TABLE OF CONTENTS
Rage
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
More Books From Janet
About The Author
Dedication
Acknowledgments
RAGE
Benson’s Boys Book 3
Janet Elizabeth Henderson
CHAPTER 1
Four months earlier, London
CALLUM MCKAY SAT ON THE floor with his back to the wall and looked at the wreckage he’d wrought. His TV was shattered, spreading glass across the room. His books were in shreds. There was a KA-BAR knife sticking out of what was left of his leather sofa. And every piece of wooden furniture in the room had been smashed.
Feeling no regret, Callum clasped the neck of a bottle of Glenfiddich. He brought the whisky to his lips and drained what was left. One swallow emptied it, and he tossed it into the mess in front of him, watching with some satisfaction as the bottle smashed.
He was done.
Totally.
Absolutely.
Fucking done.
He wanted to burn the place down. Let the flames take it all. And him along with it. But he’d need to find his damn legs if he wanted to get up and finish the job. His blurred gaze caught sight of the prosthetics he’d thrown across the room after he’d collapsed against the wall.
A dry laugh erupted from him. He’d have to drag himself over broken glass to get to his legs—if he wanted to get up. Which he didn’t. Because he was done.
Totally fucking done.
He was done pretending he was useful. Done pretending he was normal. Done acting as though his life was the same as it’d been before his legs were blown off in Afghanistan. Before he’d become half a man. Before he’d become a liability to his team.
His head landed back against the wall, with a thump he barely registered, and his eyes focused on the ceiling. The pristine white ceiling. It was perfect. And that was wrong. He didn’t want anything around him that was perfect. Unblemished. Unspoiled. Whole. He should have trashed the ceiling along with the rest of the room.
A loud thumping disturbed his thoughts, and it took a minute to register it was coming from the door and not from inside his head. Callum ignored it, as he’d been ignoring every well-meaning visit from his team for days. No. Not his team. Not anymore. Because he was done.
The banging got louder, and Callum frowned in the direction of his front door. They’d get fed up and leave. They always did. No one wanted to risk facing his wrath. That thought caused another mirthless laugh. He was a bloody cliché. A grumpy-arsed Scot who terrified women and children. He reached for his whisky before remembering he’d finished the bottle.
“Open the door.” The shouted order snagged Callum’s dulled attention. He almost jumped to comply—before he remembered that he’d need his legs to do it, and that Lake Benson was no longer his SAS commander, or his business partner. Because Callum was done—he just hadn’t told anyone yet.
“Callum,” Lake snapped. “Open the door.”
“Go to hell,” Callum roared.
He heard muttered voices and scraping. Bloody stubborn Englishman was picking the lock. Callum didn’t care enough to try to stop him. Anyway, what could he do? Nothing. That was what. Because he was fucking useless.
The heavy door swung open and the room was suddenly flooded with light. Callum squinted against the glare. He could just make out the solid shape of Lake filling the doorway.
“It’s time for this to end,” Lake said.
“Get the hell out of here and leave me be,” Callum said.
“Too many people have been leaving you be.” Lake strode into the room, glass crunching underfoot. He crouched beside Callum, his forearms resting on his knees. “You’re a mess.”
That struck Callum as particularly funny, and he started giggling like a schoolgirl.
“And drunk,” Lake said in disgust.
Callum’s attention was snagged by the sound of movement in the debris that used to be his home. The women. Elle and Julia. Members of his team who smothered him with their pity.
“I’ve got his legs.” Elle waved something in the air, but all Callum could see was her shocking blue hair.
“Don’t touch those! Get out of my house!” Callum reached for something to throw at her.
A strong hand stayed him.
“Give the legs to me,” Lake said.
They were ignoring him. As if he wasn’t a person anymore. For a minute, he forgot where he was exactly. In his head, he was back in hospital being poked and prodded by the team fitting his prosthetics. A team that was more interested in the tech than the person who’d wear it. He’d felt invisible. A project. A pathetic problem to be fixed.
“Get out, get out, get out, get out!” His rage made him dizzy, and he tilted, slipping down the wall.
Strong hands pulled him upright again.
“Leave us,” Lake ordered, and the room cleared.
Of course they listened to Lake. He was whole. He wasn’t an invalid. He wasn’t half a man. Callum stared down at what remained of his legs, hating the sight of them. Hating that there was nothing but stumps where his knees used to be. Hating that he couldn’t see his feet, but could damn well feel them. That constant searing pain that never went away. That constant reminder of who he used to be.
“You get out too,” Callum spat.
“You might be able to intimidate the civilians with your bad attitude, but all it does is piss me off. Now put these legs on so I can help you get out of this mess.” Lake cocked an eyebrow. “Unless you want me to carry you.”
“Fuck off.”
Lake stared at him in reply.
The stubborn bastard would sit there until he got his way. With a snarl, Callum snatched a prosthetic from his former friend and tried to line the cup up with his stump. It wasn’t possible. Everything kept moving. His stump kept slipping out. His hands wouldn’t work properly. And his rage grew again. He lifted the leg, ready to throw it across the room. Lake snatched it from his grasp.
“You’re too drunk to do it.” He looked behind him and yelled, “Joe. Get in here.”
“No!” Callum shoved Lake. He rocked back but didn’t topple.
Callum wished he’d remembered to bring a weapon home. He could have shot the bastard.
“And we’re all grateful you aren’t armed,” Lake said as he stood, making Callum realise he’d been thinking out loud.
“I should shoot you, you interfering bastard. You dragged me into this mess. This team. You should have known I’d be no use to them. I’m a fucking liability. I almost got them killed in Peru.”
“Almost doesn’t count.” Joe stood beside Lake. “You’re talking garbage. Which figures, because that’s what you smell like.”
“Fuck off,” Callum said again, and the American paid about as much attention to him as Lake had.
“It’s going to take the two of us to get him into bed,” Lake said to Joe. “He might need to be restrained. He’s a violent dickhead when he’s drunk.”
“Get out!”
Callum roared. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want your help. Or your pity. Leave me alone.”
The two men ignored him as, between them, they scooped Callum up. They carried him in a sitting position, their arms under his thighs and around his shoulders—as if he were a child or an old invalid.
Hell no.
Callum swung his fist and managed to connect with Lake’s jaw.
“You hit me again and I’m going to hit back. You got it?”
Like Callum gave a crap. “Bring it on, English.”
An arm clamped across his forearms, holding them in place.
“Hurry,” Joe said. “He’s strong.”
Callum shouted obscenities until he felt the veins in his neck bulge and his head grew light. Suddenly, the cool cotton sheets of his bed were at his back.
“Get his legs,” Lake said. “Put them on the chest. I’ll put the wheelchair beside his bed. He’s less likely to throw the wheelchair at us. If he wants his legs, he can roll over and get them.”
Callum grabbed his alarm clock and lobbed it at Lake’s head. His aim was off and the clock hit the wall and shattered.
Cold eyes caught his. “I will knock you out.” Lake’s voice was icy calm.
“Bring it on.” Callum made a fist and waved it. “I can take you. You arrogant English bastard.”
Joe shook his head and left the room. Callum could hear voices coming from the other room. All of his damn team were there. All of them. He’d locked himself away from them. And they were there anyway.
“I don’t want them in here,” he told Lake.
“What the hell do you want?” Lake folded his arms and glared down at Callum.
The question knocked the wind out of him. He sagged back into his bed and stared at the ceiling. But he didn’t see it. He saw his past. The part of his life that was never coming back. The part where he knew who he was and what he could do. The part where he’d felt invincible.
“I want out,” he said. “I’m done being part of Benson Security. I want to go home.”
To Scotland. To die.
Because.
He.
Was.
Done.
CHAPTER 2
Present day, the village of Arness, Scotland
ISOBEL SINCLAIR SHOULD HAVE CONTACTED the authorities the first time she saw the boat sneaking into the cove. But she didn’t. She should have called when there was a storm during the boat’s third visit, and the crew lost some of their baggage on the rocky path up to Arness. But she didn’t. Instead, she’d gathered their lost cargo, called it her own and sold it to help pay off her ex-husband’s debts.
Which made her a thief, just like him.
And her thieving was the reason she still didn’t call in the authorities the time the boat turned up in the dead of night, and there was shouting in the darkness. Or the time she’d seen evidence that someone had dragged something heavy over the beach.
No, she’d never called the authorities. Not once. Even though she knew the boat brought nothing but trouble each time it snuck into shore.
But she should have called, because the boat had come back.
And this time, they’d left a body behind.
“What are we going to do with him?” Isobel’s youngest sister, Mairi, stared down at the man.
The dead man.
“I suppose we could bury him,” Agnes, one of their middle sisters, said.
“We can’t bury him here.” Isobel gestured to the rock-strewn beach. “Even if we do manage to dig a hole, the tide will unearth him in a day or two.”
Mairi looked up at the steep, rocky path behind them, the only route down from the bluff where the tiny town of Arness sat. “We’ll never get him back up there. He looks like he weighs a ton.”
“And he’s wet.” Agnes nodded. “That makes you heavier.”
“Aye,” Mairi said. “Water retention.”
Isobel and Agnes stared at their sister.
“What?” Mairi said.
With shakes of their heads, Agnes and Isobel turned their attention back to the body.
“How do you think he died?” Agnes said.
“I suppose we should look him over and see if we can tell.” Isobel didn’t like the thought of touching the man, let alone examining him for clues as to his cause of death.
“Does it really matter how he died?” Mairi said. “I mean, it isn’t going to change the fact that he’s dead. Or that he was left here by the boat people.”
“The boat people?” Agnes looked towards heaven and seemed to be counting to ten. Again.
Mairi shrugged, her long red hair shifting with the movement. “What else are we to call them? And he was left here by the boat crew. Isobel saw them while she was spying.”
Isobel adopted her patented “haughty eldest sister” look—it helped take her mind off her shaking hands and the fear gnawing at her stomach. “I wasn’t spying. I was looking out of my window and saw them carry him off the boat and dump him here.”
“You were looking out of your window with the aid of binoculars,” Mairi reminded her.
She had a point. “What I don’t get is if these boat people are so keen on going unnoticed, then why are they dumping bodies on the beach?” Isobel said. “I mean, they only come in the dead of night. And we know they’re up to no good.”
“Smuggling,” Mairi said with a decisive nod.
Agnes walked around the prone man and looked back out at the choppy waters behind them, then up at the hill leading to town. “Do you think they meant for him to be swept out to sea? Or to be eaten by the crabs?”
“If they wanted him to be swept out to sea, why not dump him out there in the first place?” Isobel said. “And I don’t think half a dozen crabs are enough to eat a full-grown body. At least not fast enough to get rid of the evidence.”
“Even then,” Mairi said, “there would still be the bones.”
They nodded in agreement, and Isobel couldn’t help but notice that her sisters were struggling to hide their shaking hands, just as she was doing.
“I think we should call the police.” Seeing as Agnes wasn’t the most law-abiding member of the family, it said a lot that she was the one to suggest calling them in.
“I can’t.” Isobel tugged at the sleeves of her oversized purple cardigan and wrapped her arms around herself. “They’ll find out that I sold the stuff I found, rather than reporting it to them in the first place.”
“I told you, you shouldn’t have gone to the pawn shop in Campbeltown,” Mairi said. “Too many people know us there.”
“I wanted rid of it fast.”
Plus, she’d needed the money to pay off the loan shark who was hounding her over her ex-husband’s debt. Seeing as the man couldn’t find Robert, he’d decided to make Isobel pay in his stead, with cash or her body, making it clear that her family would suffer if she didn’t comply. That was the reason Isobel’s moral judgment had been silenced when she’d found the stolen goods on the path—the thought of handing over her body to pay her ex-husband’s debt made her ill. But she’d do it if she had to. She’d do just about anything to make sure her kids were safe.
“Enough of this.” Agnes crouched down and turned the body over.
He flopped onto his back, and the cause of death was instantly clear. There was a wide, gaping slit where his throat used to be.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Mairi covered her mouth and turned her back on the body, making gagging sounds as she did so.
“Don’t,” Agnes ordered. “You know I’m a sympathetic puker. If you start vomiting, we’ll both be doing it.”
Isobel ignored her sisters as she stared at the body. It was the most horrifying thing she’d ever seen. She swallowed hard. “You can’t accidentally slit your own throat, can you?”
“No,” Agnes said firmly.
Aye, that would have been too much to hope for.
There was a scrambling noise from the bluff behind them. The women yelped and spun, to
see their remaining sister coming down the rocky path.
Isobel put her hand to her chest. Her heart was racing hard. “You nearly gave me a heart attack,” she told her sister.
Donna rushed up to them, her blonde hair flying out behind her. “Sorry. What’s so urgent we had to meet in the dark on the beach? Did you find more bounty?”
It was then she saw the body. The colour drained from her face, she turned and promptly vomited. Which, in turn, made Agnes vomit.
Mairi started making gagging noises. “I’m okay, I’m okay.” She held one hand up, pressing the other to her stomach. “I can hold it.”
“What a relief,” Isobel told her.
Mairi shot her an irritated look. “I told you not to call Donna. She’s vegetarian.”
“I didn’t expect her to eat him.” Isobel glared back at her.
“That’s just gross,” Mairi said, and gagged again.
Isobel threw her hands up in disgust. “Why did I bother calling any of you? You’re no use at all. We have a situation here and all you’re doing is being sick.”
“It’s not like we can help it,” Agnes said, looking decidedly green.
“Some warning would have been good.” Donna swayed in place. Her eyes were on the water instead of the man.
“I did warn you when I called,” Isobel said through gritted teeth. “I said, come quick, there’s a dead body on the beach.”
“I thought you were joking,” Donna said.
“About a dead body?” Isobel practically shrieked.
“Right.” Agnes held up her hands. “Everybody calm down. This isn’t helping. It’s getting light, and we need to deal with the body. It’s not like people use this beach, but if someone did come down here, they’d call the police.” She looked at Isobel. “And seeing as your house is the closest, you’d be first on their list to interview.”
“That wouldn’t go well,” Mairi said. “Your whole face goes red when you lie, and you start stuttering.”
“Then you just blab the truth and apologise for trying to lie,” Donna added.
“Which means you’d get arrested for fencing stolen goods.” Agnes nodded. “Something we’re trying to avoid.”
“Are you all about done?” Isobel put her hands on her hips and glared at them. Was this really the time to bring up every single one of her flaws? “The kids will be awake soon. We need to deal with this now.”
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