THREE weeks later, Caera settled uncomfortably onto the sofa in the living room with a sigh. Home sweet home, away from the doctors and nurses and needles and tubes. Her memory was busy filing the most disturbing events from the last few weeks into order and repressing them quickly. No doubt they’d come back as night terrors at some point.
She wanted a shower desperately. She shuddered, recollecting how the nurses had given her thorough bed baths on a daily basis. They’d removed the catheter after a week, which had given her some freedom, allowing her to totter to the bathroom when necessary.
“Here, baby, let’s get your feet up.” Saul came out of the bedroom with a mountain of pillows and a duvet. In a matter of minutes, he’d made a supportive wall behind her back and was busy removing her shoes, propping her feet onto a cushion and covering her with the duvet. “Do you need anything?”
“More morphine would be nice?” God, she was tired. She was supposed to be fit and healthy, or at least on the way. But even short walks exhausted her to the point she needed to sleep for half an hour to recharge.
Saul grinned up at her. “Can’t, baby. Strict doctor’s orders.”
“If it was down to the damn doctors, I’d be allowed to do bugger all.”
“Mac’s been rubbing off on you, I see. Nice use of the word bugger. And you’re in my care now, so actually, it’s me who says you can’t do bugger all.” He knelt beside her, face solemn. “Give me this for a few days, Caera. That’s all I ask. A few days to take care of you, after three weeks of having it taken out of my hands.”
She sighed. She knew his Dominant side had struggled with handing her well-being over to the hospital staff. More than once, his internal battle had been written clearly on his face. It was the Dom’s nature to care for his sub, to provide and nurture. Hospital rules had stripped him of that right.
“A few days,” she relented. “Because you—both sides of you—need it.”
“Thank you.” He moved into her, his eyes open and full of love as he kissed her gently.
It was infuriating, this constant tenderness, as though she’d shatter at the first rough touch. She longed for the impatience, the snapped control of his Dominant side, where his hands left bruises and made her feel alive. She needed that confirmation that she was truly alive, not pinned beneath glass like a dead butterfly. Or worse, some science experiment to be prodded and poked.
“You know, I think we might be imposing too much on Mac,” she commented as Saul switched on the TV for her. “I can’t keep taking over his living room like this.”
“He insisted,” Saul said and grinned at her. “But I know what you’re saying. We need our own space.”
Well, that was easy. “Yeah, we do.”
“Are you asking me to move in with you, Caera?” Amusement touched his tone as he fussed around her, tucking her in, making sure the TV remote was within reach.
She gave a little shrug and blushed. “Isn’t that the next logical step?”
Saul sat on the coffee table, eyes twinkling. “Actually, I was going to skip a step or two. It was going to be a surprise for when you’re all healed up and we could celebrate appropriately.”
Her heart shuddered excitedly in her chest. The notion of celebrating appropriately meant one of two things: alcohol and lots of it—not ideal when her system didn’t tolerate the substance well—or sex in even larger quantities. She was rooting emphatically for sex, as much as they could both stand.
“Would that be buying a house or a dog?” Caera asked nonchalantly.
He seemed to take a minute to weigh his options. After several moments, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small blue box. He twisted it in his fingers, his eyes locked on hers. “I’ve been carrying this around for a while now, waiting for the best time.”
He was serious. He was actually serious. “Saul?”
“I’ve had a lot to think about since that night. Losing you, watching you die in the ambulance with no way to help you. Seeing how you’ve come back from life-threatening injuries.” His eyes wandered down to where Caera could feel the incision wound and then to her right arm. “If I lost you, there’d be nothing left for me. The past few weeks have proven that. I have no legal rights to you, nor you to me. I want that legality, Caera. The structure of it to run like a steel rod through the middle of everything else; love, trust, adoration. To have you as mine in ways no one can dispute, to spend the rest of our lives together as husband and wife.”
Her lips trembled in shock. “Saul, I…”
“Shush.” He touched a finger to her mouth with a sad smile. “I know I’m making it sound unromantic. Talking about legalities. But as important as that is to me, you mean so much more. You’re the blood, the fire in my veins. The alarm clock in my head in a morning that makes me wake up and welcome a new day, a day spent with you because you make it so much brighter. You inspire me to be creative, to expand myself, to be a better man.”
Tears filled her eyes. Unromantic? She’d hate to see his effort to be truly romantic because right now, he was blowing her socks off. She reached out, touched her fingers to his heart. It pounded against her touch, and she wondered if he could hear her own heart battering excitedly in her chest.
She couldn’t hold the words in anymore. “Ask me.”
“What?”
“Saul, you idiot,” she said in tearful exasperation. “How do you expect me to say yes when you haven’t asked me the damn question?”
“I didn’t…oh.” He grinned sheepishly. “Whoops.”
With a flair, he opened the box in his hand. Light flashed against the ring snuggled delicately into velvet. Gold, the same gold and design as her collar, the Celtic knots smaller and if possible, even more fragile. An emerald to match the stone in her collar sat pride of place, with a ring of tiny white diamonds surrounding it.
“Oh hell, Saul. That’s…” She trailed off, running a shaking fingertip over the ring.
“It’s my promise to you. To protect you, love you, give you anything and everything you ever want or need. To cherish you and adore you, be with you until the end of time.” He slipped off the coffee table onto one knee and took the ring from the box. “Caera Hillcock, will you marry me?”
“On one condition,” she murmured.
“Anything, baby.”
“No more Hillcock, okay? I don’t want their name, I don’t want to have any part of them. Just you and me, a fresh start, where none of their shit can touch us.”
“No objections here.” The fierceness of his gaze melted places inside her. He’d fractured his fingers making sure the man who hurt her paid a hefty price; she knew he would protect her for the rest of her life if needs be. “Will you do me the honor of becoming Mrs. Caera Danvers?”
“God, yes.” She hooked her good arm around his neck, winced as her wound pulled, and then dismissed the nip of pain. There were far more important things to concentrate on, the best of which was the man claiming her mouth in the same feverish way she attacked his. “Yes, yes, yes!”
They broke apart just long enough for Saul to slip the ring over her finger and then sealed the engagement with a long, joyous kiss that left Caera weeping with the beauty of it.
“You’re supposed to be taking it easy,” Dee chastised none-too-gently as she walked into the living room. “Christ, we leave you alone for half an hour and you’re at each other like rabbits.”
“Good job we didn’t stop for coffee,” Mac commented with a wink as he followed Deanna into the room. “We’d have a Code Naked on our hands.”
“Oh, I love a good Code Naked.” Tess came in with two paper bags, emanating the delicious scent of fried chicken. “Does that mean the two of you would have preferred hot dogs?” Her laugh was just a little dirty, but it was nice to hear it. Tess had retreated inside herself for a while during Caera’s hospital stay.
Dee gave her the I am not amused look and then offered Mac the same glare when he chuckled, quite obviously, under the guise of a cough. “Don’t blame me when you end up back in that place after ripping open your incision,” she said darkly.
“Chill out, Dee. We weren’t going further than a kiss,” Saul soothed her quietly. “We’re just incredibly happy and in a celebrating mood.”
All attention turned to the glitter of gems on Caera’s lifted hand. The range of reactions was amusing, Caera thought euphorically. Mac’s eyes lit up to match the mile-wide grin splitting his face. Deanna’s face softened from the harshness of her mood into something infinitely more approachable.
Tess looked from the ring to Caera, to Saul, and back again. “Double wedding! Oh my God, Mac, can we? Can we? Pretty please? Double wedding? Both of us together, that would just be so…oh!”
“Excuse me while I go calm down my woman,” Mac said with mock severity, clamping his hand over her mouth. “The magical appearance of an engagement ring seems to have disrupted the excitement filter in her brain.”
“Double wedding,” Tess said again, the words muffled but discernible behind his hand.
They all came over to the sofa, exchanging kisses and hugs, with the men embracing each other in a very manly manner, including hard back slaps. Then the fried chicken came out in all its herby glory, and conversation began over dinner.
Dee settled herself beside Caera, cupped her face, and studied her intently. “This makes you happy? Being with Saul makes you happy?”
“This makes me happy. He makes me feel like I hit the jackpot,” Caera said with a shy smile. “If I ever asked God for a single thing to come true, this would be it. Six months ago, I thought I’d never have this. Someone—a man, anyone—to love me. Who’d break his hand avenging me. Who would accept me for what I am. No one’s ever cuddled me through a night terror, or bathed away the sweat they bring on. The only thing I thought was in my future was death. Dying alone, screaming, insane from the images in my head.”
“Christ, Caera.”
“No, please, no pity. It was what it was and I’d resigned myself to it. There was nothing left for me. Then Saul found me in the cabin and everything came into focus. I had nothing to offer him, but he gave me hope for a future. And now”—she sighed happily and gave her ring a little mental stroke—“he’s given me this. A promise for the rest of my life, with him. To belong without question to him. Saul makes me happy, Dee, and he makes me feel worthy of his love. I can’t ask for anything more than that.”
Dee nodded slowly, a satisfied gleam in her eye. “He’s older than you. By more than a decade.”
“I know. It’s a big gap by anyone’s standards and the truth is, I really don’t care. If he reaches the diaper and mushy food stage before I do, I’ll take care of him and love him just as much as I do now. If I get dementia by the time I’m fifty, he’d come visit me every day and remind me of every memory, every moment of the life I forgot.” Caera laughed. “Chances are, the world will be blown to hell by nuclear weapons before we get to a point where our difference in age means anything.”
“Excellent response.” A smug grin crossed Dee’s face and she kissed Caera fully on the mouth. “I couldn’t be happier for the pair of you.”
“We have your blessing?”
“You have my blessing.” Dee gave her a saucy wink. “Better get those piercings done before the wedding night, sweetheart. Saul will have the surprise of his life.”
“Oh. Oh.” Caera blushed heavily.
Deanna laughed softly, gave her a quick peck on the cheek as she rose. “I think the young bride-to-be needs some rest after all this excitement.”
Caera couldn’t put up much of a protest; Dee hit the nail on the head. She had the strangest sensation of being hyped up on caffeine, jumpy as a frog in boiling water, and yet felt as though her body crawled through molasses. Not the best feeling in the world, but she had been warned her energy levels would be depleted for several weeks. The more she exerted, the faster her levels dropped and the harder it would be to get them back up.
Rest, rest, and more rest. But who could rest when there was a wedding to plan? She shivered a little in delirious pleasure. She had a wedding to plan. How awesome was that?
“We’ll leave you in peace,” Mac murmured. “Dee’s right, your fiancée is falling asleep in the middle of celebrating.”
No, she wasn’t. Caera’s head jerked up and it took a moment for her eyes to focus. She frowned at Mac. “You don’t have to go. It’s nice having company.”
“Get some sleep, little one. We’ll come back and sit with you when you’ve had a nap.” He said something under his breath to Saul and then grabbed Tess’ hand and pulled her from the room. Her friend gave her a cheery wave before she disappeared through the doorway.
Caera watched as Dee kissed Saul, pulling him into a hug. She said something, quite earnestly, and then grinned like the Cheshire Cat before making her exit.
“They didn’t have to leave.” She pouted when Saul came to her and resumed his place on the coffee table.
“They have things to do. Tess might have an entire double wedding planned by tonight.” Amused, he brushed hair away from her face and smiled down at her. “Close your eyes and get some sleep, baby. You’ve had a long day.”
“I’m not tired.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” he said mildly. “Your head keeps jerking, and your eyes have lost focus. I’m going to run to the office and grab my laptop; I’ll work from here while you sleep so you’re not alone.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart, stick a needle in my eye, and all that.” He turned the TV up so the sound of voices filtered into the room. Anything to provide a sense of company while he was gone. “I’ll be five minutes.”
“Okay.” She snuggled deeper into her nest of pillows, made the duvet secure around her neck, and switched her attention onto the argument on TV about a pregnant teen and her Catholic family’s view on the baby being born out of wedlock, and the fact the mother was only fifteen.
She was asleep before Saul left the room.
* * * *
Saul pocketed the baby monitor as he slipped out of the living room. The other half was set on the table behind Caera’s head; the last month had given her subconscious enough fodder to launch a full-scale war on her dreams.
The emptiness he’d felt in his gut every time he came home from the hospital without her dissipated. She was home, she was safe, and she would heal. That was his mantra, the key to not charging out into the world to grab Okazaki by the throat and wreak unspeakable pain on the faceless bastard.
She was home, she was safe, and she would heal.
He stepped into Mac’s office and dropped into a chair without waiting to be asked. He ignored Mac’s arched look and shook his head. “Don’t start. Must have been hit by a truck last night.”
“Evidently. You certainly look rough.”
“Hey, I shaved, didn’t I? And took a shower.”
“Thank God for that, the smell was starting to curdle milk.” Mac shifted in his chair. “Were you planning to propose today?”
Saul shrugged. “Today wasn’t the day I’d picked, no. I had all sorts of things planned, good romantic things like flowers and candles. I’d also hoped for some top-notch engagement sex, so botched that up too.”
“The sex will wait. Builds anticipation, makes the act more exhilarating. You know what our issue is, Saul.” Mac’s tone was solemn, more serious than Saul had ever heard it. And he understood the reason behind it.
“Hagiwara and Okazaki.”
“Yes. Dominov sends his assurances that Hagiwara has been taken of. We’ll have no further trouble from that quarter.” They were speaking of dark crimes now, and they both knew it. “From what he’s sussed out, Hagiwara knocked out one of Dominov’s employees, assumed the guy’s identity, and stole his ID badge. When he circumvented security successfully, he ditched the uniform and waited for an opportune moment to seize Caera.”
“How the hell did he know we were going to be there?”
“Invites go out for events by automated computer. Members—only members—have their email addresses entered onto the computer, which then sends out relevant invites to events members express an interest in. RSVPs return directly to the system for Dominov’s security team to work through on the night.”
“Who hacked the system?” Saul asked with no sympathy for whoever it was and what would happen to them when Dominov caught up with them. The Abyss had mafia connections; that was widely known throughout the community. It was one of the safeguards used to protect the membership.
Mac ran his hand over his face and looked a good deal older than his age. Stress had given him his first few silver hairs along his temples, scoring the red with distinguished flecks. “One of Dominov’s security team was found to have an additional fifty thousand dollars in his account. Apparently Dominov gets paranoid and performs regular bank account checks on his staff to prevent things like this. It’s written in their contracts.”
“Fifty…fuck me, Mac. That’s five times what Okazaki paid Madeline Hillock for Caera.”
“I know. Seems the security officer was told to alert Hagiwara if our names or Caera’s appeared on any of the invites, and whether or not we were attending. Both of us RSVP’d to that night,” Mac said with a scowl.
“We walked her straight into a trap.” That sickened him.
“Dominov extracted as much information from his employee as he could before…well, before. I’ve checked with another two clubs in the area that we go to on occasion; they’ve run checks of their own and each found an employee on staff with a bonus fifty grand in the bank.”
Not just one trap, Saul thought with horror dawning. Every club in the city was booby trapped for Caera, and he could have taken her blindly into any one of them. “Have you checked here? Checked the staff here?”
Now Mac looked pissed with a capital P. “I ordered the checks as soon as I got off the phone with Dominov. I trust my people, Saul, you know I do, but after that fiasco with Annabelle, I don’t fully trust my instincts right now. Not when Caera’s life depends on them.”
“This is bad. One hundred fifty thousand just in bribes, Mac. He’s not wanting compensation for the money he spent buying Caera. Offering him money isn’t going to end this. He wants something more, something not available to him, something that wasn’t available to him when Madeline made the deal.”
“Saul, he wants Caera.”
Clamping his hands on his ears and having a tantrum like a child being told something he didn’t want to hear would have been infantile to say the least. But that was what Saul wanted to do. “I don’t give a fuck what he wants, he isn’t having her. Non-fucking-negotiable.”
“Agreed. Thing is, lad, the guy has more money, more people, and more firepower than we have. Take Hagiwara. Resourceful, savage, not afraid to die on the orders of his boss. That’s powerful shit we’re going up against.”
“We have the Russian mafia, for fuck’s sake.”
“Debatable. Dominov took care of Hagiwara for us because he feels some responsibility for what happened to Caera under his roof. His security was compromised by one of his staff. That made him mad. But if we want his help taking Okazaki down, it’s going to cost us and I don’t think the asking price is acceptable.”
“You’ve already spoken to him about it,” Saul stated.
Mac nodded. He tapped a finger on the desktop agitatedly, something rarely seen in all the time Saul had known him. “It has been discussed. We’d be at his beck and call for the rest of our lives, Saul. Legally, morally, we’d be compromised. We can’t take his help without risking everything, and by everything I mean Tess and Caera as well. There would be nothing we could deny him. If he wanted it, we’d have to give it to him without argument.”
“Fuck. I thought he was supposed to be a friend.”
“He is. He’s an ally, but at the same time, he’s mafia. Mafia does nothing for no one free of charge.”
“So where does that leave us?” The shit just kept piling up, Saul thought morosely. He’d done the right thing, or so he’d thought, and instead brought destruction down on their heads. “Offering Caera up on a platter to the Japanese bastard for a week and hope that mollifies him? Because that isn’t a fucking option.”
“No, it isn’t. That’s why from here on out, Caera doesn’t leave the house. Her recuperation period makes that somewhat easier for us. Dee and Tess will be staying with her for company, as guards. They’ll be under the same house arrest until this is done.” Mac shook his head. “We thought this shit was bad, wait until the girls start giving us grief.”
“And your grand plan for us is…?”
Mac slipped a piece of paper across the desk, waited until Saul picked it up and scanned it. “Two phone numbers, one email address, and an office address for New York City. Courtesy of Dominov, our last freebie.”
“We make contact?”
“One of us does. I’m just not sure which one of us would be best. The desperate, madly-in-love fiancé who would offer pretty much anything to get this guy off our backs and in the process probably be extorted into a hell worse than if we got into bed with Dominov.” Mac chuckled grimly. “Or the pissed-off owner of a BDSM club who isn’t too pleased his staff member is being harassed and kidnapped. Who may or may not drop into conversation about having friends in the Russian mafia, which may boost the situation from World War I status into full nuclear fallout.”
“That’s a lot of mays.”
“It is. But it’s a crucial decision. One we need to make quickly to get this ball rolling. The sooner we kick off the momentum, the sooner we can slam on the brakes.”
“The sooner we get flattened by the ball we set off rolling,” Saul muttered. He leaned back in his chair and studied Mac’s face. His friend was feeling the strain of it all, he thought, and then wondered how he himself fared through Mac’s eyes. He hadn’t seen a mirror for a few days.
They sat in contemplative silence for a few minutes before Mac got up and retrieved two shot glasses and a bottle of Scotch from the minibar in the far corner. The glasses snapped down onto hard wood with solid clinks and then alcohol sloshed softly, filling them a millimeter from the rim.
“I should do it.” Saul twisted the glass in his fingers, careful not to spill a drop. He eyed it, weighed up tossing it back and the hangover he could face in the morning. Fuck it, life was too short and looking as though it could be even shorter by the end of this clusterfuck. “I made the problem, I escalated it. I should try to fix it.”
“We’ve had this conversation.” Mac disagreed and tossed his drink back in a single swallow. “Okazaki brought this problem into existence and he’s the fucking idiot that escalated it. What kind of businessman buys women?”
“A rich one,” Saul said on a humorless laugh and let the Scotch shot slide down his throat. It burned cozily in his belly before alcohol surged through his veins. “With a limp dick.”
“Oh ouch. Toast that one.” The glasses were refilled and tossed back again.
“No more,” Saul said as he waved his hand over his empty glass. “Can’t get hammered, as much as the day calls for it. Got a beautiful fiancée waiting for me to come back and watch her through the night.”
“Seriously, guys? I thought you were supposed to be working diligently to get Caera out of this cock-up you’ve made. Not drinking Scotch like builders on a lunch bender, for Christ’s sake.” Dee leaned against the doorjamb, only slightly angry.
“Debating.”
“Debating what? Which one of you is going to puke all over Mac’s desk first? Ugh, unpleasant mental imagery,” she muttered as she came into the office and sat on the edge of the desk. She picked up the bottle, studied the label, and gave a delicate sniff. “At least you’re killing yourselves with top label stuff.”
“Always,” Mac agreed.
She plucked up the scrap of paper with Okazaki’s contact details and then gave the men her best fish-eye stare. “Have either one of you called this guy or emailed him to get Caera clear of this mess?”
“Debating,” they answered in tandem.
“No, choice made.” She perched on the end of Mac’s desk and snatched up his phone. She dialed the first number and waited patiently while Mac just stared at her. “Good afternoon, I’d like to speak with Mr. Okazaki please.”
Only a few seconds passed before Dee spoke again. “I’m afraid this can’t wait. Please tell him Deanna Matthews is on the line for him regarding an acquisition he made a few months ago and never collected. He’ll know who I am. Thank you.” She rolled her dark eyes impatiently.
“Dee. This is a bad idea.”
She merely held a finger up for silence. “Good afternoon, Mr. Okazaki. My name is Deanna—yes, I thought you might recognize my name. After all, when one acquires something, one makes sure to know the players in the game and who’s going to cause you the most trouble. That would be me.
“We seem to have a problem. You bought a friend of mine from her mother. An unorthodox practice. The problem is, the woman was already taken at the time you made the deal with Hillcock. The main asset you required was already destroyed by that point.”
Saul watched, fascinated by the vicious expression on Dee’s face, the way her features twisted into a mask of disgusted rage. She was impressive to say the least, and not just a little frightening.
“The contract was between you and Hillcock. The fact that Hillcock took your money and Saul Danvers’ money without giving you what you’d paid for has no bearing on the fact you’ve tried to have Caera kidnapped. The product you purchased is no longer available. This dispute is between Hillcock and yourself.” Her voice turned deadly cold as her teeth bared in a snarl. “I suggest, Mr. Okazaki, you find Hillcock and sort it out between yourselves. Any further interaction between you and Danvers or you and Caera Hillcock will result in the police being informed of human trafficking. That’ll pull the FBI in for a full investigation into your personal practices, which by the sound of it, is something you really want to avoid.”
Dee fell silent, listening carefully. The concentration on her face was honed to perfection; Saul doubted she’d break it if a bomb detonated beneath her ass.
“This is your final warning, Okazaki. You’ve done your research into me so you know I’m not a woman to be fucked around with. Drop your pursuit of Caera Hillcock, forget about revenge on Danvers, and walk away with your perverted sexual proclivities before I rain the FBI down on your head. I will destroy you if you come after any of us again. Are we clear?”
Her head tilted, eyes narrowed as she heard something she obviously wasn’t happy with. “I asked you if you were clear on the conditions I just laid out. It’s a yes or no answer, Okazaki, and a simple choice.”
A smile touched her mouth. “Very good. Thank you for your time. Let’s hope I don’t have to take any more of it up by disrupting your day with swarms of authorities.” She ended the call, threw the phone on Mac’s desk with a clatter, and said simply, “When you need a job done, guys, get a woman in to do it.”