Page 20 of Avenging Laura

“Mess with her how?”

“They wore her down. Threatened me, my career with the Army, anything and everything pretty much. They pushed her to marry the son of one of Dad’s friends who was in the Marines. Allowed the man to abuse her, mentally and physically. I didn’t know about it because she kept it from me.”

“Fucking arsehat is what he is,” Highlander grumbled, sitting down in the chair next to Laura’s bed as he held her hand as best he could.

“Yeah. He definitely is that. He beat on her, constantly put her down. Cheated on her every chance he could. Even slept with Maria and bragged about it. Because Cody has a hearing loss like Laura does, Jon refused to accept him as his son. That is why I left the Army. I found out from a frantic call from Cody shortly after we landed back in the US after a mission that Laura was in the hospital after Jon and Dad had beat her pretty bad because she refused to resign from the Sheriff’s Department,” Dominick admitted, looking over at Laura lying in the bed.

“Do you think your mother knew about the side business?” General McCoy decided to cut to the chase.

“As a son, I want to say no. To be honest, I don’t see how she didn’t with the way she has done things. I personally think she did know, but, as long as they left her alone, she didn’t care. My mother was a selfish person.”

“I have to agree with my grandson. She was always that way when she was growing up. Threw temper tantrums when told no. Grounding her didn’t work. I think, in a way, when the whole thing with David went down the way it did, I’m ashamed to admit we were glad she was being taken out of our hands and had no problem giving him the money he demanded. I’m just ashamed where the two grandkids are concerned,” Jeannette admitted, looking over at Laura’s prone body.

“Enough regrets. Now is not the time to dwell on them. We need to focus on finding these people and ending them for good. My daughter and grandchildren deserve to be safe from them,” General McCoy advised the elderly woman. “My daughter and her brother obviously love you. That’s good enough for me.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

God there was so much pain. Everything freaking hurt. So much for believing that when you died everything healed and was better. But then again, that was if you went to heaven. She must have been sent to hell.

“We are going to slowly ween her off the sedatives. She’s going to be in some serious pain with all the injuries she’s sustained. The best we can do is help her through it.”

Who the fuck was that? Laura fought the fogginess that had engulfed her. God everything hurt like a motherfucker!

“Her heart rate is elevated. That’s going to be normal with her coming out of the induced coma. She doesn’t really know where she is. Keep talking to her and let her know that you are here with her.”

“Hey, lass. I’m here. I haven’t left ye side since we found ye. I love ye so much.”

Joe. He found her. She knew he would. Wait. Does he know what all Cyrus and Ziegler did to her? Does he know she was ruined? Would he still want her if he did?

Were her kids safe? Did Cyrus make good on his promise to take her kids and make them know they were being hurt because of her? Oh God!

“Calm down, lass. Ye are safe. They can’t hurt ye anymore. I’ve got ye, love.”

“K-k-k…”

Laura couldn’t speak around whatever was in her mouth. That sent her fear and anxiety skyrocketing again.

“Settle, love. Ye have a tube in your throat that helped ye breathe while ye were in an induced coma. The wee ones are safe. They are protected to the nines. Ash is with them. I promise ye they are safe.”

Soon as she heard that Ash was with the kids, she settled down and relaxed. She knew he would burn the world down for those kids. Especially Ryleigh. Ryleigh was the only one who could get a reaction out of the gruff, silent man.

“Ma’am, I’m Dr. Bowers. I have Nurse Blakely with me. We’re going to remove the tube from your throat. It will be a little uncomfortable for a few moments. Just have patience while we get it out. Okay?”

All Laura could do was nod. The tube down her throat was the least of her worries. She just wanted to bury herself in the darkness away from everyone and everything. She couldn’t deal with it right now. She wished they would put her back to sleep for a while longer.

“Ok, I’m going to give her some meds to help her calm down. I think in her mind she’s still where you guys found her. Let her sleep for a little more while we take the tube out and recheck her injuries. I don’t want her causing herself more harm.”

Laura welcomed the darkness as the drugs they were administering slowly made their way into her system. She could hear the heavy sigh that was made by someone next to her. She could understand how they felt.

Laura slowly came awake, pain overtaking her when she tried to move her arm. She felt a heaviness on one of her hands.She heard a moan as she tried to slowly extract said hand from underneath whatever was laying on it.

“I’m sorry, lass. Are ye ok?”

“W-w-water,” Laura’s voice croaked when she spoke.

“Here, love.”

When Highlander placed the straw in front of her lips so that she could drink the cold water, she couldn’t help but sigh from the feel of the water as it ran down her parched throat. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes and breathed as deep as she could for several seconds.

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