Page 15 of In My Blood
“Yes, he was a criminal, although, technically, our whole family, except for you and Gia, are criminals. Dad did terrible things to maintain power and make money. Since he died I have doneeverything I can to make our business legitimate and get us away from crime, but it’s not an easy thing to do.”
“Just Gia,” I corrected him, and he looked to me with puzzlement.
“I’m one too….a criminal. I did terrible things,” I admitted blankly.
“Cara….”
“What happens now?” I asked instead.
“Firstly I want to get you the hell out of here and somewhere safe. I want a doctor to check you over and we’ll spend the night so you can get some rest. Tomorrow you and I will get back on my jet and we’ll go home,” he told me plainly.
“Home?” I scoffed as I pushed my face back under my arms and against my knees. He sat in my home, now a murder scene that most people wouldn’t even want to watch on screen, in one of those crime drama shows on television.
“Home to London, Cara. I have a new house now. I sold the family estate years ago. I want you to be with Gia and I, at home where you belong,” he told me, the same thing he’d said earlier. He made it sound so simple, but he didn’t know what the last eleven years had cost me, I supposed. When he found out, he wouldn’t be so keen to take me back to his wealthy, happy life.
“No,” I shook my head. “You…you should go. I….I’m happy I saw you, but you h-have to just go now. I need to call the cops and I…..I have so much to do. You need to go,” I told him as panic set in and suddenly I felt the need to be alone.
“We’re not leaving, Cara. Not without you,” Rafe said flatly.
“Yes, you have to. The cops….they‘ll come soon and I…I have to clean and you…..well, you’re a criminal. You both shouldn’t….you should go before they come, right? You should leave. I c-can handle this….can tell them I f-found her and they….they’ll keep me safe. I’ll be fine. I’m always fine. You need to go. Kyle too. Is he a criminal?...You know what? It does-doesn’t matter, does it, because….because you… you’re all leaving and I….I c-can’t go. I don’t…I mean I don’t even have a passport, and even if I did…which I don’t….but if I did I wouldn’t fit in. I’m not your real family, and home….this is my home….this is where I belong,” I garbled on and on, the words coming out so fast, shaky, and stuttered that I was pretty sure neither of them caught a word.
I uncurled myself and tried to stand as I spoke, pressing myself against the wall and barely getting upright as I went on. “I won’t mention you….o-or the mafia part anyway, to the cops I mean. I won’t….I’ll just….” My words died down as heat rushed up my body so fast I barely had time to register it before nausea and darkness swept over me simultaneously too, and then I was out.
CHAPTER 5
RAFE
“CARA!” I just managed to catch her as she passed out and fainted right into my arms. Luckily, I’d stood when she started to try and move, so I was able to get a hold of her quickly.
She was so light in my arms, it terrified me. She couldn’t have weighed more than eighty pounds, and she felt so fragile against me. She was shaking hard and her whole body was as cold as ice. Her hair was dark, just as it had always been. Most of it was curled up into some kind of knot on her head, but stray strands hung loosely and I saw the curls in them she had always had. Her face was dangerously thin and her eyes were ringed with dark circles, her whole face blotchy and red from hours of crying. Her eyes were exactly like my own, I had noticed as she watched me so warily, a feature we both took from our mother.
“Dario?” He rushed over to me and felt for Cara’s pulse. I remained silent as I cradled her close and just waited.
“Her pulse is steady, but pretty slow. I think she just passed out, but she’s likely dehydrated. Kyle said he tried to get her to drink, but she wouldn’t respond to him,” Dario explained. I knew Kyle had briefly spoken when we entered the tiny box that apparently passed for an apartment, but at the time all I had been focussed on was seeing the sister I had been searching for, for so long.
“She’s so cold,” I told him and he felt the back of her neck, and nodded his agreement.
“We don’t know how long she’s been sat with that body. Her clothes are covered with blood that has soaked into them and dried hard. She’s definitely in shock too. We need a doctor to check her over,” he told me, all of which I would have realised if I could just make myself think straight through the panic for Cara.
“Sit here with her for a minute and I’ll arrange a secure hotel and the doctor Kyle mentioned before, to meet us there.”
“Yeah,” I nodded and moved to perch on the end of the rickety bed that sat at the centre of the room. It made a loud clunk when I lowered my weight onto it, and I cuddled Cara closer in case it fell to pieces beneath me. “See if you can grab any of her stuff. She’s not coming back here,” I added. Dar just nodded, as he shucked off his suit jacket and draped it over her back, then he left the room.
“You’re coming home with me, sweetheart. I won’t ever let you down again, I swear it,” I whispered.
I had failed her so epically the day I sent her off on that flight with our mother. I had thought I was so smart back then, so sure my mother would do as I told her and just sit pretty until I could come to take Cara back. I’d been an idiot and Cara had been taken from my life for so many years because of it. I’d never ever forgive myself for that, as well I shouldn’t.
But seeing Cara now, I already knew she had been through so very much worse in the years we were apart. She was too thin, too pale. There were two small scars I could see on her face – one just below her hair line on the right side of her forehead, and a bigger one near her left ear that looked more recent. Her handswere rough and dry, and I had a feeling she had been working incredibly hard for some time, to have caused them to end up that way. She looked exhausted and worn down, and that wasn’t just from the nightmare she had lived for the last two days. It ran deeper than that. I had seen it in her eyes when she spoke to me. She was ready to give up and I dreaded to think what had gotten her to that point in her life.
What had she been through? Were there more scars on her body? How many times had I failed her as she waited for me to just keep my promise and come for her?I needed the answers to all of my questions and so many more, even though I knew they would tear me apart with guilt. But they should. It was the least I deserved for what I had done to my sister.
***
“Rafe? Can we talk for a minute?” Dario asked me. We were in the penthouse of a high rise hotel in the city. Cara hadn’t woken as Dario helped me get her into the car, then back out again and up to the suite. It had been a relief when Kyle showed up with his brother in tow, shortly after we arrived. I really had no clue what Cara had been through. For all I knew she could have been in that crappy flat when those men arrived there. They could have hurt her and I wouldn’t even know, so I needed the doctor to check her over. I had to know for sure that she was unharmed, physically at least.
I stood from where I had been leant against the doorway of the room Cara was laid in. I had settled her in the centre of the large bed in there as soon as we got back, and in it she had looked even smaller and more vulnerable.
The doctor – Xander, Kyle had told us his name was - was still with her. He’d removed the blood-soaked clothes she wore with my help, and now Cara lay under a blanket in her underwear and a black vest. It had killed me to see how thin, and almost emaciated, she looked beneath the clothes she’d been hiding behind. There were other scars on her body too. I had seen two raised lines on her left leg, and felt one on the back of her shoulder as I pulled off the top she wore. I hadn’t had chance to see if there were others, but the ones I had seen had been enough to make me want to throw up. I should have been there to protect her – to make sure nothing and no one could ever hurt her or leave marks on her body.
