Chapter 31
thirty-one
“Moya lyubov’,” I whisper as I approach her, my steps slow and calculated.
She smiles up at me, but something about it doesn’t sit right.
Her eyes are lazy and unfocused, skin pale.
She repeats the words I say drunkenly, and then she is out.
Ava’s eyes roll back in her head, and she slumps against the wall behind her.
My heart stutters.
Don’t let her be dead.
I rush forward, two fingers going for her carotid. Her pulse is weak, but it is there, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Motherfuckers,” Liam hisses at the sight of his daughter.
Dirt and blood mar her skin and hair. The usual bright ginger locks are wet and cling to her fevered brow.
She is chained to the wall by her wrists.
The skin beneath the manacles is shredded and raw.
Pride swells in my chest despite the pain of seeing her injured.
Those wounds tell me she fought to get free.
My little psycho.
“Seamus,” Liam shouts to his son. “Search the guard for keys.”
The youngest of the twins stands rooted to his spot in the doorway, eyes round as saucers, mouth gaping in horror as he stares at his sister. He doesn’t move, not until Kiernan approaches him from behind and whispers something in his ear.
The kid looks wrecked at the scene before him.
Meanwhile, Kiernan shoves it all down, his eyes empty and cold.
The pair are perfect copies of one another in every way except personality.
Seamus wears his emotions like a shield, carrying it all on his sleeve, while Kiernan represses until it explodes.
A blanket lies over her chest, barely covering her. It is soaked in blood. I shuck it aside, hissing angrily at the sight of her. Pain reverberates through me deeper than the slices through her skin.
I’m so sorry, my love.
I prayed to find my wife, and it was answered.
I only wish it was sooner.
Every inch of her is covered in cuts. Some shallow, others so deep they will need stitches. Her face is bloodied, but I can make out the bruising beneath the caked blood. Her ribs are marred black and blue.
If I ever get my hands on the person who does this to her, they will beg for death by the time I am through with them, and I still won’t let them die. I will make them suffer as they made her suffer. Cut them up piece by piece until there is nothing left.
Seamus rushes back into the room, fumbling with a set of keys. Liam makes quick work of the manacles. Ava doesn’t move as he removes them. The right first, then the left.
She is too fucking still.
“Please, Red.” I gently take her in my arms, cradling her to my chest. “Please don’t leave me.”
Fuck, she is cold. Too cold.
“Let’s get this on her.” Liam pulls a small container of Quick Clot from his bag.
Opening the top, he slowly pours the powder over her wounds, his gaze traveling to her face every few seconds, making sure he isn’t causing her any pain.
Once he is done coating her in the powder, he removes his jacket, his sons following suit, and covers her naked body in them.
It isn’t much, but it will help conserve any heat she has left.
“Let’s get her the fuck out of here,” Liam growls, his eyes lighting up like a raging inferno as he stares down at his daughter. “We don’t have much time before the shock becomes irreversible.”
Nodding in agreement, I hoist her further into my arms, careful not to jostle her too much. Her body is listless against mine, and my heart fucking shatters into a million pieces as regret just as palpable as the rage courses through me.
What if I never see her open those beautiful emerald eyes again? I still haven’t apologized or made my amends. All I want to do is tell her I love her. That I need her, and that the months we spent apart were agony.
This is my fault. I was blind and selfish. I was the one who pushed her away time after time because I was too afraid to face my fears. To face the truth.
That she is mine and I am hers.
Ava owns me.
Heart and soul.
I know that from the moment she cast her fearful eyes on me in Elias’s office over a year ago. I was just too blind and stupid to see it.
And now it might be too late.
“Don’t leave me, Krasnyy,” I whisper desperately into her hair as we make our way back into the main house. The minute we step out of the doorway, the comm signal registers our movement.
“We’ve got a helicopter standing by on the front lawn,” Mark informs me. He must be monitoring our signals.
“Inform Dr. Radick that he needs to have a team meet me at the Kavanaughs’ within the hour,” I instruct him as I stride through the front door of the mansion. “Tell him I’ll pay him double his usual rate.”
Mark curses. “Will do.”
“We’re ready to go, Matt.” Vas motions for me to follow him to where our transportation waits, ready to take off.
It is a hot load. We keep our heads low, avoiding the blades.
Liam nods at his two sons as he trails behind me.
Once we reach the helicopter, he loads himself inside, motioning for me to hand Ava to him.
I hesitate to let her go, even to him, but it is foolish to think I can get us both inside with her in my arms.
“It’s okay,” Liam yells over the whir of the blades. “You’ll get her right back, I promise.”
Swallowing back the lump of anxiety in my throat, I nod, carefully placing my wife in his arms before climbing up myself. Liam gently kisses her forehead before he arranges her on my lap. When we are all settled, Vas signals the pilot, and we are off, the ground fading fast below us.
Vas positions a pair of headphones over my ears that hold a mic so we can communicate. Helicopters aren’t quiet by any means.
“No sign of any Seamus look-alike,” he informs me, a scowl covering his face as he takes in my wife’s battered state. “But we did take some of the guards alive.”
“You can use my place if you need to,” Liam offers, but Vas shakes his head.
“Thanks, but we have a special place just for this.” He smirks cruelly. “And trust me when I say we’re all gonna take pleasure in what comes next.”
I agree.
“Have Mark check to see if he can get any footage from the cameras inside the house and basement. There were several set up.”
Vas nods and takes out his phone.
Leaning my head back against the seat, I close my eyes and let the comfort of having my wife in my arms wash over me.
“She’ll have a long road ahead of her.” Liam sighs. “Ava might try to push you away, but she’ll need you.”
I am well aware of my wife’s stubbornness, and I have no intention of letting her block my help at every turn. I will be there for her every step of the way, whether she likes it or not.
“Who is Noah Kelly?” I ask my father-in-law. Liam tenses in his seat, just like he does at the mansion.
“A ghost,” he snarls. “A dead one.”
“How dead?”
“Shot him point blank through the head with a forty-five.”
“That’s pretty dead,” I agree. Liam nods.
“Who was he to you?”
Liam Kavanaugh is not known for being easily rattled, but the mention of one man’s name shakes him off balance.
“A long time ago, the McDonough clan was split in two.” He lets out a frustrated sigh, running a hand down his face, looking defeated. “There had been a long bloody war between two brothers. Twins, funnily enough.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Liam blows out his cheeks. “Ava belongs to the McDonoughs of the north. What many in Ireland consider the ‘true blood’ clan. Noah Kelly is the descendant of the second clan. A clan so far removed from McDonough blood that they are barely recognized anymore.”
I keep silent, letting him continue. “We grew up together in Boston. Noah and I. We were best mates until his father and Katherine’s arrange for them to be married.”
“Because you loved her.” It doesn’t take a psychic to know that.
Liam nods. “We’d been seeing each other for some time behind our families’ backs,” he admits. “They were friends, but my family doesn’t come from wealth and prestige like Ava’s. My grandfather is her grandfather’s second. A soldier. And my father followed suit.”
“I assume you told them.”
“Yeah.” Liam chuckles. “Seamus…” He pauses for a moment, pain lancing through his grief-stricken eyes.
“The man I believe was Seamus was furious. He told us to end it. That he won’t put the treaty at risk for silly infatuation.
” He takes a breath before continuing. “Katherine was a firecracker, though. Stubborn as a mule too.”
I chuckle at that. Ava is just like her then.
“She threatened to disown him.” He snorts in amusement. “Strolled right into his office during a meeting and told him that if he didn’t call off the arranged marriage, she would leave, and he’d be left with no heir.”
“He could have just appointed someone,” I point out, but Liam shakes his head.
“It may work that way in the Bratva, but clans are blood-only successions,” Liam divulges. “No one but a blood relative can inherit. That means not even a wife.”
“And Katherine was an only child.”
“She was.” He hesitates again, thinking over what he is about to divulge to me. “Part of me thinks she wasn’t, though.”
“Why do you say that?” Nothing in Katherine McDonough’s history gives way to the theory that she wasn’t an only child. I searched through Sheila McDonough’s hospital report the night she gave birth, and there didn’t appear to be any discrepancies.
“Right before we moved to Seattle for college, Katherine started acting…off.” Liam taps his fingers on his jean-clad knee. “She was spitting out nonsense about her father not being her father.”
“Which we now know is the truth,” I remind him.
“That we were being watched,” he keeps going. “She began to distance herself from Marianne. Katherine planned to move in with me after I got back from my Portland trip. The two of them had been falling out for a while, but I never knew why.”
“You.”
Liam shoots me a puzzled look.
“Me?” he questions. “That makes no sense. Marianne never had any interest in me. She was always head over heels for Noah. Another reason why I shot him.”
“I’m going to throw you a bone here, because I think you deserve it.” I clear my throat. “But Ava needs to be the one to tell you the whole story and what she found.”
“If this is about her theory that Marianne is somehow involved in Katherine’s disappearance,” he grumbles, “she already told me.”
“Did you listen?” I wonder. “Or did you brush her off like you did when she tried to warn you about the Seamus doppelg?nger?”
Shame is etched into every pore, his shoulders sagging with the weight of his guilt.
“I can understand that her poking at the people you’ve known your entire life can be painful,” I assure him. “But if you ever make my wife feel like she is worthless or crazy, or you make her cry because you dismiss her thoughts again,” my voice turns cold, venomous, “I’ll kill you.”
Silence follows my declaration. The only sound in the copter comes from the blades slicing through the chilly air and the hum of the motor that shakes our feet. Liam’s gaze holds mine, unblinking for several moments, before he gradually shakes his head, acknowledging my words with a deep smirk.
“Break my daughter’s heart again, and I’ll give her yours.”
I chuckle. “Deal.”
“You two are fucked up,” Vas grunts from his seat, rolling his eyes. “Seek therapy.”