CHAPTER 28
CARA
The first explosion rattled the windows hard enough to make the crystal decanter on the side table I stood beside shake. Even though I knew the distraction was coming, it still frightened me half to death.
I’d been waiting in the downstairs lounge - the only room with a window that looked over the street out front, on the ground floor - for over ten minutes. Now it was time to move.
I watched as the men out front jumped out of parked cars and ran from around the house, converging out front. My heart felt as if it were slamming against my ribs.
A second blast followed almost immediately, even closer this time.
More shouting erupted outside. Tires screeched somewhere on the street, as I presumed more cars raced from wherever they were based close to the house.
Then came the rapid crack of gunfire and my heart slammed harder at the fear of Rafe’s men being hurt or killed. I’d caused this.
But the gunfire didn’t seem to be aimed at the house. It was a distraction, exactly as promised.
Men scrambled outside, trying to work out what was going on, their barked voices yelled over one another in clipped commands as they tried to get a handle on things.
I moved from the lounge, and across the small hall, pressing myself against the wall beside the staircase, barely breathing while I listened in to the chaos out front.
“Go! Get Cara to the safe room!” I heard Dio shout from above and I knew my time window was closing. Arran and Cal would be in my room and find it empty in seconds.
My stomach twisted so violently I thought I might throw up right there on the landing. They’d be so angry and afraid for me when they found me gone. The thought nearly stopped me. I could still turn around. I could still run back to them and confess everything before it was too late.
But if I did, Dante died. Adamian had made that perfectly clear. I didn’t even know where he held Dante, so it wasn’t like we could send men there in time to save him. This was the only way.
I forced my legs to move. Every step I took seemed impossibly loud. Every creak made my skin prickle. I kept expecting one of my guys, or Rafe to come running downstairs behind me, fury, confusion, and hurt in their eyes.
Instead, I reached the door untouched. Unnoticed. I unlocked the several deadlocks and two bolts, then turned the handle, the chrome feeling so cold in my hand.
Cold night air slipped through the gap as soon as I eked it open.
London noise flooded in with it, sirens in the distance, yelling men, engines revving.
I peered out and looked around, but the street directly in front of the house was clear, and the men stood off to the side were so distracted they weren’t looking my way.
One deep breath and I stepped through the doorway and into the night. I tiptoed down the steps, constantly looking to Rafe’s men off to my right, praying they wouldn’t turn around.
The moment my shoes hit the pavement, a hand clamped around my arm. I gasped, twisting instinctively, ready to fight back, but another man caught me from behind and shoved me hard toward a black SUV waiting at the curb.
“Move.” The unknown accent was thick and flat. Adamian’s men, I realised. So I didn’t fight.
“I’m going,” I hissed.
The rear door swung open. A rough hand was planted between my shoulders, and it thrust me into the back seat hard enough that pain shot through my hip.
Before I could sit upright, another man climbed in beside me while a third slammed the door shut, then the SUV launched forward instantly.
I grabbed the leather seat to steady myself as we accelerated through the London streets.
I pushed myself up to sitting and looked around the car.
Three men. No one spoke. The man beside me was enormous.
Thick neck. Broad shoulders. Dark beard trimmed close to his jaw.
He smelled faintly of smoke and expensive, excessive aftershave.
His expression never changed as he stared forward and it suddenly started to dawn on me what a stupid decision this had been.
I reached shakily for my phone from inside the pocket of my leather jacket, but that was a bad idea. The man at my side snatched it from my hand before I even unlocked it.
“Hey…”
He rolled down the window without looking at me and tossed the phone into the night.
I stared after it in disbelief as it vanished onto the wet street somewhere behind us.
“What the hell?” I snapped.
“Quiet.”
One word. Cold, final, and terrifying enough to shut me up.
I swallowed the rest of my argument and sat back.
My chest tightened painfully as central London blurred past outside the tinted windows.
Familiar streets dissolved into larger roads, and then motorways, slick with rain and streaked with headlights, the city slowly disappearing behind us.
Behind me. And gone with it was all of the security I had in the world.
This was definitely fucking stupid, I told myself over and over in my head.
Buildings gave way to open countryside as we left the motorway and turned onto country roads.
Dark fields stretched out in the dim moonlight.
Overhanging shadowed trees lined the narrow roads that twisted through quaint villages, and rolling hills.
The further we drove, the worse the dread inside me became.
I had done this willingly. I had walked directly into their hands. I was such an idiot!
For Dante, I reminded myself. I’d done this to save him. That reason still stood. Dante. Was he even alive though? I hadn’t exactly been able to see if he was breathing in that video. Why hadn’t I considered that before I did something so foolhardy?
Adamian had promised he would be released once I agreed to marry Daniel. But Adamian was a liar, a criminal, and a man I barely knew despite sharing his blood. He’d had Rafe shot. He’d sent gunmen after me, his own daughter. What kind of idiot trusted a man like that? You did, you fucking fool!
The SUV finally turned through a set of towering wrought-iron gates flanked by stone pillars blackened with age. Beyond them stretched a long winding drive.
The estate appeared slowly through the darkness, like something out of a nightmare.
I could see shadowed, sweeping gardens, the trees and hedges bare of their leaves this deep into winter.
There was a dully lit, enormous fountain, and around it I saw creepy shadowed shapes of what I thought could be aged and weathered statues.
Centuries old oak trees loomed over the drive, their branches gnarly and black against the backlight of the grey sky, almost like a warning, that it was too late for me to heed. Then, at the end of it stood the house.
No. Not a house. A horror movie set. An extensive gothic style manor rose from the countryside, built in dark stone, with towering spires.
Massive arched windows reflected pale moonlight.
Ivy crawled over parts of the exterior like veins.
Portions of the building looked centuries old, the architecture heavy with history, wealth, and secrets.
Violent, bloody, murderous secrets, I was sure.
It was the kind of place people disappeared from without a trace.
I was pretty sure that was going to be my end.
The SUV rolled to a stop beneath a covered entrance supported by thick stone columns.
“Out,” one of the men barked as he opened my door.
I stepped onto the gravel with shaky legs and stared up at the manor house while cold wind whipped through my hair. Every instinct I had screamed at me to run, but there was nowhere to go.
Inside, the house was warm and incredibly grand.
Black-and-white marble floors stretched beneath glittering chandeliers.
Oil paintings lined the walls in heavy gold frames.
The air smelled faintly of cedarwood and cleaning products.
Probably masking the blood that coated all of this luxury, I reminded myself.
The front doors shut behind me with a heavy boom that echoed through the entrance hall, and I found myself right in the middle of a nightmarish horror movie. And yes, I was the stupidly na?ve girl who had pretty much just walked herself right in there.
A man descended the staircase ahead. There was no hurry about him as he moved. He strolled, like he had all of the time in the world. He was tall and elegant. Controlled. Daniel, I assumed, though he didn’t look at all like the thug I was expecting.
He wore a perfectly tailored charcoal suit that fit his lean frame like it had been made around him.
He had olive skin, dark eyes, and dark hair, combed neatly back without a strand out of place.
I figured he was around Cal’s age, maybe a year or two older.
He was undeniably handsome, but there was nothing warm in him.
His face was composed with almost surgical precision, every movement measured and calm. He stopped several feet away from me and seemed to appraise me like a car he was considering buying.
“Cara.”
The sound of my name in his mouth made my stomach knot. This was it. There was no going back now. I was in the lion’s den, and I needed to be careful if I ever wanted to make it back out again.
“I want to see Dante,” I told him immediately. I refused to be cowed. I would stand my ground. I was stronger than they ever expected me to be.
Daniel regarded me silently for a moment.
“No.”
The answer landed like ice water. I had expected an argument. Maybe a threat. I had hoped I’d be able to negotiate. Adamian had given me his word.
“You said he’d be released.”
“I said nothing.” His voice remained smooth and even. “Your father negotiated this arrangement.”
“He promised me…gave his word…”
“Then you were foolish enough to believe him.”
The words struck harder than if he’d shouted. I had been an idiot and I knew it for sure now. Anger flared through my fear.
“I came here, didn’t I? I kept my part of the deal.”