Healing Hearts 10: The Scars That Bind Us

by Dixie Lynn Dwyer Dixie Lynn Dwyer

  “We have no choice. She needs us or she dies. It’s that fucking simple. Plus, Porcini and Topaz along with Ortley could be in that facility, too. We can end it all right here and be done,” Flynn said.

  “Let’s do it. She needs us,” Blade said.

  “All in?” Flynn asked, and they all replied, “All in.”

  * * * *

  “Do you want to see her one last time before Scordona Phatz’s men take her away?” Porcini asked. He stood by the windows in the warehouse and looked down at the cage she was in. They were loading her into the truck now.

  “I see her, and hope her father is dying inside knowing the truth,” Ortley said.

  “What?” Topaz yelled into his cell phone.

  “We got military vehicles that just entered the perimeter.”

  In that moment, alarms began to go off and gunfire could be heard from outside.

  “Son of a bitch. They couldn’t have found us. How?” Ortley asked and ran to the cabinet and pulled out the military weapons. Porcini and Topaz did the same. “Have them get that truck out now. She has to be sold. They can’t destroy what we worked on here!” Porcini yelled, and Topaz ran out the door his phone to his ear.

  “Get her out of here. Get her to the drop off location.”

  Porcini could hear Topaz yelling. He looked down and out the window and the truck was beginning to move when there was an explosion by the exit. The truck reversed, but Porcini wouldn’t wait to watch. He had to escape.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Ortley, and they ran from the room and down the stairs. The gunfire, explosions, and men yelling could be heard below. As Ortley went to the right, he saw the soldiers and he fired toward them, but took hits immediately and was dead. Porcini saw it was the Fordom men. He turned and ran the other way to where Topaz was. As he rounded the corner and took shots at soldiers, Corona Flemming fired upon him, his brothers along with him. Porcini felt every shot hit his body as he fell to the ground, knowing he would die. They’d won. They’d fucking won.

  * * * *

  Topaz got to the truck where Joanna was secured in a cage. The crate was covered and he started to uncover it, prepared to kill her before she could be rescued when he was tackled to the floor of the truck. This was it. His revenge he sought and wished for, for so many years had become a reality. Punch for punch, they battled to the death. His eyes snapping to a lifeless body in a crate. His Joanna, possibly dead.

  “You can’t win. I could have killed you the last time.”

  “You should have, because today you die,” Leif roared, and did a martial arts move on Topaz, and wrapped him up with a leg around his mid-section, with his head in a choke hold. He snapped his neck and released him, then shoved him to the side as the others climbed up into the truck.

  “Good job, Leif. Porcini and Ortley are dead, too,” Ace said.

  “Fuck, is she breathing?” Morris asked as Cavanaugh reached through the bars to touch her.

  “I can’t tell. How the fuck can we break through this?” he yelled. It was chaos as words came through their ear mics.

  “You got incoming. Retreat, get the hell out of there now. Air support will have to blow up that warehouse and hit the soldiers coming in to kill everyone. Move it!” Brennan yelled.

  “The truck. Drive this fucking truck out of here!” Knight yelled.

  Leif and his brothers remained with Joanna, along with her brothers as her cousins got the truck started and the other soldiers all headed out of the warehouse. He didn’t think they would make it, but as he lay next to the crate unable to see if Jo was alive, he didn’t care. If she died, then he would die here, too.

  The sounds of gunfire hitting the truck had them all ducking for cover as the truck bounced and sped up, making sharp turns before a huge explosion rocked the whole vehicle.

  “The warehouse is gone. Air support took it out. They’re eliminating the threat,” Flynn said with his finger against his ear receiver.

  “We have to get this fucking thing opened,” Vetter said, and they looked around the inside of the truck where Vetter found a crowbar. They worked it against the lock and soon it broke open as the truck came to a stop. Leif climbed inside. He pushed her hair from her cheek, and touched fingers to her neck.

  “She’s alive. A weak pulse, but alive,” he said.

  “Thank God,” Morris said, and exhaled.

  “We need to move. Our transport is here, we go back five miles to the pick-up location and get the fuck out of here. We’re losing darkness,” Trek said.

  “I got her.” Leif lifted her up into his arms. She was dirty, and thin, was so light in his arms.

  “Looks like they kept her drugged. See the syringes?” Ace said, and picked one up.

  “Bring some with us, so they can test it and see what they gave her when we get to a medical facility. It will speed up her recovery,” Flynn told them, and Ace placed two in his pocket. They headed out, and didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until they were all in the air, and heading to a US military base and medical facility.

  Flynn, Knight, and Cavanaugh caressed her skin and tried talking to her as Leif held her on his lap.

  “We need to get these off of her,” Cavanaugh said, and he and Morris passed them a knife and carefully cut the binds on her wrists and ankles. She moaned.

  “Joanna? Joanna, baby, can you hear me? We’re here. We’re all here and you’re safe now,” Leif told her.

  She blinked her eyes open. “Leif?”

  “Yes,” he said, and smiled. They all were happy.

  “We love you so much, baby. We got you now. Everything is over,” Flynn said to her and stroked her cheek, but she closed her eyes and passed out again. She didn’t wake up until four days later.

  Epilogue

  Joanna felt the lips press against her ankle and then along her calf and thighs. She blinked her eyes open and stretched her arms above her head, and felt the warmth of the sun coming through the umbrella where she lay in the cabana. She blinked her eyes open and locked gazes with Knight. His blue eyes sparkled and his palm slid along her bikini bottom and her belly, then up to her breast. She smiled. “I fell asleep?”

  “For over an hour,” he said, and she looked past him and toward Flynn, Leif, and Cavanagh who started making their way over.

  “What time is it?” she asked, and Knight pressed his lips to hers.

  “Who cares?” he replied after lifting up.

  She ran her fingers through his hair and felt weak still. It had not been two weeks since she was out of the hospital and living with her men. They took care of her, made sure she ate and drank, even when she felt too tired and wasn’t hungry.

  “I love you so much, baby. We want to keep you all to ourselves,” he said, and then the others were there, joining them on the large, round lounge couch in the cabana.

  “Hey, sleepy head?” Flynn said, and leaned down to kiss her. She moaned into his mouth and tilted her head up, only to feel another palm cup her other breast and then lips kiss along her bikini bottoms as they were slowly lowered.

  When Flynn released her lips, Leif kissed her next, then lowered his mouth to suckle her breast. Cavanaugh got in on the action and crawled up next to Flynn and kissed her ribs and belly.

  “I thought we had someplace to go,” she said, remembering the gathering at her cousins’ house.

  “We will, but first thing’s first,” Knight said, and began to feast on her pussy as he pulled her bikini bottoms off of her while his brothers divested her of the bikini top. She closed her eyes and relished in being here with them. Being alive, and getting to love them.

  “I love you guys so much,” she said.

  “And we love you,” Leif told her, and it was on. They were going to be late to the BBQ, but like Knight said, “Who cares.”

  * * * *

  Joanna wasn’t sure how she felt about this. Her body was weak, and walking took so much out of her. Cavanaugh was carrying her into the house while the party was going on in
her cousins’ backyard. As he set her feet down in the kitchen after she told him she wanted to walk in on her own not like some invalid, she straightened out her dress, that used to be so tight fitting on her body, but she had lost so much weight and was slowly gaining it back.

  “No one saw, but if you look about ready to fall from weakness, I’ll carry you around,” Leif reprimanded.

  “I’ll sit, don’t worry,” she told him and caressed his chest.

  She heard someone clear their throat and when she looked behind her there was Tanner.

  When she got back to the US and was in the local hospital, her men, and her brothers informed her of the information that Tanner was her dad. That her mom had an affair with him, and eventually Ortley found out. He wanted to kill her to spite Tanner and make him suffer. It was so crazy. She hadn’t been able to handle the overload of information at the hospital, but she knew he would be here today. She had spoken to her brothers and her men about this new fact, and for her not much changed. Or at least she didn’t want it to. Life was too short. She cheated death twice, so her belief was the more the merrier.

  “You look good,” Danny said, and hugged her gently as he kissed her cheek. He held her longer than a friendly hello, and she didn’t mind at all.

  “Liar,” she whispered, and the others laughed.

  “No, you do look better. I hope you aren’t pushing yourself too much,” Corona said, and hugged her next.

  “Of course she is,” Knight said, and then Briar, Cliff, and Ace hugged her, too, and her brothers walked into the living room from outside. They were all there. She looked at Tanner, who seemed unsure, but then those deep green eyes they shared had tears in them as he approached.

  “Where do you want to sit? What would be most comfortable for you? Need a drink? Water?” he asked, and she gave him a smile.

  “How about a hug first,” she said, and his eyes widened and he stepped closer. When he pulled her into his arms, she felt the tears leak from her eyes. This hug was different. Felt different, because now he wasn’t just her father’s friend, her uncle, no, he was actually her biological father, and she felt it.

  She pulled back, and sure enough, he wiped his eye as a tear fell. He reached up and caressed her cheek.

  “We lost so much time. I didn’t know, Jo.”

  “We didn’t lose time. You’ve always been here.”

  “Not as your father. I could have done more. Helped more if I had known.”

  She shook her head and held his hand.

  “I don’t see it that way at all. The way I look at it, I’ve got a father, one I’ll learn more about and spend more time with, and instead of four brothers, I’ve got nine now. And my boyfriends are lucky you all already know them and approve of them, or dating could have been hell for them,” she teased and they chuckled.

  “We got a sister,” Cliff said, and then her father hugged her and she hugged him back.

  “Now, there’s a party going on and I smell food. Let’s get at it. Our first family BBQ of many,” she said, and they cheered and all headed outside. A little while later as she sat on Leif’s lap and looked at her extended family and all her friends, their friends and those that helped to rescue her, she felt blessed, and her once broken heart was now bursting at the seams with so much love and happiness. She didn’t think life could get any better than this right here. Surrounded by family, friends, and four men she would love for the rest of her life.

  THE END

  WWW.DIXIELYNNDWYER.COM

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com