“And yet here we are,” Terry taunted. “If you want to free her then you’ll do as I asked, Judd.”
Silence descended but it was thick with fury and tension, both men refusing to back down. I wanted to tell Anderson to run, to go, but I sensed something holding him back, something I wasn’t aware of binding him to the room with me.
The silence broke as chains and metal clanged, each piercing sound hurting my sensitive ears. I fought to block out the volume after nothing but muted music and Terry’s voice for so long but then my ears pricked with every spoken word and my head became confused.
“You have what you want,” Anderson spoke. “Now let her go.”
There was a loud laugh, one that I knew came from Terry; I wouldn’t ever forget the sound of that.
I tried to shake my head. I knew what was happening. Anderson had put himself back in the very same chains that had held him for so long, just for my freedom. He said he hadn’t loved me. How wrong he had been about that too.
“You seriously think it’s that easy, son? That easy to forget?”
“Forget?” Anderson scoffed. “I’ll never fucking forget what you did.”
I was fighting with the light to see but it was hopeless. There were no blurred edges, no foggy outlines for me to concentrate on. My eyesight had gone. Whether it was due to shock, damage to my eyes with Terry’s cruel persistent hits, or due to the fact that the blackness around me had seeped into my vision as well as my soul I couldn’t say, but I knew I would never see again.
“Good, I was hoping you wouldn’t,” Terry sneered. “Some things are always worth a memory.”
Although I couldn’t see, I could feel every fibre of Anderson. I could feel when his eyes moved to me, when the beat of his heart stuttered, when the slight hitch in his breathing occurred, and when the feel of chains on his skin fractured him over and over. I was so in tune with this man that I physically felt his hand slip into mine and his comforting words float into my head.
“It’s okay, little wolf,” he whispered in my head. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. Trust me.”
“I trust you.”
Unaware that I had spoken aloud, I jolted when Terry spat, “What the fuck? You’ve gone crazy. It didn’t take long to break her. Such a tight little cunt, that one. But then again, it was much tighter when she was nine.”
Chains shook as Anderson’s unique snarl filled my ears. “You sick fuck.”
“She was always quite something.” Terry’s voice was starting to sink into the marrow of my bones, my body trembling with fear, with hatred, with the overwhelming need to kill. “A much better child than you ever were. You never stopped fucking whining over this and that. Such a fucking coward. Just like your mother!”
“You’re going to burn in hell,” Anderson grunted. “And then, when I finally join you, I’m going to tear each piece of charred flesh from your rotten corpse and bury you in the dead and decaying horror you came from.”
“Mmm.” Terry laughed. “You still think you can keep your promise of killing me?”
This time it was Anderson who laughed. “Oh, I’m definitely going to break my promise.”
Terry hesitated, the hitch in his breath telling me he was as confused with Anderson’s defeat as much as I was.
“So, you finally accept that you’re not going to kill me?”
“Oh, I accepted it a long time ago. It won’t be my job to take your last breath…”
There was a pregnant silence. I tilted my head, wondering if my hearing had gone the same way as my sight. Then so many sounds. So many things for my frayed senses to concentrate on at once.
The creak of the door.
A shuffle.
Heavy panting.
Chains rattling.
None of it made any sense in my head.
Until my body fell into strong arms when the cuffs around my wrists snapped open. And Anderson finished his sentence in two little words….
“Kloe will.”
HER SCREAMS HURT MY EARS and my soul. She was frantic, her hands slapping at anything that came within her personal space.
Her mind was broken. It had finally given in to the crazy that haunted her every damn day.
“Kloe, please,” Dr Mike Varney coaxed gently as he attempted to catch her flaying hands. “You’re safe now.”
Every part of her shook as she lashed out.
Mike glanced at me questioningly and I nodded. “Do it.”
Taking the already prepared syringe, Caroline, one of his nurses, did her best to hold Kloe down as he quickly but efficiently slid the needle into Kloe’s vein.
Within seconds her body sagged and her screams silenced. Her mind began its rest and allowed her body chance to heal.
Mike blew out a breath. “She really needs to be in hospital, Anderson.”
“No. She stays here. You’re more than capable of caring for her.”
He rubbed his face with his hands. “Other than tending to her physical wounds, I’m afraid there’s not much I can do for her mental state. She needs professional psychiatric help.”
My gaze moved to Kloe as she finally slept. “She’s strong.”
He shrugged, looking with concern over his patient before turning back to me. “Are you in any pain? Caroline can give you some pain relief.”
I shook my head. A knife wound to my gut was nothing compared to what Kloe was going through, and it seemed like a small piece of justice that I took a fraction of pain.
I should have known the cunt would do this. I thought he would bide his time, that he would wait just as I was. I had been so wrong about his feelings towards Kloe.
None of it made sense.
Mike and I walked out of the room, leaving Caroline to wash Kloe.
“I’ll be back in the morning to check on her. But, please, you must rest yourself. Your wound will get infected if you don’t.”
I nodded. I had no intentions of heeding to his request. But he didn’t need to know that.
Rob smiled at me as I took a place next to him on the sofa. It was a troubled smile, one full of worry.
And I knew why.
“How’s she doing?”
Biting into my bottom lip, I shook my head. “I… not good.”
“Anderson…”
“I have no idea what the bastard did to her, Rob,” I stated, cutting him off. “But from what Mike tells me, it’s going to take a damn fucking miracle for her to come through this.”
He was silent, watching the flickering flames in the fire. His sigh was loud as he drained the rest of his whisky.
“You shouldn’t be drinking that while taking antibiotics!”
I blinked, jerking when his glass sailed across the room and shattered on the wall. “Don’t fucking ignore this, Anderson.” He was furious, his eyes wild on me.
I understood him. I did. But it was too late. “I did what was necessary, Rob. I couldn’t get her out of there on my own.”
He scoffed bitterly. “So you went against everything!”
Now it was my turn to be angry. I shot up and bent into his face, my fists scrunching into the sofa cushion either side of him. “And what was the alternative? It’s my fault this happened to Kloe. You think I should have just left her there? Left him to do whatever sick fucking things he wanted to her?”
“But…”
“There’s no buts, Rob. It’s done.”
He shook his head, fighting with his rage and the sorrow that consumed him. “You might as well have traded yourself for her because this is no fucking better!”
“You really think he’d have stuck to his side of the bargain?” I asked.
“Of course he wouldn’t, but it would have given us more time to sort this shit. Maybe…”
“Maybe doesn’t even come into it, especially with Kloe’s life at risk. I did what I needed to do. It’s done. We speak no more of it!”
He bit into his lip and pushed himself off the sofa, his body jerking in pain at the effort
it took.
I knew he was angrier because he couldn’t be the one to help me get Kloe out. But he wouldn’t have stood a chance against Terry in that state. I couldn’t risk him as well as Kloe. And I knew Robbie wouldn’t ever forgive me for that. But one day, he’d understand.
“I’m going to turn in.”
I nodded. “Night.”
He didn’t answer me. I watched him walk away. My stomach ached for my best friend. Apart from his sister, Rob had no one but me. But I hoped he and Kloe, when I had gone, could be there for each other. They would need each other. I didn’t mean in a sexual way, but as friends. Robbie was loyal and protective, and I wouldn’t trust Kloe’s life with anyone but him.
My body shivered when I thought about what my basement held. My instinct was to go down those stairs and drive a fucking knife straight through Terry’s heart.
Yet, I wouldn’t.
It would be Kloe’s job.
And I felt no greater pleasure than knowing I had to keep Terry alive while he waited for Kloe’s redemption. At least I would get some fun before…
“Mr Cain?” Caroline’s voice broke me out of my daydream.
I turned to look at her. “Yes?”
“Miss Grant is comfortable. I’ve washed her and she looks much more…”
I nodded, thanking her with a small smile. “Thank you. I’ve made up the guest bedroom for you.”
“Then I’ll retire for the night, if that’s okay? Miss Grant should sleep for the night but please come and fetch me if the sedation wears off.”
Pushing off the sofa, I gave Caroline a nod and made my way back up to my bedroom where Kloe rested.
She looked so small and pale against the darkness of the black sheets. She lay on her back and now her face was clean, the bruises that painted her skin made me catch a breath. Her beautiful face was dark, her eyes rimmed with black circles. Her cheekbones looked harsh, the weight she had lost making them protrude angrily against the other soft contours of her face. Her once long, luscious waves were gone, a short crop of matted curls resting around her face.
Settling myself on the mattress beside her, I gently lay my weary body down and carefully reached out to run my thumb over her pale and cracked lips. They were slightly oily and I assumed Caroline had applied some lip balm to soothe the dryness.
Delicately I moved my hand down her neck and over the top of her chest that showed above the sheet that had been placed over her.
One long, angry gash disappeared under the cotton and I slowly moved it down.
Heat stung my eyes as I took in the numerous incisions that Mike and Caroline had sutured. There were so many that her body looked like someone had played noughts and crosses many times over her skin with a blade instead of a pencil.
And then my hand rested on the dip of her belly. Once, her stomach had held a faint roundness to it, but now it hollowed inwards.
“Hey, little guy,” I whispered. “I’m praying you’re still in there. I’m praying you’re as strong as your Mamma.”
It was too soon for the doctor to tell whether Kloe was still pregnant. He’d tested her urine and it was still showing that she was pregnant, but he said that it could take a while for the pregnancy hormones to subside. He was bringing in a vaginal scanner tomorrow. Yet I’d seen the blood.
Exhaustion hit me suddenly and my eyes grew heavy.
Just as I closed them, my phone vibrated against my leg, notifying me of a text.
Ivan Moritz: Fight set for 4 weeks to give you time with your woman.
Me: Ok. I’ll make sure everything is set.
I sighed, flinging my phone onto the side. Four weeks. That was it.
Four weeks until I had to throw a fight and give Ivan Moritz his payment for getting Kloe to safety. My life.
MIKE ARRIVED EARLY THE NEXT day. He was smiling, but I could see the worry in his eyes, the apprehension at how I would react if things didn’t go how I wanted them to go.
I’d known Mike a good few years. He was a friend of Marty who owned the fight ring, and he knew how to be discrete. He was the guy we all saw after a fight when we needed patching up. He charged a fucking whack, but paying for silence cost money.
“How was the patient overnight?” he asked as soon as he stepped foot in the door and proceeded to take himself up the stairs.
“Quiet. Caroline set up a drip and Kloe slept most of the night. She was feverish though, but I’m not sure if that was because she woke up screaming. A nightmare maybe.”
He nodded but didn’t offer me anything more.
Kloe lay, as yesterday, on her back, the arrangement of the sheet flat against her thin frame. Her hipbones stuck out and I had to look away. It did make me wonder what state I would have found her in if Terry had had her for longer than a week. I couldn’t believe the difference in her after just seven days, so longer would have been so much more torturous.
Doing his initial checks, Mike mumbled, “She does have a temperature. I’ll start her on some antibiotics just in case, and hopefully paracetamol will help.”
Every minute watching her like this broke my heart. I wanted to take away her pain, from both her wounds and her soul. I should have sought Terry out earlier. I should have seen to it before he even had a chance to realise I was back. He’d tormented Kloe well before I had found her again, killing her friend and her dog. He’d had no intentions of killing her, he just wanted to taunt her, play his sick fucking games with her.
Kloe had surprised me, though, with everything she had found out. A part of me had just wanted to take her into the lion’s den blind, walk her straight through Terry’s front door and take great delight in the sight of their joint shock. Except she’d discovered who Richard really was – Robert, Terry’s youngest son - and then found the connection between my father and her step-father. And exactly who I was.
It had taken me longer than Kloe. It hadn’t been until I had delved into Kloe’s life that I found out exactly who her step-father was. My shock had been devastating. Hank and Mary had often goaded me with the fact that I had been born solely for their sick and twisted entertainment. A part of me hadn’t wanted to believe it; I’d wanted to think it was another of their cruel ways. Yet deep down I had known, believed. And finding various newspaper articles that led right back to Kloe confirmed it.
I gathered Terry had seen all the media coverage when the Dawson’s had committed suicide and I had been brought out of the basement, and then that led to Kloe being the therapist who had been assigned to me. I imagined Terry’s shock had been as great as mine.
But then he’d have realised exactly what this could mean for him. His fake death could be uncovered, the heinous act of selling his own child would have come out into the open, and the imprisonment and abuse of his step-daughter exposed. All because fate had brought two broken souls together.
So, of course, he had to bring Kloe near, make her trust his son, Robert, just to see what she knew, what she disclosed to him, and whether I was in her life.
And then, when Robert had found me at Kloe’s, Terry knew he had to act quickly. But he wouldn’t have banked on me taking Kloe and hiding her out at mine. I presumed he knew exactly who I was and what I did to earn cash, so just trying to take me out had suddenly become harder than he initially thought, but he knew he needed to silence both me and Kloe before we revealed exactly what kind of man he really was.
I watched in silence as Mike set up the scanner. My heart was already in my stomach, my nerves frayed. There was a part deep down inside me that knew after what Kloe had gone through there was no way a baby had survived that. But, and this was a big but, my soul told me to trust, to hang on for just that moment longer before I accepted what my head was telling me.
My jaw ached as I watched Mike part Kloe’s legs. I wanted to punch the fucker for touching her, and I bit down my anger, blowing out a breath to calm my possessiveness.
Keeping my gaze on the small screen, refusing to torture myself any more with the face
of another man between my woman’s legs, I gritted my teeth and prayed.
A phone rang somewhere in the house. The rain that had been beating down hard since the early hours tapped on the window. The wind howled, whistling through the trees and creating eerie silhouettes on the walls inside the room.
I didn’t see anything other than the flicker of the monitor. I didn’t hear anything, only the thud of my pulse in my ears.
Blurry images showed nothing but static, and my pulse, which I’d heard raging in my ears for the last few minutes, ceased. No baby appeared on the grainy image. There was nothing but white lines and grey mass and black vastness.
Mike seemed lost in his procedure, continuing to shift the probe around as my soul crumbled within me. I grew angry with him, the emotionlessness way he carried on regardless building the rage in me to a dangerous level.
My eyes narrowed on him. Was he taking the piss? There was obviously nothing but an empty womb yet he carried on prodding and poking like he couldn’t get enough of Kloe’s cunt.
He finally turned to look at me. Ignorant of the storm building around him, he smiled at me. “Your lady is one strong fortress, Anderson.”
I blinked at him, his words not making it through the humming in my head. “What?”
He tipped his chin to the screen.
Slowly moving my eyes, my breath shunted when the outline of a small, but perfect, jelly bean wriggled against the reservoir of black emptiness on the screen. A blinking dot flashed rapidly and Mike pointed to it. “He has a strong heartbeat.”
“What?”
He smiled again then his expression saddened. “There are remnants, fibres, in the amniotic fluid. I assume this little guy here had company.”
“What?” I couldn’t seem to form any other word.
“Twins, Anderson. I’m so very sorry but one didn’t make it.”
“But…”
When I couldn’t finish, Mike grabbed my forearm gently and nodded. “You’re going to be a father in roughly thirty-two weeks.”
Chained (Caged Book 2) Page 8
