by Kells, India
Unable to stay still, Kai pushed up from the table. All eyes went to him, but nobody dared to say a word.
Gabrielle sighed, but Lazarus was the one to speak. “Please tell me you’ve thought this through, and you have a plan that takes your safety into account.”
“I refused to live in his building. First, I don’t trust him, but more importantly, I couldn’t see how I would be able to communicate with you. I told you Finch wanted me to have one of his bodyguards. I declined, saying I wasn’t interested, that I didn’t believe I was in danger.”
“You’re not making our work easy, Izzy. Dammit!” Gabrielle was close to pulling her hair out. Kai understood her frustration as he himself was close to punching a hole in the wall. He couldn’t conceive that Isabel was that stupid to risk her life like that.
Kai felt the discreet gaze of both his brothers on him. Normally, out of all six, Kai was the more laid-back, but that didn’t take into consideration the love/hate relationship with the woman on the other side of the table.
“Guys, I’m not a dumb blond. I know I need protection. Having a bodyguard is an obvious solution.”
Liam chuckled. “Well, you shot that baby down, Izzy, darling, when you told Finch that he could shove it.”
For the first time since she arrived, Isabel looked at Kai. In the ocean of her eyes, he saw quiet resolution and that made him wonder what had happened to the wide-eyed girl he had fallen for all those years ago. For the first time since he had laid eyes on her, curiosity took over, and it steadied him, gave him the purpose he was searching for.
Isabel broke contact to look around the room, an amused look on her beautiful face. “I made too much of a fuss earlier to suddenly change my mind. I have said I don’t want protection. But with the right arguments, I may be convinced otherwise.”
* * *
Kai had to admit, Isabel may not have military experience, but she had the imagination and resourcefulness of any soldier he had ever met. Nonetheless, it took two days for the team to fine-tune the idea, refine the details, make it safe for everyone. Sometimes, simpler ideas were the best.
Gabrielle was taking care of everything with the help of her Navy SEAL husband. None of the brothers were to be involved in any way, as it was too dangerous. The only thing that settled his mind was the reputations of Sullivan Thorne, one of the most decorated men in the Navy, and his wife Gabrielle, the most kick-ass woman he knew. Although he was ready to offer an honorary title to Isabel Osborne.
While he was waiting for the entire set up to be over, he started a little research of his own. Trying not to think about what was happening tonight on the other side of the city.
Lazarus had told him to go for a run, try to get the tension out of the system, but Kai knew it wouldn’t be enough. He would need one hell of a marathon to tame what was gnawing at him.
Instead, he let Lazarus go to Isabel, wishing their plan was finished and over, and opened the tracking dot that had been on Isabel that fateful night in the alley. What was she doing in that part of town? It was far away from the power and glitz of downtown.
He’d been to the place, it was an upscale apartment building in an upcoming neighborhood. Was she trying to buy real estate?
A quick look at her finances told him that she could. In fact, with the money he saw coming in the various accounts, funds, and trusts, Isabel Osborne could buy the whole building. However, as soon as the money came in, it went out. Where was the money coming from? Not from her small, upcoming business. Everything he found was coded, so there wasn’t an easy way to dig up the money flow.
While debating his next angle of attack, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket.
“Jones.”
“Where are you?” Liam’s voice was low and hushed.
“At HQ, what’s going on?”
“Lazarus is asking for a favor. Would it be possible to drop by Aleksei’s place and get Deva and her cousin Sasha?”
The request sounded weird. Why would Lazarus need Aleksei’s girlfriend? He knew Sasha Landry, who often visited her cousin when she wasn’t volunteering as a doctor in foreign humanitarian missions. And then it clicked. A doctor.
“What’s happening, Liam? Why do you need a doctor?”
The other end of the line stayed silent for a long moment. “There’s been an accident.”
Every doubt and fear resurfaced in a fraction of a second. “Isabel? What happened? Where is she?”
“Calm down, she’s okay. It happened after the plan. She fell down the stairs. She’s bruised and battered, but she’s alright. She’s at the hospital with Finch right now, but is determined to leave. Gabrielle is there too, and Isabel has convinced Finch that she was well enough to recuperate at her apartment. It’s a setback, but she won’t have permanent damage. Just to be on the safe side, Sasha will take a look at her. Deva is a massage therapist, she might be able to help too. Lazarus decided that the bodyguard thing was starting now and that you were it, so ditch your sickening shirts and bring a bag too. You’re staying with her.”
Liam hung up and Kai was on the move. At least now he would be able to keep a close eye on the woman and probably get a few answers of his own. With him so close, Isabel wouldn’t be able to evade him much longer.
Chapter Eleven
“Ouch! Ouch! OUCH!”
“Stop being a baby, I’m not even touching you.” Sasha rolled her eyes as only a doctor could do.
“The position you’ve got me in hurts.” Isabel knew she wasn’t a baby, but every inch of her body trembled with pain. If she couldn’t be cranky now, she never could be.
“Next time, then, don’t fall down the stairs, that should solve your problem.”
“Great! A comedian. Why are you here? I’ve been prodded by doctors already, I don’t need an encore.”
Sasha looked up and she and Deva helped put her back in a more comfortable position on the pillows. “Finch was adamant about having a nurse with you. I switched the names on the records so he’ll be reassured and won’t bother having some stranger spy on your lovely ass.”
Isabel snorted at the comment. “All I want from my ass is for it to stop hurting right now, I don’t care how it looks.”
Deva pulled a sheet over her body. “You had good reflexes to roll. You have bruises and scrapes, but they should fade quickly. Sasha and I came up with a treatment plan that should put you back on your feet quickly. Or at least moving around without too much pain. To be honest, the next twenty-four hours will be hell, but after that, it will improve.”
“At least you didn’t knock your head. Although with your whining, that might have been a relief for all of us.” Obviously joking in a very sarcastic way, the pretty doctor winked at her. “I’m staying with Deva and Alek for a while longer and will come back tomorrow morning. The strong painkillers the hospital has given you should wear out during the night, but I’ve left an extra dose in case you need it. Kai has my number. If you experience any new symptoms, don’t hesitate to call.”
Kai? “Wait! Kai is here?”
Sasha and Deva exchanged a glance. “Yeah, from now on he’ll be your bodyguard. That was the plan, wasn’t it?”
With those words, both women left her to rest. Isabel closed her eyes, not knowing how to react. When she’d thought about the bodyguard plan, Sam, the only brother she hadn’t met, was her first choice. Now, with Kai, everything would be even more complicated.
Tiredness pulled at her and fought with the fiery pain until her body finally shut down and she fell asleep.
Or was she?
Images popped in her brain like champagne bubbles. Her body felt weightless as she looked at them moving around and disappearing. Kai was the main focus, as he often was over the years. The man had been one of the only pure and true things in her life, the memory that always grounded her back into reality when nothing in her life was. He was the reassuring force she clung to when she had to appear strong and fierce.
When she’d left him, Isabel k
new she had hurt him, but did he know it had destroyed her too? Tears she hadn’t felt in years clogged her throat, making sobbing painful. She felt like she was going to die from the pain.
Izzy.
How long since she’d last heard him say her name like that? Her memories made it echo in her brain as if she’d heard it yesterday.
Izzy.
She cried out as pain reverberated through her back and Isabel opened her eyes to find out that her dream was not a result of her imagination. Her bedside lamp cast a gentle glow in her room, and her eyes finally focused on Kai sitting on the side of the bed, one of his big hands over her knee. His handsome face was worried, his deep, silver-flecked eyes focused on her.
Her mind blurred with the painkillers, her body racked with pain, her soul haunted with past memories, it took her a moment to realize she was crying.
Tears running down her cheeks, she tried to push herself up, to get her bearings, but her body collapsed. Kai reached for her. Her first reaction was to recoil, but her muscles couldn’t move. His arms came gently around her to lift her up, replacing her pillows against her headboard. Naturally, her arms went around his neck, her face against his cheek. His body warmth, the familiar scent of him, finished shattering her feverish mind. Sobs shook her body as she cried against him. For him. For them both all those years ago.
In between breaths, she tried to stop the flow of sorrow, but it was like a broken dam that needed to be emptied out. “I’m so sorry, please forgive me.”
Over and over again, she repeated those words as Kai took her in, rocking her in a soft movement, murmuring words she couldn’t understand.
It took some time before she finally calmed down. Kai didn’t say a word, only laid her back on the soft pillows before offering her a glass of cool water and two pills.
Unable to look at him, she obeyed before closing her eyes again, reclaimed by sleep.
* * *
A headache was the first sensation that Isabel felt when she surfaced. When she moved to touch her forehead, pain exploded throughout her body, making her moan in agony.
Kai almost broke the door getting to her. “What’s going on? Are you alright?”
It took her a few seconds to get her breath back. The pain receded but nausea took its place. The events of the previous day were coming back to her, including her fateful fall down the marble stairs. It wasn’t in her to be clumsy, but distracted was another type of clumsy she supposed.
“Yeah, it’s me suffering for being stupid. I should learn to walk down the stairs. I don’t know what the doc gave me but it’s making me woozy.”
When she looked at him, she saw he only had on a pair of low-hung jeans and nothing else. Last time she had seen him naked, he only had a tribal tattoo on his right pectoral. Now most of his torso was covered in intricate Polynesian symbols, the ink moving like an animal over the muscled body.
Looking away, fearing she might blush, apologies stumbled out of her mouth. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you. Take time to dress or finish whatever you were doing. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
Kai relaxed a little, his hand pushing his hair back from his face. “I was up. I function on very little sleep. I was making coffee. Do you want some?”
If she listened to her body, Isabel would have just asked him to knock her on the head and leave her unconscious until the aches were completely gone. But she wasn’t that kind of girl. “I need to start moving if I don’t want to turn into the Tinman after a downpour. Once on my feet, I think I’ll be able to manage.”
“Sasha said to take it easy. You may only have bruises, but there are some nasty ones. You’re lucky you don’t have any broken bones.”
Isabel was glad to be wearing one of her oversize t-shirts. A good choice from Sasha and Deva last night. Bracing herself, she started sliding her legs to the side of the bed. Kai came by her side. “Deva is confident that with her treatment, you should be up and running tomorrow night.”
As she continued to move, Kai swore but helped her up.
Her head spun for a moment, but her stomach, although fragile, stayed in check. That’s when she noticed blood on her pillows.
“It’s the scrapes that rubbed against your t-shirt. You were very restless last night.”
Her brain focusing more and more on his words, Isabel suddenly remembered. What else could she say or do but own it? Lie again? Deny it? Saying that the words were said due to the pain killers would be the cowardly way out. For that particular bit of information, at least.
For a long moment, all they did was look at each other in complete silence. Kai was the one to break it. “There are too many pieces missing for me. You may be sincere in your apology, but it’s clear you don’t want to tell me the reason why you left. Until then, I don’t know if I have it in me to forgive you. It may be childish, especially since we were so young, but I am, and always have been a man of my word. I told you I loved you, pledged my everything to you. I was certain, deep in my soul, that you felt the same thing for me. I was wrong. The least you can do is to tell me why.”
Each and every word he said was piercing her heart, making it bleed even more, if even possible. “Maybe you hating me is for the best, Kai. Sometimes, not knowing is a blessing.”
Close to tears, unable to face his expression of anger and frustration, Isabel pushed herself up and went to the bathroom. Starting the shower, she quickly undressed and stepped under the merciless spray on her poor body as the running water carried her tears away.
Chapter Twelve
If Isabel thought that nothing could be as painful as the state she was in, she had to review her opinion under Sasha’s and Deva Landry’s hands. With them, she discovered a brand-new kind of hell.
Deva was a massage therapist, specializing in MMA fighters that were used to taking repeated beatings and being ready to fight again within a few days. The treatment may be infallible, but it meant almost untenable extreme ice baths and sweating sessions.
For hours nonstop, she alternated between the agony of cold and the torture of heat, being hydrated, medicated, and fed in between, not counting the massage sessions from Deva.
From sun up to sun down, she endured, glad that Kai had left the apartment and was nowhere to be seen. Gabrielle had returned, acting as a guard.
When finally they left her alone and put her to bed, Isabel was too exhausted, physically and mentally to even think. Once her eyelids were shut, she was gone. Blessed by an empty mind and invisible dreams. When she reopened her eyes, she was stunned to find her mind was clear without having had a coffee, and that her body wasn’t as stiff as she expected it would be. Her first movements were tentative, but the more she moved, the more she acknowledged the miracle of the technique she had endured.
Padding to the bathroom, Isabel examined her body. It was still covered in angry swirls of purple and blue, but at least now she could draw a breath without wanting to die.
After quickly washing her face and putting on a pair of yoga pants and her favorite oversized sweatshirt, she opened her bedroom door to a surprising sight. There was a ‘girls’ night out’ happening in her living room. She was surprised to see how many hours she had slept. A night and day had been wasted while she’d slept.
Deva, Sasha, and Gabrielle were sitting on the corner sofa and an unknown redheaded woman was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Glasses of wine in hand, they all turned to her when she appeared.
“Hey! Isabel!” Gabrielle grinned at her, as if very pleased with her little surprise. “Glad to see you up!”
Sasha put her glass on the coffee table and stood. “How are you feeling?”
Isabel smiled. “Way better than I ever expected. Thank you. And thank you, Deva.”
The massage therapist with a wealth of curly brown hair raised her glass at her. “I think I’ll have this method patented. It would make for a killer infomercial.”
Sasha rolled her eyes at her cousin and led Isabel to the couch. “I think
you’ve earned a reward, Isabel. What about some food before I hand you a glass of wine?”
Isabel nodded, she wouldn’t reject a glass of wine now. Some sort of celebratory landmark for her amazing survival, and knew she would get properly shit faced when Finch was down and out for good.
Gabrielle slid beside her and put her hand on hers. “You scared the hell out of me, Izzy. Out of all of us.”
“I’m sorry, it was an accident. Everything was going so well, I was doomed to make a clumsy mistake.”
“I prefer this kind of mistake. But let’s try to avoid them altogether from now on, shall we?”
Isabel didn’t answer and only hugged her friend for a while. She may have made decisions without consulting her, but she’d never thought Gabrielle would be worried for her. That woman was so experienced, had been in so many dangerous situations and had risked her own life so many times, it made her titanium in Isabel’s mind.
“Wine time for Isabel and refill for all of us!” Deva reached for the bottle, breaking the emotional moment at just the right moment.
Sasha offered her a glass and sat on the floor. “I’d like you to meet Zoe Blackwood, Archer’s wife.”
The newcomer offered her hand before replacing her glasses on her nose. “Yeah, I ceased to be my own person when I got married.”
The women laughed. Deva gently pushed her shoulder. “Yeah, you lost all depth and brains at the exact moment he put a ring on your finger.”
Zoe scrunched her nose and retaliated in the same manner. “As if I wasn’t the only one losing it over one of the brothers, Aleksei’s girlfriend.”
Sasha added to it with a smile. “At least Zoe has a ring, and a huge one at that.”
Now both Deva and Zoe took one of the pretzel bites in the bowl before throwing them at Sasha. It made Isabel laugh. It had been so long since she had been surrounded by such amusing people. For so many years, she had kept mostly to herself. Apart from Gabrielle, who was her only true friend, she had been too invested in her business to reach out to other people.
