Each one struck one of Markus’s vital organs. He hit the manure as if the shots liquefied his insides. Since two of the bullets lodged in the man’s skull, she didn’t wait.
Cara tucked the gun into the front of her pants, used the wall for leverage, and then staggered toward Tyler. She plunged through the barn door but hugged the first open stall to keep from collapsing.
“Cara!” Tyler’s cry was hoarse. Weak or not, it strummed her heart. Tears she hadn’t allowed tumbled down her face.
His gaze, hidden behind swollen and split brows, roamed her head to toe. That sturdy jaw she’d come to rely upon quaked once and then steadied.
“About time.” He smiled.
“Me?” Cara laughed and sobbed. “I expected a higher body count from a Base Branch operative.”
He shrugged. A grimace followed. “Bastards waited to pounce until I was jerking it in the shower.”
“So really it’s all my fault?” Cara looked for something to get him down. There was no way she could lift him in her condition. Her limbs quivered from holding herself upright.
Tyler gave a shallow laugh. “What do you say I let you make it up to me?”
“Sounds good.”
A wooden sawhorse acted as a saddle holder for two large horned saddles. Cara shuffled over and shoved them onto the ground. She pulled the trestle along, praying her lungs would withstand the work. The finger inside her body and the others around it had fallen asleep a while ago. Every inhale returned less and less oxygen.
“Cara, stop. Sit down.”
If she’d had the breath, she’d have told him the dominant stuff only worked in the bedroom, and only to a certain degree. Instead, each trudged step gave her answer.
“Stubborn woman. Passing out won’t help either of us.”
A chill thrashed its way through Cara’s torso, split, and veered down her extremities, but she pushed on. Getting Tyler down and his leg elevated was as critical as her getting to a hospital right the fuck now. With each breath, energy seeped from her body. Her fingertips tingled. The edges of the barn blurred.
She dragged one foot at a time through the hay and muck, creating deep trenches in her wake. Then she towed the heavy wooden A-frame, its four feet creating far more drag. The closer she got to him, the slower her progress became. Through every step, her gaze never left Tyler.
His ocean deep eyes never wavered. They pulled her forward. He lent her strength and courage through the terror. Because each breath grew more and more shallow.
Finally, she stood—hunched—inches from his blood-streaked body. His scent tempted her with faint whiffs, more like a hazy, beautiful dream than reality. With one hand on the sawhorse and one plugging the hole in her chest, and doing a shitty job of it, she could touch him. If she let go of either, she wouldn’t have the energy to grab them again.
Cara leaned forward. A bone-deep throb started in her chest and traveled throughout her skeleton, but she didn’t pull back. She needed to touch him, to make certain he was real and alive. Her forehead grazed the top of his thigh. Heat radiated from his skin nearly burning to the touch. Cara pressed her face against him, soaking up the warmth. She was so cold.
Tears slipped silently down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all your fault,” Tyler whispered.
Her gaze shifted from the ground up his magnificent, battered body and met his gaze. She’d apologize again if she could. The weight on her chest wouldn’t allow it.
“It’s your fault I fell in love with you, Cara.”
She smiled. She sure tried anyway.
Cara’s knees buckled. Her fingers slipped off the wood and landed in swill.
“Cara Lee, that wasn't the reaction I was going for. Look at me,” Tyler screamed.
Before she could give her body instructions, it made its own by flopping her onto her back at his feet. At least she could look at him until the tunnel of her vision closed completely.
“You will live, damnit.”
She hoped she did for Rin, for Luck, for Tyler, and for herself.
I love you, she mouthed before the world went black.
19
“No!” Tyler’s voice slammed into the barn walls and ricocheted with disturbing force. He tore at the binding and welcomed the rip of his flesh in turn. His broken skin, ribs, teeth, and leg were nagging bug bites in comparison to the torture of watching the woman he loved slowly die and knowing he was helpless to stop it.
This was what Markus had been after for so many hours. His agony. His relent. He’d give the man anything for which he asked if he’d save Cara. But the bastard’s brain littered the ground only feet from where Cara now lay struggling with short, gurgling breaths.
Just because he hadn’t been able to free his wrists from the bindings in the last twelve hours didn’t mean he’d give up.
Tyler contracted his biceps, pulled himself up to the rope, and gnashed at it with his teeth. The loose things pried impotently at the tightly woven threads. Muscles in his arms quaked so hard it jarred fresh blood from his mouth. Pulpy hemp mixed with copper and churned his empty stomach, but he kept at it.
The roar of an engine and the kick of gravel filled him with hope. For the duration of his torture, there had been six men. He’d accounted for them with the gunshots. That and Cara had arrived in a vehicle, which someone besides her had driven. He’d guessed Luck but hadn’t figured out why the hell the guy had abandoned her, fleeing with the car as soon as the shit hit the fan.
He let his arms give way, gritted against the stabbing pains all over his body, inhaled, and did something he’d never done before.
“Help! We need help! In here!”
Dread filled him on the second round of pleas. He didn’t worry the enemy was coming to get them. He realized that no matter how fast they drove, it wouldn’t be fast enough to save Cara.
His mouth stretched in an inhuman bellow of rage and dread.
“Tyler?” Luck rounded the open barn door and skidded to a stop. “Cara? No, shit. No.”
“Help her,” Tyler begged. Even though he knew they couldn’t save her, he refused to give up.
Logistics were his thing. Cara needed an IV. She needed the hole in her chest plugged. They could have found those things for the job in the house if those bastards hadn’t wrecked his entire first-aid stash. After that, they could drive like the devil chased their asses with flaming torches.
Rin barreled through the door. Luck turned and caught her around the waist. He tried to block the girl’s view.
There wasn’t time for grief.
“Luck, move,” Tyler barked. “Rin, you both keep your shit together. She’s not dead yet. It’s our job to keep her that way.”
Once kicked out of his stupor, Luck sprinted the distance with Rin a breath behind him. He propped Cara on her side, bullet wound down, and positioned Rin to hold her mother there. The guy flung the sawhorse near Tyler’s feet like it weighed less than a pound. When Cara dragged it from across the barn, it seemed to weigh a thousand.
“This is going to hurt like a motherfucker.” Luck climbed onto the frame and stood eye level with him.
“Do it,” Tyler ordered.
The man yanked a serrated knife from the sheath at his thigh, stretched tall, and sliced at the rope. The sharp blade and gravity did the rest. Luck banded his arms around Tyler’s torso. A bomb detonated inside his chest, but Tyler bit his lips to muffle the cry. Luck stepped down from the sawhorse. Stars twinkled and multiplied, filling Tyler’s vision.
“Tyler.” The delicate whisper pulled him back from the brink of unconsciousness. He leaned on the sturdy guy, his good leg, sought the source of the whisper, and prayed it wasn’t his mind playing tricks on him.
When he found Cara lying on the dirty ground, her eyes were closed, and her beautiful face was as white as her daughter’s shirt, where her mother’s blood hadn’t stained it.
As broken inside and out as he was, something inside Tyler fit into place i
n that moment of pure desperation. A sense of peace washed over him. She fought for him. He’d fight for her to the very end.
“Rin, move her shirt from over the wound. We need something plastic to place over it. Luck, look in that kit in the corner by the bodies.”
“You’ll fall,” Luck argued.
Tyler shoved the man away, surprised his body backed him up. He hit the ground like a fifty-pound sack of feed, but it kicked the other guy into action. Using elbows and one knee, Tyler crawled to Cara.
He stroked her pale face with his bound hands. Streaks of his blood colored her cheeks. Her skin cooled his fingertips. “Cara, you will live. Do you hear me? You will live.”
Tears welled in Rin’s eyes, but she bit them back with a look of sheer determination and a solid bite on her lower lip.
“Here.” Luck landed on his knees next to Rin with an unopened pack of surgical gloves.
“Lay the palm of one over the wound and hold it there.” The package shrieked open inches from Tyler’s ear. He didn’t watch Luck. Instead, he listened to Cara’s breathing and watched her face.
Luck adjusted the glove several times before suction caught with a sure pop of the thin plastic. Within seconds, the color in Cara’s lips brightened. Her breaths still came in far too shallow draws for his liking.
“We need an…” The familiar whop, whop of helicopter blades drove Tyler’s battered heart into his throat. “We need that bird. Luck, go wave it down. Burn the house to the ground if you have to. Just get their attention. There’s room for them to land in the field.”
Before he could say more, Luck’s boot treads retreated.
Rin’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.
“We can do this.” Tyler wrapped his arms around Cara. “I’ll hold her. You go to the corner and look for an unused IV. If it’s not there, you’ll have to go to the house.”
Her gaze sliced in the direction of the bodies and then jumped back. Her cheeks drooped. “They’re dead.” She hadn’t looked at Markus’s body behind her, not once, since she’d followed Luck past it.
“Thank fuck. If I could, I’d kill them again. Now go. You can do it. You’re as strong as your mother is.”
The tears clouding Rin’s eyes fell in earnest. Her head shook back and forth, but she also stood, balled her fists, and marched around the corpses.
Tyler tightened his arms around Cara, held the glove in place, and pressed his lips to her cold mouth. He levered back and watched for any reaction, but this was no fairy tale.
“I don’t see any here. They’re all used,” Rin hollered from the other side of the barn.
“Look in the house. Through the back door, in the kitchen, in the large pantry.”
Rin sprinted past the bodies and headed for the door, while Tyler willed Cara to live.
“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. Don’t pansy out on me now. Cara, do you want to live? Show me you want to live?” He shook her. Despair crept into his words. “Do you want to live?”
Cara’s throat bobbed once and then again.
“Promise to make it worth my trouble?” The words were reedy and took several breaths for her to complete, but they were the best words he’d ever heard.
“I promise to love you every day of the rest of my life.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
She breathed, which was all he needed her to do right now.
The beat of the HELO’s blades grew nearer. He honestly didn’t care if Luck had resorted to burning the Sanford’s house to get their attention. Knowing the stakes, the couple might have made the same decision. Maybe.
He held her as firmly and gently as he could and pressed his forehead to hers. Several seconds later, her head turned as though she were looking for something. “Tucker…”
He couldn’t make out her last word. “What about Tucker?”
“HELO.” One side of her mouth quirked into a lazy smirk.
“Thank you.” A wave of relief washed over Tyler. He thanked God. He thanked Cara. He thanked everyone who would help him save this woman.
“Found one. I think I have everything.” Rin knelt next to her mother and gasped. “You’re awake.”
“Rin.” Cara’s face didn’t show the smile in her voice.
Everything she did was sluggish and reaffirmed in him the haste gone at the moment following her consciousness.
“I don’t know how to put in an IV.” Rin looked up and down her mother’s arm.
“Swab the top of her hand.”
The girl bit her top lip, this time, narrowed her gaze, and sought the small iodine packet in the IV pack. He talked Rin through the steps of inserting the tube, securing it for transport, and elevating the bag.
“Hell of a job,” Tyler offered.
“That was all you.” Rin blew the flyaways from her forehead.
“Teamwork,” Cara offered.
“Quiet, you.” Tyler pinned her with his gaze. “Conserve your oxygen.”
Cara held up a finger.
“What is it?”
Sunlight streamed into the barn. Instinctively, Tyler covered Cara with his body. Luck ran through the large double doors with stretchers stacked one atop the other, carried on the other end by Kite, a Base Branch agent he knew by reputation only. The guy was a master of stealth incursion. And wanted dead by several enemy groups for the massive damage he’d inflicted with no warning.
Khani Slaughter rounded the corner with her gun aimed. She swept the area, assessing the threat level for herself. King Street, the man taking her back across the pond where she’d come from, covered her six.
“You couldn’t wait until I was out of the country to bleed, Tyler?” Khani scoffed.
“Sorry to disappoint, ma’am” —Tyler uncovered Cara— “but she needs your attention way more than I do.”
“Lung shot,” Khani hissed in her haughty British accent as she addressed the wound. “Nice stabilization for her. What about you?” She worked while she talked, pulling the tape from a bag and securing the edges of the glove to Cara’s chest.
“Plop me on the stretcher and let’s go.” Tyler watched the able-bodied men set down the small pallets and judge the situation.
“First, we need to cover your nuts,” King chimed in with his own British—but much less proper—accent. He pulled the green shirt from his torso, revealing his vest, and tossed the cotton at Tyler. It landed on his hip and caused a jolt of pain he hadn’t felt since grabbing hold of Cara.
Khani crouched low and leaned over Cara. “I’m going to need you two to let go so we can leave.”
Neither of their hands loosened, and actually, Cara’s tightened. She pulled his ear to her mouth. “Where are Tor and,” she stalled, “and Marina?”
“Who?” he whispered back.
“Markus’s brother and the other girl they were torturing?”
“None of the men here was his brother, and there was no one else.”
“Luck,” Cara called.
He rushed to her side looking more like an excited and simultaneously terrified boy than the tough blond-headed man he was.
“Check the premises for Tor and Marina. Watch the video on my phone and you’ll know what I’m talking about.”
Luck nodded at Cara’s orders.
“If you’re leaving with us,” Khani announced before he left the barn, “we’re wheels up in three.”
“You can let me go now.” When he didn’t release her, she added, “So we can leave.” Cara’s breath danced across his cheek.
He had a thousand questions. Who were those people and how did they calculate into her life? More importantly, did she feel at all about him how he felt about her? But now wasn’t the time.
“Just don’t leave me,” Tyler demanded.
“I won’t,” she promised.
The moment they rolled her onto her back, Cara lost consciousness.
20
Someone grabbed Cara’s upper arm and squeezed hard. She jerked from the hold an
d reached for her CZ. The IV stabbing into her hand stopped her cold, along with the realization she was in a hospital bed and an automatic blood pressure cuff was the culprit strangling her arm. Deeply rooted pain pulsed through her chest and diffused through each arm. Wires sprouted out of her oh-so-sexy gown held together by one snap on her right side. A grimace contorted Cara’s face.
Then her gaze landed on the mussed brown hair and bruised forehead resting only inches from her pressure cuff. His hand lay outstretched next to his head. Thick gauze encircled his wrist.
He wore his own hospital issued ensemble, complete with legwear. A black hip-to-calf brace wrapped around his gauze-packaged leg, which he’d propped on a padless chair opposite the one on which he sat—slumped. Gooey warmth washed her pain to the recesses. Her fingers stretched out to touch him, as desperate for the contact as she’d been in the barn.
Her fingers hovered over his hair. Every place she looked, rich blue and black marks stained his skin.
A low vibration fluttered the sheets between them. The screen of her phone lit. Cara read the incoming text.
Tucker: Our boys are moving in. How’s Cara?
The information didn’t make sense. She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious and what had transpired during that time. Had they found Marina? Cara lifted the phone and accessed her text log.
Something shifted in the far corner of the room, stealing her fuzzy focus. Luck reclined on a loveseat. His legs sprawled off the front because Rin snuggled to his side on the other cushion. Her daughter burrowed her sweet face under the cleft of Luck’s chin and sighed.
Cara smiled and returned to the phone and a conversation between Tyler and Base Branch director Vail Tucker. The feed started at 6:00 p.m. the previous day, and it was 4:20 p.m.—whatever day it was.
Tucker: Located the signal where Marina’s video is being transmitted in Sweden. It’s in the middle of Brödraskapet territory. Oliver and Hunter are en route.
Tyler: There’s a story here. Luck won’t talk. Says it’s Cara’s to tell.
Tucker: Any change in her condition?
Virtues (Base Branch Series Book 8) Page 12
