In Too Deep

12. Chapter Twelve

~Kian~

My shoulder hurt like a bitch but I knew just how lucky I was to be alive to feel the pain at all. If Cara hadn’t shown up when she did, Thomas would have killed me. I’d been in the gun range with him often enough to know that he had excellent aim, especially at close range. Cara’s unexpected appearance was the only reason I still drew breath at all.

She impressed me more and more with every new thing thrown at her, and I would tell her so just as soon as we had time, but we weren’t out of the woods yet. After sending her to the safe room, I returned to Marco’s office to take a look at what Thomas had been doing on the computer before Marco’s call.

A progress bar inched across the screen, sitting at about 80% complete. Immediately, I hit the cancel button, even though, as Thomas pointed out, there would never be a better chance to get access to all of Marco’s data. That wasn’t my top priority anymore, not when he must have intended to pass that data on to David Park rather than our colleagues. Thankfully, with Marco’s restrictions on allowing any kind of communication in or out of the house, I felt fairly confident that none of the data would have actually transferred anywhere yet. He must have been copying it to an external drive that he could pass on, and eventually, I found it attached to one of the laptop hard drives. Disconnecting it, I gathered up the rest of Thomas’ hacking tools so that he couldn’t resume his activities if he regained consciousness while we were in the safe room, and returned to the kitchen to check on the man in question.

He still had a pulse, thankfully, since I had a lot of questions for him. Blood pooled on the floor beneath him, but it looked like the sharp edge of whatever Cara used to hit him with had cut through his skin after the initial blow and most of the blood came from that. It shouldn’t cause any permanent damage, but it seemed safer not to move him until someone with more medical training got a look at him. For the time being, I tied him up with some string I found in one of the kitchen drawers, picked up his gun and his phone, just in case, and headed back down the hall to Cara’s room.

My eyes landed on the bed as soon as I walked in the door, and the memory of lying there with her, warm and comfortable, seemed a distant memory rather than something that happened that morning. I had no idea how to explain the latest developments to her, but I couldn’t avoid her. We were in this together, no matter where it led.

Raising my eyes, I scanned the room, looking for the camera that she would be able to see me through. “Cara? Unless you see something I don’t, it should be safe to let me in.”

My ears strained for the sound of any movement from outside the door. Did Thomas come alone or were there more of Park’s men with him? When no immediate response came from Cara, I began to worry that she had indeed seen something. If that were the case, she was right to leave me out there, but I should get myself ready to defend myself.

However, before I could make any kind of move, the wardrobe door opened and Cara’s head peeked out. “In here,” she said, and despite the situation, I had to smile. Just when I thought she couldn’t seem any more charmingly innocent, she took me through a hidden door in a wardrobe.

Inside, the safe room looked pretty much as I expected it to. To the left, shelves filled with food and water lined the wall behind a small table with four chairs. To the right, a control centre had been set up with monitors showing cameras set up in every room. I would bet anything they ran off their own generator, completely separate to everything else in the house. Ahead of me were two open doors, one leading to a bedroom and the other to a small bathroom with a shower and toilet. Cara locked the door behind me and told me that the maid was in the adjoining bedroom. I went to check on her and after confirming it was okay with her, I closed the door between the rooms so that Cara and I could speak in private.

While I did that, Cara pulled out a well-stocked first-aid kit and placed it on the table. Her gaze remained down as she pulled out some of the items in her loose grip. “What do you need for your shoulder?”

I could hardly believe how calm she seemed, but most likely, she was still in shock. Since I knew how that felt, I focused on simply answering the question she’d asked. “The good news is the bullet went right through.”

Her hands stopped moving but she still didn’t look up at me. Maybe the sight of blood bothered her, or reminded her of her own accident. There could be a hundred reasons why she wouldn’t make eye contact, but I missed the connection with her anyway. “That’s good?”

“It means we don’t have to worry about getting the bullet out, which is a good thing. The bad news is that it’s bleeding from both sides.”

Cara nodded, blinking as she processed that. “Can you take your shirt off?”

Just the thought of trying to raise my arm made me wince, as much as I knew the shirt needed to come off. “I don’t think so. Have you got scissors in there? You could cut it off.”

Her lips tightened as she rummaged through the kit again. “Scissors aren’t easy for me to use but I can try.”

Although I just thought about her accident, I’d forgotten about her hands. “I can try to do it with my other hand if you can’t do it. Don’t worry. Together, we’ll find a way.”

She found a pair and pulled them out, but even when she looked up at my shirt to see where she needed to cut, she still avoided looking at my face.

“Cara.” Almost reluctantly, her eyes darted over to me. “I didn’t thank you for saving my life.”

Immediately, her eyes dropped again. “Can you pull the fabric taut so I can cut through?”

It seemed she wanted to focus on the task at hand, so I put my thanks on hold and, reaching across my body with my left hand, I pulled down on my sleeve, wincing as it rubbed against the wound. Holding the scissors with both hands rather than putting her fingers in them normally, Cara pressed the handles together, and thankfully, the blades were sharp enough that they sliced through the blood-spattered fabric.

Slowly and carefully, she cut her way over to the neck, at which point I was able to take over and cut a straight-ish line from my neck down to the bottom of the shirt, only nicking my skin once. From there, I could shrug the tattered remains of the shirt off my left shoulder.

“Are you okay to keep going?” I asked, and she nodded.

“Tell me what to do.”

Her voice still sounded distant and flat, but I did as she said and gave her instructions on how to clean and dress both the entry and exit wounds with the materials she had. That should last until I had a chance to get to a hospital, but I couldn’t say how long that might be. The monitors still showed no sign of Marco or anyone else in the house, though I did notice Thomas starting to stir on the kitchen floor. He wouldn’t be able to get anywhere fast, so for now, the smart move would be for us to stay where we were and keep an eye on him.

When Cara finished patching me up, she went to wash her hands, still not looking at me. This felt like something more than shock, it felt like she wanted to avoid me, so I followed her over to the sink. When she turned around, I was right there and she jumped in surprise, confirming my suspicion.

She looked afraid of me in a way she never had before.

She’d been wary when we first met, but I’d never seen actual fear in her eyes, or at least not fear of me, until now.

I kept my voice as calm and soothing as possible. “What’s going on in your head right now?”

Trying to avoid the question, she ducked her head once more. “I should go check on the maid…”

I put my left hand down on the counter, blocking her path. “She’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about. Tell me what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” She repeated the question in indignation, and though I didn’t want her angry, at least she showed some emotion again. “A man just shot you in my kitchen! That’s not enough?”

“It’s not great,” I agreed, trying to make her smile, but it didn’t work. “That’s not what I mean, though. Why won’t you look at me?”

As if to prove me wrong, she looked up at me fully, those sweet, innocent brown eyes that looked at me with such trust before now clouded with uncertainty. “Will you tell me the truth if I ask you a question?”

It would depend on the question, but at least if she asked it, I would have an idea of what had upset her so much. “I’ll tell you as much as I can.”

Her lips pursed in displeasure at my response, but she went ahead and asked her question anyway.

“Are you trying to hurt my brother?”

~Cara~

My voice shook as I asked Kian the question, but no matter how much the answer would upset me, I needed to know. The whole time I helped him to tend to his injury, trying to ignore the sight of his bare chest and the memory of how it had felt pressed against me in the shower that morning, I turned over everything that happened in the last two weeks, reviewing it all in my head through the wider lens of hindsight.

There were men who wanted to hurt Marco, I knew that much; violent men, men with guns like the one that had just shot Kian. Men who seemed at home in the violence, just like Kian did, handling everything so calmly and methodically. I didn’t know why Kian’s friend would shoot him, but it seemed like too much of a coincidence to be unrelated to everything that took place the night before. Somewhere, there had to be a connection I didn’t understand, and so I asked Kian the one question that haunted me most of all: was he really on the other side?

His blue eyes looked down into mine, as warm as they’d always been, frank and open. “I’m not working with the men who are after him, if that’s what you mean. It looks like Thomas might have been, but I didn’t know that until he just tried to kill me. I had no idea.”

“Why did he try to kill you?” The bigger picture still looked incredibly fuzzy to me. Too much didn’t make sense.

In his eyes, I could see his own frustration. “I’m not entirely sure. When I spoke to Marco on the phone, he said the man he went to see tonight had been tipped off about his intentions, and he was afraid they’d make a move to try to get to you. That’s when he told me about this room. Thomas must have overheard the call or received his own tip-off; I’m not sure, but he guessed that I found him showing up here suspicious and he tried to kill me to get me out of the way. I don’t even want to imagine what he would have done with you. I’m so sorry, Cara. When I gave him the address, I had no idea he was working for Marco’s adversary. Honestly, I didn’t. I wouldn’t have let you anywhere near him if I did.”

His words sounded sincere, but there still had to be more he wasn’t telling me. “And you just happen to be friends with someone who works for the guy who wants to hurt Marco?”

The way his lips tightened told me I was on the right track. “No, I don’t think it’s an accident. I think there’s more to it than I realized. I’ve got quite a few questions I want to ask Thomas, as soon as it’s safe to do so.”

Although he answered each of my questions, they felt like a politician’s answers: a lot of words without very much information at all.

“Come and sit down,” he added, placing his left hand gently on my shoulder. “You’re shaking.”

I hadn’t even noticed, but as soon as he mentioned it, a shudder ran through my body. Kian pulled out one of the chairs at the table for me and grabbed a blanket from the shelves. I’d always thought Marco was crazy with this room, but a whole lot of what I’d always believed to be paranoia on his side made a lot more sense when I knew the full context.

Or some of it, at least. I still felt a long way from knowing the full context.

After wrapping the blanket around my shoulders, Kian sat down next to me. “I know there’s a lot to take in right now, and I don’t have all the answers either, as much as I wish I did. We’re going to have to talk to Marco when he gets back. Hopefully, he won’t take a shot at me too.”

He muttered the last sentence almost under his breath but not quietly enough if he didn’t want me to hear it.

“Why would he be angry with you? You said you’re not working against him.”

“I said I’m not working for the men who are trying to hurt him,” Kian corrected me, though I didn’t understand the difference. “It shouldn’t be much longer until Marco gets back…”

As if on cue, I noticed a movement on the screens on the other side of the room and pointed wordlessly at it. Kian immediately jumped to his feet and went to look.

“Speak of the devil,” he confirmed, looking down at the controls. “How do I open the door?”

Marco had two men with him who searched the house, quickly discovering Thomas in the kitchen. Marco himself went straight into his room, heading for his safe room door.

I got to my feet, placing the blanket down on the table as I unlocked the door. A moment later, he pushed his way in, relief flooding his face when he got a look at me. “Thank God.” Ignoring Kian, he walked over and wrapped his arms around me, taking a deep breath as we hugged each other.

A moment later, he was all business again, taking a step back and gesturing to the space outside the door.

“What the fuck happened out there?” Before either of us could answer, his gaze fell on Kian’s bandaged shoulder. “Were you shot?”

Kian nodded. “Just in the shoulder, thankfully. Cara managed to take the guy down before he did any worse.”

“Cara did?” Marco’s eyes moved to me in so much surprise that I almost felt insulted, even though objectively, I knew that what I’d done had been very out of character.

“She was amazing,” Kian added. “The guy who’s tied up in the kitchen is the one who killed your security guards and turned off your systems.”

“Just one guy?” Disbelief took over Marco’s expression. “How the hell did he get in the gate?”

That might have been a rhetorical question but Kian answered it anyway. “They let him in to drop something off for me. He’s the friend I mentioned to you earlier. I had no idea he would do something like this.”

Marco looked just as confused by that as I had been, but he quickly shook his head. “We can’t stay here, not with the security out. Is there anyone else in here?”

He gestured to the closed bedroom door, and I explained that the maid was inside. His jaw set, he opened the door and told her that she could go home and not come back. He would send her a severance package of two years’ pay, and he called one of his men outside the door to escort her off the property.

When I raised my eyebrows at him, he explained his logic. “It’s one less person for us to worry about tonight. I don’t want to worry about you either, Cara, so you’re going to stay here where it’s safe. Kian can come with me and we’ll get everything else settled.”

Something in the way he said that sounded vaguely threatening, and I could see Kian’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, the only real sign of nerves he ever showed.

I had no intention of getting boxed out now, though. “You can’t lock me away again, Marco. I’m a part of this too. Whatever’s going on, I can help. You heard what Kian said: he would have been shot if it weren’t for me.”

That had been a very lucky break and we both knew it, but Kian backed me up anyway. “I think Cara deserves to make her own decisions. If she wants to go, she should go.”

He and Marco stared each other down for a moment, but eventually, Marco gave in, not wanting to waste time. “Alright, if that’s what you want. But if I give you an order, you follow it. Both of you. I’m not fucking around here, is that clear?”

Both Kian and I gave our word and we followed Marco back to the front door. This time, no one shielded my view from the blood-spattered walls and the dead men in the security room, men I’d spoken to many times before but never known their names.

With the power cut, Marco must not have been able to get into the parking garage. His SUV was on the street, half on the sidewalk, and Thomas was being shoved into the back of it when we walked up, still tied up and gagged as well for good measure. That would make it harder for anyone to ask him any questions, but I supposed we still had to get somewhere safe first. Where we might be going, I had no idea.

Marco hurried Kian and I into the backseat, climbing in after us as his two remaining bodyguards got in the front and quickly drove away from the house.

Before we reached the next street, Kian reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone he’d taken from Thomas earlier. Holding it up to Marco, he offered a suggestion. “If we can break into this, I’m guessing it will give us a direct line to David Park. You want to end this tonight? I think I know a way that we can.”

~Kian~

Things were quickly spinning out of control. Thomas’ gag prevented him from outing me to Marco, but I knew that would only be temporary. As soon as we got somewhere that Thomas could be questioned properly, Marco would start demanding answers, and Thomas wouldn’t hesitate to throw me under the bus to save himself. He’d been ready to shoot me just a half hour ago; selling me out would be child’s play.

I would have to confess first if I wanted to tell my side of the story, but before I did, I wanted to get to the truth. I wanted to know exactly what happened with Matt and how deep Thomas’ involvement with David Park went. I wanted to know the whole story and I wanted a chance to explain myself to Cara too.

After that, all bets were off.

So, when Marco reached for Thomas’ phone after I said we could use it to get in touch with Park, I pulled it back, out of his reach. “Not so fast. I’ll turn it over, along with a whole arsenal of hacking tools that you’ll probably know how to use better than I will, but first, I have a few questions.”

Marco’s eyes narrowed at my request. “This isn’t the time for games, Kian.”

“I agree. I’m not playing. Tell me: have you ever seen this man before tonight?”

I gestured to the boot of the car where Thomas was laid out on the floor, tied up and gagged. If looks could kill, his furious gaze when I made eye contact with him would have slain me faster than any bullet could.

Marco looked back at him too, really looking closely at him for the first time, but ultimately, he shook his head. “No. Why? Should I know who he is?”

That dashed one of my hopes. I’d come up with this crazy idea that maybe Thomas had been the one to kill Matt instead of Marco. If Marco had seen him do it, I would have taken his word for it at this point over the word of my ‘partner’, but Marco said he didn’t know him. I’d have to dig a little deeper, it seemed.

“He’s a cop,” I told Marco truthfully. “But a dirty one, apparently, since he also seems to be on Park’s payroll. You said you went to the police once before and it made things worse, and I’m curious if he was involved. What happened?”

Marco glanced at Cara who was sitting between us, her head moving back and forth as she listened to our conversation, trying to keep up. She had absolutely been on the right track with the questions she’d asked me back in the safe room. She knew it didn’t make sense for me to randomly be friends with someone with a connection to Marco, but I also knew she hadn’t put it all together yet. Her innocence prevented her from seeing the truth, but Marco had no such excuse.

In fact, he looked between me and Thomas warily as I said Thomas was a cop, obviously making connections I would rather he didn’t make yet, but he answered me anyway. “Last year, Park started making noise about some investments that went bad, blaming me for it. He threatened Cara if I didn’t reimburse him personally. I’m not a charity and I’m not in the habit of giving away my own hard-earned money. So yeah, I went to the police. I asked for immunity if I gave them what I had on Park. I knew they’d be aware of him, and the guy I spoke to jumped at the chance. We arranged to meet.”

So far, this didn’t track with what I knew at all. The version of events I’d always heard was that Matt was contacted by someone wanting to inform on Marco, not on David Park. Somehow, Marco found out about the meeting and had both him and the informant killed. That was what the file said.

The file that Thomas showed me.

“I sent one of my men instead of going myself, to make sure it was safe,” Marco continued. “Obviously, that was the right call, because both my employee and the cop were gunned down. News of the meeting got leaked somehow, and I got a message from Park saying he knew what I’d tried to do. His threats got even crazier until he…”

He trailed off, glancing over at Cara, and she prompted him to keep going, just as eager for answers as I was, though her questions were different. “Until he what?”

I had a feeling I already knew the answer to that particular question. What Marco said made a lot of sense. If he had been trying to inform on Park and Park’s men broke it up, that must have been the reason for Cara’s ‘accident’. Park did it as payback for Marco trying to involve the cops and as a warning of how he could get to Cara if he tried. He didn’t kill her, because then he would have nothing left to bargain with.

He just broke her instead.

And if that was all true, which I had to admit it could be, then Marco hadn’t been responsible for Matt’s death at all. It would have come down to a mole in Matt’s team, someone who knew who he was meeting with and why, and who passed the information on to his other employer.

Someone a lot like the man currently tied up in the back of the car.

“We’re all in this together right now,” I reminded Marco when he still hesitated. “The more we know, the more help we can be.”

After all this time, Cara deserved the truth, from both of us. Marco could start.

Marco’s eyes closed in pain and regret, but he didn’t lie to his sister. After a deep breath, he opened his eyes and looked her straight in the face. “He arranged the accident where your hands were injured. He set up the whole thing.”

The colour drained from Cara’s face as she stared at her brother, blinking in disbelief. “That… that can’t be true. No one planned it. It just happened. There was the little girl and…”

Marco didn’t let her finish. “It happened because he wanted it to happen. Those men dropped the bike on your hands on purpose.”

Cara’s head dropped as she looked down at her hands, and I couldn’t begin to imagine what she must be feeling. That it happened at all was a tragedy; that someone had done it on purpose only made it worse.

“You didn’t go after Park then?” I asked. I couldn’t believe Marco would have let that slide. Whether or not he killed Matt, he was clearly still capable of killing when it came to protecting Cara. He killed the man in my flat the night before at the very least.

“I tried.” Marco’s jaw tightened in frustration. “He went deep underground, knowing I was looking for him. He didn’t resurface until the last two weeks, almost as if he knew Cara would be vulnerable.”

The look he threw me made it clear he’d put quite a few things together already. He knew I was involved somehow, even if he didn’t know all the details, and he was right. Without knowing it, I’d put Cara in danger. I thought we were taking Marco down to get justice for Matt, when really, Thomas used me to get close to both Cara and Marco. The information he tried to take from Marco’s computer wouldn’t have ever ended up with the police, I felt completely certain. It probably would have gone straight to David Park, who would have used it to ruin Marco or take over his business for himself.

I’d been so close to playing right into Thomas’ plan, and I had never felt quite so stupid.

Marco was no saint, but he hadn’t killed my friend either. At least for now, we were on the same side, the side that wanted David Park to pay for what he’d done, and with that in mind, I held Thomas’ phone out to him. “Here. Electronics have never been my strong suit, but if you can get into it, I can send Park a message. I’ll pretend to be Thomas and tell Park I’ve got Cara. I’ll tell him I want a bigger payout and that I want it in cash, delivered by him in person, or he’s not getting her.”

“You think he’ll fall for it?”

I answered as truthfully as I could. “I think he knows by now that Thomas will stop at nothing to get what he wants. He’ll have to believe it or he’ll lose his man on the inside. I think he’ll take the risk.”

Marco’s hard gaze pierced into me, trying to decide whether to trust me, but finally, he took the phone from my hand. “I guess we all need to take a risk sometimes.”

Climbing over the back seat, he used Thomas’ own fingerprint to unlock the phone, giving me a smug smirk as he handed it back to me. Why hadn’t I thought of that?

“Make the offer,” Marco instructed. “One way or another, this is ending tonight.”