Page 35 of In My Blood
“You should go, Rafe. Get some sleep yourself. I’ll help Cara get settled and we can let her sleep for a while,” Gia suggested.
The idea of Rafe leaving panicked me in the most irrational way, but when I turned to look at him again I could see how exhausted he looked. I didn’t think he had slept a wink in all of the time he’d been with me in Chicago, and he had to be injured too from fighting off that motherfucker in the car park outsideJewels.
I was being ridiculous feeling nervy about him leaving me and I fully knew it, but I was beginning to understand that he really did care about me, and that he truly had been just desperate to get me back home with him. Knowing that brought back all of my own feelings and memories of how much I had loved him before, and of how safe I used to feel with him. It made me want to latch onto him and never let go, because I didn’t want to be alone anymore, and when Rafe was close, I felt as though I wasn’t.
But how could I admit that? I was a grown woman. I shouldn’t need my brother at my side to be able to function on a basic level. No, what I really needed was to find my strength and learn to stand on my own two feet again. Just because I felt trust in Rafe, didn’t mean I was safe there in London. Someone was after me, for reasons unknown, and so many strangers surrounded me, strangers I didn’t feel able to trust yet. I had to find my strengthagain and keep my wits about me if I was going to stay alive. The true question was whether or not I wanted to stay alive though?
It had been so easy to hold myself under the water in that tub at the hotel and fight my body’s instinct to find oxygen, because I had been broken, and terrified, and so, so very tired of fighting for a life I despised living. I had just wanted it all to end in the desperate hope that what awaited me on the other side would be easier. But when Rafe and Dio brought me back, the terror on their faces, and the fraught way my brother had clung to me, had guilted me into doing better for them, especially for Rafe. Hearing him and Dio discuss the lengths they would go to, in order to stop me attempting to end it all again, had made me put the invasive thought to the side for the time being, and maybe I could keep doing that for a little longer.
Seeing Gia made me want to stick around long enough to ensure she really was as happy and healthy as she seemed. I wanted to know that she would be safe if I gave up. I owed her that much at least after leaving her for so long.
“I’ll be fine. I’m staying right here for tonight,” Rafe said with a note of finality that Gia seemed to know well, because she deflated before me.
When I looked to Rafe, where he was once again crouched at the side of the bed, leaning in closer to me, I saw all of his emotions right there in his eyes. The mask he obviously wore around his men was gone, and I wondered if he realised how open he was right now with just Gia and me. He looked anxious, and stressed out. There was a line in his brow that proved the worry I saw in his features as he studied me too hard.
I tried to push up to sitting again, and this time managed to get my weight on my other arm more successfully. Gia and Rafe both jumped in and moved the pillows, so that they were sat up behind my back for me to lean into.
“I’ll call for a doctor. You at least need some painkillers,” Rafe told me as he helped me to ease back into the pillows and saw the grimace on my face when it tweaked my side.
“No need,” I breathed out, waiting for the pain to pass. “It’s not that bad. If you have some acetaminophen, that will help.”
“What’s that?” Gia questioned as she resituated herself on the bed at my side.
“Paracetamol. Go and see if I have any in my bathroom please, Tesoruccia,” Rafe requested, and I smiled at the term of endearment. Rafe had always called us sweet Italian names when we were small. He spoke the language fluently, a lesson my father insisted on for all of his children. I spoke some too, but my lessons had been cut short when I left. But I remembered the meaning of the words Rafe used.Tesorino– treasure. That was what he had always called me. Then when Gia was born he started to call hertesoruccia– little treasure. He also called us bothGioia, orGioia Mia– which meant happiness, or joy, as in we were his happiness, as he once told me when I asked.
It was such a simple thing – to hear someone shower you with affection with just one little term from their mouth, but I had been missing affection from my life for so long, and every time he did it, it made me feel as if I could burst into tears of relief that he was there, and that he cared. I understood that some people hated to have such terms used to refer to them, but those people didn’t know what it was to be alone and starved of affection foras long as I had been. They didn’t understand how desperately I needed to hear those small nuggets of love far more than I needed to hear my name.
“Should I get heat packs, or ice packs or something too?” Gia asked as she stood and started out of the room.
“Thanks, but I’ll just take a hot shower, if that’s alright?”
“This is your home, Cara. I don’t want you treating it any other way, understood? You don’t ask for permission for anything here, and if there are things you need that aren’t available, you tell me and I’ll ensure you have them.” Rafe told me.
Once I was sure Gia had left the room, I turned a little so I was almost facing him and reached for his hand. He happily slid it into mine when I reached out and I gave it a squeeze as I forced a smile for him.
“You have to get some rest,” I told him. “I know why you don’t want to leave me, and I…I get it. I scared you.”
“That’s a huge bloody understatement, sweetheart. You died on me!”
“I can’t promise you I’m not going anywhere Rafe. I wish I could, but….but I can’t.” I wanted to try and explain how much pain, fear, and exhaustion filled every single part of me, but I didn’t want to hurt him more.
“Don’t you tell me that!” he gasped sharply.
“I will never make promises I can’t keep, not even for you.” I took a deep breath, keeping myself together. “I…I have a lot to figure out…in my head, and I don’t know what I want right now. It’s been so hard and I…” A sob slipped from me, cutting offmy words and instantly Rafe stood and took a seat at my side, pulling me against his chest.
“We can get you some help, if that’s what you need? Someone to help you sort through what’s happened and everything it has left behind for you to deal with. You can talk to me, or Terza. Dio. Anyone. I’ll do anything you need, Cara, but I just really need you to give me a chance, okay? I need you to hold on and see the life you can have here with Gia and me. I will never leave you again. You willneverbe alone again. I need you! Gia needs you! You can’t just give up without letting us try!” His words were a mixture of desperate pleading, and anger. He was angry with me for trying to end things before he even got a chance to change anything, and I got that, but I had held on for eleven years, and that week, in the last few days, everything had come to one horrifying, soul crushing crescendo. I didn’t have any hope, or even energy inside of me to hold on and see what the future might hold. I was too scared to do so.
I swiped at my eyes with the hand that wasn’t clutching Rafe’s, and took a deep breath.
“I’ll try, okay?” I conceded shakily, my voice coming out sounding as drained as I felt. “I’ll give things a chance. I wanted to get to know Gia, and you, so I…I promise you that I’ll try to hold on, okay?”
“I’ll take it for now,” he nodded as he pulled me into a hug again and held me almost too tightly.
“It’s all I have right now.”
“You will come through this. I did not bring you home just to bury you, Cara. I won’t allow you to leave me and Gia! It’s not happening.”
I didn’t have the words of reassurance I knew he needed in that moment. Anything beyond what I had already promised would just be a lie, and I didn’t want to do that, so instead I pulled back from his arms and softly kissed his cheek.
