“The entire compound and everyone in it is rigged to blow in thirty minutes. There isn’t enough time.”
I continue on, barely pausing to look over my shoulder and say, “Well I guess I will have to do it double time, won’t I old timer?”
Crow laughs. “Fuck you both, we can all move fast enough to get her out, and we will.” And with that we all head to the steps.
***
I knew when I stepped in front of the door; I wasn’t going to like what I saw. I was right. Mom was hung up by a rope around her wrists that had been slung over the chandelier. She was naked and she had been beaten to within an inch of her life. As we got closer we could tell that she had been stabbed as well. A sudden movement came from the corner of the room. I could see Zandoville laying face first on the ground. He was fully clothed and for that I was profoundly thankful. I knew that my mother hadn’t been raped, because I knew his MO. First he humiliated the girl by causing her to be naked in front of all his men. Then he would beat her four hours. Then he would rape her, while his men watched. When he was done, he would watch his men rape her as well, but he would stay naked so he could have a go at her again if she wasn’t dead by the time that the men got finished with her. Since he was still clothed I knew that no one had raped her yet.
I walked over to the drunken monster that had provided me with half of my DNA. I didn’t’ stop until I got next to him, and then I slowly pulled out the Glock that Cale had let me borrow and shot him three times in the head.
When I went to get my mother down, all the men stared at me in shock. When I finally had my mother in my arms I looked at them and shrugged. “What? It might have been more rewarding to know he suffered in the explosion, but I don’t think any of us want to take a chance that he might survive, do we?”
We made good time leaving the compound. Even so, we could still fill the ground beneath our feet shake and the heat radiating from the explosion behind us.
28
“Sometimes you have to inflict pain in order to relieve it.”
Tiarnan
Cale
I don’t know how, but we got Kye out of the compound and to a hospital still alive by the grace of God, or at least something greater than me. As we sit here waiting to hear from the doctor to find out if Kye would live or not, the entire waiting area was eerily quiet; Chip and Crow were staring out the window overlooking Morocco, Ken was standing quietly in the corner letting Kye’s family know what was going on, Sunny was pacing up and down the long side of the room, and Tiarnan was sitting at a table with his head bent over his fisted hands. And me? I was standing in the very middle of the room, with a panoramic view of it all. Some might have said that we were all calm and taking the events of the evening, but not me. I recognized what this room encapsulated; the fucking eye of the storm.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught the movement of Ken putting his phone back in his pocket and motion me over. I walked over, not knowing what to expect. Yeah, we had all met Murad and Rashid, the two brothers Kye was closest to in age, but we had never met her parents. Kye had always talked about how great they were and how much she loved them and they loved her, so I guess it was just the dread of being accused of allowing this to happen. Because really? In a way I had.
Ken smiled, I don’t know how he managed it, but the fucker actually smiled. “Kye’s dad told me to tell you that he knew how stubborn his little girl is and that he doesn’t want you to blame yourself. He sure knows his little girl, and even though he has never met you, he had you pegged too.”
After looking at him in total shock for a moment, I emitted a soft growl. “Fuck, what did they say? Are they coming?”
Nodding his head in affirmation, Ken told me they would be here as soon as possible, but that they had called in a doctor, a childhood friend of Kye’s that had been since childhood who has been in Spain for some type of doctor exchange program. She should be here within the next two hours.”
“Fine. If they know some hotshot doctor that can help, more power to them. I am going to go check on the kid.” I leave Ken and walk over to Tiarnan; even when I am standing just a foot away from him, he still doesn’t look up. I am about to clear my voice to get his attention, when he suddenly begins speaking without every looking up.
“Oh my God, Cale, she really loved me, even when we ran in to the fucking washed up asshole and The Whore last week, and she told me that she had always loved me, I wouldn’t let myself fully believe it. I have always assumed that keeping me around was just what she had to do to make sure that Cian had all his family. Even when she told me she had always known who I was and had known what I thought I was, I still thought she had kept me around just for my brothers. Sure she cared about me, but that was the underlying reason I was kept around. Now I found out she loved me enough to give up her life for me? And all she ever got from me was a lousy, chicken shit, half-assed Mamacita? It fucking rips my heart out man that I never even called her mom. And now it might be too late? What am I supposed to do? How do I live with myself if she doesn’t make it?”
As much as I felt for Tiarnan, what he said couldn’t stop pestering me. “The whore? You said “the whore” like you knew the bitch.”
“Yeah, she was one of my father’s whores. But she decided to fuck me too to get his attention. Up until Mom and I had that confrontation with him outside with her and the douche bag outside of the warehouse, she let me believe Cian was mine, the bitch. Why?”
I quickly explain the connection, and as I was talking, I can see his eyes narrow. Where worry had been his fuel before, his fuel was now hate. As I start to recognize just as far his hate reaches, Tiarnan abruptly let out a low growl that sounded throughout the waiting room. After he regained some control of his emotions, Tiarnan turned to me and asked with no emotion at all, “Do you have the ass’s number?” I didn’t have to ask who he meant, because I knew. After I nodded he went on to give me one simple direction. “Call him. Call the mother fucker and get his ass here.”
“Do you want me to tell him what is going on with Kye?” To say I was confused would be an understatement of epic proportions.
“No. Don’t tell him anything. Just tell him that you need him here. I don’t care how you do it, as long as you don’t bring Kye into it, but get his ass here ASAP!” I could hear the frustration in his voice start to rise, so I quickly got my phone out of my pocket and made the call.
Not really knowing why, I made the call. It didn’t take long, all I had to say was that his team needed him here. He told me he would be there in twenty without even asking me why. Shaking my head I pushed end, and put my phone back in my pocket and stared at Tiarnan, trying to figure what was about to happen.
After staring at him for a full minute, I finally just ask, “What is your game plan here T? What are you expecting to gain from this?”
The look that crossed his face was positively sinister. “Well Cale, right now I am in pain. And everyone knows the sometimes you have to inflict pain in order to relieve it.” He walked off and slammed into the restroom.
As I stood there and watched the door to the restroom close, one thing kept racing through my mind: Oh holy hell, what is going to happen in fifteen minutes?
29
“Truth doesn't always heal a wounded soul.”
Maxim Gorky, The Lower Depths
Wyatt
As I bust into the hospital, I start frantically searching for the Surgery waiting area. I don’t know what to expect; at first I thought Kye might be hurt, but I quickly realized that I would be the last person she would have them call. I am sure that if something had happened to her, T would be there; the little snot nosed punk. The fact that she wouldn’t leave me for him was a bitter pill and I still hadn’t found a way to swallow it yet.
As I am following the signs to the Surgery waiting area, I think I see the back of Sable but I quickly dismiss that notion. As I continue heading to the waiting area, another thought stops m
e cold. Kye is close to the guys from the team, and if one of them is hurt, she will certainly be there; probably with lover boy too. Can I handle seeing them together?
As I walk into the waiting area, I look around but I don’t see Kye. I quickly notice Cale sitting with his head in his hands and make my way over to him. “Hey man, what’s up? I see all the guys and they look fine, so what are we doing at a hospital if no one is hurt?”
A soft, controlled voice comes from behind me. “Oh someone is hurt, you fucking waste of skin, and since there is no female in here I am guessing even a dumbass like you can figure out who it is.”
That causes me to have to sit down before I fall down. Kye, she is hurt and I didn’t know it. I look up at the boy that I have hated for the past three days. The pain and turmoil he is feeling is written all over his face and at that moment I know that he truly loves Kye and I can only assume that Kye loves him too. That hurts, but the pain is quickly swept to the back of my mind by the fact that we are in a hospital because Kye is hurt. “What happened? Did she get hurt in a training exercise?”
T, I think his name is actually Tiarnan, laughed; it wasn’t a happy sound. “No, she didn’t get hurt in a training exercise; she got hurt saving my ass from the man, if you can call him that, who donated half of my DNA. Because of you, and the whore you have working for you, he knew that Kye, the boys, and I were here. Since he has been obsessed with her for over eleven years, you can imagine that he thought this was an excellent opportunity to get her back by using me as bait.”
I am quickly trying to piece together the story he just told me and the story that Christien had told me, and the whole picture didn’t look pretty. In fact it was making me sick to my stomach. “You’re Zandoville’s son? So what is this game that you are playing? Proving that you are a better man than him because you can get her to give it up to you while he had to forcefully take it? God you are one sick bastard!”
If the other guys hadn’t started inching toward us, I would have been down on the ground filling in the role of this guy’s punching bag. Fortunate for me, they were close by and Ken and Chip were able to stop him from lunging at me; but by the look of disgust in their eyes I could tell it wouldn’t take much for them to let him go.
Out of the corner of my eye I see a fist flying towards me. As I sit sprawled on the ground, Cale comes to stand over me like some demonic avenging angel. “Look, let me tell you, you are seriously fucked up if you could ever think that Kye would do something like that. Why? And you best get this straight in your head, or it won’t be just Tiarnan going after you. We all will.”
I slowly stand to my feet. “Well shit, you can tell he the father of one of Kye’s children by just looking at them. At that to the fact that I told Kye we could work things out if she would just stay away from him and she wouldn’t do that, what the hell am I supposed to think?”
That is when Tiarnan finally broke free from the Ken and Chip and took me back down to the ground. Once I had finally gotten him off of me, all by myself I might add, I look at Tiarnan and feel a jealously the likes of which I have never experienced consumes me. “Why are you so mad Tiarnan? She loves you enough to walk away from me to keep you in her life”
It is at that moment Sunny decides to step in and offer his two cents. “Did you ask her to give up Seamus and Cian too?” I can tell this is an important question, so I take a few minutes to formulate my response.
“Because they are a part of Kye, and I would never take her away from her sons.”
At that Sunny nods. “Asking her to stay away from T here is like asking her to abandon them. Legally she is their mother, all of them. Tiarnan included.”
“What? She didn’t give birth to him. That would have made her nine or ten when she gave birth.”
“No dipshit, she didn’t give birth to him, or any of them for that matter. She adopted them all.” As Sunny finishes his statement, Cale tells me how Kye had become a mother.
As I am processing this all, I am subconsciously rack my brain for some means of escape from this nightmare. I am grasping at straws, but as soon as I remember something Tiarnan said I jump on it. “You said the whore that I have working for me. Do you mean Sable?”
Tiarnan slowly breaks from the hold the guys have on him. “Yeah, Sable is one of my father’s favorite whores. It could be because they are both sadistic enough to understand the other, but mainly it is because she will let him whore her out to force men into working with him.”
“I thought I saw Sable when I came in the hospital. Would she hurt Kye?”
Tiarnan freezes. “Yeah, she has something that Sable wants, namely Zandoville; or at least his interest. Now that he is gone there is no telling what she will do to Kye.”
We all look at each other and bust out for the recovery room. But even as we go, I know that I have probably killed any feeling that Kye could have possibly had for me.
30
“Seeing someone else with the one thing you want makes you more bitter than you could ever imagine.”
Sable
Sable
The only thing that is keeping me from being blessedly numb is the sickness in my stomach that permeates into the depths of my soul. How could I have been so stupid? I had thought that he had loved me; really loved me, but it had only been a lie. He never loved me, hell I don’t think he knows that meaning of the word. But he had become obsessed with her.
While I was out there doing everything he asked; whoring myself to further whatever agenda he might have at that particular time, he had been using me while desiring her with an almost fiendish obsession.
When I had walked in to the compound to see him have her hanging chained in a standing position under the chandelier I hadn’t even batted an eye. I had seen him use this type of torture and intimidation before. Hell, sometimes I had even been involved in it; loving the power that exuded from him as he had an opponent in a weaker position.
But that is not what I saw when I had walked in. I had seen him getting up from his seat after watching here being severely beaten, and walk over to whisper something in her ear. As she shakes her head and tells him to go fuck himself I see the one emotion flash across his face that I never thought I would see; hurt. Whatever she had said had hurt him. I immediately rushed forward to find out what the bitch had said, ready to unleash all kinds of hell on her ass, when I heard Zandoville plead with her to change her mind.
“Please Kye, you are one of the most beautiful women ever, come be with me and let me love you the way that only I can.” Hearing Zan say this to a woman that is not me cuts me to the core. I grab the knife on the table and rush at Zan. He doesn’t even know that I am here so I know the surprise he has on his very genuine. He never has time to call out for help before I raise the knife and slit his throat. I then quickly lunge at Kye and am only able cut her side before I hear what I expect is four or five large men that sound like they are on a mission. I quickly leave the compound and make my way off the property. About a mile away from the compound I hear a loud explosion and see the lights from it in my rear view mirror. I pull off on the side of the road in a secluded area and watch. Five minute later, I see a large black SUV quickly pass. Realizing that hadn’t been one of Zan or his men’s car causes me to follow. Once we reach the hospital, I see six men jump out of the car; one carrying what appears to be a woman. It is then I knew I could make them all suffer for me not having what I wanted. I rushed in to the hospital trying to find her while keeping an extremely low profile.
Yeah, seeing someone else with something I want has made me bitter. And I will do anything to make them all pay.
31
“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
Wyatt
As I am rushing with Cale, Sunny, Ken, the new recruits and Tiarnan, a sense of blind panic feels my soul. Kye has to be safe; she ha
s to be, because I can’t live without her. Even though I try to push it one thought out of my mind, it keeps pushing back, harder and harder. I have for all intents and purposes thrown her away; twice. She is not with me anymore. Suddenly I hear Christien’s words in my mind; I had the girl and her heart but I threw it away.
We finally reach the recovery room and find a young woman, either a nurse or a doctor, sprawled out on the floor; blood pooling underneath her head. Cale stops so suddenly I almost run him over. He is looking at the girl on the floor like he has seen a ghost. He slowly hunches down on the floor and places his fingers on the jugular of the girl; causing her to let out a soft moan. Cale closes his eyes and lets out a harsh breath. Whoever this girl is, she is no stranger to Cale.
Moving as one unit, we move away around the corner to where the beds are situated and I cannot believe my eyes; Sable standing over Kye, who is not yet out of sedation, slapping her repeatedly. Sable doesn’t look like Sable anymore; she looks like one of the crazy women you see on movies that have been locked up in an insane asylum; her hair is sticking out ever, and her eyes have this oblique look like she is lost in the lowest level of hell and can’t get out, and I swear she has a little drool in the corner of her mouth.
The way she looks makes what she says all the more horrific. She keeps repeating and repeating, “You have the only thing I ever want, all I ever wanted was his love. Now you must pay. Now you must pay.”
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