Portia
I carry two cups of coffee into Antonio’s room. Callahan is sitting across from his bed watching him. Maybe willing him to open his eyes. To wake up.
Callahan is alive. Battered and bruised, his hearing comes and goes but he’s alive. The blast had knocked him out. For a minute, I thought he was gone, really gone this time, but he’s back.
He looks over at me, stands. I take in the bandages I can see on his arms, his neck, the side of his head and I’m sure he does the same with mine.
But it could be worse.
I glance at Antonio.
“You need to let the doctor look at you again,” I tell him.
“After.” Smears of blood and dirt still stain his clothes and skin. I know most of it isn’t his at least.
He takes one of the cups of coffee and leads me to a chair. He sits down beside me, and we watch Antonio together.
It’s been twenty-seven hours since the house blew up.
Twenty hours since Antonio came out of surgery.
I don’t know how many hours or days since David kidnapped me.
I look at Callahan. Neither of us speaks. I think we’re just both grateful the other is alive. And worried that Antonio may not be for long.
“Did the doctor say anything else?” I ask him. I’d left to get coffee when he’d come in to check Antonio’s vitals.
“He’s sleeping longer than expected. He should have woken up by now.”
“Did he say that?”
“Not in so many words but I read between the lines.”
“Maybe take what he says at face value, Callahan.”
Callahan pushes a hand into his hair and gets up, walks to the window. “He’s so fucking stubborn.”
I follow him and lay my hand on his shoulder. “So are you. Why would you expect he’d be different?”
Antonio took the bullet that saved Callahan’s life. It missed his heart by about a centimeter. But that’s not all.
The blast, the fire, the damage to his right side, his face, body, it’s bad. He sighs deeply. “Some of the families of the women are on their way,” Callahan says, turning back to glance at his brother, unrecognizable beneath the bandages, before shifting his attention to me.
“That’s good.” Four of the women from the barn made it out alive. Four who are likely to survive out of the dozen. I know I have to focus on the survivors. Be grateful for the four. It’s hard, though.
Unfair.
“Felix was long gone when we got there. On a flight back to Mexico.”
“He’s a coward.”
He nods in agreement. “How did Mara look?”
“Scared. But brave. She’s tough. Still rebellious after ten years. That’s something, right?”
He smiles. “It’s something.”
“There was this woman, Helga. She must have been a sort of horrible nanny-jailor to her. When she,” I pause momentarily, not quite, sure how to say the next part. “When she died, Mara went through her pockets and stole a switchblade. And a candy bar.” I leave out the strap that I’m sure was used to keep her in line. That’s not going to do anyone any good to know.
“A candy bar?” He smiles.
I nod. “She’s smart, Callahan. When she met Petrov she didn’t cower, not for a second. And she made him promise to not let Felix hurt me.”
“Why?”
“Well… I killed Helga. She didn’t just die. I did it.”
He nods, pulls me in for a hug. His big hand cradles the back of my head. “That’s my Fury.”
“Not Little Kitten anymore?”
He draws back, looks down at me, dips his head to kiss me. “Both. You’re strong when you need to be and soft when you want to be.” He pulls me in for a hug again and rests his chin on the top of my head. “Tell me about the promise she extracted from Felix and Petrov.”
“Petrov offered her a gift and she asked that the gift be my safety. He twisted the words around though after he promised I wouldn’t be hurt. Felix, too, twisted the words. But when they left, she didn’t seem beaten. I think she felt good about having done something to help me.
Or thinking she had. Felix knew she wasn’t Elizabeth and I know she knows the truth, too. Maybe they sold her to Petrov as Elizabeth Scarfoni?”
“She’d have been more valuable.”
I told him what David told me on the helicopter. That David had arranged for Elizabeth to be kidnapped and sold once she was older. And he told me what David had told them about his mother. About how David suggested his mother had accused him of raping her.
The massacre was his vengeance for her having chosen Callahan’s father over him. For her not loving him back. I wonder if punishing her daughter like he planned to, kidnapping and selling her, if that was also to punish Callahan’s mother or if it was simple economics.
Money.
Why waste a warm body when you could make millions of it?