Leaving the phone on the bed, she crossed the room and kneeled in front of the chest, watching her fingers pop the clamps and lift the heavy lid open.
She frowned and lifted the sheets of colorful paper, paging through them.
“The Royal Bank of Scotland,” she read, realizing they were money.
Some had the euro symbol, which she recognized. There were thousands of them. And most of them emblazoned with the number one hundred.
She shuffled around the piles, digging to the bottom of the case and her hand stilled when she spotted one of his journals resting beneath a scary knife with a wicked curved blade.
She tipped the book, knocking the knife into the pile of money without touching it and sat back on her heels. Her gaze darted to the door, and she bit her lip.
With a twisting knot in her stomach, she unraveled the leather cord wrapped around the book and opened it to a random page.
I started with his tongue, breaking his jaw as easily as Christ broke bread. He gurgled, choking on my blade as I sliced through the muscle. His screams turned inside out, swallowed by the inability to speak, choking on blood and terror. Gagging. Voice stolen, just like hers.
Next I took his teeth, kneeling over him and yanking hard with the pliers I stole from the shed. His eyes begged, but I only saw Innis, the way her withered pride collapsed after Smithy had finished with her. I had no mercy in me.
I left him alive as I peeled back his fingernails, reminding him all the while that he’d never lay a hand on her again. When he passed out from the pain, I stabbed him in the chest, twisting my blade, but he was done.
I cut him into pieces, giving his favorite parts to Rory’s dogs and burying the rest of him deep in the woods. His teeth I dropped in the river and his fingers I burned.
Innis never knew what happened to him, but I can see, when I look in her eye, that she trusts he’ll never bother her again. I made sure of it. And she knows I did so, in a way that will never be undone.
The book fell from her trembling hands and her gaze shot to the empty bed. Her pulse thumped with unsteady guesses, rattling with Poe-like echoes as haunting as the tell-tale heart. Building, until the thrumming was all she could hear.
Her brain throbbed. Her knees pressed into the hardwood floor. Awareness closed around her like a cold blanket sewn of ice.
She threw the book back in the chest and slammed it shut, her feet racing down the hall as a panicked wind seemed to rush her along. Her feet barely touched the steps as her hand burned down the banister, her arm nearly pulling from the socket as she cut the turn close at the last step and ran into the library.
The clean surface of his desk sang of guilty intention. Items were turned with precision, not a single thing out of place. She yanked open the top drawer and found another journal, this one only partially full.
The pages fluttered as she sought the last entry, her breath rushing from her lungs in chopping terror. Spotting blank pages, she dropped the leather book to the desk and paged backward, her fingers trembling.
Today’s date. Her cold fingertip rushed under his beautifully scrolled words, her eyes unblinking as she only read every other word. Tonight. Vengeance. Emery. Love. Peace. Avenge. Monster. Wesley.
Panting, she eyed the window, her frantic stare lost in the rain. Callan was going to kill him. He was going to go to jail because of her. She was going to lose him.
She tore through the pages of the journal, flipping backward, searching for any sign of an address. She knew Blaine was required to stay nearby for the trial but had no idea where, only that he was required to keep his distance from her.
She gasped, spotting the name of a road, her mind doing a rough sketch of where she thought it was.
Ripping the page from the book, she grabbed her car keys and rushed out the door. The laden skies poured over the earth, leaving the ground soggy and drenched in splattering puddles. By the time she got behind the wheel, she was soaked and chilled to the bone.
She shivered, turning over the engine and spraying mud as she backed away from the house. Her body jostled as she plowed the back end of her car into the lawn. Her tires burned over the soft ground, humming with effort until enough friction set them free.
The lines of the road were hardly visible under the heavy onslaught of rain. She sped over a flat sheet of water, her car hydroplaning several times on the way to that country road.
She didn’t think beyond getting to Callan. He couldn’t do this. She couldn’t let him sacrifice his life for hers. He had Uma to think about.
She screamed as the wheels spun through a puddle, sliding her nearly off the road. Her hands tightened, and she panted, body huddled close to the wheel as she squinted through the windshield.
The heavy, rapid beating of the wipers couldn’t keep up with her heart. The drive took years and yet she registered none of it aside from her terror.
She bounced in her seat, slamming to a stop when she spotted Callan’s car parked behind some trees. Squinting through the foggy glass, she saw the silhouette of a building up ahead. Small and narrow. No lights.
Where was Callan?
She jerked open the door, her foot sinking into a puddle and saturating the wool interior of her boot, but not slowing her. Rain doused her hair, its incessant pattering making it impossible to hear.
She ran as fast as she could, sloshing over the wet ground and slamming her body into Callan’s car door. When she yanked it open, it was empty.
“Fuck!” She turned to the house, horrific doubt crushing her lungs.
What if she was too late? What if he wasn’t in there, but Wesley was?
A paralyzing fear that she was there all alone had her back pressing into Callan’s car and her body sliding closer to the ground. All she could see was the house. A small mobile home. No sign of Callan anywhere.
She had to find him. Her palms flattened over the metal exterior, slipping like wet hands glide over Formica.
She was back in the bathroom. Her screams all she could hear as he shoved inside of her.
Her eyes squeezed shut, and she shook her head violently, once again staring into the rain. She forced her legs to straighten.
She looked in Callan’s car again, searching for some kind of weapon but finding none. Was this his car? It smelled of smoke, and a crumpled pack of cigarettes sat in the cup holder, but everything else was exactly as it should be. Did he smoke?
She didn’t even have her phone to use for a flashlight. Her brain worked on some alternate track she never used.
She grabbed an ice scraper from behind the driver seat and crossed the road, creeping in the shadow, closer to the house.
Lightning lit the sky, and she froze like a burglar caught under a spotlight. She raced to a nearby tree, praying she didn’t get struck by a bolt.
A sharp crack ripped a startled cry from her throat, and the sky webbed with white light, breaking like a teacup against the hidden stars. Something caught her eye—a shadow, moving on the porch.
She squinted through the curtain of rain. Fought back the propelling impulse to run back to her car and hide. Her feet sank into the soggy ground as she panicked, unsure what to do.
She couldn’t move. Paralyzed by fear, she could only watch the shadows, waiting for another bolt of lightning to give her a clue.
Her drenched, frozen arms shook violently as she clutched the plastic ice scraper in both hands, holding it out blindly in front of her chest, shaking like a leaf. Her hair clung to her face and her back pressed into the hard bark of the tree.
Thunder rumbled, the storm moving away. She counted in her head, remembering something about the distance of a storm being measured by the space between thunder and lightning.
She blinked rapidly, so she wouldn’t blink when it happened. Her eyes widened against the rain, and she focused on the porch. Then it came, another flash of white light illuminating the empty fields and highlighting the tiny trailer, and she recognized Callan’s familiar build. But then i
t was gone like a mirage in a dessert.
She needed to stop him. “Callan!” She ran, her feet carrying her as her voice screamed through the rain.
Her feet plunged over the swampy ground as her arms pumped at her sides, the ice scraper in a death grip. But when she reached the trailer, fear slowed her steps. She raced around the side, looking for Callan, and finding nothing but an empty rocking chair swaying in the wind.
A hand slapped over her mouth, and she screamed. Wesley’s hard arms held hers down, lifting her wet feet off the ground in a pinwheel of kicks. His hold so tight against her face she couldn’t let out her breath and her cheeks inflated with the pressure of her terrified scream. Her stifled, useless scream.
Chapter Forty
Saratoga Springs, New York—America
Present day
Callan shook Emery with bone-rattling force, trying to penetrate her panic. “Stop screaming,” he hissed, jerking her off her feet and away from the house. “It’s me, Em’ry. I have you.”
Her body quaked violently, soaked through, and her hot breath pressed hard against his fingers covering her mouth. He dragged her into the trees and shook her again.
“Hush, love. Take a breath.”
Her head and neck quaked with a spasm of terror, and she silenced.
“Dinnae scream, Em’ry.” He slowly unclenched her fingers, the shallow pants of her breath jerking into the air with wee puffs of vapor. He set her on her feet and turned her around, scowling hard in her panicked face. “What the bloody fuck are ye doin’ here?”
Her brow pinched as she stared up at him. “Don’t kill him.”
His jaw locked, his nostrils flaring with menace. He grabbed her hand and jerked her behind him, not slowing his steps as he marched her to his car. He opened the passenger side and shoved her in, slamming the door.
He got behind the wheel and ignored her shivering, backing up the dark road without the help of his headlights in the rain, and gripping the wheel so hard he was surprised he didn’t bend it.
Once off the country road, he parked behind a copse of trees. Half a mile down was an abandoned gas station. “Lock the doors, and dinnae fuckin’ get out of this car.”
“Where are you going?” she shouted as he opened the door.
“I’m going to move your car. Where are the keys?”
She looked down and back at him. “I left them in there.”
“Dinnae fuckin’ move.” He slammed the door and ran back to the house.
His clothes were drenched, his muscles pulsing, and his heart a violent battle sound. What the hell was she thinking, coming here? He’d had enough of the women in his life thinkin’ they knew better than him.
He climbed into her car, yanking the seat back and his eyes caught on the torn piece of paper sitting on the passenger seat. He stilled, recognizing his handwriting.
His wet hands lifted the paper, the familiar thickness belonging to his journals. She’d stolen this from him, violated his privacy and nearly gotten herself killed trying to interfere in his plans.
His fingers crumpled the paper, the ink bleeding onto his wet fingers as he backed the car up and sped to the gas station. He parked behind the building and used the walk back to try to calm his temper. It wasnae working.
Wrath boiled under his surface. The rain slowed to a quieter downpour, but a storm still raged on his insides. His long steps crossed the muddied shoulder with frenzied fury as the black sky softened to a deep amethyst.
It was too late. Dawn was coming, and by the time he got her out of here, his opportunity to end Blaine would be gone. How could she take this away from him? Away from her? This was his last chance to avenge her before the courts intervened.
He pounded a fist on the window, saw a flash of movement and heard the snick of the loosening lock. He yanked it open and dinnae spare her a word or a glance, afraid of what he might say if he spoke.
She dinnae speak either. But he could hear her shivering and her teeth chattering between the swiping blades of the wipers, so he turned up the heat and pointed the vents at her.
His molars locked. The weapons strapped to his body pressed into him, their cold metal mocking him for the dim-witted sod he’d become. He could have handled this for her had she not interfered. He needed to do this thing for her and couldnae ignore the thought of another monster on the loose.
“Ye had no right to come here tonight!” he spat, not preparing his argument with anything more than rage.
“You were going to kill him!”
“So what? He deserves to die! Do ye think I have any sympathy for that Godless cunt? I’d enjoy makin’ him scream.”
Her body turned, her back to the door as he drove through the wet vacant streets of Saratoga Springs, its quaint, still life charm at complete odds with the situation.
“And what about when you get caught? What then, Callan? What would happen to Uma? Your house? Your life? What would happen to us?”
Her voice broke in a way he dinnae want to hear right now, so he sneered at her. “I wouldnae get caught. I know what I’m doin’.”
“Like you knew with Smithy?”
Ice twisted in his veins and he nearly swerved off the road. “Where did ye learn that name?” he asked with menacing calm.
“It doesn’t matter. I know he did something terrible to your sister and you cut him up and fed him to dogs.”
A quelling silence enveloped him. This was it then, the way it would end. She finally saw the monster he was.
“I’ll not apologize for doin’ what needed to be done.” He kept his eyes on the road ahead, his speed dropping back as if he could somehow hold her in his life a little longer. “Ye violated my privacy, trespassed in my personal things. Serves ye right for findin’ somethin’ ye dinnae want to see.”
“This is where you went the other night. You were stalking him, planning this all along.”
“He raped you!” he roared, the curling menace of the rolling word penetrating the safety of the car. “I’ll not apologize for defendin’ your honor and seeing vengeance served.” His breath labored as his muscles tightened. “I learned long ago, there’s no justice in this world for the meek. We must protect ourselves, protect what’s ours. You’re my woman, and that filthy scunner put his hands on you—”
“And this is protecting me?” she shrilled. “This isn’t the underbelly of Scotland, and that vigilante shit doesn’t fly here! If you touch him, they’ll catch you. They’ll put you in jail or deport you. I’d be left all alone and—” Her small fist slammed into his arm with a soft swat, and he flinched. “You swore you wouldn’t leave me,” she sobbed.
He debated pulling over but wanted to get her home. “At least you’d be safe from him.”
“He’s one person, Callan, and once he’s sentenced, he’ll never come back here again.”
He scoffed. “Sentenced. He’ll be out in less than four years. I know his type. You aren’t his last victim.”
“Killing him doesn’t nullify my chance of getting hurt again. I need you.”
Her words hung like the echo of a gong, and neither of them spoke for the next mile. His temper cooled, but he knew he’d go back. He’d see to her and get her car out of there, then he’d figure out a way to get to him before they took him into custody for some flimsy retreat they called a sentence.
When he pulled up at the house, he shut his eyes and waited for her to get out of the car. She dinnae move. “Go inside.”
“No.”
“Em’ry,” he snapped. “I’m this close to losin’ the fine hold I’ve left on my temper. Get your arse inside the house. Now.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have to go get yer car.” It would take him hours to move it and jog back to his car then move hers a little more. But he refused to let her get anywhere near that road again.
“I’m not leaving you.”
His fist slammed into the steering wheel, and he practically kicked his way out of the car, snarling
vicious profanities as he rounded the vehicle.
Snatching her door open, he grabbed for her, and she hit him, harmless little swats flicking at his damp sleeves as he hoisted her over his shoulder and landed a firm hand on her arse. “Enough!”
She punched his back and then sagged, accepting he had her beat. He pushed into the silent house and hauled her upstairs, dumping her like a wet kitten onto the bed.
“Now, stay there until I get back.” He turned and paused. “And change into some dry clothes before you catch yer death.”
She bolted off the bed and scrambled to the door, throwing her back into the wood and blocking his exit. “I’m not letting you go back there, Callan.”
His eyes lit with fury. “Dinnae piss me off more than I already am!”
“Why?” she challenged, pointing her chin up at him. “I know you won’t hurt me. The most you’ll do is yell at me, because you’re a good man, Callan.”
“Ye dinnae ken the kind of man I am.”
“I do. I know that you love that little girl down the hall so much it scares you. You think you’ll lose her because you associate love with loss. I know you’re still not over Gavin and no matter how terrible Innis has become, you’d still fight to the death for her if she needed you. I know that man hurt you, and the only reason you let him was to protect those you love.”
Her eyes shimmered as she stared up at him, her body trembling as her wet clothes clung to her skin.
“And I know you love me. You think if you kill Wesley, the hurt will go away, but deep down you know nothing can erase it.” Her fist closed, pressing against her heaving chest. “It’ll always be a part of me, like it’ll always be a part of you. A life sentence we just have to live with. But Callan, I can live with it. I swear I can. But I can’t live without you.”
He stared at her, his voice buried under years of grief, his heart shaking with the weight of the bitter truth.
“They’ll let him walk, Em’ry. Maybe he’ll serve a year or two, but he’ll walk away from this long before ye.” His heart broke. “How is that justice? After what he did to ye...”
Hurt (The Hurt Series, #1) Page 36
