CHAPTER 11
CARA
I stood, and was watching Arran help Cal get steady on his crutches when my phone started to ring from the pocket of my jeans. I pulled it out, expecting it to be Dio, or possibly Rafe, but instead it was an unknown number.
“You guys head up there. I’ll just get this,” I told them.
Cal and Arran were just leaving the room as I picked up the call, feeling a little uneasy about the whole thing.
I didn’t speak, but just listened at first. I could hear steady breathing and the background noise of traffic.
“Cara?”
My heart instantly sped up and a rush of cold flowed through me at the sound of an American accent in just that one word. It was fear, of who it could be and what the hell was coming for me next.
“Who is this?” I asked shortly.
“I’m hurt you don’t recognise my voice, wild girl.”
“Hilt?” I gasped quietly, glancing behind me to ensure Arran and Cal weren’t hanging around. None of the guys were happy about me seeking Hilt out when we were in Chicago. They were sure he was bad news, and maybe he was in general, but I was confident he wouldn’t hurt me.
“We need to meet. You’re in danger,” he warned me.
“A little late with that warning,” I scoffed.
“Cara, fucking listen to me. It’s about to get worse. That’s why I need you to meet me. Now. This cannot wait. I’m risking my life even contacting you,” he growled, the impatient tone I knew so well from training with him sounding strangely comforting.
“Jesus! Then why are you calling me?”
“Because for some insane reason you made me care about your crazy ass. Just meet me. Kensington tube station. Westbound. Platform three. I’m here now, but I can’t stay here for long. Move your ass, kid.”
The call ended then, and I couldn’t even call him back because the number didn’t show on the caller ID.
“Fuck!” I hissed, locking my phone and shoving it back into my pocket. I needed to meet Hilt because I needed to find out what he knew, but I was fully aware that if I turned up with Rafe’s required security contingent, Hilt would be gone.
But I also wasn’t fool enough to slip out of the house alone and unprotected. Not when we didn’t know who had tried to break into the house the week before, or who else was out there, just waiting to get hands on me, in order to get to Rafe.
Mikhail Kozlov had to be a very desperate man by now, since Rafe had put every resource he had into tracking the prick down. He was on the run, according to all sources who knew anything. I was pretty sure he’d take any chance he could to get hold of me as leverage to save his skin.
“Arran!” I yelled through the house as I rushed to the bottom of the stairs. “Arran!”
“What’s wrong?” Arran was yelling before he even came into sight. He landed on the landing above me, then leapt down the last flight of stairs in three huge jumps, landing at my side and instantly pulling me against him as he looked all around us. “What is it, lass?”
“Hilt just called me. He’s waiting at the tube station. We have to go now. Just you and me. Any more security will scare him off!” I explained in a rush.
“Hilt? The guy from Chicago? What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know, but he said I’m about to be in a lot more danger. He needs to tell me something. He said he’s risking his life. We have to go now.” I tried to pull from the arm he had around me, but he held firm.
“Just slow down a second, Cara. How do we ken this isnae a trap?”
“I just know. I trust him, Arran. Please, you have to let me go with my gut on this. We need to know whatever Hilt knows, and he said he couldn’t stick around there for long.”
“Rafe’ll kill me on the spot if anythin’ happens to ye. Ye realise that?” Arran groaned.
“Nothing’s going to happen. We can take security to the station if it makes you feel better, but they have to stay outside. I’m not convinced Hilt won’t split if I walk up with just you.”
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ!” he growled as he released me and moved to the picture on the wall in the entrance way.
I watched on in shock as he pulled it from the wall and set it on the ground, then pushed one of the white panels that made up the wall.
It opened like a hidden cupboard, and from it Arran pulled a handgun.
He seemed to check it was loaded, then tucked it into the back of his jeans, before returning everything to where it had been before.
“How many hidden gun compartments does this house have?” I asked once I reached his side.
“More than we’ll ever need, wi’ any luck.”
He took my hand in his and held it tightly as he opened the door and pulled me out behind him, keeping himself placed strategically in front of me. He unlocked the black SUV, which was parked out front and I headed in the direction of it.
“Dom, yer driving. Joey, in the front,” Arran commanded as he tossed the keys to Dom.
“What’s going on?” Dom asked once we were all in the car, Arran fussing with my seat belt before I could even reach for it myself.
“Take us to the tube station. We need to meet an unknown. I’ll go in wi’ Cara. Which platform, wee one?” Arran asked.
“Three Westbound, he said,” I replied.
“Dom, keep the car running an’ close. Joey, I want ye to tail us to the platform, but dinnae step on it. Just stay close, in case. If anythin’ kicks off, ye grab Cara an’ get her the fuck out. Clear?”
Both men agreed, but I didn’t. If anything went wrong there was no way I was leaving Arran to deal with it alone. But nothing would go wrong. I trusted Hilt. I believed him when he told me he’d come to care for me in his own way.
Arran spent the rest of the drive repeating orders and putting in an earpiece that had been in the glove box of the car.
Using an app on his phone, he hooked it up to the security network that Joey and Dom had already been linked with, via their own earpieces, when they were working security back at the house.
By the time we pulled up, the three of them were able to communicate, which made my nerves feel slightly less frayed.
I was wishing I hadn’t taken more pills after showering less than an hour before.
With my adrenaline rising, they seemed to be having a different effect, making me feel a little jittery and nervous.
Arran pulled me from the car before I even realised what was going on, my right hand clutched tightly in his left.
We exited the car and moved fast into the tube station as Arran told me we needed to.
I didn’t look behind me, because I knew it would be obvious, but I felt sure Joey was behind us somewhere, watching our backs.
I fought not to panic as we got to entry barriers and Arran scanned us both through with his phone, but the station was busy, people queueing at both sides of the barriers and seeming to close in around us as we moved through them, and into the chaos of the station.
As we pressed into a large, but packed elevator that would take us deeper underground, I found myself releasing Arran’s hand so I could instead grab onto his arm with both hands, clutching onto him desperately, my anxiety only seeming to get ratcheted higher by the jittery feeling pulsing through me, from my adrenaline and the drugs too.
At home they seemed to have numbed me, but there, with my own fears making my adrenaline surge, they just seemed to be making things worse.
“Breathe fer me, lass. I’m no’ gonna let anythin’ happen to ye,” Arran whispered close to my ear as the lift descended.
“Sorry,” I told him as I lifted my head to meet his eyes. “I’m okay.”
“Brave wee thing,” he uttered as he placed a kiss on my temple.
I carried his words with me as we exited the lift and walked onto the platform, which was, luckily, pretty quiet.
“There he is,” I uttered quietly, nodding down the platform.
I had spotted Hilt instantly, standing at the darker and more deserted end of the platform. He was dressed in dark colours, his frame bigger and wider than I remembered him. His hair was shorter too, shaved short to his scalp.
He looked wary as Arran approached, keeping me pushed back behind him, my hand firmly wrapped in his.
“Just let me talk to him, please,” I pleaded as we got closer. Arran just nodded his ascent, but I’d take it.
“Hey,” I greeted Hilt nervously when we were just a few feet apart. His dark eyes were watchful, sizing Arran up, his expression cold and unreadable, but that wasn’t anything new.
“You should have come alone,” he grumbled as his eyes finally returned to me.
“You taught me to be smarter than that,” I reminded him. “I’m not exactly safe right now. This is Arran. He’s not going to do anything, as long as you don’t give him cause to.”
“You don’t trust me?” he questioned.
“I don’t trust anyone. You taught me that too.”
“Glad to hear you were listening after all,” he said with a slight rise of his lips that was the closest thing to a smile I had ever seen from him.
“What you taught me has saved my neck more than once, Hilt. I’ll always be grateful to you for that. I’m hoping you’re about to save it again though.”
“You were always a smart kid,” he told me. “Smarter than to touch drugs. What are you on right now?”
“Nothing,” I answered way too quickly.
“Come on, wild girl. You know lying to me isn’t smart. Has this asshole got you hooked on something? Your pupils are blown and I can see your pulse thrumming in your neck from here. I don’t even need to point out how badly you’re fidgeting,” he scoffed.
“I’m not on anything. It’s just my anxiety!” I cried looking from Hilt to Arran who was assessing everything about me that Hilt pointed out.
“Fucking shite!” Arran hissed. “How could I have missed that?”
“Just tell me what you came to tell me, Hilt!” I growled.
“You need to be smarter, Cara,” he said instead, looking so disappointed in me, it actually cut deep.