.
It wasn’t like she had grown up completely unaware of the world we lived in, so naivety wasn’t much of an excuse.
Instead of turning to the family who loved and raised her, she had turned on them all, and instead believed a woman who never showed her an ounce of love or honesty in her life.
She had sided with the lies and poison of a mother who never wanted her, over us – over Rafe and I, who had loved and protected her as much as we could for the time we had with her.
She had chosen hatred and bitterness, just as our mother had so many years before.
She had caused the deaths of so many people with the details she gave the Russians; details that led to the ambush outside the plane at the airport.
She hadn’t cared about anyone but herself when she did that, and I knew it.
Hence the anger. She could have gotten Cal and Arran killed.
She did get them hurt! And me, what she did to me, well that was stomach churning if I considered it too long.
There was definitely hate and rage. So much Rage.
What Gia had done was unspeakable and heart breaking.
If she’d have survived, I couldn’t honestly say I would ever have forgiven her, but she didn’t survive.
Her stupidity and anger had gotten her killed, and my mother had played a big part in that, as had mental health issues, I suspected, so I tried not to cling to that anger too much, or at least I tried to make allowances in my head for her.
When I thought of her most of the time, I still saw her as a toddler, in frilly dresses, with her bright blonde pigtails, laughing as she gripped my hand tight, while we happily and excitedly fled from Rafe, as he pretended to be a bear.
I recalled her sneaking into bed beside me and curling up at my side with her little arm across my waist when she got too scared to sleep alone during a phase she went through when she was four.
I remembered her excitedly squealing my name when I got home from school, and the way she’d run into my arms because she’d missed me all day.
That was how I wanted to remember, because she was gone, so my anger wouldn’t get me anywhere but bitter just like she had become, and I didn’t want that.
She had been so many things – beautiful, sharp tongued, bright, funny, cruel, cutting, strong - the list could go on forever. But to me she was one very special thing that would never change. My sister.
***
“Are you sure you’re feeling up to this?
There are a lot of people in there?” Dio asked as he helped me out of the back of the funeral car, outside the restaurant Rafe had hired out for the wake.
I glanced inside through the glass front and my heart instantly started to kick up a notch, but I took some deeper breaths to try and stay calm.
I didn’t want to worry Dio anymore. He’d had a hard time the night of my meltdown with him, and since then he had been walking around me on eggshells, terrified, it seemed, of upsetting me.
It was like he was afraid of me at times, and I hated the distance it seemed to have put between us.
Right then, as messed up as I was, having people I trusted, loved, and cared for, close, was the strongest force pulling me through the darkness inside of me.
“Rafe needs me. I can do this,” I assured him.
“My Mum and I will be with Rafe. Cal and Arran can get you home if you need to skip this,” he told me.
“Thank you, but I’m good. I’ll let you know if I need to leave though, okay?”
“Okay, Carr, but make sure you do. Don’t push too hard,” he warned and I nodded.
Dio wasn’t the only one acting differently.
They were all worried about me. I’d had a tough week.
Despite my endless mission to stay busy, I had still struggled a lot.
The concussion had given me thumping headaches that wouldn’t relent for days, and that made me lightheaded every time I tried to stand.
Add to that how badly bruised I was, and how much my whole body ached, and I’d been weak and shaky.
My anxiety seemed to have gotten worse too, and I’d had two further, terrifying panic attacks, flashbacks tearing me from reality and causing me to fall apart. Then there were the nightmares. I was exhausted from lack of sleep, and my appetite was gone.
But I’d seen the doctor again yesterday, and she’d done another traumatising pelvic exam, then assured me I was healing up well, with no signs of infection. The bloods they had taken had all come back clear too, so physically I was getting better. Small victories, I supposed.
Still, I’d barely spent a moment alone since I got home. One of the guys was always with me, usually Rafe or Cal, but Arran had been around a lot too, especially at night. It was like they were afraid to leave me alone, and we all knew why that was, not that anyone had outright said anything.
Even when I slept someone always stayed with me.
It was usually Cal, and if the nightmares got really bad, Arran would usually appear too and I’d find myself sandwiched between them, safely caged in both of their arms. It was the safest I felt, if I were honest, but I didn’t tell them that.
I didn’t want them to know for sure how desperately clingy I felt with all of them.