Chapter 40
S ometimes, you can feel chaos lurking in the shadows before it hits.
You can taste it on your lips, feel it coating your skin.
It’s like a little warning light flashes on and off in your peripheral vision.
As I sit in my penthouse with the shell of the woman I love sitting opposite, her secrets and horrors a vast ocean between us, that warning bell is thrumming in the air as chaos mingles with the anguish of today.
Today should be a day for mourning the life lost. Cole was a good soldier, loyal to a fault, and will be missed by more than just his kin.
His death was a harsh reminder of the risks we take each and every day.
I feel like an utter bastard for the relief coursing through me while Liam and Aidan are consumed with grief, but how can I not?
I never dared hope Logan’s theory was right, so to have Helen in front of me, after all this time, is almost more than I can fathom.
“Is anyone going to answer me?” Cora spits, hands on her hips as she stands between us.
Other than confirming what we’d come to suspect—that she’s Logan’s aunt—and refusing to see Doc, Helen hasn’t said a word.
As much as I would love to hold the answers to Cora’s questions, I don’t.
None of us do. I may have my suspicions, but the only person who truly knows what’s going on is Helen.
One look at her pale face and trembling hands makes it clear she won’t be talking anytime soon.
God help anyone who tries to force her. They’ll have to go through me first.
“Cora, come sit down. Please,” Owen tries to convince his wife, but she’s having none of it. If the circumstances were different, I’d be proud of her stubborn streak. She truly is her mother’s daughter, for better or for worse.
“No! It’s clear as shit you all know something I don’t.
I am sick and tired of being kept in the dark.
You saw how well that worked out last time.
Now, can someone please tell me how the hell my mum is sitting here alive?
” she begs, all anger draining from her as tears well up in her eyes.
Her voice breaks on the last word, and she throws her hands up in frustration.
“Darling, I’m so sorry,” Helen chokes out, her face pinched at Cora’s reaction.
She reaches towards her, and, with a sob, Cora throws herself into her mum’s arms. I look at the two of them, at the bruises littering Helen’s arms, and red clouds my vision.
How dare some fucker put his hands on her?
Tear mother and daughter apart? Rob them of precious memories that can never be recreated?
Anyone responsible for one iota of her suffering will receive it back tenfold by the time I’m through with them.
“Why don’t we all get some sleep and revisit this when we’re a bit calmer, yeah?
It’s been a long day for all of us,” I suggest, rising from my seat to tug Cora into my arms. Seeing her cry is like a fucking knife to the heart every time.
It’s my job to make sure she never has reason to, and yet at every turn, I’ve failed her.
Hell, I nearly lost her for good last year.
When I lock eyes with Helen over Cora’s shoulder, the haunted look in her eyes has me scared she’s still as lost as she was before today.
She might be less than ten feet from me, but she looks like she’s miles away, mentally stuck in whatever hell she physically escaped.
As Owen wraps Cora in his arms and leads her out, silence so thick it should be awkward descends on the now-empty penthouse.
If it was anyone else, it would be. But with Helen, I’d sit in silence for a hundred years if that’s what it takes.
Sharing the same air with her is more than I ever thought I’d get.
“This place hasn’t changed a bit,” she finally rasps, breaking the silence.
“I couldn’t bring myself to alter anything,” I confess, watching as she flinches at my words. With a frown I continue, “I really think you should let me get Doc to check you over.”
“I know…just not yet. I can’t face it. Letting another man look at my body…
.” she whispers, looking up at me through her lashes, imploring me to understand.
Her words slice through me. Even without saying the words, she confirms my worst fears, and the need to do something is like a physical itch.
Someone needs to pay for putting that look on her face, and they need to pay now .
Grinding my molars and swallowing back the urge to demand names, I let it lie with little more than a stilted nod.
Whoever laid hands on her is going to fucking pay.
But for now, her safety is top priority, and blowing the lid on my temper isn’t going to help in the slightest. Neither is pushing her to lay her soul bare before she’s ready.
The last thing I want to do is send her running before we’ve even had a chance.
“Come on, then. Let’s get you settled.” As much as I’d rather have her back where she belongs, I’d be a fucking fool to think we can just snap back to how things were.
She might be back from the dead, but it’s clear as day that whatever evil she endured still has its claws buried in her marrow.
Patience might not be my default, but if anyone can draw it out of me, it’s her.
She’s not on her own anymore, and I’ll do whatever it takes to show her that.
My resolve to give her all the time and space she needs is tested when days go by without so much as a peep from her. If it weren’t for the fact the trays of food I’ve been leaving at her door have been cleared, I’d have knocked the damn door down by now.
“Any changes?” Cora sighs, sounding more defeated than I’ve ever heard her.
It’s easy to forget this isn’t just about my selfish needs.
While I might be longing for the woman I love to let us help her, Cora is faced with the reality that the mum she grieved was never really dead, but it may have been better off if she was. It’s a clusterfuck to say the least.
“Nothing. I’m running out of ideas here.
I want to help her, but at the same time, I’m scared pushing her will backfire.
How much space is too much, you know?” I sigh, rubbing my temples as I stare out at the city below.
Questioning if I’m making the right move—wondering if I shouldn’t be doing more—is driving me insane.
Remaining stationary is far from my norm, and knowing the bastards responsible for putting that haunted look in her eyes might still be out there… . It’s unbearable.
With a sigh of her own, Cora answers, “I don’t know, Dad. My instinct is screaming that space is the last thing she needs, but none of us know what she’s been through over the last six years. Maybe there’s a middle ground between space and suffocating.”
Humming to myself, I weigh up what she’s saying.
It’s true there are a lot of gaps between what we know and what we suspect.
She might not be the woman we knew or have the same reactions to things.
All I want to do is take that look out of her eyes and hold her so tight, she never questions her safety again, to hunt her demons down, to do onto them what was done to her, and then present her with their heads on spikes.
“Anyway, I have to go. I promised I’d help Liam and Aidan pack up Cole’s things.
I’ll grab some more of Mum’s things from the storage unit while we’re up there.
” The reminder of the life lost and the shitstorm brewing elsewhere does little to settle my bloodlust. Cole was a fucking kid. He had his whole life ahead of him.
“Give them my best. Remind them anything they need is theirs.” The stubborn fuckers might not speak up, but I’ll be damned if they’re left floundering in their grief alone.
This is a family, in good times and bad.
While the person responsible for Cole’s death may have been dealt with, this shit goes so much further and the second I have names they’ll be my first call.
If anyone deserves a chance at revenge, it’s them.
“Of course. Give Mum my love if you can.” With that, Cora hangs up, and I dial Ciaran.
Just because Helen isn’t ready to talk yet doesn’t mean we can’t start digging in the meantime.
We have enough crumbs to go off, and after Logan and Owen’s discovery in Belfast, we have a body and a house to turn over for answers.
“Yeah?”
“You ready to get your hands bloody?”
“You know I was born ready.” He lets out a dark chuckle before asking, “Who’s on the shit list this time?”
“That’s the question of the day. It’s time for a little recon over in Belfast.”
“I’ll get Bren and a few runners gathered up. We can be on the next ferry out.” Never one to waste time or words, he hangs up, and I brace my palms on the glass window. The sooner we have answers and names, the better, and if sending the Butcher Brothers to Belfast is what it takes, so be it.
I will not rest until every sick fucker involved in Angus’ sex trafficking ring is six feet under.