Page 26 of In My Blood
Rafe carried me into the hotel wrapped in the blanket he had covered me with in the car. My leggings were in tatters and my underwear was gone completely. I knew I was bleeding down my thighs because I had felt it, but I also felt numb to it all. The entire drive back there I had sat in Rafe’s lap, curled up as tight as I could, my face pressed against his bloody shirt in a desperate attempt to just hide from everything. Dio and Brax had gone in separate directions when we got off of the elevator, and so it was just Rafe and I that walked into the suite that I had fled from earlier. I was relieved for that at least. I wasn’t ready to deal with more people around me.
“I need your help,Tesorino. I don’t know what you need right now,” he told me as he sat down and settled me in his lap.
“Me either,” I uttered as I lifted my head just enough to meet his eyes. “I think I’ve had enough now, actually Rafe.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt you again, Cara. You just have to try and trust me.”
“I know. I think I believe you,” I whispered. “But I…I think it’s too late. I’m so tired.”
“Of course you are. You’ve been through so much, but once we get you home you can let me look after you. Terza and Gia too. You won’t be alone any more. You’ll have all of us to be there for you, whatever you need.”
He wasn’t listening to me, and I understood that. He didn’t know what had happened to me before the last few days. He didn’t know that I was already fighting so hard to just get through every day of the nightmarish life I lived, and nor did he know the horror of the fears, memories, and lasting scars of my past. He didn’t know I had been hit, hurt, abused, starved, manipulated, and so, so much more in my childhood. He just saw what had happened that week and assured himself I would get better – that I’d get over it all. While he’d spent the last eleven years searching for me, I’d been fighting a constant and never relenting war that I had just lost, for the last time.
“A bath,” I said instead. “I think a bath w-would be good first.”
“I think we can handle that between us,” he told me with a forced smile. I nodded and clung to him as he stood and carried me through to the en-suite I had used earlier. There was a large claw-foot tub in the corner, which fit in perfectly with the lavish theme the small room had going on.
Rafe set me down on top of the closed toilet as he set the taps running and threw in some of the complimentary body wash to make bubbles.
“You used to love a bubble bath when you were little. I could never get you to get out, not even when your fingers went all wrinkly and the water was too cool to sit in any longer,” he told me.
“I seem to remember bribery worked quite well,” I reminded him tiredly. “Two squares of chocolate and I was anyone’s.” I slumped sideways and leaned my head against the cold tiles. I knew I should be falling apart, but I didn’t have it in me. I was so tired and drained. Rafe studied me, then came closer and crouched before me, placing his hands on my blanket covered knees.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Cara. I don’t even know how many times I’ve failed you in your life. It’s little wonder you don’t trust me,” he told me.
“You’re a good brother, Rafe. You always were,” I told him as I placed my hand over his. “None of this is your fault, nor is what happens next. Mum took me from you. You tried to f-find me. You tried to save me. That means more than you can know.”
“I want the chance to be a good brother again, sweetheart. Please just give me a chance,” he pleaded.
“Everything will be okay,” I told him, not able to give him the answer he both needed and wanted. I pressed my hand to the side of his face and used my thumb to wipe away a tear that was running down his cheek. “Everything’s as it should be now, okay?”
“It will be, when we get home. I’ll make sure of it,” he told me, and I just nodded.
“Maybe you could find me some clothes and get some food while I have a soak?” I suggested.
“Yeah.” He swiped at his eyes and forced an emotional smile. “I’ll do that. You need to try and eat. I’ll see if we can bring that doctor back to take care of you too.”
“I’m okay, Rafe. Everything’s gonna be better now,” I assured him.
“It is,” he nodded. “I promise it is.” I watched as he got to his feet and backed towards the door, as if he didn’t dare leave me. “I’ll be close by so just call out if you need me, okayGioia?”
I nodded again, then watched him leave. He closed the door behind him and instantly tears started falling down my cheeks. I moved to shut off the taps of the bath and almost cried out as agony tore through my core. It was still wet with blood between my legs and the pain seemed unbearable. My head was throbbing angrily too and I felt weaker and more broken than I had ever felt in my life. I had always been a fighter, but over the years that fight inside of me had been dwindling more and more as the obstacles just became harder and harder to get over, and put behind me. Now the last of my fight was gone and I just felt defeated, utterly, and completely. I didn’t have anything left to fight for, and I didn’t give a damn about fighting for myself.
Slowly and with an overwhelming amount of pain I managed to get out of my clothes. The soles of my feet stung with every step, and the tears refused to stop flowing, but I managed to lower myself into the warm water of the bubble filled tub. I half laughed, half sobbed at the amount of bubbles surrounding me. I had never had a single bubble bath since I left Rafe, and my home all those years ago. It seemed fitting that it should all end in one now.
DARIO
“Here mate.” I turned and nodded to Brax who handed me a clean t-shirt. I was in his room. He’d suggested I go with him to clean up and I had agreed. I was covered with blood. We’d belucky if no one called the police on me, because they surely had to have seen me walk through the lobby, despite the fact I’d had Dom’s coat covering most of me. Thankfully, it had been in the boot of the car, but it hadn’t been enough to cover all of the blood in which I was drenched.
“Cheers.” I took the shirt and pulled it on. I’d taken a shower and shampooed my hair three times to get out all of the fragments of that bastard’s face. I looked like I was back to myself, but I didn’t feel it. Inside I was raging still and desperate to hit something else. If only Brax and Rafe hadn’t killed the fuckers they’d been dealing with, I could have torn them to pieces too.
I wasn’t a good man. I knew that. Rafe knew it too. We had both been forced to do things when we were younger that could never leave us good men. We’d got our hands dirty plenty since then too. It was the cost of the business we were still mixed up in. Threats came and you had to deal with them. Issues arose and blood was the only answer criminals respected and understood. No, we weren’t good men, but I had never in my life lost control the way I had that night.
Something overcame me when I saw that fucker on top of Cara, raping her. She’d been beaten too, and she was crying out, begging him to stop. I just lost it. Once I started hitting him, I couldn’t stop, and even after I knew he was dead I started kicking him, unable to rein in the rabidness that had overtaken me.
I told myself it was because Cara was family. I tried to convince myself I’d lost it like that because I knew Cara when she was a kid, and I felt the need to protect her after what she had already been through, but it was more than that and I knew it.
I wouldn’t admit it, mainly because Rafe would likely kill me for even thinking it, but I was drawn to Cara since the first moment I saw her hiding in that wardrobe in her apartment. She had become a beautiful woman, with her wide eyes, thick lashes, sultry pouty lips, and her beautiful, porcelain pale skin. She’d been so scared that night, and all I had wanted to do was lift her into my arms and hold her so tight no one could ever touch her again.
