CHAPTER 27 #2
I was trembling with the mix of worry and anger that was coursing through me.
Adamian had taken Dante because of me, because he wanted me!
It was all my fault, again! Everyone around me was getting hurt, their lives endangered at every turn because of me.
Because of my fucking mother and the monster who donated sperm to create me.
No more. I was getting Dante back no matter the cost. This all had to end once and for all.
“Cara, slow down, lass.” A hand clamped on my shoulder and pulled me back, as I stepped onto the first floor landing. I knew it was Arran as he wrapped himself around me, stopping me from continuing to the office.
“Arran…” I tried to growl, but it came out shaky and raspy. “Let me go. We have to….I have to get him…”
“Stop,” he said firmly as he clutched my face between his hands and made me look at him. “I ken what yer thinkin’, that yer blamin’ yerself. Ye need to stop right now. None of what has happened is on you, and dinnae even think about doing anything stupid because ye foolishly think it is.”
“He’s been gone for weeks, Arran,” I sniffled. “Weeks! If they had him all that time…if they h-hurt him….”
“We’ll get him back,” he told me firmly.
“They want me.”
“Tough. They cannae have ye, Cara. We’ll make a plan to get Dante out, but whatever it is, you willnae be a part of it. We all need you safe.”
“I’m so sick of being protected while everyone I care about gets hurt!” I cried desperately.
I felt as though I was in shreds inside.
Ever since I arrived there, everything had gone to shit.
I got my brother back, but I lost my sister.
Any strength I arrived there with had been leeched from me by horror after horror.
Violence. Kidnap. Loss. Grief. Rafe had been shot, and now Dante was in the hands of monsters.
Nothing – not even falling in love with the most amazing men I had ever known – was worth all that had happened, all we had been forced to survive and endure.
And I felt like it was all my fault, because there was a very clear and present fact – none of it would have happened if I had just stayed hidden where I was in Chicago.
“Cara?” I turned sharply at the sound of Dio’s voice. He was right behind me, which startled me, because I hadn’t even heard the office door open. “What’s happened?” he asked as he looked from me to the others.
“She knows. She knew as soon as she saw Arran’s face when he read your message,” Cal sighed.
“Why shouldn’t I know?” I demanded. “This involves me! I should fucking know!”
“We were just trying to protect you,” Dio started, but I cut him off as anger rushed through me.
“Stop it!” I yelled. “Stop trying to protect me! You can’t. Don’t you see that you can’t protect me! How much more needs to happen before you get that through your heads?”
“That doesn’t mean we’ll stop trying,” Dio sighed.
“Tell me about Dante,” I said, changing the subject to what mattered. Arguing with them was like relentlessly banging my head against a brick wall. “How do you know Adamian took him?”
“The bastard rang me,” Rafe said, and when I turned, he was leaning heavily in the doorway of the office.
He was dressed in only a pair of sweats, his still-bandaged torso bare.
He was covered with a sheen of sweat, his eyes heavy, and his skin too pale.
I was pretty sure if he moved from where he leant, he would collapse.
I looked to Dio with question, worried for my brother. He hadn’t looked that bad earlier.
“He’s been drinking, a lot,” Dio told me quietly. “He needs to go to bed.”
“Adamian rang you? I thought he was at death’s door?” Cal asked.
“He’s desperate,” Dio replied. “He was well enough to offer a proposition. He wants Cara for forty-eight hours. Says he’ll let her go once they’re married.”
“Me and this ‘Daniel’ guy, right?” I clarified.
“Marriage. Certificates signed and legalised. Consummation witnessed and irrefutable, then you and Dante walk,” Rafe slurred with a bitter scoff. “I told him where he can stick his pr-proposition!”
“I can do that,” I agreed instantly. “If it will save Dante, I’ll do it.”
“You will not!”
“No way!”
“No’ a chance in hell!”
My guys objections came loud and fast, all talking over each other as they all sent me their own version of withering looks.
“We will save Dante! You’re going nowhere near this!” Rafe snapped.
“Yeah. You look like you’re really up to leading that rescue right now!” I threw back sarcastically.
“I’m handling things, Piccola. Go back to bed, okay? I’ll fix this,” Dio told me.
“Yeah, okay,” I nodded, but the nod, and my tone were laced with bitterness. “I’ll go to bed like the broken little princess I am.”
I started to storm back up the stairs, not even able to look at any of them. I got that they thought they were keeping me safe, but they couldn’t! And maybe if they stopped trying and focused on what the hell was going on, we’d all avert some of the disasters we continued walking right into.
“No one follow me!” I shouted when I heard footsteps start up the stairs behind me. Luckily for whoever it was, they stopped where they stood and didn’t follow any more.
By the time I got to my room, I already knew what I was going to do. I was done being protected. I didn’t need it. I needed this whole mess to be finished with, and doing what Adamian wanted would end it, as well as getting Dante back.
Forty-eight hours, a sham marriage, enduring one more violation of my body, and it would be done.
Adamian would get what he wanted before he died, and surely me being technically married to this Daniel would save us from him coming after my family anymore?
I could do it. My brother and the men I loved underestimated me, but I knew I could do it and come out barely any more broken than I already was.
I could live with that. If it saved Dante, I could live with it.
Rafe would be furious. Cal, Arran, and Dario may never forgive me. Dante would be apoplectic with rage, but as long as he was alive, that was all I cared about. As long as those men who would be angry with me, were all safe from more threats, it would be worth it.
***
I started by calling the number Hilt had called me on before, but it didn’t connect.
I stupidly tried googling ‘Grigor Adamian’ but all that brought up was newspaper articles about crimes he’d been tied to, and a court case that had almost tied him to a murder four years ago. No contact numbers. Obviously.
Then I remembered the research Cal had been doing the other day, into all of Adamian’s property holdings, so I snuck across the hall to steal his laptop.
From there it wasn’t hard to get the phone numbers for several of his legitimate clubs and a restaurant he owned.
I called and left messages at every one, with my name, number, and telling them Adamian wanted to speak to me urgently.
I was almost dressed in the black jeans and black henley I had chosen in that desperate attempt, once again, to feel like the old, much braver version of me that I used to be, when my phone started buzzing from the dresser.
I ran to it, snatching it up, my heart thudding too hard and fast when I saw ‘no caller ID’ on the screen.
“Yeah?” I answered shakily. I had wanted it to sound stronger, but I had panicked. ‘Hello’ sounded too friendly, didn’t it?
“You’ve greatly surprised me, daughter,” an aged, but still commanding voice spoke.
“Don’t call me that. I’m not your daughter!” I balked.
“We both know that’s not true.”
“Is Dante still alive?” I demanded, determined to stay on task.
“He is of significance to you? You surprise me.”
“Just answer the question!”
“He’s alive. For now. You heard of the offer I made to your brother, I suppose?”
“I heard. Forty eight hours. Legal marriage, then you let me and Dante go. Correct?”
“The marriage needs to be consummated and it must be witnessed.”
“Yeah, I got that part. I want your word Dante will not be harmed and that we can both leave after it’s done,” I insisted, proud of myself for how steady my voice remained.
“My word?” he laughed. “Yes, okay. I can give you my word.”
“I want proof that Dante is alive.”
“Your brother didn’t show you the video?” he asked.
“Video?”
Just then my phone beeped in my ear, and when I pulled it away to look at the screen, I had a message. The video. I hit play and instantly slammed my hand over my mouth to hold in my devastated cry and the nausea that rose instantly.
Dante was bound by his wrists, to chains that hung from the ceiling of a dark and dingy room.
What I could see of him was lit from the front, but not well.
It was enough though, to see the blood, swelling and bruising all over his body.
He had lost so much weight, looking nothing like my gentle giant right then.
He was in nothing but his jeans, and the blue denim was dark with what I assumed was dried blood, filth and who knew what else.
Dante’s face was barely recognisable as he hung limply, his head bowed.
There were deep cuts on his chest and abdomen, and what I thought could be burns too.
Who knew what else was there under the layers and layers of grime and blood – fresh and dried.
The camera simply scanned up and down his body, then the video ended.
“You fucking animal!” I hissed as I pushed back everything but my rage. That was the only emotion I could afford to hold on to.
“He did it to himself. He chose not to talk,” Adamian explained easily. My stomach churned again at the knowledge that I shared DNA with this psycho.
“I hope that death you’re creeping towards is very fucking painful.”
“The deal. Am I to assume you accept the terms?”
“I want Dante taken care of. He needs to be cleaned up and his wounds tended. I want to see him before I agree to anything.”
“Very well,” he agreed.
I wasn’t fool enough to not realise that agreement came too fast and easy, but what alternatives did I have?
If Dio sent men into wherever Dante was being held, there was no guarantee Dante would be rescued before someone slit his throat.
It would also mean more of Rafe’s men, and possibly the men I loved, being hurt or killed. I wasn’t willing to risk that.
“I need you to create a distraction outside Rafe’s house so I can slip out. Nothing that will get anyone hurt,” I specified. I felt like such a traitor, like I was conspiring with the devil.
“Thirty minutes. Be ready. My men will pick you up outside the house. Come alone. Any tricks, or you back out, and I kill your friend.” With those words the call ended, nothing but silence on the other end.
I cleared the call screen and watched the video of Dante again.
It was like it wasn’t him though. He was too still.
Too broken and silent. Everything that made him, him, was gone.
I watched it once more, so sure something had to change, that he would snap awake, rip those chains from the ceiling, and tear every fucker in the room with him to pieces, with his bare hands, but still he just hung there, lifeless.
No matter the threat or consequences, I had to go to him.
I had to do whatever it took to get him out.
What happened, that stupid night when he’d got drunk and scared me, me actually fearing him the next morning and forcing him away from me, from the safety of Rafe’s security and his family, that had gotten him there.
That was the reason he had been caught and tortured to within an inch of his life.
It all seemed so fucking ridiculous now.
I had acted irrationally, as had he, the night before, and look where it had gotten us.
I forgave him, damn it! I forgave him and just wanted him back!
I loved him. I loved him like I loved the others.
He owned an equal piece of my heart. They were all a part of me – him, Cal, Dio, and Arran.
They were in my heart. Losing any of them was not an option I could or would live with.