I turn away from him to glance down at Isla whose eyes are still closed, but she seems to be sleeping peacefully now, unlike she was earlier.
“I’ll leave you be for the time being. I’ll be back when the women start to arrive, and we’ll go from there.”
“Thank you for agreeing to host us.”
He nods and walks out of the private hospital room, closing the door quietly behind him. Yes, he’ll be receiving a payout from RW, but that’s beside the point. He, as well as the owners of this hospital, understands the threats that come along with helping an organization like mine, but Brass was very convincing nonetheless. Contracts were created and signed before I even stepped foot onto the premises. It usually takes a lot of coercion and manipulation to get a private and independent hospital to agree to our terms, but seeing how they did this so willingly, I know that Brass threw more money at them than either of us has before.
With Isla’s well-being on the line, I would have done the same thing. Fuck ethical behavior while her silence is deafening.
I lace my fingers through Isla’s and watch her still body rest and attempt to catch up with itself. It’s probably the most sleep that she’s managed to get in the time that we’ve been separated. I lay my head down on the bed and place a light kiss on the inside of her wrist as my free hand moves to rest on her flat stomach. I resent my failure to get to her faster. All of my hope of finding her had been diminishing into the darkening distance of the next day when I was flying from country to country.
For the first time in days, the loneliness that was eating me alive has let up and allowed the circulation of the blood in my veins to return. If I was drowning on my own, I hate to think of what her isolation put her through. I don’t know what she’ll be like when she wakes or what terrible truths will spill from her lips, but I won’t let her sink on her own. Not now or ever.
My fingers caress her stomach as a reminder to myself that she’s present. She’s here, regardless of my failure.
“You’re safe, doll.”
I shut my eyes for a minute to regain my slipping composure as I get as close to her as possible from my seated position, but I’m given respite as a profound exhaustion wraps me in sleep.
When I force my eyes to peel open, gentle fingers are being run through my hair in a repetitive motion. An instantaneous and unwelcome dread fills my mind, and I have to force myself to breathe and remember where I am. My subconscious mind had me battling to get to her again. Hypnagogia keeps me at arm’s distance from fully waking until I hear her.
“Liam?”
I tilt my head to look up at her bruised, yet beautiful face as she watches me pull myself into a conscious state.
“You found me,” she says quietly.
My carousel of erratic and unwanted thoughts leaves as I sit up and cup one of her cheeks before leaning in and taking her lips with my own. I kiss her with every ounce of apology that my body can physically give her. I’m able to tell just how exhausted she is by the weakness behind her kiss. I won’t let what happened break her through her healing process.
“I would have never stopped looking for you.”
“I know, but I gave up. I wanted to disappear.”
I shake my head and lock my lips with hers again before pulling back and searching her eyes. “You were strong enough. I’m so sorry that I made you wait as long as you did.”
Her smile is slight, and it kicks up the endorphins in my body. She reaches her fingers outward and back into the short mess of my hair before responding. “I knew that you wouldn’t give up. How long has it been?
“Just over two weeks. I would never, Isla. You’re safe now.”
“Thank you,” she says as she leans into my touch.
“Did . . .” I inhale deeply before preparing myself to ask her what I’m dreading to hear. “Did anyone touch you?” I know that I should give her more time, but not knowing is eating at me from the inside out.
She turns her head away from me as her eyes swim with tears. It’s as if she’s disgusted with herself and would rather I look elsewhere, but I can’t.
“Isla?” My fingers run down her jawline before tilting her head to look at me once again. “Please answer me.”
Unchecked tears flow down her cheeks and drip onto her chest from her chin. She mercilessly tries to wipe them away. Fear and sadness seep through my bones while she attempts to stop each fresh torrent of tears that threaten to fall.
“I don’t know,” she says once she manages to swallow a sob.
Out of nowhere, her eyes widen in profound distress. She grabs at her stomach while her heart machine starts to expel loud and frantic beeps. I throw a glance up at the machines and then look back down at her as panic seizes her.
“Hey, hey. Isla? Look at me.”
She does, but she’s still panicking as thoughts accelerate inside of her head. Her eyes bore into mine as I cup her cheek.
“The baby is fine, Isla. I need you to relax.”
“It is? What? Are you sure?”
I shift my body as close to hers as I can get while a bed separates the two of us. “Listen to my words. It’s healthy and alive. You kept our dewdrop safe.”
I watch her intently as brick by brick her wall starts to crumble down against her, and the tears intensify. I’m expecting sobs to punch through her and rip straight through me, but when they don’t come I get up onto the bed and pull her body onto my lap.
“Shh.”
She buries her face into my chest and holds onto my shirt while pearls of tears roll down from her wide, luminous eyes. A hurricane of emotion threatens inside of her and shackles her to her worst fears again.
She was terrified.
My stomach contorts as I realize that Grady was chipping away at the person who she’s pushed herself to become. He was attempting to break the best parts of her.
I pull her closer as too many waves of sentiment pass between the two of us as I think about the pure devastation that losing this child would have done to the two of us.
She speaks to me with words broken up by silent sobs. “N-no one. No one t-touched me unt-til the auction. Th-then this man put a g-gun inside of me. I don’t r-remember anything that happened after that.”
She tries to stop her tears by muffling them with the palm of her hand over her dry and cracked lips. She’s crying ferociously and silently, and I know that nothing will stop it as her entire body quivers in my arms. She needs to get it out, and I need to be the one to provide her the secure place to do so. If I could physically wrap my body around hers, I would, to provide her with a safe place.
“That’s when I got to you, Isla. Nothing happened beyond that. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if someone hurt you in that way. I love you,” I tell her as I rest my lips at the crown of her head. “So much, Isla.”
“I know,” she sputters out and wipes at her bloodshot eyes. “Just promise me that you won’t let go.”
“You have my word.”
We both go silent for a couple of minutes until I hear a bustling of commotion outside of her door. I know that my teams must have just arrived with the women, and I say a silent prayer that she’ll be able to look past the outburst of screams that are now coming from down the hall.
“Oh God. Where? Where are they?”
“Where are who?”
She sits up on my lap and adjusts her IV lines before looking up at me. “The women. There were so many of them. You have to go back for them, Liam. I can’t let them stay there.”
“Hey . . .”
“Please! I need you to go!” Hysteria starts to take over as I lock my arms around her petite frame.
“Isla, I need you to breathe.”
“I can’t. Not when they are suffering.”
“Every last one of them is either here or currently en route to this hospital as we speak. I don’t leave people behind, doll. Not now, not ever.”
That seems to calm her down for the time being, but I know tha
t it will be just the start of her panic attacks that will purge her system.
I know that I need to try and distract her from what is going on outside, but I also need her to fight the thoughts that I know are currently racing through her head.
“Tell me what you remember. Can you do that, or would you like to wait?”
She shakes her head, and I think she’s telling me no until she answers me out loud. “I’d rather tell you and just get it out of my head.”
Fuck, this woman is stronger than I’ve ever given her credit for.
“I’m all ears, but first, I need to call a nurse or doctor to let them know that you’re awake.”
“You’re leaving?” she asks as panic causes her body to start trembling again.
“No, doll.” I reach over and press the button on the side of her bed before righting myself again. “I won’t be leaving your side for a long damn time, so you better just get used to my annoying ass being around.”
“You’re the only one I want to be with.”
“It’s a damn good thing that you’ve promised that you’ll give me forever then, huh?”
“Liam,” she says as she sits up as a fresh batch of tears start to well up and then leak from her eyes. “Grady. He took my ring.”
“I know.” I consider keeping the information from her, but I know that she will need to hear it all in order to heal. “He planted it on one of my security guards to toy with me. It’s in my safety deposit box in Chicago.”
“To toy with you?”
I nod as the nurse first knocks on the door and then opens it, saving me from explaining my brutal slaughter of one of the many men that I took out in the last two weeks.
“Welcome to London, Miss Madden,” she says with a smile and starts to adjust Isla’s IV cords, untangling the mess that we’ve apparently created.
“London? Where was I?” she asks me as the nurse busies herself.
“Macedonia. I needed to get you to a better-equipped hospital than could be found just inside of the Greek border. Cooper and Brass both suggested that I bring you here instead of flying you back home first.”
“I love London,” she says as she nuzzles into me.
“You’ll have to spend some time in the city before you head home to the States then,” the nurse comments as she moves about the room while Isla stays silent in my arms. I’m not sure if being around others has turned her into this quiet woman, but I’ll break her free from it eventually. I have to.
Fifteen minutes later, the nurse exits but not before leaving a strict set of instructions for Isla to get as much rest as possible as well as to try to eat something solid.
“Do you think that they have ice cream here?”
I chuckle and pull her tighter against my chest. “I’m sure I can bribe someone to go find you some.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“I’d do anything for you.”
She nods and nips at my jaw before pulling me down by the back of my neck to plant her lips on mine. “Thank you for coming.”
“Don’t thank me, Isla. I’m the sole reason that you were in that situation.”
“Stop. Please. I don’t think that I want to talk about it any longer, but I do have a favor to ask, besides the ice cream.”
“Anything, doll. You know that.”
She winces but continues to speak. “I need you to find one of the girls. I don’t know if she was sold outside of the compound, but I’d like to speak to her.”
“What’s her name?”
She bites at the corner of her lips and shrugs. “I don’t know. She’s from Bristol, though. She’s got light curly hair, and that’s as much as I can give you about her.”
“I’ll find her. You have my word.”
“Thank you.”
I place a gentle kiss to her temple, and she sags in my arms. I know that she’s exhausted from this life-altering experience, and now that the shock of being found is starting to wear off, she’s completely worn-out. I can see it through the sluggish movements of her body.
“Of course. Why don’t you try to get some more rest?”
I can tell that she doesn’t particularly want to close her eyes and be surrounded by the darkness again, but the recovery process has to start somewhere and that somewhere is here and now. I won’t stand by and watch her suffer through memories that should never have belonged to her in the first place.
“I can try,” she murmurs, and I move her out from my hold and back onto the mattress before taking my seat beside her bed again.
“I won’t leave. Close your eyes.”
She nods and rolls onto her side to face me before her eyelids flutter to a close. I watch as the world around her quickly fades and sleep takes her into a weighty and much-needed slumber.
The coffee that was brought to me earlier this evening has gone cold. Not that any amount of caffeine would help me at this point in time. I pull out my phone and curse myself at the depleting battery before shooting a text off to one of my men asking him for a charger, fresh coffee, and gelato when he has a free moment.
Isla manages to sleep through the next day. Her body has been relaxed and her breathing steady, oblivious to the physical world.
Conflicting thoughts have skated in and out of my mind during the soundless hours, which have been slowly draining me of what diminished energy I have left. It feels as if my muscles are finally giving in to the world’s gravity, and I’ll soon be plastered across the floor as exhaustion takes over. I may be overtired, but I’m delighted that I’m no longer deprived of Isla.
While she slept, one of my men managed to find the woman that she mentioned—at least I’m hoping that it’s her. She’s fucked up beyond belief and is currently on a ventilator to help her breathe after the blows she received to her ribs, which in turn punctured her lungs. The color of her skin is a tint of yellow and green as well as black and blue due to the vast amount of fading and fresh bruising that covers her.
It does not matter how much of this I see: I will never get used to it or the disgust I feel in my gut at these fucking fiends. The majority of the complicit men have been taken care of, except for Grady Kent. I have yet to decide on what to do with him. He’s currently in an empty auditorium, chained up in the same position that he had my fiancée in.
If I hadn’t sworn to stay beside Isla, I would be the one laying into him right now. However, I believe that making him sweat while he waits for his comeuppance might be daunting enough. The fucker. I should have been the one to end him.
He’s apparently confessed to housing Chloe for all of those years. He has yet to shut up about the tales of what he did to her . . . with her . . . and what he watched others do to her. After the first repeated story I received from one of his personal handlers, I refused to listen to the ones that followed.
I’m unsure if any of it is the truth, but I’d rather not dwell on it when I’m doing all of this because of Chloe.
My eyes travel up the length of Isla’s body as she stirs beneath the sheets. I reach out from my seated position and take her hand in mine while focusing on her face as she blinks the remnants of her deep slumber away.
“Hi.”
“Hey beautiful. How’d you sleep?”
She stretches out her limbs, and I swear that I can hear them whine with each measured movement.
“As good as I can in this bed.”
“Understandable.”
“Did you get me ice cream?”
I chuckle and squeeze her hand. “I did, but it melted at least twenty-two hours ago.”
“Wait . . . what?”
“You’ve been asleep for a while, doll.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she sputters and grips onto my hand as if she needs to apologize.
“Stop. You needed the rest more than we each realized.” I move my hand to her stomach, and she wiggles underneath my touch. “I can’t wait to see you grow with this little one.”
She smiles and groans as her stomach r
umbles. “I think that I need that ice cream now.”
“Yeah? I’ll get someone to grab you a tub or two.”
“Or two?”
“Yeah, it’s really fucking good.”
She gasps and smacks my forearm. “Dickweed. You ate a pregnant woman’s ice cream, didn’t you?”
“I won’t say that I’m sorry about it either.”
She giggles and I swear to God, I could hear that sound for the remainder of my life, and I’d never once get sick of hearing it.
“We’ll grab you some more.”
“Thank you,” she says as she settles back against the pillows. “Oh, are they all here? The women who were in there with me? Did you find her? The one that I told you about?”
I nod and lean over to kiss her forehead before giving her the news. “I believe that I did, but she’s not in great shape. She’ll need to stay here a lot longer than you will.”
“Why? What’s wrong with her?”
“The doctors said that she was beaten pretty well for a couple of days. She’s got some serious injuries.”
“Oh God. Please tell me that it’s not because of me.”
“Why would it be because of you, Isla? You did not do a single thing wrong.”
She chooses not to answer me. Instead, she swings one leg at a time off of the side of the bed before attempting to stand. I jerk to my feet to steady her as she sways.
“Easy, baby doll.”
“I need to see her, Liam. Right now. I need to.”
The panic in the pitch of her voice would be evident to anyone who has the capability to hear.
“All right. I need to find out where they are holding her, and then we can take a walk down to her room.”
I know where she is, though, because I wanted her to have the best fighting chance. She’s a couple of rooms down from the one that we are currently occupying, but I need Isla to relax and not panic before we go in there. It won’t be good for her or the baby if her body isn’t strong enough to walk, let alone handle a mental breakdown.
My arms lock around her before I lift her up, cradling her against my chest. I manage to contain my physical reaction to the strain on the bullet wound as she reaches out for the rolling IV stand.
Intertwined (Redemption #2) Page 25