Page 39 of In My Blood
Suddenly the enormous room around me felt too big, and unfamiliar. It was beautiful and luxurious, but it wasn’t mine and it didn’t make me feel secure the way I needed it to. I tried to find some rationality inside of me, but it seemed like it was too late for that. As I sat there trying to convince myself I was fine where I was, my breathing got faster and tears spilled. Images of my Mum mixed with the sounds of the man fromJewels,pinning me down on the cold, rough concrete in that parking lot and my panic just rose higher.
I rose to my feet and ran across the room, opening the first door I came to. It was a closet, a large one, but the space was much smaller than the palatial room I woke in, so I ran in and pulled the door closed behind me. I ran to the farthest corner and collapsed down to my knees there, onto the soft carpet below. Pressing myself into the space, feeling the safety of the two walls meeting at my back, I curled up tightly with my legs against my chest, my head pressed to my knees and I stopped fighting to hold in the fear that was overwhelming every part of me.
The images of my Mum’s body overrode my battle to block them out and then there she was, her cold, lifeless eyes boring into me, demanding to know why I had left her in that apartment to die alone and afraid. I could feel her blood on my skin, smell it in the air all around me. I was back there, in our apartment, alone and terrified into a state of stasis.
CHAPTER 11
ARRAN
“Christ Arran. Just tell me what the fuck’s going on?” Callan asked me for the third time in the last hour. It was my fault. I was doing a shite job of hiding how unsettled I felt after talking to Rafe and Dario about Rafe’s wee sister earlier. Cara. She was just a year or so younger than my brother, but she had seemed so much more innocent and vulnerable than that on the two occasions I had briefly seen her. She was such a tiny wee thing, painfully thin and pale. Her wide eyes only added to the heart wrenching innocence that had hit me right in the centre of my chest when she briefly met my eyes. She was beautiful, but broken. I had seen her broken in the moment that her eyes met mine too. I had recognised it from not just my own reflection, but from the faces of the ramshackle family Callan and I were now a part of.
Ten years ago I had hunted down the De Santis family as an idiotic kid with one thing on his mind – revenge. Now I called Rafe De Santis my brother. The day he had taken Cal and I in had changed everything for us, and now we had family, and a home. I had a job I happily devoted myself to, and my brother had been introduced to a life that had presented him with opportunities to gain a future he never would have been allowed to hope for before. Rafe, Dario, and Dante were my kin in everyway but blood, and that meant that Cara was now a part of my family that I needed to protect too.
And that was why I was so unsettled. Because right then I knew from what Dario and Rafe had told us, the biggest threat to Cara was herself, and I wasn’t sure how I could keep her safe in that scenario. An enemy coming for her I could handle in a heartbeat. Assailants trying to breach the house to get to her I could deal with. But Cara not wanting to live? Cara hurting herself because of the pain and fear that she had been left with no option but to live alongside? I didn’t know how to handle that and it terrified me. I couldn’t allow anything to happen to her. Rafe had searched for her for so long, and we had all been right there with him, even though I had never even known Cara. She mattered to Rafe though, so she mattered to all of us, and we’d all worked with him to try and find her over the years. Now she was back, but she wasn’t safe and she wasn’t whole. And Dante and I had been charged with keeping her safe.
Of course when Rafe asked that of us, he hadn’t meant we should be the ones to fix her emotional and mental health issues. He didn’t expect us to keep her on suicide watch, but I felt the need to protect her in that way too. And not just for Rafe. For Cara. I knew what it was to live in fear and despair. I understood at least on some level, what she was going through and I wanted to be there to help her through it.
“Arran? What the fuck?” Callan laughed. I looked up from where I had completely zoned out and gave him a playful shove. We were both sitting at the large table in the dining room, Callan with his laptop and text books spread around him as he focussed on his work from uni.
“Shouldnae you be working’ hard instead of watchin’ me like some kind of a creeper?” I accused him teasingly.
“I would, but it’s hard to concentrate without you badgering at me constantly like you usually do,” he threw back with a roll of his eyes. He had lost almost all of his Glasgow accent, instead sounding more like Rafe with his hoity London dialect nowadays. No one would ever even believe we were brothers from appearances and accent.
“Cheeky wee shite,” I dismissed him with another shove that had him rocking back just slightly. He was almost as tall as me now, and not much lighter either. It was so hard to believe he was the same kid I had dragged on that nightmare filled journey from our home city of Glasgow, all the way to London with not a penny to my name. He’d been so weak and frail by the time we got to the object of my rage, and I knew I’d made a terrible mistake to put my kid brother through it all, but it was too late to take any of it back by then. Now I just thanked Christ every day that Rafe had taken mercy on us as he did. He saved Callan’s life, and likely mine too.
“It’s Cara, right? Dario warned me she’s in a bad place. You’re worried about her, and in turn about Rafe?” he guessed correctly.
“Rafe willna survive losing her, no’ now he finally got her back again,” I sighed.
“Do you really think that could happen?”
“I hope no’ but she already almost offed herself once. Means she’ll probably do it again, and this time she might succeed.”
“But surely being here will change things for her? She has her brother and sister back, and she doesn’t need to struggle for money anymore. She’s safe now,” Callan reasoned.
“Come on, lad. Ya ken as well as I do, that the chaos inside yer head cannae be cured so easily. No amount of money, or people tellin’ ye that you’re safe, can magically fix what’s broken inside. Only you can do that for yerself, and I dinna think that wee Cara is up to that just yet.”
“We can get her the help she’ll need though,” he argued.
“We can,” I nodded. “And we will, but I just hope it isnae too little, too late for her.”
“I’ll do what I can. I’m the closest in age to her. Maybe we can be friends?” he suggested and I nodded with a smile. Callan was a sweet soul, despite the upbringing he had been subjected to. He would do anything for anyone if it were in his power and I knew he would be a good friend to Cara if she gave him the chance.
“Aye. I hope so,” I nodded. “I’ll leave ye in peace now, and let ye get on wi’ yer studies. I think I’ll head up to my room if ye need me.” Callan just nodded, then turned his attention back to the screen of his laptop. I’d have stayed to watch him work and to ask him about his day, just like I liked to do most nights that he was home, but I knew I was distracting him too much that night with my worries.
Instead I moved through the downstairs, checking the doors and windows were all secure and the alarm system was armed even though I already knew it was from my earlier check. Once I was sure the house was secure, I started up the stairs, headed for my room.
The house was spread over five floors – six if you counted the basement, which housed a gym, the security office, and indoor pool. The first three floors were living space. On the ground floor was the modern kitchen, which led through to the vast dining room, and the main lounge where most of us spent our time relaxing in front of the television when we got the chance.
On the second floor was a more formal lounge which I always referred to as the library, since there was no television in there, and instead the walls were lined with shelves filled with books. The old style Victorian windows in the room looked out over the small garden in the back, and out over Kensington beyond. It was a beautiful room, but not one I ever spent time in. Beside that was Rafe’s office, which was where we handled business if we needed to do so from home. It also housed the entrance to an impenetrable panic room that was built when Rafe bought the place, with Gia and Callan in mind, should we ever be hit at home. It was big enough to fit the entire family should we need it, but if our home were under attack, there was no way Rafe, Dario, Dante, or I would be hiding away. It wasn’t in our nature to do so.
On the third floor was a vast entertainment room. It covered the entire floor and sported a cinema screen with cinema seats, a pool table, air hockey, arcade machines from the nineties, and everything else grown men would think to put in their man cave. It was where most of us spent a lot of our downtime, and where Gia and Callan had loved to hang out the most as they grew up.
The two floors above housed bedrooms. Callan, Dante, and I all had rooms on the fourth floor, and Rafe, Dario, Gia, and now Cara too, had rooms on the very top, and safest floor. There was also a secondary panic room up there, hidden inside the back of Rafe’s dressing room. Countless bathrooms were spreadthrough the space, and there was a utility room beside the kitchen. In short the house had everything that anyone could ever need to live a completely lavish life of luxury, but to all of us it had simply become home – the first and only safe place my brother and I had ever known.
There was a lift in the house, but I never used it. I was too worried of the power to the building being cut and my family being under threat while I stood trapped in that tiny metal box. Instead I ran up the flights of stairs, but didn’t stop when I reached the landing that led to my room. Something was pulling me to check on Cara, and I had learnt a long time ago in life to never ignore my instincts.
I moved quietly up the last set of stairs, not wanting to wake Gia and Cara who had been up there all day, ever since Rafe had brought Cara home. Rafe had been in and out to check on them, and even taken food which Terza had prepared, but he’d told us Cara had been asleep each time he’d been in. I knew Gia had told him Cara had woken with a nightmare at one point, but she’d drifted back off to sleep when Gia held her. It was obvious she had needed the sleep.
