“Please tell me you heard how threatening that sounded,” I laughed, shocked.
“It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. You’ve spent far too much of your life fighting, Cara. I won’t let you be alone anymore. I will always be here for you, no matter what. You never have to fight alone again.”
“Okay,” I nodded, fighting to hold back the tears that had filled my eyes. “That’s a promise I think I can handle.” I wrapped my arm around the front of his waist and hugged him as much as I could as we continued moving, climbing the last flight of stairs up to my room.
“That’s wise, since I wasn’t giving you a choice.”
Maybe that shouldn’t have made me smile either, but it did. His stalker-like claims certainly should have unsettled me, but they only made me feel safer. He said he would never leave me. Those words were a balm to my scarred, and battered heart and soul, because I didn’t want to be alone. Not ever again.
CHAPTER 7
CARA
“Woah! Just slow down, lass. Jesus!” Arran called loudly as I slipped from the hold he had me in, then turned to take hm down to the ground. I stopped just short of sweeping his left leg and looked up at him with alarm.
“Sorry! Did I hurt you?” I gasped as he reached out his right arm and wrapped it around my waist to steady me while I got my balance again.
“Hardly,” he scoffed. “Yer fast Cara, and I’m impressed with yer skills, but ye’d have to try pretty hard to really hurt me, as wee as you are,” he chuckled.
“If that’s true, then what’s the use in me doing this training? It seems unlikely I’ll be facing many dangerous people my size,” I groaned.
I was the one who had wanted to do this training, and I was also the one who had been nagging at Rafe to allow me to start the training for the last week and a half – ever since Gia was taken and I found myself at the mercy of those thugs in that garage.
Rafe hadn’t been eager for me to start doing anything physical with my still healing ribs, shoulder, and other bruises and cuts, on top of the lingering headaches and dizziness I was dealing with from my concussion. And I understood, because if I werehonest, I wasn’t sure I was up to much physical exertion either, but I needed this training. I needed to prove to myself that I was still strong, and that I still had some of the skills I had learned in order to survive. I needed reassurance that I wasn’t just giving up and hiding behind all of the amazing men who had come into my life, because right then, it was so tempting to do just that.
I was still struggling. Everything that had happened since the night I walked in and found my Mum’s body – the attack inJewelsparking lot, the car chase and shooting with Dante and Cal, and then Gia’s kidnapping, and everything that came with it – it all seemed to have brought back my past, along with it’s own blood and terror filled flashbacks and nightmares.
I was barely sleeping. At night I didn’t even try to sleep anymore. I sat up reading, or watching trashy TV, drinking coffee, and not daring to allow myself to slip into unconsciousness and the nightmares I knew would come with it.
So the only sleep I allowed myself to get, was when my body couldn’t keep going anymore, and I passed out, usually when I was curled up on the sofa with Cal or Dante. There I’d sleep soundly for a couple of hours, until the horror found its way through my exhaustion again, then I’d wake panicking, or worse, crying out. Thankfully, someone was usually with me, or close enough to hear me as I panted to catch my breath and calm down, so I wasn’t alone, which helped.
At night I didn’t have that luxury. I could have, if I’d just accept the guys when they offered to stay with me, but I couldn’t. If I allowed them to be there with me at night, accepted that I needed their protection at night too, it was giving in. It was allowing myself to admit I wasn’t as strong as I was before Rafe found me – at least not for right then anyway.
I would get strong again, I knew I would. But so much had happened and it had shaken me. For once I had people to lean on, and even hide behind when everything around me was coming apart, and that was new. And terrifying.
I just felt that if I could survive the nights alone – albeit surviving them poorly – then I was still holding onto a piece of the person I was before, and as long as I had a piece, I could get back to her when I felt stronger.
“We’re doing it because, as you pointed out to Rafe, you live in a dangerous world, and you need to know how to defend yourself,” Dio said, pulling my attention back to the present. I turned to where he had been leaning against the wall watching Arran and I work through some basics.
“But Arran just told me I can’t effectively hurt anyone!” I countered as I tried not to stare, but it was tough. Dio was dressed in black running shorts and a sleeveless , very hugging base layer. He looked killer in a suit, but in these workout clothes? He was sex and sin in one perfectly muscled package.
“We’ll teach you the most effective ways to hurt someone bigger than you in case it ever comes to that, but the main thing we’re going to work on is escape, Slipping holds, and defending against attacks. All we ever want you to do is fight long enough to give yourself the chance to run.”
“For you, Cara. if it comes down to fight or flight, ye always opt fer flight. No matter the skills ye have, ye’ll always be at a disadvantage because of yer size,” Arran added.
“I know,” I nodded. “Hilt told me the same when he started training with me. I get it. I just need to know I can fight back though, you know? I never want to feel as powerless as I did when I was a kid.”
“After seeing you take down two of our guys back in Chicago, and watching you for the last half an hour in here, I can safely tell you that you’re a long way from powerless, Carr,” Dio assured me,
“I have a lot to learn. I couldn’t fight off those guys atJewels. I fought, b-but it…it wasn’t enough then. I need it to be enough next time.” I was forcing the words through my tight throat as I fought not to break down.
“It will be,” Arran told me firmly. My eyes were glassy when I lifted my head to look at him and he noticed. “Come here, lass.” He held out his arm and I didn’t even try to deny him, racing the few feet between us and tucking myself against him. “We’re gonna make sure ye feel strong, and if, God forbid, you ever need to defend yerself again, it’ll be enough, alright? Yer so strong, Cara. Never forget that.”
“And remember you’re with us now. We will always do everything in our power to protect you. If we have anything to do with it, you’ll never be in a position where you’re forced to defend yourself again.” Dio approached as he was speaking, and when he was close enough, he took my free hand in his.
“That’s not usually how my life works,” I laughed through my tears. “But you never know,” I added with a shrug, not wanting to bring the mood any lower than I’d already dragged it with my tears.
“That’s enough fer today. Rafe’ll skin me alive if ye get hurt. Ye still wantin’ to go out for dinner?” Arran asked.
