Chapter Eleven
Christopher
“Where are you heading?” I asked Liam as he shoved his feet into a pair of designer shoes I absolutely hadn’t bought him.
Between the designer shoes, the chain he had on, and a watch that wasn’t as expensive as mine, but I had no doubt he’d be upgrading eventually, I was starting to think I had to get the kid a switchblade.
“Just for a walk.”
“Not work?”
“Not unless something comes up.”
“Would you mind maybe taking your sister with you? Just for an hour?”
“Gotta work?”
No.
Not at all.
But I was going for the bag a day early to see if I could get this whole using a third-party shit to stop.
And I was going to go ahead and not wonder why it mattered so much to me to be the one to pick up the money.
“Just a quick one.”
“Alright. I’ll take her to the museum. She can’t get enough of that place.”
“Thanks, kid. Here,” I said, handing him some cash. “She’s gonna want shit from the gift shop.” She already had five stuffed animals on her bed. And that wasn’t counting the gemstones, books, and a collection of little butterflies that she’d attached to a wall like a swarm.
“Nah, I got it.”
“Wow. That feels weird,” I said, shaking my head.
“What?”
“You’re not supposed to pull an ‘I got it’ until you’re in your twenties. I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to be a mooch until then.”
“I got my own.”
“Christ. Stop growing up,” I grumbled. “Hey, honey,” I said as Charlotte came out of her room. “Your brother is going to take you to the museum. Then we can figure out something for dinner.”
Charlotte was thrilled.
Liam tried to hide how he liked her enthusiasm.
And I grabbed my keys and headed out.
I’d like to claim I had a tingle up my spine or a churning in my stomach. But I felt something more akin to anticipation, maybe even excitement as I looked at the front windows of the pawn shop.
Only to find the lights off and the door locked.
The alarms didn’t go off right away. She was a one-woman operation. If she needed to run an errand or just get out of the store for a few minutes, she had to close it up.
I was about to walk away when the light shone just right into the front door, and I saw something in the back that had me stiffening.
There was crap all over the floor.
Changing my angle, I noticed an overturned shelving unit.
Then, with a sinking sensation in my stomach, a few drops on the floor leading to the door that looked dangerously close to dried blood.
“Alara!”
My hand went to the door, shaking it uselessly.
“Alara!” I pounded on the frame.
It took an embarrassingly long time to remember that as soon as I was back on the job, I’d started carrying the tools of the trade: a knife, gun, and a lock pick set.
I was rusty as hell, and it took me three tries before I got it open. But then my hand was on my gun as I rushed into the store, glancing behind the desk but seeing no one.
“Alara?” My voice was taking on a desperate edge as I followed the blood trail to the back storage room.
And it was chaos.
A whole shelving unit had clearly been overturned.
Boxes and items were scattered everywhere.
Right there, a few feet away from the shelves, was a larger puddle of blood, like someone had paused there to bleed before leaving.
Or before being taken.
I was still standing there, my heartbeat pounding in my ears, a cold sweat breaking out across my skin, when I heard something coming from above me.
A dog barking.
Tuna.
I turned and ran. Out the store, around the block, down the next one, looking for the tiny alley Alara had mentioned.
It was worse than she’d claimed. I needed to turn halfway to the side to run through.
But finally, there was a small opening and a staircase leading up.
Gun in hand, I flew up them, finding another damn locked door. It took actual restraint not to just knock it down, so I reached for my pick set again and worked the locks loose.
And there was Tuna, two feet in from the door, whining.
The apartment smelled like pee. And as I looked, there was a puddle behind the door where Tuna likely couldn’t hold it anymore.
“One second, bud,” I said, closing the door when he tried to rush out. “Alara!” I called, moving through her apartment, finding the bedroom empty, but the bathroom door closed.
Shit.
If she was in there but not answering me…
No.
I wasn’t letting my mind get away from me.
“Alara?” I called, trying to keep the growing panic out of my voice as I knocked.
“Alara, I’m coming in.”
The lock just took a poke from the pick before springing open.
I pushed the door in.
Then there she was.
Sitting on the floor with her back against the tub, her legs pulled into her chest.
“Fuck,” I hissed when my gaze landed on her face.
There was dried blood coming from her nose and lips, crusted on her chin, and on her shirt. And even in the low light of the bathroom, the blue and purple bruises smattering across her face had my stomach cramping.
“Chrissy?” she murmured, her head lifting slowly, like it was too heavy.
“Yeah, sweetheart, it’s me.” I kept my voice small, gentle.
“I’m just gonna take this gun, okay?” I asked, carefully plucking it from her hands, not wanting her to make any kind of mistakes when she was so disassociated.
I placed it on the sink cabinet and was just turning back toward her when Tuna ran into the room, whining and yipping.
“Oh,” she said, surfacing a bit at her dog’s cries. “I need…”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll take him out. Just give me five minutes, okay?”
She made some sort of sound I took for agreement before I strode out of the bathroom, grabbing the dog and his leash and running down the steps.
Once he was finished, I rushed back into the apartment, cleaning up his mess, filling his water, and finding the fancy dog food she’d mentioned at Brio’s house and filling his bowl.
Finished with that, I washed my hands and made my way back to the bathroom.
“Just me,” I said when she jolted. “Tuna is all taken care of, so we can focus fully on you. How long have you been sitting here, baby?”
Her gaze flicked up to me, slow blinking. “I don’t know what time it is.”
“It’s eleven in the morning.”
A soft whimper escaped her as she glanced back out the door toward where we could hear Tuna chowing down on his food.
“He’s okay,” I assured her. Maybe he missed one meal, but he would be fine.
I was more worried about her. “Here, let me get you up,” I said, reaching for her wrists and pulling.
I went slow, aware that she’d likely been sitting on that floor for almost a whole day.
She winced here and there, but it wasn’t until she was fully on her feet that she let out a cry.
“What is it?” I asked, grabbing her elbow as she stumbled.
“My foot. Or ankle. It got caught between shelves.”
“Here,” I said, scooping her up off her feet entirely and setting her down on the cabinet next to the sink. “I’m just gonna look at it,” I said.
Squatting down, I carefully rolled up her pant leg. I didn’t need to get far to see how swollen her ankle and foot had become.
“I’m not gonna pretend to know how to tell if something is wrong here so I’m not gonna fuck with that. I’m gonna clean up your face, though.”
She gave me a nod, and I went in search of a washcloth, wet it, and soaped it up, then went to work on her face, being careful not to press too hard.
It was a painstaking process that revealed a split through her lower lip.
The blood from her nose must have been from pressure, but it didn’t seem broken, thankfully.
“How bad is it?” she asked, minute by minute seeming to come back to herself.
“You’re still gorgeous, but it’s not as easy to see,” I told her, making her snort.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
“My ribs a little.”
“This okay?” I asked, gathering the bottom of her shirt and waiting for her nod before lifting it up.
I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled at the smattering of bruises up her side, tracking back. Glancing behind her, there were thick bands of bruises across her hips and shoulders.
With careful fingers, I probed around her ribs. She gasped but didn’t cry out.
“No breathing issues?”
“No.”
“Okay. I think these are just bruises. Bad ones, but not a sign of something worse. Alara,” I said, dropping her shirt and resting my hand on her thigh. “What the fuck happened?”
“Break-in.” Her gaze dipped as she spoke. “I was between the rows; he shoved one into me. I fell back into the other one. And then the front one crushed me. But a cop pulled down the street. He spooked. And—” She raised a hand.
“Alara, why didn’t you call one of us?”
She shook her head.
“I wasn’t really thinking. I just wanted to get home. And then I guess I just zoned out.”
I could see that.
Alara was a woman who was so confident, so strong, that realizing that even strength wasn’t necessarily enough to keep you safe, could really fuck with the mind.
The first time I really got my ass handed to me, I’d been detached for a week after. Not quite to the extent Alara was, but stuck in my own head for sure.
“How’s your head?” I asked, tipping up her chin to check her pupils.
“Hurts. But I was punched too. It got me more in my ear, but still.”
There was no stopping the growling sound that moved through my chest and out from between my lips.
To that, Alara’s lips curved ever so slightly.
“You all do that,” she observed. “It’s silly,” she added. “But also kind of hot.”
“Yeah,” I said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You’re gonna be alright. But I do think we need to get that foot checked out by Salvatore.”
“Between me and you, I’ve always kind of wanted to be examined by Salvatore ‘the Surgeon’ Costa. What a brag that will be.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “But maybe you could have stubbed a toe or gotten a nasty splinter, not been brutally attacked.”
“Yeah, I’m really not happy about my foot.”
“I think I’m gonna have to piggyback you out of here. Those steps are too steep and narrow to go down carrying you.”