Retribution (17 page)

“Oh, shit!” Sasha whispered loudly as she stumbled over a step.

Still quite drunk, the period of lucidity she’d experienced in the club had been blessedly drowned out by the alcohol she’d consumed earlier. The golden-flecked tide of Goldschlager had taken her away, and she was back to floating in the Sea of Drunken Stupor.

She inhaled and swiped at a tear. Oh, she’d remember it all tomorrow. Every word, every look, each and every move of her dance, Dray leaving as she pled with her eyes for him not to do so—it would all haunt her for a long time. But for now, she was numbingly intoxicated, forcing her sisters to basically carry her into the house.

“Watch where you’re going, Sasha,” Hal said through clenched teeth.

“Shhhh! Mama and Daddy ’ill hear us—they cannot know that ’m drunk.”

“Uh, hey doofus, the entire world can hear you. You’re yelling. Besides Mama and Daddy left tonight after he got home to go spend the weekend with Aunt Lola, remember? Oh, what the hell am I thinking? No, you don’t remember,” Devyn replied with a laugh.

“Thas right,” she slurred. “Lissen, I’m super sleepy. I’m gonna go to bed, ’k?”

“Yes, that’s a novel idea,” Kara piped in. “And please, no throwing up. We spoke about that earlier and you promised.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she mumbled and headed toward the stairs.

She made it to the first step, looked back at her sisters, and crumbled under the weight of her pain. Sinking down Indian style in front of them, she sobbed softly and covered her face with her hands, alternately mumbling Dray’s name with a periodic bastard thrown in. Anger, hurt, more anger, they all fed off each other in a continuous loop.

Her sisters sat down beside her before they drew in for a group hug. She cried for a few minutes and then gave a loud, drunken snort as she wiped her nose on Hal’s jacket.

“That’s gross, Sasha,” Hal snapped.

“Shut up! I’ sister snot, ’s okay. Can you help me up t’ bed?” she inquired.

“God, you’re a mess. Mascara running down your face, snot balls leaking from your nose. Yeah, come on, let’s go on up.” Hal grunted as she lifted Sasha and helped her up the stairs to her room.

“Guys,” she called out to Kara and Dev as she half-carried Sasha up the steps. “I’m expecting company, so don’t not let them in.”

“Yeah, okay,” was Devyn’s grudging reply.

Sasha peered up at Hal. She’d been about to say something, but the thought was gone as fast as it arrived. It came back and she grabbed at it.

“Hey, I don’t need none of your stinking tough love, ’al,” she said with a glare.

Maybe it was a glare. Hell, she didn’t even know if she was looking at the right Hal. There were about five of them in front of her.

One of the five laughed. Or they all did. “You damn sure need something. A cold bath? Some coffee? All of the above?”

Sasha sighed. “Smart ass.”

Hal helped her lay on the bed and glanced down at Sasha. “Smart being the operative word.”

Hal was taking off her boots and her leggings. She had such loving sisters. The room swam and black edged her vision. She closed her eyes as the feel of blissful unconsciousness bore down on her. But first. “Thank you, Hal.”

A freight train headed toward her, and the rush of it filled her ears. Then without further ado, she let it take her over and push her under.

*

Right as Hal got Sasha redressed in some sweats, her sister passed out across the bed. She covered her with a quilt and headed back downstairs. About twenty minutes had passed as she’d taken care of her sister, but she’d heard the muted voices coming from below.

She grimaced as she thought about her crazy bet with Sasha earlier at the club. A secret place inside of her had been looking forward to approaching Surrey, but she had to admit the best thing for her heart had happened. Which was nothing at all. Surrey posed a serious threat to her emotional well-being, and that Hal would not allow. She could dream, but she could not have. She took a deep breath and steeled herself to be in his presence again. Then she walked downstairs.

She wanted to make this as fast as possible. “Spill it.”

Both men looked at one another before Con began an insane story that pissed her off but gave her a deeper understanding of Dray’s intention toward Sasha. By her sisters’ faces, they were on the same page with Hal. While it softened up their attitude toward Dray, they would still do everything they could to protect Sasha. Was Dray the best thing for her?

Hal questioned Con and Surrey over and over, her frustration growing by leaps and bounds. They never broke and she was relentless.

“Dray’s an asshole,” she bit out bitterly.

Surprise shifted through her when Surrey nodded his head.

“He may be an ass, but that’s all I can give you right now, Halloran,” Surrey said in a low voice.

It sounded a lot like regret winding through his tone, but she was pretty tired. And how Surrey felt had no bearing on anything right now. She’d just opened her mouth to give him hell when the phone rang. She grabbed it up instead.

“Hello?”

“Sasha Bennoit, please,” a male voice said.

She pulled the phone from her ear and looked at it. “Uh, she’s asleep right now, dude; it’s like two in the morning. Can I take a message?” Something about the voice made her want to shower. It was off, wrong in some way.

The man laughed softly. “Are you sure she’s asleep? I swear I just saw her.”

“Well, it wasn’t her, so do you want to leave a message or not?” Hal asked again, fear striking deep for some bizarre reason.

“Since you asked so kindly, don’t leave one for her, leave one for Dray. Tell him I’ll play with Sasha since he doesn’t seem to want to.”

The phone disconnected sharply and Hal’s heart stopped.

Surrey rushed to her side. “What is it?”

“Some man just asked for Sasha and then said to leave Dray a message,” she whispered.

Surrey grabbed her shoulders. “What’d he say, Halloran?”

“He said, ‘Tell Dray I’ll play with Sasha since he doesn’t seem to want to.’”

Surrey cursed and Con barked out an order to Itchy as he rapidly moved into action.

Surrey stormed up the stairs, calling for her to head up with him to Sasha’s room. She glanced around, feeling exposed and raw for some reason. “Who was that, Surrey?” she asked baldly.

He didn’t hear her. He was already up the stairs yelling for Hal to tell him where Sasha was. From a distance, Hal heard Itchy rushing in only to rush back out and begin a perimeter search.

“Where’s Sasha at, Hal?” Connor asked as he pressed against his ear and said “Bleak, check the perimeter. Any movement?” and then glanced back at her.

“She was in her room. She’s
in
her room.”

“No she isn’t, Halloran,” Surrey said roughly as he rushed back down the stair. “Where did she go?”

“Probably out to our place,” she said, and finally the numbness she’d felt upon hearing the caller’s horrible words began to dissipate. “We’ve, uh, got a place we’ve always gone to since we were little. When we’re upset, we head out there. She probably headed down the back stairs.”

“Well, can you go get her from that special place?” Surrey asked in a nasty tone.

Hal cocked her head. “No. If that’s where she headed, she needs her time there right now. What’s going on?”

Surrey bit off another curse. “She doesn’t need time. She needs to be here, safe, where we can keep an eye on her. Just help me get her safe inside the house, Hal, okay?”

“I’ll go get her. You stay here. Nobody knows about our place, and I’m not giving it away. I’ll get her, you stay here,” she exclaimed stubbornly.

“Okay,” he agreed quickly. Too quickly. But something about all of this played in Hal’s mind. Like the caller’s voice, Surrey’s reaction was…off.

“What’s going on?” she asked again.

He eyeballed her, no give in his expression. “That may have been Dempsey. Tell me where your sister is. Now!”

Hal moved then. Nobody was going to hurt her sister. She took off out of the house with Surrey on her heels but outdistanced him in no time at all. She had an advantage in that she knew these woods and he didn’t. She moved through the dense forest on feet that knew the path from years of traversing it. Sasha was there. She had to be. Nothing and no one had harmed her.

A small light ahead had her heart notching in her throat. She kept running.

The last thing she heard before something slammed into her head was Surrey calling out that he’d lost her.

Jerry was having a hell of a time containing his nervousness. When he’d notified Dempsey of Dray’s departure, Dempsey had decided to up the ante for Bonner. He wanted the woman hurt in a way that would show Bonner that he wasn’t in control of this situation. No matter what Bonner tried to show anybody, Dempsey knew Sasha’s worth to the man.

Then the woman had headed directly toward him, and it had seemed providential. As the other sister had also come his way and hit a tree branch that knocked her out, he’d decided to stun Sasha and then relocate her to another area. If they had to look for her awhile, maybe their anxiety would increase and they’d begin to realize how vulnerable the woman was.

Hell, Jerry didn’t have anything against Bonner or Sasha. But Dempsey pulled his strings, so he had to follow through or suffer the consequences. He wouldn’t hurt her badly, just jar her and maybe cause her to have a headache in the morning. Once he’d moved her about five hundred feet away from her sister, he’d gently placed her in the ditch alongside an old oak in the clearing. Then he moved back into the shadows to avoid detection and report to Dempsey.

“What the fuck happened?” Dray demanded in a gravelly voice as he stormed into the Bennoit house.

The horror of not being with Sasha to protect her had pushed him to the limit of his control. When Con had called him and told him what was going on, his heart had damned near stopped beating. He’d immediately gotten in the car and driven like a bat out of hell to get to her.

I shouldn’t have fucking left her.

His jaw clenched and he struggled for patience. His men were doing their best to look anywhere but at him. Hell, he’d thought Dempsey was in Washington. That’s why he’d felt safe enough to risk going to see Sasha tonight in the first place. And now this.

His men had just finished a thorough search of the area surrounding the Bennoit house and found nothing to indicate anyone had even been on the property outside of those who were welcome.

Surrey walked over to stare out the big bay window at the northeast Georgia mountains in the distance. “Let me remind you, Dray, we came up here for you so we could try to explain what was going on. We had the same intel on Dempsey’s location that you did. Hell, we assumed Dempsey wanted you, not Sasha. We weren’t even sure he knew of this insane emotional connection between you two, remember? Besides, we all thought she was safe up in her room sleeping her drunk off.”

“I knew what he was capable of. Son of a bitch! How are she and Hal doing?” Dray modulated his voice to a calmer tone. Surrey was glaring at him, and Connor looked ready to spit nails.

“Hal has a knot the size of Texas on her head and Sasha’s still out. We gave her a sedative. Hell, Dray, we found her screaming, huddled in a ditch beside a huge, old oak in the woods. It gave me chills. Her eyes were vacant; I didn’t know what to do, so I tranqed her. She doesn’t seem to have any bumps or bruises, but she’d been forced out somehow. There’s a mark on her neck, so I’m thinking he attacked her from behind and cut off her carotid for a few seconds and she passed out. She’s still sleeping, but I don’t know for how much longer.” Surrey rattled off details in a distant voice.

Then Dray’s heart broke as a soft keening wail floated down the stairs.

“What the hell is that?” demanded Con.

“It’s Sasha. Dray, you need to—”

Dray burst up the stairs but stopped short of entering her room. He could hear her crying softly. It gutted him.
Goddamn it.
When would it end for her?

He knocked softly and then harder until he heard her quiet voice say, “I’m up—it’s okay.”

He sank down with his back to her door giving her time to get herself together. He wasn’t sure what kind of reception he’d get, and he needed her to have her ducks in a row before he surprised her with his presence.

She came to her side of the door and said in a hushed, slightly slurred voice, “It’s all right, guys. I’m gonna shower and then I’ll be down.”

Her bathroom door shut and that was his cue to enter her room. Her unique lemony scent was so strong it stopped him in his tracks. His body hardened in a rush. Tendrils of a bond he’d denied for the last year tightened around him. He’d been right the first time he’d seen her. She was his. He stayed there for several minutes just soaking the tang of lemon into his pores.

The shower started as he began looking around. He didn’t know much about Sasha except that she made him feel things he’d never felt before. She’d had it bad before coming to the Bennoits, but her upbringing from the age of six to now had been filled with nothing but love and understanding. If the pictures she had on every surface of furniture and on the walls were any indication, she returned that love to every member of her adopted family.

In one picture, she couldn’t have been more than ten, pigtails stuck out of the sides of her head, and she smiled with a mouth full of braces. Her sister Sadie had her in a bear hug, and they were both grinning from ear to ear. In another, she was standing between Mama and Daddy Bennoit holding her diploma from Emory. She was gorgeous, the wind blowing her hair away from her face, her whiskey-colored eyes lit from within.

He wanted to crawl inside of her and learn everything—make her his own. He wanted her to return this strong feeling of possession and desire that flowed through his veins like hot lava. He both recognized and accepted it.

What he didn’t know was how to resolve this situation with Dempsey and keep her safe and away from the danger heading their way.

She’d been in the shower for a long time when the sound of a wounded animal softly crying, muffled and trying not to be heard, reached his ears. It sliced through his soul. He reacted instinctively, opening the door and rolling back the shower curtain to find her huddled on the floor of the shower, head on her knees and shoulders shaking.