After seeing his lost gaze, I realise that in his head, it is worse. I read so many feelings at once in his emerald eyes that I feel he is still hiding a lot of things from me. I tilt my head in the direction of the safe room because I can’t wait any longer.
“Tell me,” I say after closing the door behind us. “I want to know everything. Now!”
“Anmara…”
“Don’t Anmara me! I am sick of this brain fog and how much time I didn’t know anything about you,” I growl, beginning to get very angry.
“I can’t tell you everything,” he sighs. “And don’t interrupt me," he says when I want to say something, making me frown. “I will tell you as much as I can, but you need to promise me you will shut up and listen.”
I remain quiet, my anger damaging my insides, but the curiosity lets me keep it captive for now. I nod, crossing my arms and directing all my attention towards him. He can't look me in the eyes when he starts talking.
“Blake. One year after that incident, when he turned 18, he decided to look for us. His grandparents had enough money, so they were a big help when hiring some private investigators to find us. Their searches lasted quite long. It was hard catching some people attached to a… criminal," he says, finally catching my gaze.
“After one year, they found Paul, but that is because he was already on his journey around the world, and it was easier. We were regularly changing our whereabouts, so it didn’t help that Paul knew our last location. After another year of wasted money, the detectives found something about me and told Blake they didn’t wanna deal with such a case.”
I think I know where this story is gonna go, but I keep my mouth shut and let him continue.
“They gave Blake all the information they found and broke the contract they had, because the people close to them were already threatened. He then decided to try to find me all by himself with what he had on me, but it didn’t go well," he says, putting his lips in a straight, agitated line, coming closer to my theory.
It would make so much sense…
“The night you turned 18, Cathal’s people found him and took him by force from the front of our old house," he says, making me shiver, scared of how right I was.
Shit.
“The second day, without knowing who Blake was, Cathal made me find out why he was spying on us. Imagine the surprise of seeing my brother after such a long time, but also the terror of finding him in that place. Blake was in tears when I saw him. He kept telling that he was sorry and that he wanted to get back, that you will hate him forever for what he did to you, but Cathal didn’t care. I explained to him who Blake really was and that such torture was not necessary. He then decided to leave him be, under one condition.”
“To work for him,” I say in a soft voice, my teared-up eyes avoiding Lucas’s gaze.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “He started going to the gym before he was even 16. He found it interesting, and he made a job from this in the year Cathal kidnapped him. He became a personaltrainer, but I think you know that already," he says, and I nod my head. “Well, Cathal found out about this and used Blake as his enforcer.The iron-fist negotiator, the one who could take down anyone in seconds," he says, making me meet his gaze.
“We worked together, and we came up with a plan to escape Cathal’s empire, but it failed miserably. Bottom line, we wanted to get out of the toxic environment we were in, even though we fit right in. He went away one year ago, running from one place to another until he reached Tamwine, a fact that helped us when we created the plan to find Paul. We secretly kept in touch, but Cathal was too caught up in his business to see that one of his men was gone. I was the one helping him lately. I was his right hand, so he didn’t really need Blake. Maybe he knew, but he didn’t care that much.”
“Then why did he threaten me? How did he find out about my existence?”
Lucas sighs once again, but when he speaks, he leaves me speechless.
“Blake followed you from afar. He was scared for you. He didn’t want you to do anything stupid and try again to… take your own life,” Lucas gulps. “He used Cathal’s people to do that. He probably found out, and he kept in touch with the existence of the girl who was being tracked by one of his employees.”
“Since when?”
It may appear as a stupid question, but when I think about the fact that I was being supervised without my knowledge… it doesn’t make me feel so good.
“About a week after he was captured. For seven years. He wanted to start earlier, but he had a training that he barely slept through. I didn’t even see him that week, but then… he looked exactly like a killing machine with his veins almost exploding from how tense all of the muscles in his body were. And that turned out to be very useful for Cathal. From the very first day.You’ll find out more from Blake when we find him. He got his walls up, and even though we were close, he didn’t really speak his mind. I know that he is more than capable of defending himself, but I don’t know what to say about Cathal’s people,” Lucas says.
“I know we have to go search for him, but we first need a way to get out of this hotel, not through the reception. I won’t go again with a bad plan from this point forward," he says and stops speaking.
We don’t know what to say next, so there are a couple of moments of silence from both of us. I feel like I already found out too much anyway.
Suddenly, I remember something, and the light at the end of the tunnel seems closer than I thought.
Literally speaking.
The fog of the moment clears, and then only the hope of finding Blake alive remains and that my bloody thoughts won’t materialise.
“I think I have an idea,” I smile softly in Lucas’s direction. “Come with me.”
I go to the other room to search for the hidden key from my closet, which I find and quickly hide in the back pocket of my pants.
