Chapter Six
Thanksgiving, 8: 00 p.m.—Red Oak, GA
In all it took more than four hours to stabilize the building and extricate Sean and Cassie out from the basement wreckage. The first thing Cassie saw when the beam above their heads moved away was Kevin’s anxiety wracked visage. Cassie had a head injury with a possible concussion, and if Sean hadn’t argued with the paramedics about moving them both, Kevin would have reached into the basement and pulled her out himself. As it was she listened to his mother hen brooding all the way to the hospital in the ambulance. Sean and Joe Callahan were following the ambulance driving Kevin’s Lexus.
Cassie wondered if she looked as horrible as she felt. The paramedics inserted tubes into both nostrils for oxygen. She knew her eyes were swollen but they were somewhat improved with the removal of the dust and debris in them. Deep bruises seemed to spring forth on all her limbs and forehead. With every fiber of her being, Cassie wished Sean was the one holding her hand instead of Kevin. Only her deep love for her eldest brother kept her from snapping his head off.
“Dad will be at the hospital and it looks like there might be reporters from the local news stations. The news of your kidnapping and then the explosion made the evening headlines. We can avoid them completely if you want.” Kevin held her hand, texting and double checking everything the paramedics were doing. He was also beginning to get on everyone’s nerves.
“I don’t care. Just let me get some sleep and I’ll feel better. You deal with the press and with Dad.”
“Don’t be rude.” Kevin stuck his tongue out at her.
“When have you ever known me to be rude to strangers?”
Kevin snorted. “Strangers never; family you are rude to on a daily basis. Including me and it is starting to annoy.”
“Kev, you hover too much.”
“What?”
“Sean is my husband, and you’re the only one in the family who recognizes that fact. Help keep Martin from running him over while I’m in surgery.” Cassie’s head was beginning to pound in rhythm to the pulse in her temples. She wondered how long before they would be at the hospital. Her thoughts continued to run in random patterns as they raced up the Downtown Connector toward Grady Hospital’s trauma center.
From the moment the ambulance arrived at the emergency room entrance the media circus began. Flash bulbs and shouts from reporters lit the night sky as Sean magically reappeared at Cassie’s hand and helped rush the stretcher into the building. Kevin and Joe Callahan were left outside to answer such questions as they could.
“Hang on love, don’t go to sleep on me yet.” Sean’s quiet voice gave Cassie reassurance in a way no one else had; his accent became more pronounced under the stress, adding to the allure he held over her. When the EMT placed the gurney in a cubicle they turned to ask Sean to leave, but she wouldn’t let go of his hand. The doctors shrugged and decided to work on both at the same time.
While they washed her face and prepared Cassie for surgery on her shattered nose, she watched as Sean stripped off his shirt and t-shirt for his own examination. Muscles rippled under the skin, giving Cassie ample fodder for her drugged up dreams. Seeing no new scars added to his collection, she lifted her eyes to the one they both avoided.
There on his chest, two inches above his heart was the wicked red scar. The shot that ended his military career left a brutal visual reminder of the dangers of his work. For her it represented how close she came to losing him forever. A permanent souvenir of everything wrong in their marriage.
Past the scar was a physically impressive man, his broad shoulders tapered to his waist in long, lean lines. Sean swam miles in his free time to maintain that swimmer’s body. Lightly tan, he had freckles on his chest to match the ones on his nose. The tattoo of a dragon wound around his right arm and below his left nipple was one word in Gaelic—Misneach. It meant courage. Sean got inked after being shot.
She was on her way to surgery the next time the two of them found a moment together alone. Again he took her hand, though this time he brought it to his lips and pressed a light kiss against her palm. Cassie smiled a goofy grin. The Halcyon was quickly sending her into la-la-land. “Don’t leave me again Sean, promise?”
He followed them down the hall but had to stop at the operating room door. Bending down he kissed her lips every so lightly, the promise of emotion he was afraid to express for fear of being wrong. “I will be right there when you wake up. I promise.”
****
The next thing Cassie knew, she was in a recovery unit and her father was seated beside the bed, waiting for her to open her eyes. “Sean?” Cassie croaked through parched lips and throat.
Martin Devlyn frowned ever so slightly. “No, Cassandra, it’s me. Not Ferguson.”
“Sorry, I was expecting him to be here.”
“How we feeling?” He was angry at the oversight to him, she heard it in his tone.
“Well sir, I don’t know about you but I feel like crap. My head is pounding louder than a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade band. But the plastic surgeon promised there shouldn’t be any scars on my face. Where is Sean?”
“He’s in the waiting room. He wouldn’t let the doctors finish treating him until he knew you were all right. He certainly saved your life.” The look in Martin’s eyes told her how he hated speaking positively about Sean. Inside she crowed in triumph.
“Would you ask him to come talk with me?” It was easy to keep emotions off her face, it was still immobile from the surgery.
“I think you should see your brothers first.”
“I don’t care what you think.” Cassie smiled inside as she took a stand against Martin Devlyn for the first time in seven years. It apparently shocked him as well.
“Cassandra, how dare you speak to me like that?”
“Martin, I’m twenty-eight years old, when are you going to realize you can’t order me to behave the way you did when I was twelve. That man saved my life—you just admitted that yourself. He’s helped me come to terms with my past and he’s my husband. After what I learned from Tsichevna, I don’t care if I ever speak with you or Greg again!” Cassie channeled her pain into anger against the chief of her tormentors.
At that her father had no additional comment. He stood up, walked to the door, jerked it open and spoke one word, “Sean.” The disapproval in his tone was ice in Cassie’s ears but she didn’t care. It was worth it to see Martin Devlyn unsure of what happened between the two. Even if Cassie didn’t outright leave she might be able to win some space from the Devlyn stranglehold, just to maintain her sanity.
When Sean walked through the door, he was dressed in surgical scrubs in place of the nice slacks and button down shirt he had worn on the kidnapping, and a bandage was on his forehead. It only served to increase his good looks. When his eyes met Cassie’s he smiled like a child on Christmas morning. He crossed quickly to the bed and grabbed her hand.
“Hi there.” His smile was balm to Cassie’s soul. His eyes twinkled with delight in simply being in her company. “Sorry I couldn’t keep my promise. Your father sort of pushed me out of the way to get in here.”
Cassie laid her hand against his cheek and felt the tension in his jaw line drain away.
“That’s all right, you’re here now. Are you okay?” She motioned to the bandage on his forehead.
“Just a flesh wound, no stiches or anything interesting like a nose job.”
“Do I look hideous?”
He bent down and kissed her very carefully. His lips were warm and soft and a small thrill ran up and down her spine with the contact. “You couldn’t be hideous if you tried. You’re beautiful.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed and holding her hand Sean continued. “I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the offer you presented while we were in the basement. If you want to be free of your family and build a life together, I’ll help with whatever it is you decide to do. Your brothers are odd and Martin Devlyn is grieving for a woman he drove to attempt suicide. I’m ready to live a normal life with my wife for a few years. We’ll be our own family, no relatives to haunt us.”
Cassie evaluated the expression on his face. He was serious. “Thank you Sean, that means the world to me.”
She sat up a little higher on the bed as the anesthesia wore off further. He saw her struggling and grabbed an arm to help resituate her position on the bed. Once she was settled against the pillows, Sean leaned in and kissed Cassie again, this time with a little more enthusiasm. It was painful with the nose job still throbbing, but she wouldn’t have stopped him for a limb removal. It was too delicious. She knotted her fingers in his hair and kissed him back best she could. It was a thoroughly wonderful kiss, not too forward but full of the promise of more to come. Cassie wanted it to last forever, so it was entirely too soon when he pulled away, laughing at the pout on her face.
“I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to stay alone with you much longer Cassie.” Sean ran his fingers through her hair, smoothing it away from her face. She wanted to purr under his caresses.
“Why not?”
He leaned into her ear and boldly whispered, “Because the first time in ten months I make love to you isn’t going to be in a hospital bed with your brothers and your father sitting on the other side of the door not five feet from where we are. And you need to rest.” He spoke with a seriousness that took her breath away. “Besides I think Kevin might have a stroke if he doesn’t get to see you soon. Now then, ready for some family time?” He kissed her hand and opened the door. The Devlyn men minus Greg piled into the room, Kevin first. He stared at Sean with mixed emotions then rushed to give his sister a hug.
“Baby girl I am so glad to see you!” Enthusiasm was always Kevin’s best emotion. “And to see your eyes open makes me even happier. Of course you currently resemble a raccoon, but it’s a really cute raccoon.”
Cassie knew she had to get the ball rolling in setting boundaries with her family. “Pieter Tsichevna sent messages he wanted me to pass along to everyone.”
The conversation in the room stopped in a heartbeat, with all eyes on Cassie. Sean squeezed her hand briefly. He already knew everything she was about to say, they’d discussed it during those long hours trapped under the house. Once Cassie was sure everyone was paying attention she took a deep breath and began an overdue conversation.
“You have all been lying to me, and it stops now. I’ve fought for a very long time to keep my private and professional lives from coming into conflict and this little incident shows me that will always be impossible. How are all of you making decisions that affect me without giving me the opportunity to be included, to take steps to protect myself from your mistakes?”
Kevin answered, just as he always did when the family needed a spokesman. “We had no idea…”
“Don’t give me any excuses Kevin! I’m maddest at you for not letting me know about this,” she fired back. “You of all people should know what MM Air does, who you sell to or for whom. Tell me this—did none of you think that, sooner or later, somewhere along the line, somebody might not come back to even out the score? Do you even have a guess as to how many people there are that would like to kick every one of your sorry assholes into tomorrow?” Cassie’s anger was rising and her head was pounding even harder from the increased blood pressure to the sutures in her face.
Martin tried to intervene. “Cassie, don’t get so worked up, you just got out of surgery. We can wait and talk about this tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow almost didn’t happen for me Martin, don’t you understand that? You are the chief architect of my kidnapping and you can’t even bring yourself to admit this to me. You killed that poor man’s wife and daughter; killing me in exchange would have only been a half repayment according to his creed. Each bruise on my body, each broken bone can be traced back to your greed and lack of honor.
“You know, Tsichevna’s original plan was to kidnap me, and if you didn’t pony up the money, kill me and mutilate the body. He would send you directions on where to find the parts, for a price. But he discovered you boys were playing a long game with double selling black market freight shipments, along with other transactions I knew nothing about. So Pieter came up with a new plan: tell me every flawed deal MM Air is involved with and names of the men coming to get me for the various problems you caused. At current tally, Joe Callahan confirmed twelve terrorist families that are known to have an interesting story to tell me regarding the things in which MM Air participated. Each irate customer has been given my name and contact information.”
“One last thing, Tsichevna also told me that Kwan Tsi has a contract out on Greg, for his failures. Apparently you’ve been lining your pockets on every side, and Greg’s been selling everyone out to the highest bidders. You might want to hire a security detail for him, not that I personally think any of you deserve one. I don’t care what each of you do, so long as you leave me out of it. It’s cost me, and I’m pissed.
“I don’t mind being on the chopping block for things I knew or approved and I know about a lot of things, but I never heard about these black market MM Air projects. My work requires travel and now every corner of the world just become ground zero for danger. My life is more insane that it was before I was kidnapped and I’m not going to stand around and just wait for the next crazy person to come after me.”
Cassie fell silent, but the tension in the room was sharper than knives. Martin’s face was a mixture of white hot anger and green bile. She knew he was taking this hard; he’d spent millions to keep her safe, cocooned away from the truth. For him to hear that more problems were coming must be the cliff at the edge of his feet. All her life spent living by his rules, playing by his games and none of it had mattered. Death stalked Cassie anyway. This sounded the death knell for whatever shred of relationship they once maintained.
The easiest face to understand was Matthew. With his mild autism, he understood the danger in which she had been found, it just didn’t register with him how anyone might use her against the family. But Cassie appreciated he was working to make things better by using his technological skills to listen in on satellite communications and cell chatter to determine if he could find Pieter Tsichevna or any of these new incoming assassins. Matthew was sweet, when you got him away from Greg. Greg tainted everyone and everything.
Thank goodness Greg wasn’t there, or she might have come off the bed to shred him apart. Everything in her gut told her he was involved in this kidnapping somehow. Tsichevna had to get his information on her from somewhere, perhaps her childhood nemesis was also a traitor to their family and business?
Then her eyes drifted to the storm cloud that was Sean. He had problems handling several things, the first of which was her brothers and their past treatment of her. The second was the knowledge more terrorists might make the same poor choice as Tsichevna, whose life was now forfeit as far as he was concerned. Their eyes met and both acknowledged things might be changing soon. The harder question was—were they ready to alter the partnership that had sustained and protected them for years?
Cassie cleared her throat and spoke again, while the time was right. “When I’m released I am leaving this hospital with Sean and Joe Callahan. The company will pay their expenses as my security detail until this nightmare is resolved. I want my life back gentlemen. Where I do that is not going to be open for public record. You owe me that. I’m taking my life in my own hands and getting away from your poison once and for all.”
Kevin could be restrained no longer. “Cassie, what the hell are you thinking? You just admitted more people are motivated to come after you and you want to take off into the wilderness with only two men? Nothing against Sean, we’ve all known him for years, but if there was ever a time to retreat to the family compound and tighten up on property we can control this is it. No, I won’t let you go!”
For the first time in years, Cassie looked at Kevin through objective eyes. Now she could clearly see the things that Sean saw and knew, she had to break this chain of dependency they created so long ago, the first time he rescued her from Greg. “Kevin,” her tone quieter than before, “you have to let me go. Staying close means making a target of everyone who knows where I’d be. If they come after me one at a time, a smaller elite guard will be easier to move quickly. Think about it without letting emotions cloud your judgment.”
“I can’t. I swore that night I would never leave you in danger again. That’s a promise I will keep until the day I die.” His silence showed his defeat. “How are we going to resolve this, because I am not about to walk out that door and not know when or where we can see each other again.” Kevin was crushed, trying to keep it from the family’s notice. But Sean saw it, and swallowed the anger he felt toward most of the family at that moment. Kevin was trying, hard, to accept his sister’s needs and Sean felt he deserved a better answer.
He knew because of their long friendship what info to give. “Kevin, you are partially right. A family compound would be easier to guard, but the Blairsville property is too public for adequate protection. Plus, I don’t want to bring any trouble into the county there. One run-in with the local police in a lifetime is enough for Cassie. There is another location, one that is available and secluded and above all not owned by the Devlyn family or company. It is already equipped with night vision motion detector cameras and other high tech security options. We intend to leave as soon as we can, but it would be helpful for the rest of you to carry on she is still recuperating here at the hospital for a few extra days. That gives us time to gather her things and get away before anyone notices.”
“Why?” Matthew piped in from the corner where, silent throughout the entire conversation he and his computer searched endlessly, still working on Cassie’s problem. “Why not let them come and use our contacts with the government to take care of them for us? They want the bad guys caught too don’t they? Besides, we know every inch of that property. We’ve played war games there since we were children. There are built in areas we can utilize for ourselves. The victor goes to those with the best ground.”
Cassie smiled at his innocence. She hoped Kevin remembered his promise to look after Matthew if she wasn’t around, work on separating him from Greg permanently. It would make leaving him behind so much easier.
“Quiet Matthew!” Martin ordered roughly. “The government can’t provide Cassie with round the clock protection on the chance that someone is going to come after her. We can’t ask them to. Using Ferguson is brilliant. His company provides the manpower. Sean is a professional and as Cassie is a member of the Board of Directors and my daughter, the company can certainly afford to carry the expense. Once things are resolved, through legal or illegal channels, when it is safe for Cassie to return then we re-evaluate the situation.”
Cassie frowned. “I’m sorry Martin, but I don’t intend to ever return to this house, or this family. Sean and I are making our own family, together. I don’t claim you, or Greg, as part of my life anymore. Kevin, Matthew, and I will work out our own relationship, but I feel nothing for the rest of you.”
Martin glared at her with a strange mixture of pride and contempt. “You think you know so much, but let me tell you something missy, I didn’t rise this far without learning a thing or two about people, and I know you. You’re weak-minded, like your mother, and you want someone to solve your problems for you while you run away. Ferguson has you wound around his hand like a rope, and poisoned you against me.”
“No Martin, you managed that one all by yourself,” Sean broke in, as if aware she held on only by the strength she was drawing through the iron grip on his hand.
Addressing Sean, even Cassie could hear the icy edge of Martin’s voice. “Ferguson, Tsichevna was right about one thing, the best way to break a man is to take something precious from him and then return it broken. Unfortunately, Cassie was already slightly broken before he ever met her. That is my fault and someday when she wants to talk about it, we will. Until then I hand her into your care. Do not return her to me more broken than she is currently, unless you want to face the consequences. This isn’t over.”
“I understand sir. But, this mission became personal the moment that son of a bitch blew up a building with us still inside. No one else will get through our guards. That includes you or any other Devlyn. As of now, it’s her and me.” Sean squeezed Cassie’s hand in a protective, fierce manner. Her breath caught in her throat as the magnitude of the situation began to sink in. They were going to be running for their lives. And neither knew for how long that would be.